The study of literature isn’t generally thought of as a course to make you rich, so when a wagering system sprang from the pages of “A Wide Runner” by James Kelman in Not Not While the Giro (London: Polygon 1983), I was skeptical. Readers familiar with Kelman’s workhorse characters might question whether sensible investment advice could ever come from men who live in pubs and die in vats of acid. A work of art, moreover, does not exist in order to provide tips for how to beat the races; and, particularly in Kelman’s work, the delusions the archetypical loser exploits so as to pursue his shabby dreams must, in all artistic and intellectual honesty, result in failure.
Coupling
A woman and a man were standing in front of a sculpture. The sculpture was in the middle of a park in the town where the woman and the man worked. The sculpture was a block of bronze and long as a moving truck. Its surfaces were smooth, mostly, but in places the shapes of hands, faces, and feet pressed through the sculpture from inside. It was the afternoon, sunny but mild, wind out of the east. The woman and the man were on their lunch break. They had a half hour.
Bill
Bill said: In the evening, the sky gets all red and soft behind the fence near the crapyard on Last Street where Lorraine’s mother flew. I wanted to give it the twice-over, but Lou wouldn’t take me. Lou is a prick.
The Man On the Stairs
It was a tiny sound but it woke me up because it was a human sound. I held my breath and it happened again, then again; it was footsteps on the stairs. I tried to whisper, There’s someone coming up the stairs, but my breath was cowering, I couldn’t shape it.
Aggressive Glass and Mirrors
“I didn’t know he was famous,” my husband said.
I said, “He said all he knew is that he wanted to be famous.” I had praised Yves.
Later that night I glared at my husband. The time limit was a few seconds. I think when you’re younger the first idea you have is that adults want to talk.
Did You Know?
Did You Know?
1957 — U.S. public school/elementary student pie consumption — at least 14 pieces annually (school year)
1982 — student pie consumption — 4 pieces
1999 — s.p.c. — 1.77777703 pieces
Did You Know?
Ten Letters to the President
August 6, 2001
Dear President Bush,
Thank you very much for your letter of July 30. It reminds me to tell you about how last Friday a spell of unseasonably cool days and a breeze from out of the northwest afforded Ted and me the opportunity to enjoy our lunch break outdoors.
Father’s Kitchen
In the night, amid the lusty strum of crickets, Father hulked over a pan of sputtering butts meat. In his splendid red robe, his hair torn into sprigs, his nose gleaming with gamy oils, Father fried a heap of butts meat so enormous that we all stood gasping in various doorframes: the twins, roused from a video game, stood shirtless in the den doorway; Cabbage, in hose and cardboard codpiece, stood before the laundry nook; and I, who had wandered downstairs sniffing whiffs of fried hogjowl, stood in the stairwell.
Tooth and Bag
Nora wears a girdle on the outside of her dress. It’s her back brace.
Come out among them and be ye different.
Wears panties on her head to keep her Pentecostal hairdo in place.
Did the Sun Shine Before You Were Born?
I found him at a low point in my life.
Jonas was not his real name.
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