Miller Time

UNITED STATES—A couple days after my last day at the census bureau, I witnessed my first lock-out at Mr. Wylie’s house on St. Andrews Place. The victim was a tall bald guy with a greasy moustache. He hadn’t paid his rent for months. The lock-out was early, earlier than I would have gotten up normally. The white guy had...

UNITED STATES—The case ended successfully for Detective Zorba. A trash collector in the magnetic train stations had emptied the contents of a trash can and turned up a wallet tossed out and a vodka bottle, it turned out to belong to the manager of the smoke/payday establishment, so he got his identity and got his cards back. The culprit...

UNITED STATES—There was always a second banana at the drug store—the relief pharmacist. Johnson Drug wasn’t a one man show. The first relief pharmacist was Chet Turney, a thin wise man, who always carried a thousand dollars in his wallet and was a ham radio operator. He exposed all of us to the word, “Andale” (Hurry up in Spanish). Then...

UNITED STATES—Anybody who can take a cross-country trip with a dog and write a book has my respects. Mine is barely learning to let me read in peace. I have new respect for John Steinbeck. After a trip up north, I stopped in downtown Salinas to pay my respects and read part of a Swedish mystery which was just...

UNITED STATES—1. The Two Buddhas. “Are you, as a teacher, able to learn something new?” asks Buddha #1. “Yes, of course I am,” smiles Buddha #2. “You need to give people a chance to take off their shoes before you suddenly bark out the very instant they cross the threshold, ‘TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES!'” says Buddha #1. “Look at you, you came...

UNITED STATES—They had it all wrong. They had it backwards. Suicide is considered a weakness, and even a cowardly act. Balderdash, if I may step in. The fact is: a healthy person may entertain the idea of self-slaughter: a world without me at least once a day. It is humble preparation us for what things may be. Sooner or...

UNITED STATES—The revamping of the Palmer House, a fleabag of over 100 rooms, didn’t just occur out of the blue. Nothing ever did in Wylie’s world. The city was tightening the thumbscrews on landlords. There had been cases of landlords in Pico Union and Westlake, slumlords chained to their own apartments in punishment for renting substandard apartments. That said,...

UNITED STATES—Reed Parker got hold of a mystery a few years ago on one of his trips. As a lawyer who ascertained the ownership of properties of interest to those who drilled for oil, or had already drilled for it eons ago and let the machinery rust, he retraced the same steps of many a childhood trip to Almond...

UNITED STATES—"The first thing I heard about mom's fall, where she broke her hip, I was pinioned by grief both for her and Tatiana." Davy squirms in the diner booth, removed from bedside. "What does pinioned mean?" Karen, his sister, asks. "Oh, a fancy word for crucified... It happened just like Tatiana's premonition. She came in the morning and there was mom...

UNITED STATES—I was on the porch when a man came walking down the street and stopped to look at the front of the house. It was Lawrence, right on time. I met him that morning on the patch of sunlit earth in front that wasn’t doing so hot sprouting the grass seed I’d scattered. Unlike leagues of other prospective...