He had a talent for physical detail and a bemused attention to the human comedy. Until drink ate him up, he was a keen observer, with a knack for zeroing in on a luminous image. At a random stoplight, he’d laugh like hell just seeing a big fat guy on a moped with its tires squashed down. He liked marbled meat and unfiltered Camels; he ate onions raw. He argued from external evidence—a fully imagined place—and the slapstick and violence of his tales drew you in mostly through the vivid portrayals a carnal person has a knack for.
