One day late in my final semester at college, finals over and at loose ends, I recalled the dyehouse guy’s story about the rats under the mill – big as cats, goddam, some as big as dogs – and started writing a story called ‘Graveyard Shift.’ I was only passing the time on a late spring afternoon, but two months later Cavalier magazine bought the story for two hundred dollars. I had sold two other stories previous to this, but they had brought in a total of just sixty-five dollars. This was three times that, and at a single stroke. It took my breath away, it did. I was rich.
