Miller Time

UNITED STATES—The sun can, at times, be so raw and unforgiving, it can give you a toothache. And the survivors of the dreams and plans stand stunned in the blinding blaze: what happened? what went wrong? They say we’re living in a desert, and the desert will make you crazy . . . A lot of things happened at Manhattan Place that spring....

UNITED STATES—The harshness was candy-coated by money, which was for people what meat was for dogs. The mere scent whipped folks into a frenzy. The businessmen from Alabama, always left a little more meat on the bone, so as to traumatize Bananaland via the zone of “good” jobs in the Canal Zone, and the better banana jobs between the...

UNITED STATES—It was so frustrating at every item on the list to have to stop and go through with the rigmarole again and again. How do you pantomime lard? Go around and point. It was the same way with the purchase of the lard, that we would carry in Heráclito’s rucksack, along with the rice, the beans, the sugar,...

UNITED STATES—Not Toledo, as promised for the mythical roasted rabbit... but Segovia. We departed mid-morning after a sluggish morning due to the cumulative effects of all the merrymaking. Midday hunger drove us out of Madrid. We reached Segovia clustered around hills and ravines, full of tan buildings from the 1500s. A Roman aqueduct sweeps across one end of the town....

UNITED STATES—“As I said before, the killer saw something so traumatic that it triggered cognitive dissonance. He blotted it out of his mind or thought he was dreaming. What they saw before fleeing the crime was that the victim of the hammer-blow was someone identical to himself. Identical to the twin brother given up for adoption that the killer...

UNITED STATES—“It’s nearly noon.” “That’s amazing. I hadn’t realized,” Suzanne said. “Sunday morning evaporates.” Everyone was clustered at the door of the café and Daniel had to go. They were standing and staying and he was going. It had reached the point—there was a precise millimetric point every day when it was no good anymore, and he had to go. Then Peter came...

HOLLYWOOD—Fuller Hill is the spot, all right, perched up on a high knoll that owns the passing Hollywood Freeway and the downhill slope of Franklin St. traffic. The sun sets, and the pedestrians cross. The perspective pulses with rhythm and even the cars seem suspended in a pleasurably drowsy trance. Up here on Fuller Hill I can go to...

UNITED STATES—Written on an envelope in dad’s barely readable, backward slanting script that, “Only to be opened in case of my death.” “Well.” Denise said to her oldest. “Well, what?” answered Rusty. “Let’s do it.” They proceeded to violate a trust, curiosity got the better of them after having been delivered this piece of mail by the patriarch himself. They disobeyed his will...

UNITED STATES—As 1991 matured from spring to autumn, Ahmet, the Turkish husband of Dee had his second job in Santa Monica, in addition to the car wash. And he needed a lift to the record store. With the Subaru I went into uncharted territory west. Afterward, he insisted on buying me a hot chocolate, thus exposing me to another...

UNITED STATES—"First he said he was going to the library and now he's not answering my texts," says Sasha. The edge in her voice conveys a perfect trifecta of horrors, drugs, sex, lies. The ex-husband is worried about their son, very worried. "He sounded so sleepy over the phone," Jared exclaims. "I could have sworn he was here in bed...