Craig Clevenger

The Contortionist’s Handbook


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      CRAIG CLEVENGER

       The Contortionist’s Handbook

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

       Six

       Seven

       Eight

       Nine

       Ten

       Eric Bishop

       Eleven

       Twelve

       Thirteen

       Fourteen

       Fifteen

       Sixteen

       Seventeen

       Eighteen

       John Vincent

       Nineteen

       Twenty

       Twenty-One

       Twenty-Two

       Keep Reading

       P. S. Ideas Interviews & Features …

       About the Author

       Fugitive Tendencies by Will Christopher Baer

       Life at a Glance

       Top Ten Books

       A Writing Life

       About the Book

       Stranger in a Gray Hat by Craig Clevenger

       Read On

       Have You Read?

       If You Loved This, You Might Like …

       The Web Detective

       Acknowledgments

       About the Author

       Praise

       Also by the Author

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       EPIGRAPH

       My cigar is not a symbol. It is only a cigar. —Sigmund Freud

      I kissed her …. It was like being in church.

      —James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice

DANIEL FLETCHER

       ONE

      I can count my overdoses on one hand:

      August 1985. Percocet. The 5 mg tablets were identical to the 325 mg tablets which were identical to the generic laxatives. I was in no shape for fine print. ER, three ounces of ipecac and solid heaves of poisons and binder, thirty-seven hours of cramps and shitting blood.

      February 1986. Methocarbamol. Yellow caplets, bright like a child’s crayon sunscape. Those five pills stopped my heart and I saw the brain seizure tunnel of light before the EMTs shocked me back alive. They billed me $160 for that jolt.

      June 1986. Demerol and thirty-two aspirin reopening the damage I did when I was fourteen.

      November 1986. A busy year. Vicodin. Imagine waking up to your morning stomach knot and subsequent rituals:

      Shower.

      Coffee.

      Traffic.

      Talk radio.

      Hell.

      Home.

      Drink.

      But you remember that it’s Sunday. That