Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son is a sad and beautiful book. That was my reaction when I first read it a decade ago, and still it makes me weep. Reading these stories on a bouncing school bus, when slightly motion sick and entirely noise-overloaded, is probably ideal. All the drug-hazed plot switches make perfect sense, and each sentence is as tearstained as a sentimental drunk. I wanted to cry along with them, but I had to behave like a chaperon who cared which kid was kicking which other kid's seat. Meanwhile, this is what Johnson was saying to me:

The last time I'd been in the Savoy, it had been in Omaha. I hadn't been anywhere near it in over a year, but I was just getting sicker. When I coughed I saw fireflies.

Everything down there but the curtain was red. It was like a movie of something that was actually happening. Black pimps in fur coats. The women were blank, shining areas with photographs of sad girls floating in them. "I'll just take your money and go upstairs," somebody said to me.