They lived together for a while on 3rd Street, between B and C, and in spite of her mother's quiet scepticism for a while they did alright. They lived in a railroad flat on the north side of the street, they got sunlight in the morning and she brought some pretty blue curtains from Mays. He painted the walls, mopped the floors, and at night they made love while the Puerto Rican kids on the corner shouted and laughed.

He wanted to be a painter but he didn't know where to start. He didn't know anyone. He'd take his cardboard portfolio around the city and stare into the windows of the Leo Castelli Gallery on East 77th. Once he saw Franz Kline standing on the corner of Waverly and Broadway, but he didn't dare approach the man. He didn't know what to say, and so he stood there as the lights changed and Kline made his way towards Washington Square. He set up a little easel in the kitchen of their apartment and found a job with the Brooklyn Department of Welfare. On Saturdays they'd walk along the East River, and on Sunday mornings he'd paint.

She missed Texas. She missed the hills, she missed her family. She had never seen junkies before and they scared her. She had never seen garbage piled high on the street. They didn't have a phone in the apartment, they didn't have a television. When he went to work she locked the door behind him. Most days she would go to the library opposite the park and read, it didn't matter what. She would spend whole afternoons in there, oblivious to the comings and goings of the people around her. At four-thirty she would head back to the apartment, doing her best to ignore the city that was so quickly closing in. And when she became pregnant she was terrified, and put off telling him for as long as she possibly could.

He walked. He walked all night and all the next day. He walked all over the city, Inwood and Washington Heights. South Street, Spanish Harlem, he walked through the gray areas between areas, places he didn't know and wouldn't see again. He walked and then he went back home to East 3rd Street and she let him in. They were trying to make it work.

"Overshadowed by the better-known exploits of Mafiosi, the dubious achievements of the early Tong members remain sadly obscure. Undeservedly neglected is Sing Dock, the chief boo how doy, or hit man, of the Hip Sing Tong in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A methodical man who always carefully mapped out his assassinations and escape plans, he became known as 'The Scientific Killer,' and, in Tong circles, his exploits were well known and well regarded.

"Sing was born in San Francisco around 1873, the son of Gout Sum Choy and Wu Shee, who owned a small general store in that city. He was brought back to China as a child by his parents and schooled there, but at fourteen he returned to San Francisco with his father. He eventually joined the Hip Ying Tong, where he soon became a valued boo how doy. Eventually his main allegiance shifted to the Hip Sing Tong, one of the two groups active in New York. he rose to be the mainstay of the coterie of killers, the 'inner council of seven' of the Hip Sings, a sort of Tong version of the better-known Murder, Inc. of Albert Anastasia. They took care of the hits and rubouts that were from time to time necessary in the course of Tong business. The 'Scientific Killer' carefully worked out battle plans and methodically trained and drilled his loyal killers.

"He came to New York and settled at 13 Pell Street around 1905. Here he planned one especially vicious hit on behalf of the Hip Sings. On August 6 of that year a performance was to be held in the Chinese Theatre at 5-7 Doyers Street. Because the actor was sympathetic to the On Leongs, Sing knew that many members of that rival Tong would be in attendance. He realized that patrons would be searched that evening upon entering the hall, and so in the afternoon before the performance he smuggled in some pistols and hid them in accessible spots around the theater. Shortly after 10:00 PM, with the theater packed with four hundred people, a Hip Sing ignited a bunch of firecrackers and, in the same moment, fellow Tong members reclaimed their pistols and began blazing away. Total havoc followed as the audience screamed and fled in panic and On Leong members produced their own guns to return fire or their own knives to meet the enemy hand-to-hand. Reported the New York Times the following morning, 'The seats, curtains, and scenery were riddled with lead. The floor was littered with pigtails, pistols, hats, coats, and debris which had been shot from the ceiling and walls.' Four lay dead or fatally injured: Lee Yuck, Lee Yee Sing, Yu Yuck, and Wu Sing. Sing called this massacre 'The New York Theater Party,' which indicates that he was either incredibly ruthless or scathingly arch.

"On March 12, 1911, at Hip Sing headquarters at 16 Bowery, Sing was shot in the stomach by fellow Hip Sing and former protege Yee Toy, and died the next day at Hudson Street Hospital. Some reports say that Yee shot in self defense, another that the two had argued over gambling debts, another that the spat was purely personal. Yee Toy went down a year later outside of his home at 12 Pell Street, across the way from his mentor's last address."

-Andrew Roth
Infamous Manhattan

“Hello?”
“Hey.”
"Bobby?”
“Hey.”
“Where are you?”
“I'm, uh... I'm out. On the road somewhere. Sorry I'm calling so late.”
“It's OK.”
“Did I wake you up?”
“It's OK. No, I was up. Listen, Baby, come home.”
“I just wanted to say Hi, you know? Just saw the phone and...”

Jenny held the phone tight to her hear, listening to him breathe.

“Let me come get you. I can get in the car and...”
“No, I can't. I can't. I love you, Jenny. You to know that, right?”
“I'm getting tired of crying here, Bobby.”
“Just wanted you to know that.”
“I know, Baby. I know. I love you, too.”
“I love you and I'm... I'm really sorry I fucked it all up, Jen. I'm really sorry.”

“I'm so fucking angry at you, Bobby.” Jenny laughed, trying to catch her breath. Trying to catch something. Wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand. “Swear to God, nobody can hurt me like you can.”

Bobby closed his eyes.

“Hey, You remember those those Mardi Gras beads you used to wear all the time? We used to find them all over the house...”
“Why are you doing this, Bobby?”
“That weekend in the woods, that Thanksgiving? I treated you like shit, and I'm really sorry. I’m really sorry. Maybe it's too late but I'm sorry anyway. I didn't know what we were doing. I was scared, I guess. I don't know... You always gave me another chance, I know you did. I just kept fucking it up. Just kept running, big tough-guy. Big chickenshit. Maybe that's love, though. I guess that's love.”
“Bobby?”

The quarter dropped from somewhere inside the pay-phone and the connection clicked a warning.

“Bobby?”
“My quarter's run out, I gotta go.”
“Bobby, give me your number. Bobby, you give me… Read me off your number and I'll call you right back.”
“I can't read it. I gotta go. I just wanted to say Hey, that's all. I love you, and I'm sorry about everything. I gotta go now, Jenny. Goodbye.”
“Bobby! Bobby, I...”
“I love you. Goodbye.”

"Mr. Srinivasan
instructs us to call him 'Babu'
because no one can say
his name -

perverted letters mate
unnaturally, heretic
bloodlines (sex in high school
was like sports: we did our
best and hoped someone
important saw). This country

Absorbs into its blondness
darkness and we began
in darkness -

I wonder how a Hindu
falls in love in Texas.
I wonder where Ann Nguyen went
(who threw her books into my
hands and knew English
enough to say, 'You are my
boyfriend,' no matter what
I thought) -

who kissed engulfingly yet was
so tiny her ring sat only
a crown on my fingertip -
I thought I was the most
powerful chain-link boy
in school.

Mr. Srinivasan
was born in Rusk (a tiny
Texas town which still
dreams of the Republic)
and speaks only English.
His drawl is John Wayne or

Ross Perot and once in
Texas cows were sacred;
once in high school a girl
from Vietnam was more
beautiful than America."

-Jon Schillaci
1998, Ramsey I Unit, TDCJ-ID
Rosharon, Texas

He used to talk about the fifties like was another country or something. Used to sit right over there in one of the window booths, lighting one fresh Chesterfield off the dying butt of the last one, stubbing the last one out into the growing mountain of ashes he had built up on the table in front of him. He'd nod to the guy behind the counter and abracadabra another cup of coffee would magically appear right there before him. He used to talk about the fifties like it was another country or something. Used to sit there all the time.

There was a woman, he said. There was always a woman. This one used to wear her hair piled up in a high like some Hollywood starlet. Wore pearls around her neck and those tight Jayne Mansfield sweaters, the figure on this girl you wouldn't believe, and she loved him to death. Followed him everywhere. She swore she'd do anything for him and he believed her. In the end that's what sent him packing. He left her there waiting for him and he hit the ground running. Never did go back. But he was just a kid, and he figured he'd be better off down the road.

She died in a fire, at least that's what he'd heard. 1972, 73. Fell asleep drinking with the candles still lit, that's all it took. "The toughest thing," he'd say, and then he wouldn't say anything.

As Matt drove to the hospital he tried to remember the last time he had seen his cousin, and he couldn’t. Last Christmas, the summer before, he couldn’t pin it down. It threw him a little, the way his number had popped up so readily in Billy’s cell-phone. Matt certainly didn’t have Billy’s number, wouldn’t have taken it on a bet. Thanksgiving, he decided. Must’ve been right around Thanksgiving sometime, ran into him pretty much by chance. Some restaurant downtown. Even if he couldn’t quite remember it, he could still imagine the scene pretty clearly. Billy red-faced and laughing too hard at his own stories, talking too loud at the bar. His wiry little girlfriend nervous behind him. Matt saying how good it was to see him again and looking for the door. Must’ve been Thanksgiving.

Billy had gone down to Florida not that long back, thought he’d go down there and make some money, never did say how. Get fat and happy, sit out in the sun. Drink Coronas and fish for Marlin all day, that was the plan. He was convinced a whole new life of ease was just down there waiting for him, that’s what he called it. All he had to do was go down and grab it. He was back home within the year and he’d gotten fat alright but Matt couldn’t say he seemed particularly happy. He’d brought the girlfriend back up with him, the thin nervous girl with the auburn hair. The girl with the yellow Honda.

"Sibley began his retreat on April 12, crossing the river with his main body to make camp that night, twenty miles south, on the west bank at Los Lunas. Next day, having stayed behind to bury their brass field pieces, for which they had neither shells nor powder, the remainder followed down the east bank to Peralta, nearly opposite. Canby marched in pursuit, his reinforcements having arrived that day from Fort Union. He was not trying to cut the rebels off and then destroy them. The last thing he wanted, in fact, was for them to turn and fight or even stop to catch their breath. What he wanted was for them to leave, the sooner the better; he wanted them out of the territory for whose protection he was responsible. At Peralta, coming upon the smaller Confederate segment, he gave it a nudge. "As we galloped across the bottom toward them they fluttered like birds in a snare," a Coloradan wrote. But that was all. When they scurried across the river, then turned south with the main body to continue the retreat, Canby turned south, too, but he remained on the eastern bank. For two days the retreat continued in this fashion, the two armies marching in plain view of each other, often within cannon range, on opposite banks of the fordable Rio Grande. Canby's men were outraged, shouting for him to send them across the river to slaughter the tatterdemalions who had been so arrogant two months before, when they were headed in opposite direction. The northern commander was deaf alike to protests and appeals, however passionate. If there was to be any killing done, he would rather let the desert do it for him.

"Beginning with the third day, the desert got its chance. When the Federals woke to reveille that morning near La Joya, they could see campfires burning brightly across the river. Dawn showed no signs of life in the camp, however, and after waiting a long while for the Texans to begin their march Canby send some scouts across, who returned with the news that the camp was abandoned; the rebels had left in the night. Sibley, it appeared, had wanted a battle even less than Canby did. Approaching Socorro, with Fort Craig only a day's march beyond, he had left under cover of darkness in an attempt to shake his pursuers and swung westward on a hundred-mile detour to avoid a clash with whatever troops the fort's commander might have left to garrison it. Canby did not pursue. He knew the country Sibley was taking his men through, out there beyond the narrow valley benches. It was a all desert, and he was having no part of it. He marched his troopers leisurely on to the safety and comfort of Fort Craig, arriving April 22. By that time Sibley's Texans were at the midpoint of their detour. Canby was content to leave their disposal to the desert.


It was one of the great marches of all time, and one of the great nightmares ever after for the men who survived it. They had no guide, no road, not even a trail through that barren waste, and they began the ten-day trek with five days' poor rations, including water. What few guns they had brought along were dragged and lowered up and downhill by men, who fashioned long rope harnesses for the purpose. For miles the brush and undergrowth were so dense they they had to cut and hack their way through with bowie knives and axes. Skirting the western slopes of the Madelenas, they crossed the Sierra de San Meteo, then staggered down the dry bed of the Palomas River until they reached the Rio Grande again, within sight of which the Texans send up a shout like the 'Thalassa!' of Xenophon's then thousand. From start to finish, since heading north at the opening of the year, they had suffered a total of 1700 casualties. Something under 500 of these fell or were captured in battle, and of the remaining 1200 who did not get back to Texas, a good part crumpled along the wayside during this last one hundred miles. They reached the river with nothing but their guns and what they carried on their persons. A northern lieutenant, following their trail a year later, reported that he 'not infrequently found a piece of a gun-carriage, or part of a harness, or some piece of camp or garrison equipage, with occasionally a white, dry skeleton of a man. At some points it seemed impossible for men to have made their way.'

"Sibley reached Fort Bliss in early May, with what was left of his command strung out for fifty miles behind him. Here he mad his report to the Richmond government, a disillusioned man. He confined his observations to the field of his late endeavor, and even these were limited to abuse: 'Except for its geographical position, the Territory of New Mexico is not worth a quarter of the blood and treasure expended in its conquest. As a field for military operations it possesses not a single element, except in the multiplicity of its defensible positions. The indispensable element, food, cannot be relied on.' Nor did he express any intention of giving the thing another try. The grapes had soured in the desert heat, setting his teeth on edge. 'I cannot speak encouragingly for the future,' he concluded, 'my troops having manifested a dogged, irreconcilable detestation of the country and the people.'


"The report was dated May 4. Ten days later he assembled the 2000 survivors on the parade ground, all that were left of the 3700 Texans he had taken north from there four months before. After thanking them for their devotion and self-sacrifice during what he called 'this more than difficult campaign,' he continued to retreat to San Antonio, where he took leave of them and they disbanded. It was finished. All his high hopes and golden dreams had come to nothing, like the newly founded Territory of Arizona, which had gone out of existence with his departure. Any trouble the Unionists might encounter in the upper Rio Grande Valley from now on would have to come from rattlers and Apaches; the Confederates were out of there for good. As far as New Mexico and the Far West was concerned, the Civil War was over."



- Shelby Foote
The Civil War,
Fort Sumter to Perryville

"All over Galveston freakish things occurred. Slate fractured skulls and removed limbs. Venomous snakes spiraled upward into trees occupied by people. A rocket of timber killed a horse in midgallop.

"At the expensive Lucas Terrace apartment building, Edward Quayle of Liverpool, England, who had arrived in Galveston with wife three days earlier, happened to walk past a window just as the room underwent a catastrophic depressurization that blew the window outward into the storm. Mr Quayle rocketed to his death trailing a slipstream of screams from his wife.

"At another address, Mrs Willima Henry Heideman, eight months pregnant, saw her house collapse and apparently kill her husband and three-year-old son. She climbed onto a floating roof. When the roof collided with something else, the shock sent her sliding donw into a floating trunk, which then sailed right to the upper windows of the city's Ursuline convent. The sisters hauled her inside, dressed her in warm clothes, and put her to bed in one of the convent cells. She went into labor. Meanwhile, a man stranded in a tree in the convent courtyard heard the cry of a small child and plucked him from the current. A heartbeat later, he saw that the child was his own nephew - Mrs Heideman's three-year-old son.

"Mrs Heideman had her baby. She was reunited with her son. She never saw her husband again."

- Isaac's Storm,
The Drowning of Galveston
Erik Larson

Should we keep walking? We can keep going, I don't mind. It's just so strange being back here, I can't quite explain it. Are you thirsty? Hungry? Would you like to get in out of the sun? It's hard to imagine I used to take this all for granted. Walked this route four or five times a day, rain or shine. Knew it so well I didn't even see it anymore. I have to admit these changes seem kind of random and all-at-once. That dry cleaners used to be a guitar store, I remember. That hardware store used to be a bank. It's a little unsettling. Where'd this giant hotel come from all of a sudden? Who even stays down here? I used to cut through this parking lot every morning on the way to school.

I used to define myself by this place, couldn't imagine myself in any other context. Does that make sense to you? I used to swagger around here with what I thought was a pretty decent approximation of the local accent, believe it or not. Let the place provide the narrative, I just had to show up. But I guess everybody does that. I guess that's the promise of the place.

The world’s always been an irrational place, you don’t need me to tell you that. You take that woman down in Florida, brought her boy down to a shooting range and put a bullet through the back of his head. Said later angels or something made her do it, she certainly didn’t want to. She loved her son, grieved for him now he was gone. Makes no sense, but I see no reason not to believe her.

I’ve lived here all my life. This is a fairly quiet part of the world, that’s what I like about it. And I’ve known Bill since we were both kids. He was a pretty good guy, all in all. Ran a little wild back in high school, couple of years after he came back home from the army. He was the kind of guy that you’d run into from time to time, always picking his kids up from school, etc and so forth. Little League. His wife, Janice, was one of those PTA milk-and-cookies types, knew everybody, always volunteering for things. You’d look at the two of them together and you’d think, well sure. I guess they had it figured out.

Last time I actually saw Bill, saw to talk to anyway, was at the bank, of all places. I don’t even remember what we talked about. Kids and weather, probably. He seemed OK that day, though I don’t know how anybody knows anything about people when you come right down to it. People show you what they want to show you, and that tends to be good enough. And then he went and did the most terrible thing you could imagine.

He thought she'd probably be gone before he even got there, and when he pulled up to the house, when he saw the empty driveway and the windows shut tight, he was certain of it. But he got out of the car anyway. Went up and rang the bell. Knocked on the window and called out her name, the whole bit.

She sounded strange on the phone, that's what brought him over here halfway across the county in the first place. Stoned or something, though she swore up and down she didn't do that anymore, swore those days were past her. She sounded a little too happy and disconnected. He didn't tell her he was coming, he'd learned the hard way not to tip his hand like that, but she must've heard it in his voice. She must've had the car keys in her fist before she even hung up the phone.

He stood there for another minute, shaking his head and staring at her goddamn locked door. Ringing the bell again and listening to it echo around inside. A landscaping truck drove past, slowing down just a little before continuing on. An airplane climbed up along the horizon. He stood there for another minute before giving up. Then he headed back down towards his own parked car, the engine still ticking away under the hood.

"Cowbirds are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other birds and leaving them to the care of foster parents. Unlike parasitic Old World cuckoos, which lay eggs closely resembling those of a host species, cowbirds lay eggs in the nests of more than 200 other species, mostly smaller than themselves. Some host species eject the unwanted egg, others lay down a new nest lining over it, but most rear the young cowbird as one of their own. The young cowbird grows quickly at the expense of the young of the host, pushing them out of the nest or taking most of the food. It has been suggested that cowbirds became parasitic because they followed roving herds of bison and had no time to stop to nest."

- Audubon Field Guide,
North American Birds

Sitting in the passenger seat of Mike's old Toyota pick-up, the one he bought with the money his dad left him, and staring out the windshield at Petaluma Boulevard. Back in a place I never thought I'd be again. I'm trying to figure out what to do with my car keys even though the car's long gone. The car's history, which explains why Mike's been driving me all over Sonoma County for the past week while I try to pull myself together. I'm still carrying the keys around in my jacket pocket, though. Seems wrong somehow to throw them out.

A couple walks by and suddenly your face comes down on me with real force. Out of nowhere, clear as day. The slight curve of your nose, the lines at the corner of your mouth. I see your face silently as it goes through all its emotions, all its shapes, from miles and miles away. From twenty years back. It must be here, I don't know. It must be being back here.

As Mike gets back in the cab and starts the drive back towards San Anselmo, I'm still staring out the window at your eyes, the color of ginger. All that was just yesterday. In the life I was living yesterday.

"The street affrays are numerous and characteristic. I have seen for a year or more a San Antonio weekly, and hardly a number fails to have its fight or its murder. More often than otherwise, the parties meet upon the plaza by chance, and each, on catching sight of his enemy, draws a revolver and fires away. As the actors are under more or less excitement, their aim is not apt to be of the most careful and sure; consequently it is, not seldom, the passers-by who suffer. Sometimes it is an young man at a quiet dinner in a restaurant who receives a ball in the head, sometimes an old negro woman returning from market who gets winged. After disposing of all their lead, the parties close to try their steel, but as this species of metallic amusement is less popular, they generally contrive to be separated ('Hold me! Hold me!') by friends before the wounds are mortal. If neither is seriously injured, they are brought to drink together on the following day, and the town waits for the next excitement."

- Frederick Law Olmstead
A Journey Through Texas, 1857

"I asked Eagan if he would hold my horse, and I dismounted, turned the Indian over on his face, put my left foot on his neck and raised his scalp. I held it up to Eagan saying, 'John, here is the first scalp for M troop.' I secured the rifle, which was a heavy muzzle-loading buffalo gun made at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and of the style issued to the Indians for hunting purposes. I also took a 44-calibre Remington revolver and a sheath knife, but did not bother with trinkets which he had. I believe some of these articles are in my collection at my home at the present time.

"Hanging the scalp at the sabre hook of my waist belt, I started to find our command, and on the way noticed that the skirt of my overcoat was covered with blood. So I threw the scalp away, and upon arriving at camp reported my experience to the company commander, Lieutenant Owen Hale. He asked me what I did with the scalp, and I told him. He smiled and said that I should have kept it, as it was considered an honor on that occasion. I called Lieutenant Hale's attention to the condition of my $14 overcoat, and he asked me how I felt about that time. I told him I felt like the Irishman who belonged to one of the New York regiments in my brigade, known as Meagher's Irish Brigade. The man's brother was killed in front of Petersburg on June 16, 1864, and he felt so bad about it that the next day he got behind a stump and killed 10 Confederates. His captain asked him how he felt about it, and he said that he did not know as it would help poor Tom any, but he felt a little relieved about the heart. That was the way I felt."

- Sgt. John Ryan
"M" Co., 7th Cavalry

Gray sits next to me in the hotel bar, sweating against the cold and drinking back his scotch. He's all twisted up over this girl, this painter he met out in Williamsburg, some off-the-boat Irish girl with a rose tattooed to the side of her hand. I haven't seen him like this in twenty years.

"She's slipping past me," he keeps saying. He chews down on an ice cube and signals for another drink. "She's slipping right past me."

As far as I can gather, he met her at a party he wasn't even planning on going to, one of those industrial loft deals where you have to shout up from the sidewalk below, where you can never find a taxi to bring you back home. Everybody chain-smoked and drank Rolling Rock straight out of the bottle. Talked about their "work" in falsely modest tones. This girl was 19 years old.

"I look at this painter over on Avenue C she wants to show me, some trust fund junkie she came across, and I like them. At least for a little while. 'Oh, look at that yellow. Look at that blue!' I sound like a kid. Just pure spontaneous responses. I can't remember the last time... I mean, she leaves the room and they're shit again, same old derivative crap. But, man. When she's in that room..."

"A nineteen year old kid."

"Right. Exactly. And she's good, she's really good. And in ten years, she plays her cards right, she's going to be huge. She's going to be huge and if she remembers me at all she's going to remember me as this fat cynical old piece of shit hack. Some critic. And that already breaks my heart. Because I do like her. I like her a lot. And I'm going to miss all those yellows and blues."