by James Thomas
Luz stayed on night duty for three months. They were glad to let her. When they operated on him she prepared him for the operating table; and they had a joke about friend or enema. He went under the anæsthetic holding tight on to himself so he would not blab about anything during the silly, talky time. After he got on crutches he used to take the temperatures so Luz would not have to get up from the bed. There were only a few patients, and they all knew about it. They all liked Luz. As he walked back along the halls he thought of Luz in his bed.
Before he went back to the front they went into the Duomo and prayed. It was dim and quiet, and there were other people praying. They wanted to get married, but there was not enough time for the banns, and neither of them had birth certificates. They felt as though they were married, but they wanted every one to know about it, and to make it so they could not lose it.
Luz wrote him many letters that he never got until after the armistice. Fifteen came in a bunch to the front and he sorted them by the dates and read them all straight through. They were all about the hospital, and how much she loved him and how it was impossible to get along without him and how terrible it was missing him at night.
After the armistice they agreed he should go home to get a job so they might be married. Luz would not come home until he had a good job and could come to New York to meet her. It was understood he would not drink, and he did not want to see his friends or any one in the States. Only to get a job and be married. On the train from Padua to Milan they quarrelled about her not being willing to come home at once. When they had to say good-bye, in the station at Milan, they kissed good-bye, but were not finished with the quarrel. He felt sick about saying good-bye like that.
He went to America on a boat from Genoa. Luz went back to Pordenone to open a hospital. It was lonely and rainy there, and there was a battalion of arditi quartered in the town. Living in the muddy, rainy town in the winter, the major of the battalion made love to Luz, and she had never known Italians before, and finally wrote to the States that theirs had been only a boy and girl affair. She was sorry, and she knew he would probably not be able to understand, but might some day forgive her, and be grateful to her, and she expected, absolutely unexpectedly, to be married in the spring. She loved him as always, but she realized now it was only a boy and girl love. She hoped he would have a great career, and believed in him absolutely. She knew it was for the best.
The major did not marry her in the spring, or any other time. Luz never got an answer to the letter to Chicago about it. A short time after he contracted gonorrhea from a sales girl in a loop department store while riding in a taxicab through Lincoln Park.
JULIA ALVAREZ: “Snow” (1984) from How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill). First appeared in slightly different version in Warnings: An Anthology of the Nuclear Peril (Northwest Books, 1984).
KRISTIN ANDRYCHUK: “Mandy Shupe” (1990) first appeared in The New Quarterly.
MARGARET ATWOOD: “Bread” (1981) first appeared in Iowa Review, Vol. 12, No. 2&3.
WILL BAKER: “Grace Period” (1989) from Great Stream Review, Vol. 1, No. 1.
SHEILA BARRY: “Corners” (1992).
KENNETH BERNARD: “Vines” (1978) first appeared in Iowa Review, Spring.
HEINRICH BÖLL: “The Cage” (1986) translated by Leila Vennewitz, from The Casualty (Farrar, Straus & Giroux).
RICHARD BRAUTIGAN: “Corporal” (1963) from Revenge of the Lawn (Simon & Schuster).
WILLIAM BROHAUGH: “A Moment in the Sun Field” (1989) first appeared in Negative Capability, Vol. 9, No. 1.
MARLENE BUONO: “Offerings” (1991) first appeared in Story, Spring.
GREGORY BURNHAM: “Subtotals” (1988) appeared in Turnstile, and subsequently appeared in Harper’s, July, 1989.
FRANÇOIS CAMOIN: “The Sewers of Salt Lake” (1991) first appeared in a different form and under no title in Sundog, The Southeast Review, Vol. 11, No. 2.
RAYMOND CARVER: “The Father” (1978) from Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (McGraw-Hill).
KELLY CHERRY: “The Parents” (1990) from My Life and Dr. Joyce Brothers. Originally appeared in The North American Review.
ADRIENNE CLASKY: “From the Floodlands” (1989) first appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 2.
BERNARD COOPER: “The Hurricane Ride” (1986) first appeared in Shenandoah, Vol. 36, No. 4.
JULIO CORTÁZAR: “A Continuity of Parks” (1967) from End of the Game and Other Stories (Pantheon).
MICHAEL DELP: “Draft Horse” (1988) first appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 4.
MARY DILWORTH: “The Factory” (1986) from The Mill, Millennium Books. Originally appeared in Westerly.
STUART DYBEK: “Gold Coast” (1990) from The Coast of Chicago.
BRUCE EASON: “The Appalachian Trail” (1991) from Black Tulips (Winnipeg: Turnstone Press). Originally appeared in The Fiddlehead.
CAROL EDELSTEIN: “232-9979” (1992).
RUSSELL EDSON: “Dinner Time” (1964) from The Very Thing That Happens by Russell Edson (New Directions).
LARRY FONDATION: “Deportation at Breakfast” (1991) from Unscheduled Departures: The Asylum Anthology of Short Fiction, edited by Greg Boyd (Asylum Arts).
CAROLYN FORCHÉ: “The Colonel” (1981) from The Country Between Us. Originally appeared in Women’s International Resource Exchange.
K. C. FREDERICK: “Teddy’s Canary” (1989) first appeared in Other Voices, Fall.
LARRY FRENCH: “Mr. Mumsford” (1982) first appeared in Mississippi Review.
S. FRIEDMAN: “Here” (1992).
GARY GILDNER: “Fingers” (1978) from The Runner (University of Pittsburgh Press).
ALLAN GURGANUS: “A Public Denial” (1985) first appeared in The Available Press/PEN Short Story Collection (Ballantine Books).
MARK HALLIDAY: “108 John Street” (1991) first appeared in Denver Quarterly, Winter.
TOM HAWKINS: “Wedding Night” (1989) from Paper Crown (Book Mark Press). Originally appeared in Ploughshares.
WILLIAM HEYEN: “Roseville” (1991) first appeared in The Ontario Review, #27.
JIM HEYNEN: “What Happened during the Ice Storm” (1985) from You Know What Is Right (North Point). Originally appeared in Seattle Review.
SPENCER HOLST: “Brilliant Silence” (1983) from Prose for Dancing, Station Hill Press.
ELLEN HUNNICUTT: “Blackberries” (1987) first appeared in The North American Review, March.
ROD KESSLER: “How to Touch a Bleeding Dog” (1985) from Off in Zimbabwe (University of Missouri Press). Originally appeared in Mazagine.
JAMAICA KINCAID: “Girl” (1978) from At the Bottom of the River (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux).
FRED LEEBRON: “Water” (1992).
GORDON LISH: “Fear: Four Examples” (1984) from What I Know So Far (Scribner and Son).
PAUL LISICKY: “Snapshot, Harvey Cedars: 1948” (1989) first appeared in The Madison Review, Vol. 11, No. 1.
ROBERT HILL LONG: “The Restraints” (1991) first appeared in Quarterly West, #33.
BRET LOTT: “Night” (1986) from A Dream of Old Leaves by Bret Lott (Penguin Books).
MICHAEL MARTONE: “Dish Night” (1987) first appeared in Indiana Review, Vol. 10, No. 1&2.
KATE MCCORKLE: “The Last Parakeet” (1989) first appeared in Alaska Quarterly.
STEVEN MOLEN: “Jane” (1992).
MARY MORRIS: “The Haircut” (1990) first appeared in Special Report, Aug-Oct.
JOYCE CAROL OATES: “August Evening” (1988) From The Assignation by Joyce Carol Oates (The Ecco Press).
DAN O’BRIEN: “Crossing Spider Creek” (1988) first appeared in Texas Review, Vol. 9, No. 122.
TIM O’BRIEN: “Stockings” (1990) from The Things They Carried.
MICHAEL OPPENHEIMER: “The Paring Knife” (1982) first appeared in Sundog, Vol. 4, No. 1.
LON OTTO: “Love Poems” (1978) from A Nest of Hooks by Lon Otto.
PAMELA PAINTER: �
��I Get Smart” (1991) from The Company of Cats, edited by Michael J. Rosen (Doubleday & Company). Originally appeared in The North American Review.
PAVAO PAVLICIĆ: “A Chronicler’s Sin” (1990) translated by Miroslav Beker, first appeared in Special Report, Aug.-Oct.
FRANCINE PROSE: “Pumpkins” (1989) first appeared in Western Humanities Review, Autumn.
BRUCE HOLLAND ROGERS: “The Burlington Northern, Southbound” (1989) first appeared in New Mexico Humanities Review, 32.
CHUCK ROSENTHAL: “The Nicest Kid in the Universe” (1985) excerpted from Experiences with Life and Deaf ( Grove-Weidenfeld). Originally appeared in Quarterly West.
SCOTT RUSSELL SANDERS: “The Philosophical Cobbler” (1983) from Wilderness Plots (Ohio University Press).
JO SAPP: “Nadine at 35: A Synopsis” (1981) first appeared in The North American Review, September.
DON SHEA: “True Love” (1990) first appeared in Kansas Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 3.
RICHARD SHELTON: “The Stones” (1957) from You Can’t Have Everything. First appeared in Montana Review.
MARK STRAND: “Space” (1985) from Mr. and Mrs. Baby and Other Stories by Mark Strand (Alfred A. Knopf).
KENT THOMPSON: “Ponderosa” (1986) from Leaping Up Sliding Away.
ROLAND TOPOR: “Feeding the Hungry,” translated by Margaret Crosland and David LeVay, from Stories and Drawings.
JOHN UPDIKE: “The Widow” (1983) from Hugging the Shore.
LUISA VALENZUELA: “Vision Out of the Corner of One Eye” (1979), from Strange Things Happen Here.
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE: “Everything Is Green” (1989) appeared originally in Puerto del Sol and Harper’s.
RONALD WALLACE: “Yogurt” (1990) first appeared in Crosscurrents, Vol. 9, No. 2.
DIANE WILLIAMS: “Here’s Another Ending” (1989) from This is about the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time & Fate by Diane Williams.
LEX WILLIFORD: “Pendergast’s Daughter” (1989) first appeared in Quarterly West, #28.
ALLEN WOODMAN: “The Lampshade Vendor” (1987) from The Shoebox of Desire and Other Tales (Swallow’s Tale Press).
JOANNA H. WOŚ: “The One Sitting There” (1989) first appeared in Malahat Review, #86.
ALSO EDITED BY JAMES THOMAS
The Best of the West, 1-4 (with Denise Thomas)
Sudden Fiction International
(with Robert Shapard)
Sudden Fiction (with Robert Shapard)
ALSO BY JAMES THOMAS
Pictures, Moving (Stories)
Table of Contents
Copyright
Introduction
1. Spencer Holst • Brilliant Silence
2. Francine Prose • Pumpkins
3. Richard Shelton • The Stones
4. Joanna H. Woś • The One Sitting There
5. Dan O’brien • Crossing Spider Creek
6. Allen Woodman • The Lampshade Vendor
7. William Heyen • Roseville
8. Lex Williford • Pendergast’s Daughter
9. Kent Thompson • Ponderosa
10. Stuart Dybek • Gold Coast
11. Larry French • Mr. Mumsford
12. Adrienne Clasky • From the Floodlands
13. Allan Gurganus • A Public Denial
14. Carol Edelstein • 232-9979
15. Raymond Carver • The Father
16. Lon Otto • Love Poems
17. Bret Lott • Night
18. Kristin Andrychuk • Mandy Shupe
19. Tom Hawkins • Wedding Night
20. Bruce Eason • The Appalachian Trail
21. Russell Edson • Dinner Time
22. Luisa Valenzuela • Vision Out of the Corner of One Eye
23. Pamela Painter • I Get Smart
24. Don Shea • True Love
25. Carolyn Forché • The Colonel
26. Julia Alvarez • Snow
27. David Foster Wallace • Everything Is Green
28. Michael Delp • Draft Horse
29. Richard Brautigan • Corporal
30. Gregory Burnham • Subtotals
31. Gary Gildner • Fingers
32. Jo Sapp • Nadine at 35: A Synopsis
33. Roland Topor • Feeding the Hungry
34. Michael Martone • Dish Night
35. Will Baker • Grace Period
36. Mary Morris • The Haircut
37. Kenneth Bernard • Vines
38. Rod Kessler • How to Touch a Bleeding Dog
39. Jamaica Kincaid • Girl
40. Bruce Holland Rogers • The Burlington Northern, Southbound
41. Heinrich Böll • The Cage
42. Robert Hill Long • The Restraints
43. Ellen Hunnicutt • Blackberries
44. Julio Cortázar • A Continuity of Parks
45. Michael Oppenheimer • The Paring Knife
46. John Updike • The Widow
47. Jim Heynen • What Happened During the Ice Storm
48. K.C. Frederick • Teddy’s Canary
49. Chuck Rosenthal • The Nicest Kid in the Universe
50. Kelly Cherry • The Parents
51. Fred Leebron • Water
52. Tim O’brien • Stockings
53. Bernard Cooper • The Hurricane Ride
54. William Brohaugh • A Moment in the Sun Field
55. Scott Russell Sanders • The Philosophical Cobbler
56. Sheila Barry • Corners
57. Mark Strand • Space
58. Gordon Lish • Fear: Four Examples
59. Kate McCorkle • The Last Parakeet
60. Paul Lisicky • Snapshot, Harry Ceders: 1948
61. Joyce Carol Oates • August Evening
62. Mary Dilworth • The Factory
63. François Camoin • The Sewers of Salt Lake
64. Steven Molen • Jane
65. Marlene Buono • Offerings
66. Margaret Atwood • Bread
67. Ronald Wallace • Yogurt
68. Pavao Pavlicić • A Chronicler’s Sin
69. S. Friedman • Here
70. Diane Williams • Here’s Another Ending
71. Mark Halliday • 108 John Street
72. Larry Fondation • Deportation at Breakfast
Acknowledgments