He played guitar and wrote stories on the back of paper targets and sent me to get milk shakes for him when his sugar was low and he was feeling tired but couldn’t shake his customers; a diabetic, he told me he would die young. I was 16 and in love with him. And a boy.
Edwin nodded approvingly. This was the way they had always done it, spinning the world soft in gossamer humor, diving under, pulling it up over their heads, safe
And on the fifth day the artist knelt down and wrapped his arms around the wild beast, bringing it to the surface of his neck and chest.
The walls of his living room began closing in. Old feelings returned and gripped his heart in its fist. Standing abruptly, he grabbed his keys and cigarettes and slammed the door on his way out of the house.
Self hate tickles and calls. I choose Mani. People call me Mani in this town. Many a year has passed since I rowed my boat to the island in the middle… but I’m back—talking sideways to the motto geeks—roaming dead with a mantis sketched hard. …
I’d been half-hoping that someone like that might turn up. What a wonderful surprise this would be for him… these orderly grave beds, the paths so clean, this fence so nice and upright…
When Johnny wakes up he can’t remember where he is. Two nights at his parents’, a night at his sister’s, and last night on Mike’s couch. It’s all been disorienting. For the past two years, Johnny has been waking, pissing, shitting, showering, eating, working, and sleeping at the same time every day. The routine has grown on him like another layer of skin.
I'm missing nothing and moving at a rate I don't think I've moved at for years. To others, I must blur. My muscles are pistons, my blood petrol. I can feel my hair start to dampen with sweat, can feel it on my back and thighs. I don't look at the clock, don't stop.
...Gilbert did not believe in saints. He believed some people were born with a great capacity to empathize and others with none and others with so much that they were run over like the dog by a mechanism beyond their understanding. God, if there was one, had established the operating principle of the future: Those with the least responsibility would bear the most.
...He remembered his silences...unable to stop thinking of Valerie...He hadn't encouraged Valerie to leave Les but did nothing to change her mind, wanting her free even though he wasn't. And when she was, Lydia was the one who asked him to go, telling him she couldn't live with a man who ignored her.