ROBERT FLANAGAN

"What a terrific group of stories...drama in the very best sense...all of it activated by clean, tight, powerful prose...a jewel that will be shining for years to come." -- Tim O'Brien

"Robert Flanagan's bittersweet stories chronicling the charges and retreats in the ongoing skirmish between men and women are convincing, moving, and above all recognizable." -- Shelby Hearon

THE OPENING OF THE STORY
"SMOKER"

"No? No! You said NO?"
"Yessir!" I shout, keep my eyes on the eagle-anchor-globe emblem centering his Smokey the Bear hat and for all I know pinned straight back into his brain.
"Maggot, you messing with your drill instructor's mind?"
"Nossir!" I shout all my replies. It indicates esprit de corps. "Sir, Private Troy is just a a fighter. Sir!"
Sergeant Schramm smacks me open-handed, but hard, up alongside my head. "I got no room for pussies in this platoon. A marine is a fighter. You hear me, boy?"
"Yessir."
"What is it with you, Troy? You want to screw up this platoon?"
"Nossir." But I want nothing to do with Company B's smoker bouts and Sergeant Schramm's dreams of glory. He got his other volunteers quick enough -- proof that your average USMC boot has all the brain power of a Doberman.
"Well, your drill instructor is going to kick your big dumb ass for you unless you fight for this platoon. You understand, maggot?"
"Yessir."
There are sixty-nine other recruits standing at attention before their racks, each one staring straight ahead as though stone-deaf, stone-blind. The Marines are looking for a few good men? They must still be looking.
"Therefore, maggot, you are volunteering, understand?"
"Yessir."
"Let me HEAR it!"
"YES SIR!"
He smacks me again. "Say it, wormshit, all of it!"
"Sir! Private Troy is volunteering as platoon heavyweight to fight in the Company B smoker bouts for the honor of platoon one sixty-nine, sir!" I shout it out, standing tall. Since there's no room for pussies in this platoon, I look the brave leatherneck as I give in.

CONTENTS:
Naked to Naked Goes
Berzerk
Teller’s Ticket
Smoker
Local Anaesthetic
Close Dancing
Comedy of Eros
Gaming
Father’s Day

Where did the book's title come from?
From "A Last Confession" by W. B. Yeats, one of his Crazy Jane poems, which reads in part:

"I gave what other women gave
That stepped out of their clothes,
But when the soul, its body off,
Naked to naked goes,
He it has found shall find therein
What none other knows."

A wonderful poem but not a wonderful title for a short story collection. It confused people, was referred to on air by an interviewer as "Naked as Naked Goes" -- a rather casual approach.

I should have heeded the wisdom of my Scribner editor Tom Jenks and called the collection "Father's Day." But oh no, I stood up for Yeats! As though yeats were being attacked, or needed me to defend his poetry. If the collection ever is reprinted I'll use Jenks' title for it, not mine.

THE OPENING OF THE STORY
"CLOSE DANCING"

Word came down from Sister Mary Annunication, their eighth grade teacher and principal of Saint Sebastian's. As usual, it had to do with trouble and Doolin.

Doolin and some guys were rambling through alleys heading home from hardball in the field behind the old Toledo paper Box factory. Osmanski and Kleinschmidt were playing catch. Tony Pavoni shouldered a Louisville slugger.

Doolin had broken off a limb from a stinkweed tree, Tree of Heaven his sister called it, and stripped it of branches, to use as a walking stick. As a kid, playing Robin Hood or Geronimo, he'd made bows and arrows from stinkweed trees.

The mid-May afternoon sky was robin's-egg blue. In two weeks June would free Doolin for good from the gray stone fort of Saint Sebastian's. He would spend the summer working on his uncle's farm in Michigan. Come September, he'd start high school at Eli Whitney or Christ the King; he hadn't yet made up his mind.

Eddie Reardon, Annie's younger brother, a yo-yo who glued bb's to cherry bombs and winged them at cats, came running up. "She gave'em hell! She's gonna take 'em to Father Speer! You're really gonna get it, Doolin!"