Miller Time

UNITED STATES—During the filming of "Mary Poppins," Mickey Mouse molested me.  I must confess for many years, out of shame and admiration for Mr. Mouse's artistry, I suppressed the memory, revealed now only under hypnosis and at the request of Judith Regan. To this day, I am haunted by the ghastly image of that white four-fingered hand pawing my...

UNITED STATES—Now suddenly, the itch to get away was enormous, Archer felt choked by it. Night had fallen and suddenly, he was his father now, something he had scrupulously avoided becoming. He was his father without the shapeless black, London Fog coat. His father was extremely mild and contrary to the prevailing values. He never left the continental United...

UNITED STATES—Giselle found herself on a date with Travis Knowles, who was almost as wide as he was tall. The very loud houndstooth design on his jacket could have been discerned from the nose-bleed seats to the end zone of the Colosseum. The very few hairs loyal to his head were painstakingly dyed dark red. This was kind of a...

UNITED STATES—Off Archer drove after being frisked and subjected to an elaborate sobriety test. The young sheriff told him that they had trouble here at the car lot, and then Archer saw a few pickups in the darkened yard beside the driveway where he had pulled off to sleep. "Somebody had been using something like a can opener to open...

UNITED STATES—"Why do you have plastic bags?" the young sheriff asked. "Poop bags for the dog." The young buzz-cut sheriff bid Archer to sit on the corner of the bumper. It was odd how a corner of a front patrol truck bumper could be fashioned into a nice little seat, while the park benches in the city were now ribbed...

UNITED STATES—He was starting to nod off on the freeway. A taillight and ghost tree whose branches twisted half a mile down the road, fused into a solid three-dimensional object he jerked the wheel to avoid. Now and then he blinked and lost seconds of roadway. He weaved, the bumps on the lane divider trembled and shook the car's...

UNITED STATES—Katy is the neighbor with the junky porch and lots of cats. Lotte was the 96-year-old German neighbor with incontinence and an aversion toward bathing that manifest near the end of a long rich life. The foul scent of Lotte’s dried urine and unbathed body was sharp, I might even say tangy. The smell reached out all the way...

UNITED STATES—It was the longest elevator ride I have ever spent, creeping from one floor to the next. We boarded the elevator garage level at the Avalon Trader Joe’s. An alarm was ringing as we slipped in the open elevator, where a sour-faced man and woman flanked an empty grocery cart. My daughter looked over at them and said, “Is the...

UNITED STATES—When the sun falls and the thermometer goes down a decade, then the time for big game hunting begins. I am the driver, but my daughter has the knowhow and savvy to be both guide and hunter. We troll around the streets of a desert town called Hollywood in the dusty red Rav, and the streets are all...

UNITED STATES—I’m keeping my eyes on my clothes tumbling in the laundromat dryer. What do you think about separating clothes? I really don’t believe in segregation for fabrics unless there’s one T-shirt that’s bleeding all over the place and will make your whites look like they were marinated in iodine. What’s with that, China? Me, Giselle, would like to...