Stories of love and death

The first eight stories herein concern the adventures of a young boy named Bones Gentry. "Once Upon A Time Never Comes Again" is about his friendship with a small boy that he sees cremated in a trailer fire. "Isadora" tells of a black girl who is the fastest runner in school but a student who needs help. "The Pale And The Ethiop" is about that first kiss and, ahem, some subsequent ones. In the story "Bones And The Gypsy" Bones fights a Gypsy girl in a violent initiation into friendship. "The Cat And The Goblin" is a brief story of a malignant ill will that derives perverse pleasure from watching a poor beast die slow. "Herr Koch" tells of a fighting rooster which one day explodes upon Bones' blind side. In "The Graveyard Shift Bones and the Gypsy girl plan to rhendezvous at a glade in the woods on the day she leaves. In "Don Quixote" Bones private regard of himself as a knight worthy of Arthur's round table is sorely tested when he discovers a lady in distress.

The last two stories will make the tender reader flinch. In "The Greatest Horror of Them All" Melissa is absolutely the most beautiful girl in the Universe, or so the man declares until one day. . . In "A Classic Sucker" a maniacal young man and his sick wife take a trip to Florida for their health's sake where someone waits grinning with all thirty-two teeth on show.