She said: "I feel haunted. I feel haunted by the things I did over there. I feel haunted by who I am. I'm haunted by my dreams which are carried over from sleep into waking life. I'm afraid all of the time and I didn't used to be like that. I'm haunted by voices I heard and sights I saw and mostly by the things I, myself, did. I wasn't brought up like that. I did those things because everyone was doing them. That was how we let off steam. If we didn't do something to let off steam we'd all have gone crazy over there; but, in my mind, I'm still there and still doing those things. But, to tell you the truth, the one thing I'm most haunted by is the girl, the young girl, running down the road, naked and screaming, her hair and skin singed by the Napalm, and she's screaming and running and there isn't anything I can do but watch."

Stumble It!

She wanted to be a dancer. Or, at least, on that evening she thought that that's what she wanted. It was early afternoon on the first day of the dance classes. I was there with a friend who was enrolled for the class. I noticed the girl, the one who wanted to be a dancer, right off. She was striking: long brown hair, short skirt, thin, but not too thin, smoking a cigarette. When she laughed at something that someone near to her said, her voice was deep and throaty. We were all waiting for the teacher and talking to each other, making connections, or just passing the time. I moved closer to the girl who wanted to be a dancer; she was talking to a guy that she had come in with. When I could catch her eye, I started to chat her up. "You from here?" "No, I live in New York". She blew some cigarette smoke toward the ceiling. "I'm just here for a little while, living with a friend, you know?" "Well, what are you doing while you're here? Working?" "No, I don't work." I noticed then that her eyes were very bloodshot. Then I noted that she was wobbly on her high heel shoes. "I'm ah...ah...whatdoyoucallit? I'm ah..an heiress." "Really?" I said. "Yeah, REALLY!" she shot back. Then she wandered off to catch up with her friend. I was a little shaken by this short conversation. I had never met anyone before who would describe themselves as "an Heiress". And, I had never met a Heiress who was that stoned before either. After that day, I didn't see her in class again. I guess she had changed her mind about becoming a dancer. When you're an Heiress, you can do that.

Stumble It!

He said: "In the end, what does it all mean? Does it, in fact, mean anything at all? It seemed to me to be so pointless and stupid. All the "stuff"; the endless, stupid "stuff" that needed to be fed and cleaned and moved around and then replaced by some version of itself. And for what? For why? I think of Rickie Lee Jones' "Last Chance Texaco". I don't know why. I just do. Maybe for me it was the "Last Chance Malibu". Maybe for me it was just that."

Stumble It!

He said: "Well, I parked her there 'cause she was running rough and I thought I would tune her up and then she'd be running just fine. But I guess I just never got 'round to it. You know how it is: it's one thing and then another thing and then somethin' else and the next thing you know, a lifetime has gone by without you even noticing. I guess that's what happened to me and ol' Bessie. That's what I called her: Old Bessie. Oh, but in her day, she was a fine car; you wouldn't know it now, but she was a real fine car."

Stumble It!

On the train, on the way home on a Friday, he had a vision and this vision told him that all of the stories he knew were true: the stories of valor; the ones where good overcame evil; the stories of love and betrayal and revenge and the ones that resulted in redemption and forgiveness; the stories where one person's sacrifice made all the difference and the ones that told of universal truths being revealed to someone suffering; the stories that ended happily, and the ones that lead to other stories that informed the listener and soothed them to a magical state of acceptance. Before he came to his stop he knew with clarity that the stories lead to larger truths and these truths lead to a deeper understanding of where the stories would end.

Stumble It!