Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 120 of 447 · 20 per page

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  Crossing over, I loafed and leafed, as it were, through one long block: Drugs, Real Estate, Fashions, Auto Parts, Cafe, Sporting Goods, Real Estate, Furniture, Appliances, Western Union, Cleaners, Grocery. Officer, officer, my daughter has run away. In collusion with a detective; in love with a blackmailer. Took advantage of my utter helplessness. I peered into all the stores. I deliberated inly if I should talk to any of the sparse foot-passengers. I did not. I sat for a while in the parked car. I inspected the public garden on the east side. I went back to Fashions and Auto Parts. I told myself with a burst of furious sarcasm— un ricanement —that I was crazy to suspect her, that she would turn up in a minute. She did. I wheeled around and shook off the hand she had placed on my sleeve with a timid and imbecile smile. “Get into the car,” I said. She obeyed, and I went on pacing up and down, struggling with nameless thoughts, trying to plan some way of tackling her duplicity. Presently she left the car and was at my side again. My sense of hearing gradually got tuned in to station Lo again, and I became aware she was telling me that she had met a former girl friend. “Yes? Whom?” “A Beardsley girl.” “Good. I know every name in your group. Alice Adams? ” “This girl was not in my group.” “Good. I have a complete student list with me. Her name please.” “She was not in my school. She is just a town girl in Beardsley.” “Good. I have the Beardsley directory with me too. We’ll look up all the Browns.” “I only know her first name.” “Mary or Jane?” “No—Dolly, like me.” “So that’s the dead end” (the mirror you break your nose against). “Good. Let us try another angle. You have been absent twenty-eight minutes. What did the two Dollys do?” “We went to a drugstore.” “And you had there—?” “Oh, just a couple of Cokes.” “Careful, Dolly. We can check that, you know.” “At least, she had. I had a glass of water.” “Good. Was it that place there?” “Sure.” “Good, come on, we’ll grill the soda jerk.” “Wait a sec. Come to think it might have been further down—just around the corner.” “Come on all the same. Go in please. Well, let’s see.” (Opening a chained telephone book.) “Dignified Funeral Service. No, not yet. Here we are: Druggists-Retail. Hill Drug Store. Larkin’s Pharmacy. And two more. That’s all Wace seems to have in the way of soda fountains—at least in the business section. Well, we will check them all.” “Go to hell,” she said. “Lo, rudeness will get you nowhere.” “Okay,” she said. “But you’re not going to trap me. Okay, so we did not have a pop. We just talked and looked at dresses in show windows.” “Which? That window there for example?” “Yes, that one there, for example.” “Oh Lo!

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  This is she, who is so much reviled, even by those who ought to praise her, when blaming her wrongfully, and with evil words. 7 But she is in bliss, and hears it not: with the other Primal Creatures 8 joyful, she wheels her sphere, and tastes her blessedness. But let us now descend to greater misery; already every star is falling, 9 that was ascending when I set out, and to stay too long is not permitted.” We crossed the circle, to the other bank, near a fount, that boils and pours down through a cleft, which it has formed. The water was darker far than perse; and we, accompanying the dusky waves, entered down by a strange path. This dreary streamlet makes a Marsh, that is named Styx, when it has descended to the foot of the grey malignant shores. And I, who stood intent on looking, saw muddy people in that bog, all naked and with a look of anger. They were smiting each other, not with hands only, but with head, and with chest, and with feet; maiming one another with their teeth, piece by piece. The kind Master said: “Son, now see the souls of those whom anger overcame; and also I would have thee to believe for certain, that there are people underneath the water, who sob, and make it bubble at the surface; as thy eye may tell thee, whichever way it turns. Fixed in the slime, they say: ‘Sullen were we in the sweet air, that is gladdened by the Sun, carrying lazy smoke within our hearts; now lie we sullen here in the black mire.’ This hymn they gurgle in their throats, for they cannot speak it in full words.” Thus, between the dry bank and the putrid fen, we compassed a large arc of that loathly slough, with eyes turned towards those that swallow of its filth; we came to the foot of a tower at last. 1. Virgil understood these words; but as for us, it seems best to admit that we do not even know to which language they belong, though various attempts have been made to connect them with Hebrew, Greek, and French. 2. See Rev. xii 7-9. “Adultery” in the Biblical sense (Ezek. xxiii. 37). 3. The whirlpool of Charybdis (in the straits of Messina) which was specially dangerous by reason of its proximity to the rock Scylla, is frequently alluded to in classical literature. 4. The avarice of the clergy was held in special aversion by Dante (cf. Cantos i, note 9, and xix). 5. At the time of the composition of the Convito (iv) Dante himself did not yet connect Fortune in any way with the Deity. 6. Even as the Intelligences were created by God to regulate the Heavens (cf. Par. xxviii), so a power was ordained by Him to guide the destinies of man on earth; and this power is Fortune. 7. These lines may mean that Fortune should not be blamed seeing that, on the one hand, she acts under God’s direction, while, on the other, man has the power of free will and a conscience, altogether beyond the pale of her influence (see Canto xv). They may also be taken to imply that the man who has experienced the blows of Fortune should rejoice: for the turn of her wheel may soon bring him happiness. 8. The Angels, created together with the Heavens (cf. Purg. xi and xxxi). 9. At the beginning of Canto ii the Poet describes the evening of the first day of the journey; it is now past midnight.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  And Penny would accept the proffered clue like she had accepted all the others, goaded by the old woman’s cool, papery whisper, to construct an angry, fractious narrative that cast Steve as the adulterous villain. “Maybe he’s involved with that pretty colored girl who works for him,” she’d whisper. “You know a man doesn’t keep himself looking that fine for the woman he marries.” And Penny would sit on Mrs. Alexander’s porch for hours, rocking in the straight-backed rocker, with a hard, empty look in her eyes. But Steve had stopped everything when they’d married, stopped the cruising and the meet-ups, stopped the men on the side, and it had been five years since he’d done more than look. So he was condemned for keeping himself in shape; for plodding through year after year in an unhappy marriage; for keeping his marriage vow despite the desire that threatened to engulf him. Tonight when she got back from her tantrum, Penny would turn to the old woman for hand-patting pity, offered with barely concealed relish, and they would scowl at him from their rockers. Penny would stop talking to him and lock him out of his own bedroom. And he would fall asleep in the study in front of the television watching old reruns of “Will & Grace” and feeling sorry for himself. Five goddamn years. Just go, Steve. His eyes were hot and wet as he turned the corner, leaving Mrs. Alexander behind, opening the sunroof and flooring the accelerator. Dusk was settling over the town and the streets were waking sporadically, neon signs flickering to life here and there while others remained dark in the overheated half-light. Steve turned up the air-conditioning and rubbed his hands across his bare thighs, his stomach tightening as he turned onto Vanderbilt. He pulled in behind the store and parked close to the building, pulling his car in tightly between an old Volvo and a Jeep. He took a deep breath, ran his fingers through his hair and looked in the flip-down visor mirror, trying to remember what it had been like to be beautiful and young. Time had passed so quickly. He barely recognized the image in the mirror. The sharpness had diffused from his once-angular features. His face had filled out, becoming rounder and less precise, like a stone worn smooth by a waterfall. The vision of his father peering out from beneath his close-cropped beard in the hall mirror had ruined the look for him forever; he would shave when he got home. And his eyes: when had they started to sag around the edges, their color fading from glowing sapphire to steely bluegray?

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  She feels needed . But then she spies the brown clay sticking to the girl’s fingers. Flecked through with green and black. The girl shifts her hands around Sylvia’s shirt, and the motion changes something in the air current between them. Sylvia catches the scent. Dog shit. “What are you doing?” Sylvia asks. She marvels at the cool distance in her voice. How mature and far away she sounds to herself. The girl doesn’t even seem pleased with what she’s done. She’s no gloater. There is that to say for her. The girl spreads her fingers and clenches them shut again like she’s making a point. It would be nothing, would take nothing, to rend this girl to pieces. Sylvia feels in this moment like the grandmother who is part wolf. She’d gobble the little girl down and keep her there. Instead, she takes the girl’s wrist and leads her into the living room. The boy sits quietly with his coloring. “Stay,” Sylvia says to him when his eyes track toward them. She winds through the piles of toys and cushions. The living room resembles not so much a battlefield as one of those emptied-out neighborhoods in a dying Rust Belt town. There’s a sense of order having been overrun by chaos and wreckage. Work for later. Before the parents return. This is what they have been doing while they have been coloring. The sliding door is cracked open. No doubt it is the opening the girl slipped through in order to find her little surprise. This, Sylvia thinks, is what they consider being quiet and good. • • • In the bathroom, Sylvia runs water into the sink while the girl stares ahead. No fear. No remorse. Good for you is what Sylvia almost says. The water steams as it collects, turning the mirror ghostly white. Beneath the fog, Sylvia: Raw eyes, oily skin. Frizzed out, frayed at the edges, stained. This is not the first mishap of the week. The girl coughs and smears dog shit across her face. No reaction. Sylvia’s fingertips sting when she dips the cloth into the water. She reaches over and takes the girl’s chin in hand without pretense of being gentle or trying to explain to her in a child’s voice why what she’s done is wrong. Her knuckles pop a little from the suddenness of turning the girl’s head, but when their eyes meet, she almost gasps at the lack of surprise or discomfort. It’s more out of her own fear that Sylvia puts the hot cloth to the girl’s face and wipes at the shit.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  “Go upstairs.” “But I—” “Right now.” Miri moved toward the vestibule as Rusty said, “How did you know I have a daughter?” “It’s not a secret, is it?” “Fifteen years later you decide you want to know my daughter?” “Better late than never,” Frekki said. “I’m not sure that’s always the case.” Rusty turned back to Miri. “I said go upstairs. Now.” Irene appeared at the door wrapped in a shawl. “What’s all this?” “Hello, Mrs. Ammerman.” The woman held out her hand again. “Frekki Monsky.” Irene’s hand went to her chest. “You have the nerve to show up here, at my house?” “Now, Mrs. Ammerman—” “Don’t you now, Mrs. Ammerman me!” Miri had never heard such anger in her grandmother’s voice. This time Rusty shouted, “Go upstairs, Miri!” “I’m going to get Nana a pill.” “I don’t need a pill,” Irene said. “Yes, you do,” Miri told her. “I can tell.” “Why don’t you invite me in?” Frekki said. “I mean no harm and it’s freezing out here.” “That looks like a warm coat to me,” Rusty said, hugging herself. Miri came back with Irene’s pill, but Irene waved her away. “All right,” Frekki said. “If that’s how it’s going to be…” She pulled a creamy envelope out of her purse. “This is for Miriam. An invitation to lunch and a show at the Paper Mill Playhouse. I hope you’ll be reasonable about this, Rusty. I live in South Orange now. I’m married to a doctor. I’m in a position to be a positive influence in Miriam’s life.” Miri felt sick to her stomach. But at the same time, excited. FrekkiFrekki’s husband, J.J., had a cousin in Elizabeth who owned Strasser Sports. How many times had she brought the boys to their store for their team uniforms, for the expert in athletic shoes, said to be the best in the state, to fit them properly? More than ten years of shopping trips for summer camp, and to make sure they had the best equipment for baseball, basketball, football, never mind the hockey skates, the cleats. They’d built a special closet in the finished basement just for the boys’ athletic equipment. In September, during the annual trek to Elizabeth, Sherry Strasser, the cousin’s wife, invited Frekki to lunch. “Leave the boys at the store and come out with me.” The boys, who were now seventeen and nineteen, were capable of looking after themselves, so she’d accepted Sherry’s invitation to lunch at Dorothy Dennis, a ladies’ tearoom. “We don’t get to see you often enough,” Sherry said. “I know. J.J. and I were just saying the same thing.” After their sandwich plates had been cleared and the tea served, Sherry said, “The store is so busy this time of year I help out as much as I can, and last week I saw a young girl, maybe fifteen, with eyes exactly like your brother’s.” Frekki wasn’t sure how to respond. “She’s friends with the Osner girl.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Not that Miri knew if they’d prayed, but she was betting they had. Was Suzanne praying to Jesus? Did it matter who you prayed to? Did anything matter? It seemed like they were under the lunch tables for hours. Finally, an all-clear whistle blew. As they came out, they saw Donny Kellen, that idiot, standing on a table, shouting into a bullhorn. “April Fool! April Fool, everybody!” “It’s May, you asshole!” Charley Kaminsky yelled, throwing his half-finished plate of spaghetti and meatballs at Donny. That’s when all hell broke loose. Kids rushed at Donny while he danced around on the table trying to avoid the food being hurled at him like bullets—half-eaten sandwiches from home, the daily special from the cafeteria, apples, oranges, candy bars. Miri pitched her milk carton at him and clipped the side of his head. “Ow!” he yelled. “Stop…come on…it was just a joke! Can’t you take a joke?” A group of boys pulled him down from the table and started pummeling him. Was he evil or just stupid? And why should they believe him when he said it was just a joke? He wasn’t someone you could trust. The young teacher couldn’t begin to control the madness. “People, please…people!” But her pleas didn’t stop them. She sent Eleanor to the office to get help. Minutes later the principal’s voice came over the loudspeaker, telling them it was a hoax. “Boys and girls,” Mr. Royer said. Just the sound of his voice was enough to infuriate Miri. “There is no danger. There was no plane crash. Return to your tables immediately and give your attention to Miss Jensen.” None of them liked Edith Jensen, the vice principal. She probably didn’t like them, either. She marched into the cafeteria, grabbed Donny Kellen by the arm and demanded that he apologize. “Apologize to your classmates right now.” “But I didn’t do anything.” “Apologize!” “I’m sorry,” Donny Kellen said. “I thought—” “That’s the problem,” Miss Jensen said. “You didn’t think. You never think. You probably haven’t had a lucid thought in your life!” And she dragged him out of the cafeteria. Maybe Mr. Royer had already called the police. Maybe Donny Kellen would be taken away to jail, or juvenile detention. Miri was sure at the very least he’d be expelled. Finally, Mr. Royer could expel someone who deserved it. That afternoon kids walked out of school without going to class, without waiting for bells or for teachers to dismiss them. They took off alone, or in groups. Some of the girls flirted with the boys, who flirted back by knocking their books out of their hands or snapping jackets at them. Suzanne wanted to go to Pamel’s, the sweet shop on Broad Street, and celebrate with a banana split. But Miri wasn’t in the mood to celebrate. It still felt all too real to her. It could have been another plane, it could have been anything. Was this how it was going to be?

• From Escape (2007)

  “When the children first came into care, they had never seen crayons. A crayon is a pretty standard, normal deal for an American,” said Debra Brown, who ran the court-appointed special advocates team for the children, in a newspaper interview. “When I went into the ranch, you would not have assumed children even lived there. There were no toys, no stuffed animals, no dolls, no footballs. The concept of play was not in their upbringing: they worked from a very early age.” On May 29, nearly eight weeks after the raid, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the 400-plus FLDS children had to be returned to their parents. The FLDS claimed they’d been vindicated. But the decision was not the overwhelming victory the FLDS tried to make it out to be. While the Court said that the state had overreached in taking all the children from the ranch, its ruling did not end the case. The decision said the state had to proceed on an individual case-by-case basis. At first I was crushed. But then I realized that this was less of a defeat and more of a detour. The public support the FLDS did manage to win was based less on facts than on symbols. Most people believe that the best place for a child to be is with its mother. It’s frightening for them to think the state can move in and take children from their parents. Few people realize how the FLDS severs the bond between a mother and child. A child is conditioned to believe that every one of their father’s wives is one of its mothers. One of the things I stressed to those working with the children from the compound is that in many cases, the children’s primary attachment will be to another child, not to its mother. FLDS children often bond like children in orphanages; they find another child about the same age or a little older and the two protect each other. And where were the men during the firestorm of publicity about the raid? Did Merril Jessop ever appear before the media and defend the YFZ Ranch, which he ran? Not once. After the raid, the FLDS let their expensive lawyers and Willie Jessop speak for them. Some thought the women looked quaint in their pioneer clothing, but there is nothing nineteenth-century about the FLDS when it’s under attack. It hires the most high-powered lawyers money can buy, who rail about religious persecution. The problem within the FLDS isn’t about religion; it’s about crime. I know that one of the young fathers I saw on TV trying to get his children out of custody had a history of molesting his little sisters. He had sexually molested my daughter, which I reported to the state of Arizona. It was investigated and substantiated. My daughter gets crime victim’s assistance for therapy because of what this man did to her. She screamed and began crying when she saw him on TV.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  A commercial photographer “just happened” to arrive in time to record the police version of the bust; he was therefore able to sell footage of the event to stations that did not have cameras there. Headlines and news stories across the country proclaimed the cop-rehearsed version of a real, sinister ring of gay slavemasters. Newsweek gloated with photographs and text. (In notable contrast, the Los Angeles Times— which has in recent years become exemplary of enlightened coverage concerning gay affairs and problems—treated the matter with unsensational straightforwardness, its letters column underscoring the arrogant waste of funds and manpower in such a police action.) It was with the arrival of the police at the bathhouse that real S & M began. The arrested men were handcuffed tightly—some complained futilely of blocked circulation. They were pushed contemptuously into buses, they were shoved, some knocked to the ground. They were taunted by the cops: “Goddam fuckin animals.” “Bastards.” “Queers.” The arrested men had been drinking beer heavily, but hours later they were still not allowed to go to the toilet. Some had to urinate in the bus, others at the processing station. Inflamed wrists were ignored by the cops. Despite the fact that no one was forced to attend the auction or participate in any way—and there were no minors—the 40 were booked on the serious felony of “involuntary servitude,” a charge unused for years and originally aimed at pimps. Now in real jail cells, the arrested men felt a closeness that the staged charade of “master” and “slave” had implicitly violated. Experiencing a genuine sense of fraternity, most agreed to stay until all of their number would be released Some slept together in jail bunks. They embraced, kissed Their morale rose on learning that at least 100 gays were demonstrating outside on their behalf and that support, even from the straight community, was mounting—but that morale fell crashing when they heard of hysterical media reports being spread across the entire country claiming that the cops had freed gay slaves, that school books had been found on the bathhouse premises-outrageous and untrue lies, all adhering to the police objective of depicting the charade auction as real. Although every other detail of the bust had been carefully planned for weeks and weeks to culminate in this television “spectacular,” a sudden failure in the workings of a police computer was blamed for the fact that the defendants’ names were not correctly recorded. Thus, even those who had been quickly bailed out, were forced to remain imprisoned—some until as late as Monday.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  My professor didn’t come that day. Of course he phoned the next with a reasonable excuse. Of course I should have anticipated just such a hitch and explanation, but my need, though usually held in check or released only on imaginary beings, could, if turned on someone real, devour him. I had worshipped my teacher, I’d even forgiven him for not loving me—but now I hated him. I dreamed of revenge. In the past I’d been protected from humiliating rejection because I so seldom asked anything of anyone. The gods were my company; the lilac in flower embraced me; books did all the talking but only when I permitted the monologue to begin. They were transparent companions whose intentions were never in doubt. Gods, flowers, words—why, I could see right through them! Nor did they waver into or out of focus or leave even an inch of the surround blank. Whereas people batted thoughts and feelings like badminton birdies at you, a whir that might take you by surprise, that you might not even see but that you were expected to return until the air began to go white, the gods made no such demands. They propped themselves up on gold elbows and lazily turned their wide, smiling faces down on you. When their glance locked with yours their eyebeams lit up. In an instant you were they, they you, gods mortal and mortals divine, the mutual regard a reflecting pool into which everything substantial would soon melt and flow. When I was twelve, the year after I began my German classes, the boys I knew started playing a violent game called “Squirrel” (“Grab his nuts and run”). Guys who’d scarcely acknowledged me until now were suddenly thrashing, twisting muscles in my arms, their breath panting peanut butter right up into my face, my hands sliding over their silky skin just above the rough denim … and now his gleaming crotch buttons were pressing down on me as his knees burned into my biceps and I put off shouting “Uncle” one more second in order to inhale once again the terrible smell of his sweat. Or the light was dying and piles of burning leaves streaked the air with the smoky breath of the very earth. My hands were raw with cold, my nose was running, I was late for supper, my shirt was torn, but still I called him back again and again by shouting, “I’m not sorry. I just said that. I’m not sorry, I’m—” “Look, you little creep”—his voice was much lower, he was a year older, he came at me, really mad this time, I didn’t want his anger, just his body on top of me and his arms around me.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  I suppose I never wondered where Blanche or Charles went at night; when it was convenient to do so, I still thought of the world as a well-arranged place where people did work that suited them and lived in houses appropriate to their tastes and needs. But once Blanche called us in the middle of an August night and my father, stepmother and I rushed to her aid. In the big Cadillac we breasted our way into unknown streets through the crowds of naked children playing in the tumult of water liberated from a fireplug (“Stop that!” I shouted silently at them, outraged and frightened. “That’s illegal!”). Past the stoops crowded with grownups playing cards and drinking wine. In one glaring doorway a woman stood, holding her diapered baby against her, a look of stoic indignation on her young face, a face one could imagine squeezing out tears without ever changing expression or softening the wide, fierce eyes, set jaw, everted lower lip. The smell of something delicious—charred meat, maybe, and maybe burning honey—filled the air. “Roll up your windows, for Chrissake, and lock the doors,” my father shouted at us. “Dammit, use your heads—don’t you know this place is dangerous as hell!” A bright miner’s lamp, glass globe containing a white fire devoid of blues and yellows, dangled from the roof of a vendor’s cart; he was selling food of some sort to children. Even through the closed windows I could hear the babble of festive, delirious radios. A seven-foot skinny man in spats, shades, an electric-green shantung suit and a flat-brimmed white beaver hat with a matching green band strolled in front of our car and patted our fender with elaborate mockery. “I’ll kill the bastard,” Dad shouted. “I swear I’ll kill that goddamn ape if he scratches my fender.” “Oh-h-h …” my stepmother sang on a high note I’d never heard before. “You’ll get us all killed. Honey, my heart.” The man, who my father told us was a “pimp” (whatever that might be), bowed to unheard applause, pulled his hat down over one eye like a Parisian and ambled on, letting us pass. We hurried up five flights of dirty, broken stairs, littered with empty pint bottles, bags of garbage and two dolls (both white, I noticed, and blond and mutilated), past landings and open doors, which gave me glimpses of men playing cards and, across the hall, a grandmother alone and asleep in an armchair with antimacassars. Her radio was playing that Negro music. Her brown cotton stockings had been rolled down below her black knees. Blanche we found wailing and shouting, “My baby, my baby!” as she hopped and danced in circles of pain around her daughter, whose hand, half lopped off, was spouting blood. My father gathered the girl up in his arms and we all rushed off to the emergency room of a hospital.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  Eric’s just so damned irresponsible with his finances. He makes enough. In case you don’t remember, he’s got a college degree. He does computer programming for a company in town. He just doesn’t know how to manage his money. Half the time he doesn’t record his debits, though I paddle his butt every time an overdraft notice comes in. It really pisses me off. I’ve never bounced a check in my life. Personally, I think that’s because when I was a kid, I got turned over my pop’s knee whenever I screwed up. Eric had never been disciplined a day in his life until he met me. The week after we moved out here, Eric’s car died and he needed another one to get back and forth to work. His credit is so bad that the bank wouldn’t finance him. Can’t say as I blame them. When I finally agreed to cosign for the loan, I made it clear it was one thing for him to screw up his own credit, but he was not going to mess with mine. I was real blunt about it. I told him if he was so much as one day late on a payment, just one day, I’d take a switch to him. He agreed. I thought this time he’d manage to be responsible. After five years together, I suppose I should have known better. Things went along pretty well for a couple of months. The new place is everything we’ve always wanted: out in the country, the upstairs half of an old farmhouse; no neighbors to speak of, except for the Pulaskis, a retired couple—our landlords—who live downstairs. We’ll be watching the place for them in the winter while they’re in Florida. Hell, there’s even room for my vegetable garden. I have to admit, I’ve been feeling pretty damned domestic. Then last Friday afternoon, Eric pulled into the driveway just as I was getting out of my car. Usually he gets home a half hour or so after me, so I figured something was up. He sounded real nonchalant when we walked in the door. That made me suspicious, especially after he hurried up the driveway ahead of me so he’d be the one getting the mail. I pretended to be busy while he sorted through the day’s delivery, mostly junk, but out of the corner of my eye I saw one of those yellow Insufficient Funds envelopes I’d learned to recognize from his earlier exploits. Eric paled and put the envelope in his pocket, but he didn’t say anything, just went back to the bedroom to get out of his work clothes. I could feel myself starting to get hot. I knew his car payment had been due that week, but I decided to wait and see what he’d do. I’d changed and was reheating the spaghetti sauce for dinner when Eric finally came back into the kitchen. He leaned up against the counter next to me.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  At a press conference, the chief of police—whose refrain for opposing hiring gay cops had been What-about-when-they-deal-with-boys?—offered to discuss sex—“tomorrow.” There was much joking about the cops and the hypocrisy exposed. “Since when does there have to be violence in order for sexual misconduct to occur? Many a child molester is a kindly old soul,” read a letter in the Los Angeles Times. Another: “Comforting to learn that the officers have been permitted to remain on duty—hopefully protecting us from gay bars, nude beaches, and massage parlors.” And: “For those of us liberals who wanted heterosexuals to have an opportunity to prove themselves worthy of public trust, this has been a sad year: … heterosexual sex scandals in the U.S. Congress … heterosexual sex scandals in the Los Angeles Police Department.” Amid the understandable glee in the gay community, there was much bitterness: Had 30 gay scoutmasters been allegedly involved with 6 teenage boys, would any police spokesman have insisted there was “no sex scandal”? Would the investigation have been conducted quietly? Would the accused still be employed instead of having been taken, handcuffed, to jail cells and released, if at all, on staggering bails? Would it have mattered that the boys had given their consent—might even have sought out the scoutmasters? That there had been no violence? That there were no outraged parents? No. The police would have generated the outrage, names and photographs would have been released, television cameras would have explored campgrounds for discarded bubblegum wrappers, cops would lecture against the gay menace. There would not have been a promised discussion of the sex scandal … “tomorrow”—it would have been discussed yesterday, today, and tomorrow and tomorrow. The reality was that straight cops were involved in the scandal. The matter had been exposed only because of the chance-taking of an obscure newspaper and a daring reporter. From news story to news story it was becoming clear that the legal charges against the men involved were fading fast. (Misdemeanor—not felony—charges were finally filed against 5 cops, now identified and ranging in age from twenty-four to thirty-four, for unlawful sexual intercourse and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. A one-year statute of limitations had precluded possible prosecution of any of the others; several were relieved of their duties, some suspended pending hearings, and one was totally cleared.) But the frantic hypocrisy of memorandums and rationalized bigotry, of frenzied speeches warning of the danger of gay police officers in dealing with children—that had been revealed.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  The figure presented an increase of 17.5% over 1974 figures.” —Los Angeles Times , January 7, 1976 “The Los Angeles City Attorney's … office now handles up to 500 gay-bar arrests a year, and many of them … involve offenses no more serious than patrons holding hands or dancing together.” —Los Angeles Times , Editorial, April 24, 1974 ELDERLY WOMAN RAPED, ROBBED “An elderly woman was raped and robbed in her West Hollywood apartment, police said. It was the 37th such incident in Los Angeles’ West Side since police began their search for the so-called West Side Rapist in November, 1974.” —Los Angeles Times , May 10, 1976 “We used to have to stake out in [a certain public] restroom—a lovely job, you can imagine. Talk about where have all the flowers gone, let me tell you. So we would have to make arrests down there, and one gay painted a sign on the wall—an arrow—and it said: ‘Vice Cops Watch Here.’ And it pointed up to a screen on the wall where, indeed, we would be concealed…. The L.A.P.D. has always maniacally prosecuted vice and victimless crimes far beyond what they have to do…. Well, the police will beat up anybody…. Let me tell you about reality…. If a guy [arrested] hits you, being a human being … you hit him back, only you don't hit him back once, you hit him back three times or four or five or however many it takes to get the rage out of your system, because you're a human being…. He knocks one tooth out, you knock all his teeth out…. Just life. So when a gay says: ‘Cops beat us up.

• From Escape (2007)

  “I really don’t care if Barbara’s upset with me,” I said to Tammy. “If she wants privacy when her babies are born, she can allow me the same.” Little did I know I’d launched a war. Tammy went to see Barbara at the clinic the next morning. She told her I didn’t want any of my sister wives coming to the birth of my babies and that I felt none of them had the right to invade my privacy. Exactly. Barbara was furious. She said the only reason she had private births was that Merril felt it was required in her situation but not for any of his other wives. What right did I have to say who could be present when my babies were born? Tammy came back intending to continue the argument from the night before. She said Barbara felt I was in outright rebellion and needed to be disciplined. Barbara said that if I was uncomfortable with just a few people in the delivery room, then she would ensure that many people were there as punishment. Once Merril sanctioned this, she said I’d have no right to object. A month later I heard Tammy paging me on the intercom. She said Cathleen, who was due to give birth any day, had gone to the clinic in Hildale. Merril wanted all the wives to come and visit her, but Tammy said she wasn’t going to give birth until the next day. When I got to the clinic I was surprised not to find anyone in the waiting room. One of the women who worked there approached me. “Oh, there you are. Everyone was wondering when you’d get here.” I didn’t understand what she meant at first. “They are back there in the delivery room.” Then it hit me. I’d been tricked. She led me back to a small room in the clinic. It was crammed with people staring at Cathleen, who was in anguished labor. Merril smiled when he saw the shock on my face. He offered me his chair, which was right next to Cathleen. I sat down because my head was spinning. I’d never witnessed another woman give birth and didn’t want to. I was eight months pregnant and terrified by what I was seeing. Cathleen was writhing in pain and grunting and groaning with each intense contraction. People looked at her with disdain. The small room was crammed with Merril and his six wives, plus five or six of his unmarried daughters. It was difficult for Aunt Lydia to move around because the room was so packed.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  All seven of us squeezed into my father’s Cadillac and rolled off into a chilly night gray-blue and streaked with the smell of burning wood. My stepmother, Mrs. Cork and Kevin and I were in the back seat; Peter was soon sleeping on his father’s shoulder up front, as my father drove. The dinner had left me bleak with rage. Something (books, perhaps) had given me a quite different idea of how people should talk and feed. I entertained fancy ideas about elegant behavior and cuisine and friendship. When I grew up I would always be frank, loving and generous. We’d feast on iced grapes and wine; we’d talk till dawn about the heart and listen to music. I don’t belong here, I shouted at them silently. I wanted to run through surf or speed off with a brilliant blond in a convertible or rhapsodize on a grand piano somewhere in Europe. Or I wanted the white and gold doors to open as my loving, true but not-yet-found friends came toward me, their gently smiling faces lit from below by candles on the cake. This longing for lovers and friends was so full within me that it could spill over at any provocation—from listening to my own piano rendition of a waltz, from looking at a reproduction of two lovers in kimonos and tall clogs under an umbrella shielding them from slanted lines of snow or from sensing a change of seasons (the first smell of spring in winter, say). Once, when I was Kevin’s age, I’d wanted my father to love me and take me away. I had sat night after night outside his bedroom door in the dark, crazy with fantasies of seducing him, eloping with him, covering him with kisses as we shot through space against a night field flowered with stars. But now I hated him and felt he was what I must run away from. To be sure, had he pulled the car off the highway right now and turned to say he loved me, I would have taken his hand and walked with him away from the stunned vehicle that creaked as it cooled, our only spoor the sparks flying from Dad’s cigar.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  In Boulder, Colorado, a university town with a reputation for easy-going liberalism, voters rejected by a 2-to-1 margin an ordinance that would have forbidden job discrimination against homosexuals…. “[In the fight in New York City] the Uniformed Fire Officers, in a $10,000 ad campaign, charged that it ‘would force an employer to hire a pervert… expose our children to the influence of sodomites … destroy the teamwork of the fire department … permit sodomites, perverts, and deviates to live and work where they choose.’ The archdiocese newspaper Catholic News called homosexuality ‘a menace to family life….’” — Newsweek , May 20, 1975 CHURCHES REVIEW ATTITUDE ON ‘GAYS’ “… The American Lutheran Church drew some fire recently when it was learned that a $2,000 grant was made to the gay caucus in its ranks…. Tor a major board of one of the country's major denominations to identify through its budget with an organization promoting blatant transgression of the revealed word of Cod is a sign of a sinking back to the level of official immorality …. ’” —Los Angeles Times , July 7, 1975 “A last and particularly important finding [based on a study of the effects of liberalized laws in certain states], given the present concern for crime control, was that 50% of the police reported that decriminalizing private homosexual behavior had allowed them to spend more time on serious crime….” —Los Angeles Times , Op-Ed Page, October 16, 1975 INTELLIGENCE UNIT RULES ELUDE POLICE PANELISTS “… The current 1975-76 PDID [Public Disorder Intelligence Division, a Los Angeles police division which gathers information on dissident groups and individuals] budget of $3.26 million pays for 91 sworn personnel and 15 civilians. This is nearly double the number of sworn personnel—52—assigned to robbery-homicide and compares with 44 assigned to burglary-auto theft, 63 to bunco-forgery, 144 to administrative narcotics, and 72 to administrative vice.” —Los Angeles Times , December 28, 1975 BURGLARIES ON RISE, D.A. SAYS “Substantial increases in burglaries during the last ten years in both the city and county of Los Angeles were reported…. In the city, the volume of burglaries climbed from 50,771 in 1965 to 67,799 in 1975. Last year 22.1% were solved.” —Los Angeles Times , December 5, 1975 HOMICIDES LEAD 3.6% JUMP IN LA. CRIME RATE “… Homicides in Los Angeles rose to 619—the first time murders had topped 600 for a year.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  He would not have considered it had Farnland not mentioned to him that his former apprentice ran PNB and would be interested in seeing some of Charles’s tape if it included parts of this new work. It was a blatant quid pro quo, Charles knew. Don’t say anything about fondling the little boys and he could have a chance to dance for PNB, which was not a great company, it was true, though it was a little better than he could otherwise reasonably hope for. But the knee, which had started to burn at the start of fall, now throbbed regularly. “Maybe you should take it easy. Lay off,” Farnland said with real human kindness in his voice. Charles watched Farnland’s hand rise just a little, like he meant to reach out for him. Charles shifted away at the thought of that touch, and Farnland’s hand fell back into place. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m more than fine. I’ll live.” “We can get Viktor to dance for you. It’s no problem. He’d probably love it. No need for you to make it worse just for a rehearsal.” Charles cleared his throat and stood a little taller. He summoned what heat he had left burning in him and bore down on the choreographer. “It’s mine,” he said. “I’ll dance it.” “You could have a long career, Charles. Teaching. Dancing isn’t the only thing.” The choreographer slapped Charles’s thigh with the back of his hand—“Think about it. Don’t be dumb. You know how many teachers end up gimps? And why?” “I’m doing your faggy little dance. Ease off.” Farnland wet his lips as though he had received something appetizing. Charles watched his eyes go glossy and distant. It was the same expression that came across Farnland’s face during rehearsals when he watched Viktor shadow Charles, learning the overly emotive choreography of the middle section. It was supposed to be drawn from The Four Temperaments but lacked that piece’s emotional reserve. On Viktor, Farnland’s choreography was hectic, scattered. On Charles, because he lacked Viktor’s speed, it had a certain gravitas. Or so Charles liked to think. But during rehearsal last week, he had looked up to see Farnland watching Viktor as he made some adjustments to the ending combination. That same distant, wantful gloss of the eyes, the subtle shifting of the lips as the music wound up to its slow conclusion. “Well, just remember, we’re all after the same thing.” “Right. Pathos .” “Fucker,” Farnland said, but then he smiled, showing Charles his teeth, gnarly and green-yellow. Charles smiled back. Pathos was what Farnland had called his “dumb number.” It was, he said often during rehearsal, art’s most noble pursuit. One evening, one of the other dancers had jokingly said, What about ethos? And Farnland, from a seated position, had flung a hard-shell water bottle at her head. Then he’d shouted them all down for ten minutes about making snide little remarks and the terrors of their generation.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  Danny. VOICE OVER: Consenting Adults, Explorer Scout Girls, and Glittering Bisexuals VOICE OVER: Consenting Adults, Explorer Scout Girls, and Glittering Bisexuals 1 “J UDGMENT AFFIRMED .” With only two words, the Supreme Court said that homosexuals are not necessarily entitled to the right of privacy ensured by the Constitution. It did so tacitly by allowing to stand, without hearing, a decision of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia upholding a Virginia statute making homosexual acts between consenting adults, even in private, a crime punishable with up to three years' imprisonment and not less than one. The state has the overriding freedom to promote “morality and decency,” their honors declared, adding, “We cannot say that the statute offends the Bill of Rights.” The case was brought up by “John Doe” plaintiffs to test a statute declaring anal and oral sex a felony, whether in public or private. Because the statute did not differentiate between heterosexual and homosexual acts, the two-man majority on the Virginia court of three judges—one dissenting—clearly had to skirt the issue of concurrently barring such acts for heterosexuals. This it did gingerly by arguing that in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), which the plaintiffs had used as their primary basis for argument and in which the Supreme Court struck down a statute forbidding the use of contraceptives, their decision had asserted the right of privacy only in marriage . So much for that. Now they could deal with homosexuals: “… since [homosexuality] is obviously no portion of marriage, home or family life,” the majority opinion thus ignored gay fathers, gay mothers, gay children, “the … question is whether there is any ground for barring Virginia from branding it as criminal. If a State determines that punishment therefor, even when committed in the home, is appropriate in the promotion of morality and decency, it is not for the courts to say that the State is not free to do so.… Fundamentally the State action is simply directed to the suppression of crime.…” “Moreover … the State is not required to show that moral delinquency actually results from homosexuality,” the judges somersaulted. “It is enough … to establish that the conduct is likely to end in a contribution to moral delinquency.… It would indeed be impracticable to prove the actuality of such a consequence,” they acknowledged, but, fuck it, “the law is not so exacting,” their honors snapped testily.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  Lost jobs, broken families. Constant fear. Rage. A priest tries to organize a “Homosexuals Anonymous.” Thou may want to, but thou shalt not actually fuck or suck. It results immediately in a suicide attempt. Two adult males are followed by cops to a completely secluded dark area. After minutes, the cops flash lights into the car, pull the men out, beat them. Convicted of sodomy, the two are sentenced to eight years in prison. The Supreme Court refuses them a hearing. Cowardly punks crushed tightly in hot cars, hot knees touching hot knees in hateful intimacy, throw rocks, bottles, and refuse at cars in cruising areas. “Fags!” they scream, echoing the cops and looking forward to the night they will bring guns with them. Rage at law as criminal, doctors as perpetrators of sick myths. Religion as killer. Rage at the selective use of Biblical scripture to condone hatred. The only main minority never to receive even token acknowledgment on a major-party platform is the homosexual minority. Even the vague phrase “sexual preference” has been knocked out. “You are polluted and filthy, ” reads a pamphlet clrculated at gay gatherings by “Jesus people.” “You will not be gay in hell, but tormented far worse than in this life.” “Homosexual acts are inherently immoral, abnormal, perverted, disgraceful, degenerate, degrading, and criminal,” screeches an “Information Paper” issued by a Los Angeles Deputy Chief of Police for wide police and “constituent” circulation. The victim of a mugging becomes the criminal if he's gay. An easily claimed homosexual advance is an acceptable defense for murder: “1 beat the queer because he tried to make me, sir.” “KILL FAGS!”—words scratched on walls of Hollywood toilets. In this context the sexual outlaw flourishes. The pressures produce him, create his defiance. Knowing that each second his freedom may be ripped away arbitrarily, he lives fully at the brink. Promiscuity is his righteous form of revolution. No stricture—legal, medical, religious—will ever stop him. It will only harden his defiance. Neither sinful, criminal, nor sick—he knows that to try to force him not to be a homosexual is sinful, criminal, and sick—and as impossible as forcing a heterosexual not to be a heterosexual. Why is the homosexual hated? Since he is not a child molester nor a seducer of the unwilling, how does he threaten the straight world? He weakens the “moral fabric”? Did Michelangelo? Da Vinci? Socrates? Did Proust? Did Shakespeare with the sonnets? Did Tchaikovsky? Do we threaten survival of the species? We provide a stopgap against a dangerously burgeoning population. What is the real reason for the hatred? I pause in my talk to this mixed group. Soon I'll go on to define what I believe is the real “gay threat.” Now I look at the audience, and to the homosexuals here I want to say: “You have an untested insurrectionary power that can bring down their straight world.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  “Uh, Steve?” He was looking really nervous and tried to cover it by fiddling with the salt shaker. “Um, I had a little problem with the bank today. Nothing serious,” he said quickly, like he was trying to reassure me. “I took care of it already. But I figured I’d better tell you. You’re busy. We can talk about it later.” Eric was nodding a lot as he talked. As he finished he turned like he was going to walk back into the other room. He froze in midstep when I turned the sauce off and said, “I’m not busy at all. What’s up?” I think he recognized the chill in my voice. I was trying to keep my temper under control, even though I was relieved he was being man enough to admit having screwed up. Honesty is important to me, especially now that we have a home life together. But damn, I was mad at that boy. The week before he’d bought another fancy new video game. I was willing to bet money he hadn’t recorded the transaction, at least until it was too late. Eric hemmed and hawed around the topic, but he finally confessed to writing a bad check for the car payment because—you guessed it—he hadn’t recorded the other debit and a couple more besides. He’d suddenly remembered that morning, but by then it was too late. “I transferred the money from savings though,” he said, still nodding vigorously. “The bank said the payment is credited as of today, so it’s all taken care of. There’s nothing for you to worry about.” “But my credit record still shows a late payment on a loan I cosigned for,” I said coldly. “Well, yeah,” he blushed. “But like I said, I took care of it.” “Then there’s something else we need to take care of,” I said sternly. “What did I tell you would happen if you were late?” “Now Steve, th-there’s no cause to be hasty,” he stammered. His eyes were big as an owl’s. I could tell he was nervous, but I wasn’t in the mood to put up with any of his guff. Times like this, I really wish his father had done his job. “I’m not being hasty, boy,” I said. “I’m angry. And you’re going to get what’s coming to you. Go downstairs and get a switch from the poplar tree.” “Dammit, Steve! It’s just a car payment!” he fumed. “Yes, it is.” I said coldly. “One that you purchased using my credit, and now I’ve got a late payment on my record. I warned you, Eric. I told you what I’d do if this happened, but you didn’t pay one lick of attention. Now you go downstairs and get a switch, or so help me, boy, if I have get it myself, I’ll break it over your butt!”