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 324 of 447 · 20 per page

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  Consider the case of John, middle-aged, paranoid, and mildly retarded. Having once been attacked in a shelter for the homeless, he thereafter avoided state-sponsored shelters and slept outside. John knew the magic hospital-opening words, and often on cold, wet nights, usually around midnight, he would scratch his wrists in front of an emergency room and threaten deeper wounds unless the state found him a safe, private sleeping space. But no agency had the authority to provide twenty dollars for a room, and since the emergency room physician could not be certain—that is, medically and legally certain—that John would not make a serious suicide attempt if he were forced to sleep in the shelter, he spent many nights a year sleeping soundly in a $700-a-day hospital room, courtesy of an inept and inhumane medical insurance system. The contemporary practice of brief psychiatric hospitalization works only if there is an adequate posthospital outpatient program. Nonetheless, in 1972 Governor Ronald Reagan with one bold, brilliant stroke abolished mental illness in California by not only closing the large state psychiatric hospitals but also eradicating most of the public aftercare programs. As a result hospital staffs were forced, day after day, to go through the charade of treating patients and discharging them back into the same noxious setting that had necessitated their hospitalization. It was like suturing up wounded soldiers and sending them back into the fray. Imagine breaking your ass taking care of patients—initial workup interviews, daily rounds, presentations to the attending psychiatrists, staff planning sessions, medical student workups, writing orders in the hospital charts, daily therapy sessions—knowing all the while that in a couple of days there would be no option but to return them to the same malignant environment that had disgorged them. Back to violent alcoholic families. Back to angry spouses who had long ago run out of love and patience. Back to rag-filled grocery carts. Back to sleeping in moldering cars. Back to the community of cocaine-crazed friends and pitiless dealers awaiting them outside the hospital gates. Question: How do we healers maintain sanity? Answer: Learn to cultivate hypocrisy. So that was how I put in my time. First I learned to muffle my caring—the very beacon that had led me to this calling. Next I mastered the canons of professional survival: avoid involvement—don’t let patients matter too much. Remember they’ll be gone tomorrow. Don’t concern yourself with their postdischarge plans. Remember that small is beautiful—settle for small goals—don’t attempt too much—don’t set yourself up for failure. If therapy group patients learn simply that talking helps, that being closer to others feels good, that they may be of use to others—that’s plenty. Gradually, after several frustrating months of leading groups with new arrivals and discharges every day, I got the hang of it and developed a method of getting the most out of these fragmented group meetings.

• From Reading the Bible from the Margins (2002)

  Because the words “black” and “white” as signs are arbitrarily linked to concepts constructed by a society that conveys its biases, we shouldn't be surprised that this particular nation, steeped in racism since its foundation, would link negative connotations to the word “black” and positive connotations to the word “white.” In the spring of 1997, actor Desi Arnaz Giles received numerous death threats for his starring role in a play based on the life of Jesus Christ. The Passion Play , focusing on the final days of Christ's earthly life, is performed annually and has historically attracted bus groups from the northern New Jersey region. The controversy began after the first performance, when the audience discovered that Giles was black. As word spread, several of these groups canceled.2 Why the uproar? If “black” is defined as evil, wicked, and diabolical, it would be blasphemy to define Jesus, who is pure and spotless, as black. Jesus can be no color but white. A portrait of a Christ who is black becomes offensive because it contradicts the definition our culture has assigned, normalized, and legitimized for the word “black.” IMPOSING TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MEANINGS ON ANCIENT TEXTS What happens when we read the biblical text with eyes formed in the twenty-first century? Do we read into the words found in the ancient biblical text the meanings our present culture has taught us? Consider the example found in Numbers 12. The text states the following: Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had taken for a wife. For he had taken a Cushite woman. They said, “Has Yahweh spoken only to Moses? Has he not also spoken to us?” And Yahweh heard. Now, the man Moses was very meek, more than any man on the face of the earth…. And the anger of Yahweh glowed against them, and he left…. And behold, Miriam was leprous, white as snow. And Aaron turned toward Miriam and behold, she was a leper. Aaron said to Moses, “Oh my lord I beg you, do not lay upon us this sin which we foolishly committed and are guilty of.” (1–3, 9, 10–11) The story is about Moses marrying a black woman, placing his family in an awkward situation. The Cushites were a black ethnic group. According to the text, Moses’ marriage upset his brother Aaron and his sister Miriam. They were so upset that they chose to confront him. They challenged Moses by saying, “Has God spoken only to Moses? Has he not spoken to us?” All three of them then appeared before God, who was surprisingly upset with Moses’ family. The Bible says that God was so mad that he inflicted Miriam with leprosy, turning her skin “white as snow.” God punished Miriam by making her white! Note: Why didn't God also punish Aaron for speaking out against Moses? Why is the woman punished and the male spared? Regardless, God relented after her brothers pleaded for mercy.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  “If he says he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it,” my mother said. “He doesn’t lie.” “Well, I don’t either!” The vice-principal rocked forward onto his feet. He opened the door and beckoned to the weed fiends, who were waiting in the outer office. They came in together and after a hangdog glance in my direction serially mumbled their dismal narrative at the floor, while I looked at them with brazen incredulity. When they were done the vice-principal gave them passes and sent them out. He was acting very much in control now, very much on top of the situation. “They’re lying,” I said. His placidity fell off like a mask. “Why?” he asked. “Give me one reason.” “I don’t know,” I said, “but they are.” “We’re not getting anywhere,” my mother said. “I think I’d better talk to the principal.” The vice-principal said that he had been given full authority in this case. He was in charge. We’d better realize that what he said went. But my mother would not be moved. And in the end we got in to see the principal. The principal was a furtive, whey-faced man who feared children and avoided us by staying in his office all day. He was right to avoid us. He wore his weakness in a way that excited belligerence and cruelty. When my mother and I came into his office, he insisted on making small talk with her as if she had just dropped by to see how things were going. At one point he leaned over and peered at my fingers. “Is that nicotine?” he asked. “No sir.” “I hope not.” He leaned back. His jacket parted, revealing green suspenders. “Let me tell you a story,” he said. “Take it for what it’s worth. I’m not accusing you of anything, but if you hear something you can use, so much the better.” He smiled and made a steeple of his fingers. “I used to smoke cigarettes. I started smoking in college because of peer pressure, and before I knew it I was up to a couple of packs a day. Those were real cigarettes, too, not with the filters like you have now. The first thing I would do when I woke up in the morning was reach for a cigarette, and I always had a cigarette before I went to bed at night.

• From Reading the Bible from the Margins (2002)

  In his parable of the Vineyard Owner, Jesus attempts to teach economic justice so that all can have life abundantly. He recognized that it was not the laborers’ fault that they failed to obtain employment for that day. They awoke in the early predawn, walked to the spot where potential employers came to find workers, and waited. Regardless of whether they were chosen to work or not, they still needed a denarius to meet their basic needs: food, shelter, clothing. To be chosen to work for only half a day and to be paid half a denarius was insufficient. Half a denarius meant that several family members would not eat that day. Only an uncaring and unmerciful heart will declare it just that these laborers leave without being able to meet their basic needs because, through no fault of their own, they were unable to find a job. The biblical teaching is that those who are economically privileged, like the vineyard owner, must remain responsible for those who are not. As important as the metaphorical rendering of the parable of the Vineyard Owner may be, just as important, if not more so, is the material reading. For those living under an economic system that commodifies time, justice is defined as a set pay for a set number of hours worked. However, Jesus defines justice as insuring that each worker obtains a living wage, regardless of the hours worked, so that all can share in the abundant life. It did not matter how many hours a laborer worked; what mattered was that, at the end of the day, she or he took home a living wage so that the entire family could survive for another day. It was the worker's responsibility to labor; it was the employer's responsibility that the employee left work with enough. What does this say about our present system, where, if a person works full-time at the minimum hourly wage, he or she will earn several thousand dollars below what the U.S. government has determined to be the poverty level? Simply stated, the Scriptures have little patience with those who are rich and ignore the plight of the poor, even when the rich are not necessarily responsible for the poverty. Examine another parable, the one about Lazarus and the rich man. According to Luke 16:19–31, there once lived a man of great wealth who feasted only on the best each day. At the gate of his mansion lay a poor man called Lazarus, who was covered with sores and dreamed of the day he could dine on the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Both men died. Lazarus was carried by angels to the bosom of Abraham, but the rich man was sent to hell to be tormented. The rich man, seeing Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, pleaded for mercy. He asked to have a few drops of water placed on his tongue to cool the agony of the flames.

• From Reading the Bible from the Margins (2002)

  They are 1 Corinthians, “Let the women in the churches be silent, for it is not allowed for them to speak, but let them be subjected as also the Law says. But if they desire to learn anything, let them question their own husbands at home, for it is a shame for women to speak in church” (14:34–35). And 1 Timothy, “Let a woman learn in silence, in all subjection. But I do not allow her to teach, nor to exercise authority over a man, but rather to be in silence” (2:11–14). Yet Paul subverted his own words by his recognition of the roles women held and by the guidelines he established for women leaders. While the passages from 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy are constantly used to continue the silencing of women within the Christian church, numerous other passages that recognize women's leadership are ignored. The question is not whether women can serve as leaders but how Paul can make these statements when he praises so many women leaders. Paul was familiar with the sign of the new church proclaimed by Peter in Acts, “‘In the last days,’ says God, ‘I will pour from my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy’” (2:17). The Greek word translated into “prophesy” can better be understood as “preach,” when interpreted in its strictest biblical sense. The word “prophesy” is less concerned with predicting some future events than with proclaiming God's words to God's people so that the body of believers know what is required of them. The pouring out of God's Spirit is marked by both men and women preaching God's word, an action that is prohibited due to sexism in many churches that claim to be filled with the Spirit of God. Yet, during Paul's time, leaders of the church consisted of those who preached the Good News, as in the case of prophets (preachers) and teachers who acted as local leaders, those who managed and ran a church from their home, as in the case of overseers (pastors), and those who traveled from city to city evangelizing, as in the case of apostles (the English transliteration from the Greek means “one who is sent out”). Women throughout the book of Acts and Paul's letters occupied all of these positions, subverting the patriarchal interpretations usually given to the passages, found in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy, that called for the silent submission of women. Paul knew of women who served as church starters, as in the case of Lydia of Philippi (Acts 16:11–12); as teachers, as in the case of Priscilla, one of Apollos’ instructors (Acts 18:24–28); as preachers, as in the case of the four daughters of Philip (Acts 21:8–9); and as church elders (presbyteros) ,10 as in the case of the elected lady (2 John 1–5). Additionally, Paul sent his greetings and encouragements to women who served as deacons, as in the case of Phoebe (Rom.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  Deliberately, without speaking, Dr. Lee looked over at her, all the while tossing the chalk into the air and catching it a couple of times. Finally he turned and wrote Paula’s suggestions on the board. Although I thought them not unreasonable, I knew—and knew that everyone else knew—that as Dr. Lee watched the tumbling chalk, he was thinking, Somebody, anybody, please get that old lady out of here! Later, at lunch, he referred to Paula contemptuously as an evangelist. Although Dr. Lee was an eminent oncologist whose support and referrals were essential to the project, I risked antagonizing him and defended her staunchly by emphasizing her critical importance in the formation and functioning of the groups. Though I failed to alter his impression of her, I felt proud of myself for standing by her. That evening Paula phoned me. She was furious. “All of the medical professionals at the workshop are automatons, inhumane automatons. We patients who struggle with cancer twenty-four hours a day—what are we to them? I’ll tell you: we are nothing more than ‘maladaptive coping strategies.’” I spoke with her for a long time and did all I could to mollify her. I tried to suggest gently that she not stereotype the doctors and urged her to be patient. Affirming my loyalty to the principles with which we had started the group, I concluded, “Remember, Paula, none of this makes any difference because I have my own research plan. I’m not going to be controlled by their mechanistic perspective. Trust me!” But Paula was not to be mollified, nor, as it turned out, would she trust me. The workshop festered in her mind. For weeks she ruminated about it and finally directly accused me of selling out to the bureaucracy. She submitted a minority report of one to the National Cancer Institute, and it did not lack vigor or rancor. Finally, one day Paula came into my office and announced that she had decided to leave the group. “Why?” “Well, I’m just tired of it.” “Paula, there’s more to it than that. What’s the real reason?” “I told you, I’m tired of it.” No matter how I probed, she continued to insist on that excuse, though we both knew that the real reason was that I had disappointed her. I used all my cunning (and after all my years of practice, I knew a few ways to get around people), but to no avail. Each of my attempts, including some ill-advised bantering and appeals to our long friendship, was greeted by an icy glare. I had no more rapport with her and had to endure the sorrow of a deceptive discussion. “I’m just working too hard. It’s too much for me,” she said.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  She motioned to a man standing to one side, who was gesturing with his free hand while he spoke quickly into his phone. I’m so sorry, I said, do you need anything, is there anything I can do, but she shrugged this away. Does S. need a doctor, I asked, should we take him, but he cut me off, Ne , he said loudly, not moving or lowering his hand from his eye, he was pressing a bag of ice to it, I saw now, and the woman shrugged again. The cowards, the woman said, they were here and then they were gone, in their stupid masks. And what they said to us, they told us we were spreading trash, there are children here, they said, they said we were being—and she paused, looking at the others as she said bezsramni , shameless. Indecent, K. said then, they said we were indecent, they called us dirty queers. She spoke quietly, despite the noise of the protests, she spoke without anger or any trace of emotion; I could see why her children found her such a comfort. They’re fucking liars, S. said, pulling away from K. to sit upright, though she kept one arm around him. He lowered the bag from his eye, but in the dark I couldn’t see how bad it was, whether he was really hurt. Obedineni sme , he said, quoting one of their slogans, but we’re not united, they don’t want to be united with us. It’s all the same, he said, all this work and it’s always the same. No, K. said in her calm voice, no, that’s not true, you know that’s not true, but he snapped at her, he pulled away and said angrily It is true, it is true. He had been sitting with his legs stretched out but now he pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. I’m so stupid, he said, I thought it would be different here, I thought these were the good people, the better people, they say they hate the Nazis from Ataka but they’re all the same, to us they’re all the same, they hate us, he said, speaking more loudly now, they hate us, I don’t understand it but they’ll always hate us. I hate them too, he said, they’ll never change, I hate this fucking country. Mrazya vi , he said then, louder still, I hate you.

• From Reading the Bible from the Margins (2002)

  Nevertheless, by the time of Amos, large luxurious houses were found on one side of town while smaller and poorer houses were clustered together on the other side, similar to what can be found in any major city or community in the United States. A small segment of the population lived in complacency, blind to the marginalization of their compatriots; they enjoyed the security of wealth accumulated through a social structure designed to enrich them at the expense of others. Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who place their trust on the mountains of Samaria;…those lying on beds of ivory, and those sprawled on their couches; those eating lambs from the flock and stall-fattened veal. They howl to the harp, they invent new instruments of music like David. They drink bowls of wine, and anoint themselves with the best oils, but they do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph! (6:1, 4–6) At this point in history, during the reign of Jeroboam II, Israel was at the zenith of its power. It was militarily and economically secure and faced no immediate foreign threat, much like the United States after the Cold War. In the midst of this false security, a voice was raised from the underside of Israel, which thought itself a religious nation and took its economic success as proof of God's blessing, that judgment was about to befall it for refusing to establish justice. For this reason Amos was considered a threat to those in positions of power and, as such, had to be dismissed, a task undertaken by the priest of Bethel, Amaziah. Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent word to Jeroboam, king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is unable to endure all his words!”…And to Amos Amaziah said, “Go, O seer, flee to your own land Judah, and eat there your bread and do your prophesying. Do no more prophesying at Bethel, for this is the royal city which contains the national sanctuary.” (7:10, 12–13) Amos serves as an exemplar of the mission undertaken by all of the biblical prophets. The message of Amos, along with the rest of the Hebrew prophets, denounces injustice. God reveals concern for those who are marginalized and is angered by the injustices committed against them. Thus says Yahweh, “For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not withdraw from my decree: they sold for silver the just, and the poor for a pair of sandals. They trample upon the dust of the earth and the heads of the helpless, and divert the path of the humble.” (2:6–7) Consequently, God not only calls for justice but stands against the oppressors, even if they are Jews and members of the chosen people. For those who refuse to establish justice, God swears an oath not to side with them.

• From Reading the Bible from the Margins (2002)

  What Malcolm X called “the American nightmare,” which all African descendants growing up in the United States face, should not be minimized; still, it is important to expand the concept of racism to encompass other racial groups that face similar racist structures. For, in the mind of the white center, “colored” refers to anyone who is not white, that is, from European stock. While African Americans served as slaves in the antebellum South, Amerindians faced systematic genocide throughout the West, and Latino/as were brutalized throughout the Southwest. Asians also experienced everything from murder while the transcontinental railroad was being built (so as to avoid paying them wages) to concentration camps in the early 1940s during the Second World War. And Jews were always viewed with suspicion, at times becoming the targets of hate crimes and mob violence. Any discussion of racism must move beyond a black-and-white dichotomy to explore how the Bible has been read to justify the oppression of these historically oppressed groups within the United States. African Americans According to the U.S. Constitution, written in 1787, in determining political representation, nonwhites were to be counted as three-fifths of a person (Art. 1, Sec. 2.3). Legal, economic, and political mechanisms were established by the young republic to maintain a viable institution, even though many people of African descent gave their lives fighting for liberty in the Revolutionary War. Normalizing slavery as an institution also required some sort of religious legitimation. The men who penned the Constitution also held the power to make their worldview, including their reading of the Bible, normative for the entire fledgling nation. Biblical interpretations are dependent on who is doing the reading and the interpreting. For the dominant culture, as we have seen in the first chapter , black is defined as impure, a definition that “colors” how the Bible is read. This definition influences how Euroamericans interpret the role of blacks in the Bible. If black is equated with sin, then the Bible is read in a way that promotes this presupposition. For example, some still maintain that the mark of Cain was blackness. Cain, you will recall, slew his brother Abel out of jealousy. When confronted by God, Cain feared that others would take vengeance for his deed. In an effort to protect Cain from being killed, the Bible states that God placed a mark upon him. According to Genesis: “And Yahweh set a mark on Cain so that anyone who found him should not kill him” (4:15). Historically, the mark of Cain was understood as God making Cain black. Similarly, the curse of Ham was also interpreted as blackness. After the flood, Ham gazed upon his father Noah's nakedness while Noah was in a drunken stupor. According to Genesis, when Noah awoke and discovered what Ham had done, he said of Ham's son, “Cursed be Canaan; he shall be a slave of slaves to his brothers” (9:25).

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  BEDE. For He had often declared Himself to be the Christ; as when he said, l and my Father are one, (John 10:30.) and other such like things. And if I also ask you, ye will not answer me. For He had asked them how they said Christ was the Son of David, whereas David in the Spirit called Him his Lord. But they wished neither to believe His words nor to answer His questions. However, because they sought to accuse falsely the seed of David, they hear something still farther; as it follows, Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God. THEOPHYLACT. As if he said, There is no time left to you any longer for discourses and teaching, but hereafter shall be the time of judgment, when ye shall see Me, the Son of man, sitting on the right hand of the power of God. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. Whenever sitting and a throne are spoken of God, His kingly and supreme majesty is signified. For we do not imagine any judgment-seat to be placed, on which we believe the Lord of all takes His seat; nor again, that in any wise right hand or left hand appertain to the Divine nature; for figure, and place, and sitting, are the properties of bodies. But how shall the Son be seen to be of equal honour and to sit together on the same throne, if He is not the Son according to nature, having in Himself the natural property of the Father? THEOPHYLACT. When then they heard this, they ought to have been afraid, but after these words they are the more frantic; as it follows, All said, &c. BEDE. They understood that He called Himself the Son of God in these words, The Son of man shall sit on the right hand of the power of God. AMBROSE. The Lord had rather prove Himself a King than call Himself one, that they might have no excuse for condemning Him, when they confess the truth of that which they lay against Him. It follows, And he said, Ye say that I am. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. When Christ spoke this, the company of the Pharisees were very wroth, uttering shameful words; as it follows, Then said they, What need we any further witness? &c. THEOPHYLACT. Whereby it is manifest, that the disobedient reap no advantage, when the more secret mysteries are revealed to them, but rather incur the heavier punishment. Wherefore such things ought to be concealed from them. CHAPTER 23 23:1–51. And the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate. 2. And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that he himself is Christ a King. 3. And Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answered him and said, Thou sayest it.

• From In the Dream House (2019)

  Dream House as Pop Single A year before I was born, the band ’Til Tuesday, led by Aimee Mann, came out with the single “Voices Carry.” The breathy, haunting song about an abusive relationship was a top-ten hit in the United States. In the music video—which was in heavy rotation in the early days of MTV—the boyfriend is, for lack of a better word, ridiculous. A meathead in gold chains and a muscle shirt, he delivers his aggressively banal dialogue with the subtlety of an after-school special. Throughout the video, he dismantles Aimee piece by piece. At first, he compliments her music and her new hair—punky and platinum, with a rattail. Later, in a restaurant that looks like it was borrowed from a sitcom set, he removes her elaborate earpiece and replaces it with a more traditional earring before playfully chucking her under the chin. There is a shot of Mann behind a gauzy curtain, her face pressed into it with desperation, which cuts to her leaving for band practice. Here he confronts her on the steps of their brownstone; when he grabs her guitar case, she tears out of his grasp. When she returns, he scolds her for her lateness. “You know, this little hobby of yours has gone too far. Why can’t you for once do something for me?” When she speaks for the first time—“Like what?” she asks, tilting her chin upward in a challenge—he attacks her, pushing her against the stairs and forcibly kissing her. At the end of the video, they are sitting in a theater audience at Carnegie Hall. The boyfriend puts his arm around a now-polished Mann —sitting quietly, strung with pearls—before discovering her intact rattail and curling his lip in disgust. Mann begins to sing—softly at first, and then louder as she tears a stylish fascinator off her head. Then she stands up and is screaming, she is scream-singing—“He said ‘Shut up’ / He said ‘Shut up’”—and everyone is turning to look at her. This final scene, Mann said in an interview years later, was inspired by Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, when Doris Day’s character lets loose a bloodcurdling scream during a symphony performance, to foil an assassination. Long after the video came out, in 1999 the song’s producer revealed that the initial demo of the song had used female pronouns—in the original version, Mann was singing about a woman. “The record company was predictably unhappy with such lyrics,” he wrote, “since this was a very powerful, commercial song and they would prefer as many of its components as possible to swim in the acceptable mainstream. I wasn’t certain what to think about the pressure to change the gender of the love interest, but eventually thought that it didn’t matter any to the impact of the song itself. Would a quasi-lesbian song have had any effect on the liberation of such homosexuals, then as now several difficult steps behind the gays on the path towards broad social acceptance?

• From Post Office (1971)

  “… now there’s nothing like the smell of good clean sweat but there’s nothing worse than the smell of stale sweat …” Good god, I thought, am I hearing right? This thing is government sanctioned, surely. This big oaf is telling me to wash under the armpits. They wouldn’t do this to an engineer or a concertmaster. He’s downgrading us. “… so take a bath everyday. You will be graded upon appearance as well as production.” I think he wanted to use the word “hygienics” somewhere but it simply wasn’t in him. Then he went to the back of the lecture platform and pulled down a big map. And I mean big. It covered half the stage. A light was shone upon the map. And the big Italiano took a pointer with the little rubber nipple on the end of it like they used in grammar school and he pointed to the map: “Now, you see all this GREEN? Well, there’s a hell of a lot of it. Look!” He took the pointer and rubbed it back and forth along the green. There was quite a bit more anti-Russian feeling then than there is now. China had not yet begun to flex her muscles. Vietnam was just a little firecracker party. But I still thought, I must be crazy! I can’t be hearing right? But nobody in the audience protested. They needed jobs. And according to Joyce, I needed a job. Then he said, “Look here. That’s Alaska! And there they are! Looks almost as if they could jump across, doesn’t it?” “Yeah,” said some brainwash job in the front row. The Italiano flipped the map. It leaped crisply up into itself, crackling in war fury. Then he walked to the front of the stage, pointed his rubber-titted pointer at us. “I want you to understand that we’ve got to hold down the budget! I want you to understand that EACH LETTER YOU STICK—EACH SECOND, EACH MINUTE, EACH HOUR, EACH DAY, EACH WEEK-EACH EXTRA LETTER YOU STICK BEYOND DUTY HELPS DEFEAT THE RUSSIANS! Now, that’s all for today. Before you leave, each of you will receive your scheme assignment. “ Scheme assignment. What was that? Somebody came along handing out these sheets. “Chinaski?” he said. “Yeh?” “You have zone 9.” “Thank you,” I said. I didn’t realize what I was saying. Zone 9 was the largest station in the city. Some guys got tiny zones. It was the same as the two-foot tray in 23 minutes—they just rammed it into you. 19The next night as they moved the group from the main building to the training building, I stopped to talk to Gus the old newsboy. Gus had once been third-ranked welterweight contender but he never got a look at the champ. He swung from the left side, and, as you know, nobody ever likes to fight a lefty—you’ve got to train your boy all over again. Why bother?

• From Post Office (1971)

  I picked my cap up out of the street, put it on my head. Put the sack back onto the left side of my spine, started, out again. 100 degrees. I walked past one house and a woman ran out after me. “Mailman! Mailman! Don’t you have a letter for me?” “Lady, if I didn’t put one in your box, that means you don’t have any mail.” “But I know you have a letter for me!” “What makes you say that?” “Because my sister phoned and said she was going to write me.” “Lady, I don’t have a letter for you.” “I know you have! I know you have! I know it’s there!” She started to reach for a handful of letters. “DON’T TOUCH THE UNITED STATES MAILS, LADY! THERE’S NOTHING FOR YOU TODAY!” I turned and walked off. “I KNOW YOU HAVE MY LETTER!” Another woman stood on her porch. “ You’re late today.” “Yes, ma’am.” “Where’s the regular man today?” “He’s dying of cancer.” “Dying of cancer? Harold is dying of cancer?” “That’s right,” I said. I handed her mail to her. “BILLS! BILLS! BILLS!” she screamed. “IS THAT ALL YOU CAN BRING ME? THESE BILLS?” “Yes, ma’am, that’s all I can bring you.” I turned and walked on. It wasn’t my fault that they used telephones and gas and light and bought all their things on credit. Yet when I brought them their bills they screamed at me—as if I had asked them to have a phone installed, or a $350 t.v. set sent over with no money down. The next stop was a small two storey dwelling, fairly new, with 10 or 12 units. The lock box was in the front, under a porch roof. At last, a bit of shade. I put the key in the box and opened it. “HELLO UNCLE SAM! HOW ARE YOU TODAY?” He was loud. I hadn’t expected that man’s voice behind me. He had screamed at me, and being hungover I was nervous. I jumped in shock. It was too much. I took the key out of the box and turned. All I could see was a screen door. Somebody was back in there. Air-conditioned and invisible. “God damn you!” I said, “don’t call me Uncle Sam! I’m not Uncle Sam!” “Oh you’re one of those wise guys, eh? For two cents I’d come out and whip your ass!” I took my pouch and slammed it to the ground. Magazines and letters flew everywhere. I would have to reroute the whole swing. I took off my cap, and smashed it to the cement. “COME OUT OF THERE, YOU SON OF A BITCH! OH, GOD O MIGHTY, I BEG YOU! COME OUT OF THERE! COME OUT, COME OUT OF THERE!” I was ready to murder him. Nobody came out. There wasn’t a sound. I looked at the screen door. Nothing. It was as if the apartment were empty. For a moment I thought of going on in.

• From Post Office (1971)

  Sometimes I finish a tray in five minutes or in eight minutes. Let’s say I stick a tray in eight minutes. According to the time-tested standard I have saved the post office 15 minutes. Now can I take these 15 minutes and go down to the cafeteria, have a slice of pie with ice cream, watch t.v., and come back?” “NO! YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO GRAB A TRAY IMMEDIATELY AND START STICKING MAIL!” I signed a paper saying that I had been counseled. Then Skinny Beaver signed my travel form, wrote the time on it and sent me back to my stool to stick more mail. 3But, there were still bits of action. One guy was caught on the same stairway that I had been trapped on. He was caught there with his head under some girl’s skirt. Then one of the girls who worked in the cafeteria complained that she hadn’t been paid, as promised, for a bit of oral copulation she had supplied to a general foreman and three mailhandlers. They fired the girl and the three mailhandlers and busted the general foreman down to supervisor. Then, I set the post office on fire. I had been sent to third-class papers and was smoking a cigar, working a stack of mail off of a hand truck when some guy came by and said, “HEY, YOUR MAIL IS ON FTRE!” I looked around. There it was. A small flame was starting to stand up like a dancing snake. Evidently part of a burning cigar ash had fallen in there earlier. “Oh shit!” The flame grew rapidly. I took a catalogue and, holding it flat, I beat the shit out of it. Sparks flew. It was hot. As soon as I put out one section, another caught up. I heard a voice: “Hey! I smell fire!” “YOU DON’T SMELL FIRE,” I yelled, “YOU SMELL SMOKE!” “I think I’m going to get out of here!” “God damn you, then,” I screamed, “GET OUT!” The flames were burning my hands. I had to save the United States mail, third-class junkmail! Finally, I got it under control. I took my foot and pushed the whole pile of papers onto the floor and stepped on the last bit of red ash. The supervisor walked up to say something to me. I stood there with the burned catalogue in my hand and waited. He looked at me and walked off. Then I resumed casing the third-class junkmail. Anything burned, I put to one side. My cigar had gone out. I didn’t light it again. My hands began to hurt and I walked over to the water fountain, put them under water. It didn’t help. I found the supervisor and asked him for a travel slip to the nurse’s office. It was the same one who used to come to my door and ask me, “Now what’s the matter, Mr. Chinaski?” When I walked in, she said the same thing again.

• From Post Office (1971)

  I happened to look into the mirror to see how hungover I was and I saw him coming at me like a dart toward a dart-board. I still had the beerbottle in my hand. I swung and he walked right into it. I got him in the mouth. His whole mouth was broken teeth and blood. Hector dropped to his knees, crying, holding his mouth with both hands. I saw the stiletto. I kicked the stiletto away from him with my foot, picked it up, looked at it. Nine inches. I hit the button and the blade dropped back in. I put the thing in my pocket. Then as Hector was crying I walked up and booted him in the ass. He sprawled flat on the floor, still crying. I walked over, took a pull at his beer. Then I walked over and slapped Mary Lou. She screamed. “Cunt! You set this up, didn’t you? You’d let this monkey kill me for the lousy four or five hundred bucks in my wallet!” “No, no!” she said. She was crying. They both were crying. I slapped her again. “Is that how you make it, cunt? Killing men for a couple hundred?” “No, no, I LOVE you, Hank, I LOVE you!” I grabbed that blue dress by the neck and ripped one side of it down to her waist. She didn’t wear a brassiere. The bitch didn’t need one. I walked out of there, got outside and drove toward the track. For two or three weeks I was looking over my shoulder. I was jumpy. Nothing happened. I never saw Mary Lou at the racetrack again. Or Hector. 7Somehow the money slipped away after that and soon I left the track and sat around in my apartment waiting for the 90 day leave to run out. My nerves were raw from the drinking and the action. It’s not a new story about how women descend upon a man. You think you have space to breathe, then you look up and there’s another one. A few days after returning to work, there was another one. Fay. Fay had grey hair and always dressed in black. She said she was protesting the war. But if Fay wanted to protest the war, that was all right with me. She was a writer of some sort and went to a couple of writers’ workshops. She had ideas about Saving the World. If she could Save it for me, that would be all right too. She had been living off alimony checks from a former husband—they had had three children—and her mother also sent money now and then. Fay had not had more than one or two jobs in her life. Meanwhile Janko had a new load of bullshit. He sent me home each morning with my head aching. At the time I was getting numerous traffic citations. It seemed that everytime I looked into the rear view mirror there were the red lights.

• From Post Office (1971)

  4 Then some men came around and ripped out every other water fountain. “Hey, look, what the hell are they doing?” I asked. Nobody seemed interested. I was in the third-class flat section. I walked over to another clerk. “Look!” I said. “They are taking away our water!” He glanced at the water fountain, then went back to sticking his third-class. I tried other clerks. They showed the same disinterest. I couldn’t understand it. I asked to have my union representative paged to my area. After a long delay, here he came—Parker Anderson. Parker used to sleep in an old used car and freshen up and shave and shit at gas stations that didn’t lock their restrooms. Parker had tried to be a hustler but had failed. And had come to the central post office, joined the union, and went to the union meetings where he became sarge-at-arms. He was soon a union representative, and then he was elected vice president. “What’s the matter, Hank? I know you don’t need me to handle these soups!” “Don’t butter me, babe. Now I’ve been paying union dues for almost 12 years and haven’t asked for a damn thing.” “All right, what’s wrong?” “It’s the water fountains.” “The water fountains are wrong?” “No, god damn it, the water fountains are right. It’s what they are doing to them. Look.” “Look? Where?” “There!” “I don’t see anything.” “That’s the exact nature of my bitch. There used to be a water fountain there.” “So they took it out. What the hell?” “Look, Parker, I wouldn’t mind one. But they are yanking out every other water fountain in the building. If we don’t stop them here, they will soon be closing down every other crapper... and then, what next, I don’t know...” “All right,” said Parker, “what do you want me to do?”

• From Post Office (1971)

  2 So I took the exam, passed it, took the physical, passed it, and there I was—a substitute mail carrier. It began easy. I was sent to West Avon Station and it was just like Christmas except I didn’t get laid. Every day I expected to get laid but I didn’t. But the soup was easy and I strolled around doing a block here and there. I didn’t even have a uniform, just a cap. I wore my regular clothes. The way my shackjob Betty and I drank there was hardly money for clothes. Then I was transferred to Oakford Station. The soup was a bullneck named Jonstone. Help was needed there and I understood why. Jonstone liked to wear dark-red shirts—that meant danger and blood. There were seven subs—Tom Moto, Nick Pelligrini, Herman Stratford, Rosey Anderson, Bobby Hansen, Harold Wiley and me, Henry Chinaski. Reporting time was 5 a.m. and I was the only drunk there. I always drank until past midnight, and there we’d sit, at 5 a.m., waiting to get on the clock, waiting for some regular to call in sick. The regulars usually called in sick when it rained or during a heatwave or the day after a holiday when the mail load was doubled. There were 40 or 50 different routes, maybe more, each case was different, you were never able to learn any of them, you had to get your mail up and ready before 8 a.m. for the truck dispatches, and Jonstone would take no excuses. The subs routed their magazines on corners, went without lunch, and died in the streets. Jonstone would have us start casing the routes 30 minutes late—spinning in his chair in his red shirt—”Chinaski take route 539!” We’d start a half hour short but were still expected to get the mail up and out and be back on time. And once or twice a week, already beaten, fagged and fucked we had to make the night pickups, and the schedule on the board was impossible—the truck wouldn’t go that fast. You had to skip four or five boxes on the first run and the next time around they were stacked with mail and you stank, you ran with sweat jamming it into the sacks. I got laid all right. Jonstone saw to that.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  And isn’t that the important thing?” “Perhaps you have many lives and don’t know it.” “You say you remember your other lives. We don’t. If we have new lives and don’t remember the old ones, then it still means that this life—this existing me, the consciousness that is here right now—is going to perish.” “The point! The point!” the beast growled. “Get on with it. God, how you talk and talk and talk.” “The point is that your revenge was wonderfully effective. It was good revenge. It ruined the rest of Klara’s one and only life. She lived in great misery. And her crime was only to take one of your nine lives. Her sole life for one of your nine lives. Seems to me the debt has been paid many times over. Your revenge is complete. The slate is clean. The wrong redressed.” Exultant at his persuasive formulation, Ernest leaned back in his chair. “No,” hissed Merges, glowering and thumping the floor with his powerful tail. “No, it is not complete! Not complete! The wrong has not been redressed! Revenge will go on and on! Besides, I like the way this life goes.” Ernest didn’t allow himself to flinch. He rested a moment or two, caught his second wind, and began again from another perspective. “You say you like the way your life goes now. Will you tell me about your life? What is your typical day like?” Ernest’s unruffled manner seemed to relax Merges, who stopped glowering, sat back on his haunches, and responded calmly. “My day? Uneventful. I don’t remember much of my life.” “What do you do all day?” “I wait. I wait until I am called by a dream.” “And between dreams?” “I told you. I wait.” “That’s it?” “I wait.” “And that’s your life, Merges? And are you satisfied?” Merges nodded. “When you consider the alternative,” he said as he gracefully rolled over and set to work grooming his belly. “The alternative? You mean not living?” “The ninth life is the last.” “And you want this last life to go on and on forever.” “Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t anyone?” “Merges, I’m struck by an inconsistency in what you’re saying.” “Cats are highly logical beings. Sometimes that is not appreciated because of our ability to make lightning-quick decisions.” “Here’s the inconsistency. You say you want your ninth life to go on and on, but in fact you’re not living your ninth life. You’re merely existing in some state of suspended animation.” “Not living my ninth life?” “You said it yourself: you’re waiting. I’ll tell you what comes to my mind.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  It was a place to walk, and to do other things; there were always bottles and cans and cigarettes, people hung out there, I guess, there was nowhere else to go. Guys went there too, R. said; I didn’t know it then, we were only there in the daytime, but at night it was a cruising place, and when I got older it was where I went too, even though I hated it. It was always the same three or four married assholes, but whatever, it was something. We’d go walking there, just talking to each other, and then one day he stopped and pointed at something on the ground. It was a condom somebody had dropped by one of the walls, stretched out and dry, it was disgusting. He pointed at it with his shoe and asked me if I knew what it was for. And that’s how he started it, R. said, he put his arm around me and led me behind one of the walls where no one would see us. I didn’t want it but I let him do it, I guess, I mean I didn’t fight him and I never said anything, I let it happen. R. looked at me then, finally turning away from the glass, he looked at me where I sat immobile as he spoke, my fork still in my hand. I never said anything, he repeated, I’ve never said anything until now. Oh, I said, the single syllable, not a word but a sound, oh, and I set my fork down beside the plate I had hardly touched, that was past touching now. Skupi, I said, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but at this his anger snapped back, a fierce anger as he said See, almost snarling it, you see me differently now, I don’t want you to be sorry for me, I don’t want to be some hurt little boy, I don’t want it. On his face there was an expression I had never seen before, on his face or any other, it was a desperate, frightened face, though frightened of what I wasn’t sure. Okay, I said, leaning back, I was frightened too, okay.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  My voice was low now, I was speaking into his ear, You know what you are, I said, you’re a whore, this is all you’re good for, I said, this is all you deserve. Maybe they had always been there, these words, maybe once you have heard such language it infects you, that was what it felt like, like something bursting free in me, corrosive and hot, without end, I had been waiting my entire life to say those words. I lifted my head and spat on his face, twice in quick succession, saying Faggot each time, you dirty faggot, and he cried out again, his eyes clenched shut. I smeared the saliva on his face and left my hand on his head, leaning on him, forcing his face into the thin mattress, against the hard wood beneath it. Please, he said again, his voice muffled, please, I’m nothing. He repeated this, I’m nothing, I’m nothing, and I echoed him, I said That’s right, I was fucking him with my whole body, lifting up and falling back on him, you’re a faggot, I said, you’re nothing, you’re a faggot, you’re nothing. I hammered into him as I felt it rise in me, that cruelty and rage, that acid grief, and when I came I felt him come beneath me, his body shaking, I heard him give a cry of joy. I hung over him, letting him grow still, then pulled out and fell onto my back beside him. Mnogo hubavo beshe , he said, that was good, speaking Bulgarian for the first time, his face turned away. When I didn’t answer he turned toward me, then lifted himself onto his side. Hey, he said, his voice solicitous, hey. I put my hand over my face, which was wet with tears. I was embarrassed, I didn’t want him to see me, when he asked what was wrong I couldn’t answer. Stop it, he said, pulling my hand away, stop it, which made me cry harder somehow, and he kissed me, my forehead and cheeks, my lips, when I tried to pull away he grabbed my head with both his hands, holding me in place. Sladurche , he said, sweet boy, stop it now, don’t be like that, and then he licked my face, quickly, playfully, like a cat, everywhere he had kissed he licked, catching my hands in his when I tried to shield myself or push him away, until I was laughing and weeping both, I stopped struggling and let him lick my face. He laughed too, rolling on top of me, still licking me, and I realized that I had been wrong before; it did have an end, what I had felt, its end was here, he had brought me here. Finally he laid his head on my chest. Don’t be like that, he said again as I put my arms around him. Do you see? You don’t have to be like that, he said.