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Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1975)

Story (1975)

Excerpt

Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Outside of La Paz, about an hour and a half, there is this jungle and it's a strange jungle; there are no reptiles or animals, just birds, very odd birds, all beaks or all tail, and they lived off the fruits of the trees and shit all the time — as did the natives. The natives lived almost forever, especially the men, they'd walk by brown and bent and thin with these rags around their waists but the rags did very little good (I thought) because their balls and cocks flopped out and hung down, and the men looked at you and knew that they would still be there — in that jungle — long after you were gone. The women seemed to sit more, doing things with their hands — masturbating — but for it all, they looked sadder and died earlier, which is a complete reversal, say, of a city like Santa Monica, Calif. Anyhow, I was with the Peace Corps teaching rehabilitated alcoholic paraplegic once-thieves the rudiments of geometry and algebra...

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