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.

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• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  She got baptized more than once and was all the time coming home proclaiming that she’d been born again. Once she insisted that the devil had taken the form of a hoop snake with its tail in its mouth, and had rolled after her down the mountain, hissing that it would claim her soul. Brian told Mom we needed to keep Maureen away from those nutty Pentecostals, but Mom said we all came to religion in our individual ways and we each needed to respect the religious practices of others, seeing as it was up to every human being to find his or her own way to heaven. • • • Mom could be as wise as a philosopher, but her moods were getting on my nerves. At times she’d be happy for days on end, announcing that she had decided to think only positive thoughts, because if you think positive thoughts, then positive things will happen to you. But the positive thoughts would give way to negative thoughts, and the negative thoughts seemed to swoop into her mind the way a big flock of black crows takes over the landscape, sitting thick in the trees and on the fence rails and lawns, staring at you in ominous silence. When that happened, Mom would refuse to get out of bed, even when Lucy Jo showed up to drive her to school, honking impatiently. One morning toward the end of the school year, Mom had a complete meltdown. She was supposed to write up evaluations of her students’ progress, but she’d spent every free minute painting, and now the deadline was on her and the evaluations were unwritten. The remedial reading program was going to lose its funding, and the principal would be either furious or just plain disgusted. Mom couldn’t bear to face the woman. Lucy Jo, who’d been waiting for Mom in the Dart, drove off without her, and Mom lay wrapped up in blankets on the sofa bed, sobbing about how much she hated her life. Dad wasn’t there, and neither was Maureen. Brian, typically, started doing an impersonation of Mom carrying on and sobbing, but no one was laughing, so he picked up his books and walked out of the house. Lori sat next to Mom on the bed, trying to console her. I just stood in the doorway with my arms crossed, staring at her. It was hard for me to believe that this woman with her head under the blankets, feeling sorry for herself and boohooing like a five-year-old, was my mother. Mom was thirty-eight, not young but not old, either. In twenty-five years, I told myself, I’d be as old as she was now.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Mi estómago se hunde. Realmente no es mi intención molestarla tanto como lo hago. ¿Qué dije ahora? Moviéndome a través de la multitud, camino por el pasillo vacío, llegando finalmente a la misma habitación en la que estaba llorando cuando la hice molestarse la última vez. Entrando por la puerta abierta, la veo de pie con las manos en las caderas y su cabeza inclinada hacia mí. —Preferiría comer en un contenedor de basura que tomar dinero de ti —dice mordazmente. Debería callarme. Pero Dios me ayude, no puedo. —Odio decírtelo, pero ya lo haces —le digo—. Vives en una casa donde no pagas alquiler, ni servicios públicos, señorita. —¡Cocino y limpio para ti! —grita, pero dudo que alguien pueda escucharnos aquí atrás y por encima de la música—. ¡Pago a mi manera, imbécil arrogante! —Está bien, está bien —gruño, parpadeando larga y duramente—. Tienes razón, ¿de acuerdo? Pero, Jordan, los hombres se harán ideas. Pensarán que tienen un pase libre y pueden tocar lo que le pertenece a mi hijo. Lo estás avergonzando. —¿Tu hijo? —se burla, riendo—. Bueno, no lo viste, en realidad. Ya me vio y no le importa, Pike. Pensó que me veía bien y luego se fue con sus amigos. ¡No le importa! —¡Bueno, a mí me importa! Las palabras salen de mi boca antes que pueda detenerlas y me congelo, casi demasiado asustado para respirar. Oh, mierda. ¿Que acababa de decir? Su boca se abre un poco, pero se calla, probablemente conmocionada por mi arrebato. Sus ojos permanecen fijos en los míos, sin pestañear, con una mezcla de confusión y sorpresa escrita por todo su bonito rostro. Pero en lugar de arrepentirme, mi temperamento vuelve a aumentar rápidamente. ¿Cómo diablos puede no importarle? ¿Y por qué a mí sí? Jesús, mierda. Es una adulta, ¿cierto? Y si a su novio no le importa, entonces ¿quién soy yo o cualquier otra persona para dar su opinión sobre sus decisiones? No me corresponde.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  algún lugar. Avanzamos por el pasillo con nuestras pisadas creando un ruido sordo mientras entramos a la primera puerta de la izquierda. —Puede haber algo de ropa sucia para lavar que arrojáramos allí—dice la mujer de la mesa—. Recógelo y llévalo a la lavadora, ¿quieres? Tomo otra respiración profunda. Estará bien. Abre la puerta de la habitación y miro el interior de su vieja habitación. Mi mandíbula se tensa. —¿Dónde está mi cama? —grita Jordan, suspirando. Pero nadie le responde. La habitación está repleta de jodida basura. Tiene un tocador al que le faltan cajones, una toalla de playa colgando de su ventana y telarañas en la esquina del techo. Puedo oler la pila de ropa sucia que ahora habita su cuarto y entrecierro mis ojos hacia el agujero en la pared. No. Jordan baja su maleta y se voltea hacia mí, tomando la caja. —No te preocupes —dice, sonriendo a la que sea la mirada que tengo en el rostro—. Estaré bien. Me conoces. Tendré este lugar como nuevo para mañana. Pero no le daré la caja, manteniéndola segura en mis brazos. Arranco mis ojos lejos de la trampa para ratones situada al lado del conducto de calefacción sin rejilla para mantener los roedores fuera y bajo mi mirada dura hacia ella. —Demonios, no —gruño—. He terminado esta conversación. Nos vamos ahora. Sosteniendo la caja en la curva de un brazo, me agacho y tomo su maleta con la otra mano e inmediatamente me volteo, saliendo rápidamente de la casa. —¿Disculpa? —Sale apresurada detrás de mí, atónita. Pero ya me estoy marchando. Ignoro a las mujeres en la cocina y ni siquiera volteo para ver si su padre se ha despertado antes de atravesar la puerta del frente y pasar junto a los chicos que siguen holgazaneando en el porche. —¡Pike! —grita detrás de mí. La ignoro. Sé que me seguirá. Tengo todas sus cosas. Dejando la caja y la maleta en la parte trasera de la camioneta, saco mis llaves y subo al asiento del conductor. Camina alrededor de la parte frontal de la camioneta y abre la puerta del lado del pasajero.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  Take junior year abroad. Wherever you decide to go, I’ll go with you.” She was dancing across the room now, singing out the names of cities. “Paris, London, Rome, there’s even a program in Grenoble.” She flopped back on the bed then rolled over to face Vix. Paris, London, Rome … Maia had considered spending junior year abroad but her parents urged her to wait. Paisley’s family didn’t have the money. We have fallen into genteel poverty , she’d told them, doing Scarlett O’Hara. “Well? …” Caitlin asked. “I can’t.” Caitlin’s mood shifted. “I’m so sick of hearing you say that!” She jumped off the bed, unzipped her dress, yanked it over her head, and dropped it on a chair. She was wearing black lace underwear, probably French. She grabbed a fuzzy robe out of the closet, way too small, left over from some visit when she was a kid, and pulled it around her. “You’re turning into the most negative person,” Caitlin fumed. “I can’t believe what that school is doing to you!” “It has nothing to do with the school . I’ve got responsibilities. I can’t just pack up and take junior year abroad because it’s a nice idea!” “What responsibilities … the scholarship?” “More than that.” “Don’t tell me …” Caitlin sounded thoroughly disgusted. “You’re tied down already and you’re not even twenty!” She sat back on the bed and worked off her boots, easing them down from thigh to ankle. “I’m not tied down,” Vix said. “Oh, please …” She kicked off one boot, then the other. “He needs you more than you need him. Where is he, anyway? How come he’s not here tonight?” She was hoping no one would ask because Abby had told her to invite Bru and she hadn’t. She didn’t want to worry about him tonight, about whether or not he was enjoying himself. She wanted to keep her reunion with Caitlin to herself. “You’ve never been in love,” she said. “You don’t understand.” “If being in love means giving up your freedom, not to mention your opportunities,” Caitlin said, “then I haven’t missed anything.” 30THE FOLLOWING CHRISTMAS , when she was a junior, Vix took Bru to Santa Fe. They drove out in his truck, listening to Bob Marley, Elvis Costello, James and Carly. Sometimes she worried they were acting old, settled, more tired than excited when they were together. But that would change, wouldn’t it, when she was out of school? The real world couldn’t be this hard. The stories she heard at school about guys’ behavior made her appreciate Bru even more. He was so sweet and loving, always concerned about her. Sometimes she wished they’d met later so it could all be new and fresh again. Those feelings. That rush. How did couples who’d been together for years manage to keep it exciting? When they got to Santa Fe he found a cheap room in a sleazy motel on Cerrillos Road.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘“You tell me that there is an old proverb, ‘The sight of a leaking roof, the smell of smoke, and the sound of wives, are enough to make a man flee from his home.’ You silly old fool. What are you talking about? You say women will hide their vices until they are safely married. Only then will they show them. That is an idiot’s opinion. They say that a good Englishman takes stock of his oxen and his cattle, his horses and his hounds, before he buys them. He tries out his bowls and his washbasins, his stools and his spoons, to make sure that they are sound. He even checks his chamber pots. Why does he not take the same precaution with his wife? You old dotard! You fool! How dare you say that we show our vices only when we are married? ‘“And another thing. You say that I am only happy when you are praising my good looks. That I expect you to gaze lovingly upon me, and call me ‘my most lovely wife’ in public. I expect you to make my birthday a holy day, do I? And receive expensive presents? I never heard such nonsense in my life. You are supposed to receive my old nurse and my chambermaid in great state, and to entertain my father and all his relatives? Lies. All lies from the mouth of an old goat. ‘“Oh yes. Then you make a fuss about our apprentice, Johnny. Just because he has lovely blond hair - it shines like gold, it really does - and just because he accompanies me on my shopping expeditions, you become suspicious. Johnny means nothing to me. If you died tomorrow, I would not give him a second look. And tell me this. Why do you hide the keys to your chest? It is as much mine as yours. Do you think you are going to make a fool out of me? You are not going to get my body and my goods. You must be mad even to consider it. You can have one or the other. But not both. Think about it, old man. What is the point of spying on me, and questioning the servants? If you had your way, I would be locked up in that damned chest as well. What you should be saying is this. ‘Oh dear wife, please go wherever you like. Feel free. I won’t listen to any rumours about you. I know you, Dame Alice, to be a true and faithful wife.’ That is what you should say. We wives never like husbands who pry or who try to control us. We must be at liberty. That’s the truth of it.

• From Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)

  requires that the speaking subject, in order to speak, participate in the very terms of that oppression—that is, take for granted the speaking subject’s own impossibility or unintelligibility. This presumptive heterosexuality, she argues, functions within discourse to communicate a threat: “ ‘you-will-be-straight- or-you-will-not-be.’ ” 31 Women, lesbians, and gay men, she argues, cannot assume the position of the speaking subject within the linguistic system of compulsory heterosexuality. To speak within the system is to be deprived of the possibility of speech; hence, to speak at all in that context is a performative contradiction, the linguistic assertion of a self that cannot “be” within the language that asserts it. The power Wittig accords to this “system” of language is enormous. Concepts, categories, and abstractions, she argues, can effect a physical and material violence against the bodies they claim to organize and interpret: “There is nothing abstract about the power that sciences and theories have to act materially and actually upon our bodies and minds, even if the discourse that produces it is abstract. It is one of the forms of domination, its very expression, as Marx said. I would say, rather, one of its exercises. All of the oppressed know this power and have had to deal with it.” 32 The power of language to work on bodies is both the cause of sexual oppression and the way beyond that oppression. Language works neither magically nor inexorably: “there is a plasticity of the real to language: language has a plastic action upon the real.” 33 Language assumes and alters its power to act upon the real through locutionary acts, which, repeated, become entrenched practices and, ultimately, institutions. The asymmetrical structure of language that identifies the subject who speaks for and as the universal with the male and identifies the female speaker as “particular” and “interested” is in no sense intrinsic to particular languages or to language itself. These asymmetrical positions cannot be understood to follow from the “nature” of men or women, for, as Beauvoir established, no such “nature” exists: “One must understand that men are not born with a faculty for the universal and that women are not reduced at birth to the particular. The universal has been, and is continually, at every moment, appropriated by men. It does not happen, it must be done. It is an act, a criminal act, perpetrated by one class against another. It is an act carried out at the level of concepts, philosophy, politics.” 34 Although Irigaray argues that “the subject is always already masculine,” Wittig disputes the notion that “the subject” is exclusively masculine territory. The very plasticity of language, for her, resists the fixing of the subject position as masculine. Indeed, the presumption of an absolute speaking subject is, for Wittig, the political goal for “women,” which, if achieved, will effectively dissolve the category of “women” altogether.

• From Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)

  But does Riviere know the homosexuality of the woman in masquerade that she describes? When it comes to the counterpart of the analogy that she herself sets up, the woman who “wishes for masculinity” is homosexual only in terms of sustaining a masculine identification, but not in terms of a sexual orientation or desire. Invoking Jones’s typology once again, as if it were a phallic shield, she formulates a “defense” that designates as asexual a class of female homosexuals understood as the masquerading type: “his first group of homosexual women who, while taking no interest in other women, wish for ‘recognition’ of their masculinity from men and claim to be the equals of men, or in other words, to be men themselves” (37). As in Lacan, the lesbian is here signified as an asexual position, as indeed, a position that refuses sexuality. For the earlier analogy with Ferenzci to become complete, it would seem that this description enacts the “defense” against female homosexuality as sexuality that is nevertheless understood as the reflexive structure of the “homosexual man.” And yet, there is no clear way to read this description of a female homosexuality that is not about a sexual desire for women. Riviere would have us believe that this curious typological anomaly cannot be reduced to a repressed female homosexuality or heterosexuality. What is hidden is not sexuality, but rage. One possible interpretation is that the woman in masquerade wishes for masculinity in order to engage in public discourse with men and as a man as part of a male homoerotic exchange. And precisely because that male homoerotic exchange would signify castration, she fears the same retribution that motivates the “defenses” of the homosexual man. Indeed, perhaps femininity as masquerade is meant to deflect from male homosexuality—that being the erotic presupposition of hegemonic discourse, the “hommo-sexuality” that Irigaray suggests. In any case, Riviere would have us consider that such women sustain masculine identifications not to occupy a position in a sexual exchange, but, rather, to pursue a rivalry that has no sexual object or, at least, that has none that she will name. Riviere’s text offers a way to reconsider the question: What is masked by masquerade? In a key passage that marks a departure from the restricted analysis demarcated by Jones’s classificatory system, she suggests that “masquerade” is more than the characteristic of an “intermediate type,” that it is central to all “womanliness”: The reader may now ask how I define womanliness or where I draw the line between genuine womanliness and the “masquerade”. My suggestion is not, however, that there is any such difference; whether radical or superficial, they are the same thing. (38)

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  Brian nodded at the front door, and we all went outside and started making sand castles for scorpions. We figured that if we were all in the yard acting like the fighting was no big deal, maybe the neighbors would feel the same way. But as the screaming continued, neighbors started gathering on the street. Some were simply curious. Moms and dads got into arguments all the time in Battle Mountain, so it didn’t seem that big a deal, but this fight was raucous even by local standards, and some people thought they should step in and break it up. “Aw, let ’em work out their differences,” one of the men said. “No one’s got a right to interfere.” So they leaned back against car fenders and fence posts, or sat on pickup tailgates, as if they were at a rodeo. Suddenly, one of Mom’s oil paintings came flying through an upstairs window. Next came her easel. The crowd below scurried back to avoid getting hit. Then Mom’s feet appeared in the window, followed by the rest of her body. She was dangling from the second floor, her legs swinging wildly. Dad was holding her by the arms while she tried to hit him in the face. “Help!” Mom screamed. “He’s trying to kill me!” “Goddammit, Rose Mary, get back in here!” Dad said. “Don’t hurt her!” Lori yelled. Mom was swinging back and forth. Her yellow cotton dress had gotten bunched up around her waist, and the crowd could see her white underwear. They were sort of old and baggy, and I was afraid they might fall off altogether. Some of the grown-ups called out, worried that Mom might fall, but one group of kids thought Mom looked like a chimpanzee swinging from a tree, and they began making monkey noises and scratching their armpits and laughing. Brian’s face turned dark and his fists clenched up. I felt like punching them, too, but I pulled Brian back. Mom was thrashing around so hard that her shoes fell off. It looked like she might slip from Dad’s grasp or pull him out the window. Lori turned to Brian and me. “Come on.” We ran inside and up the stairs and held on to Dad’s legs so that Mom’s weight wouldn’t drag him through the window as well. Finally, he pulled Mom back inside. She collapsed onto the floor. “He tried to kill me,” Mom sobbed. “Your father wants to watch me die.” “I didn’t push her,” Dad protested. “I swear to God I didn’t. She jumped.” He was standing over Mom, holding out his hands, palms up, pleading his innocence. Lori stroked Mom’s hair and dried her tears. Brian leaned against the wall and shook his head. “Everything’s okay now,” I said over and over again.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  A naked lightbulb hung from the ceiling, right next to three or four dangling spiral strips of flypaper so thick with flies that you couldn’t see the sticky yellow surface underneath. Empty beer cans and whiskey bottles and a few half-eaten tins of Vienna sausages littered the floor. On one of the mattresses, Billy’s father was snoring unevenly. His mouth hung open, and flies were gathered in the stubble of his beard. A wet stain had darkened his pants nearly to his knees. His zipper was undone, and his gross penis dangled to one side. I stared quietly, then asked, “What’s the funny thing?” “Don’t you see?” said Billy, pointing at his dad. “He pissed himself!” Billy started laughing. I felt my face turning hot. “You’re not supposed to laugh at your own father,” I said to him. “Ever.” “Aw, now, don’t go get all high-and-mighty on me,” Billy said. “Don’t go and try and pretend you’re better than me. ’Cause I know your daddy ain’t nothing but a drunk like mine.” I hated Billy at that moment, I really did. I thought of telling him about binary numbers and the Glass Castle and Venus and all the things that made my dad special and completely different from his dad, but I knew Billy wouldn’t understand. I started to run out of the house, but then I stopped and turned around. “My daddy is nothing like your daddy!” I shouted. “When my daddy passes out, he never pisses himself!” • • • At dinner that night, I started telling everyone about Billy Deel’s disgusting dad and the ugly dump they lived in. Mom put down her fork. “Jeannette, I’m disappointed in you,” she said. “You should show more compassion.” “Why?” I said. “He’s bad. He’s a JD.” “No child is born a delinquent,” Mom said. They only became that way, she went on, if nobody loved them when they were kids. Unloved children grow up to become serial murderers or alcoholics. Mom looked pointedly at Dad and then back at me. She told me I should try to be nicer to Billy. “He doesn’t have all the advantages you kids do,” she said. • • • The next time I saw Billy, I told him I’d be his friend—but not his girlfriend—if he promised not to make fun of anyone’s dad. Billy promised. But he kept trying to be my boyfriend. He told me that if I’d be his girlfriend, he would always protect me and make sure nothing bad ever happened to me and buy me expensive presents. If I wouldn’t be his girlfriend, he said, I’d be sorry. I told him if he didn’t want to be just friends, fine with me, I wasn’t scared of him. After about a week, I was hanging out with some other kids from the Tracks, watching garbage burn in a big rusty trash can.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  “Only thing is, as I been telling you, he was a goddamn fake.” For years, every time Mom brought out Shakespeare’s plays, Dad would carry on about how they’d been written not by William Shakespeare of Avon but by a bunch of people, including someone named the Earl of Oxford, because no single person in Elizabethan England could have had Shakespeare’s thirty-thousand-word vocabulary. All this bunk about little Billy Shakespeare, Dad would say, the great genius despite his grammar-school education, his small Latin and less Greek, was a lot of sentimental mythology. “You’re helping perpetuate this fraud,” he told Lori. “Dad, it’s just a bust,” Lori said. “That’s the problem,” Dad said. He studied the sculpture, then suddenly reached over and smeared off Shakespeare’s mouth with his thumb. “What the hell are you doing?” Lori cried out. “It’s no longer just a bust,” Dad said. “Now it has symbolic value. You can call it Mute Bard .” “I spent days on that,” Lori shouted. “And you’ve ruined it!” “I elevated it,” Dad said. He told Lori he would help her write a paper that would demonstrate that Shakespeare’s plays had multiple authors, like Rembrandt’s paintings. “By God, you’ll set the literary world on edge,” he said. “I don’t want to set the world on edge!” Lori screamed. “I just want to win a stupid little scholarship!” “Goddammit, you’re in a horse race, but you’re thinking like a sheep,” Dad said. “Sheep don’t win horse races.” • • • Lori didn’t have the spirit to rework the bust. The next day she smushed the clay into a big glob and left it on the drafting table. I told Lori that if she hadn’t been accepted into an art school by the time she graduated, she should go to New York anyway. She could support herself with the money we’d saved up until she found a job, and then she could apply to a school. That became our new plan. Everyone was mad at Dad, which gave him a case of the sulks. He said he didn’t know why he even bothered to come home anymore, since he no longer got the slightest bit of appreciation for his ideas. He insisted he wasn’t trying to keep Lori from leaving for New York, but if she had the sense that God gave a goose, she would stay put. “New York is a sorry-ass sinkhole,” he said more than once, “filled with faggots and rapists.” She’d get mugged and find herself on the streets, he warned, forced into prostitution and winding up a drug addict like all those runaway teenagers. “I’m only telling you this because I love you,” he said. “And I don’t want to see you hurt.” One evening in May, when we’d been saving our money for almost nine months, I came home with a couple of dollars I’d made babysitting and went into the bedroom to stash them in Oz. The pig was not on the old sewing machine.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘No way,’ Thomas replied. ‘I have already confessed to the curate this morning. I have told him everything. There is no need to repeat it all.’ ‘In any case, give me some of your money. Give us gold to build a cloister for the Lord. We friars have been forced to live off oysters and mussels while people like you have drunk and eaten well. Think of what we have suffered to raise that cloister. Yet God knows that we still have not completed the foundations. The pavement is not laid. Not a tile has been put in place. We owe forty pounds alone for building materials. Can you believe it? So help us, Thomas, in the name of He who harrowed hell! Otherwise we will have to sell our books. If we cannot preach, then the whole world will suffer. To take us from our pulpits and our preaching crosses will be to take the sun out of the sky. I am being serious. Who can preach and do good works as we can? We are not some novelty. There have been friars around since the time of Elijah. And that was a very long time ago. There are records mentioning us. I need your charity, Thomas! For God’s sake, charity!’ And at that the friar fell down upon his knees, and crossed himself. Thomas himself was already in a very bad temper. He realized well enough that the friar was full of shit. He was a liar and a hypocrite. If he had had the strength, he would have tossed him into the fire. ‘I can only give you,’ he said, ‘what I possess on my person now. Did you say that I had become a lay brother?’ ‘Yes. Of course. I have brought the letter of fraternity with me. I was going to give it to your wife for safe-keeping.’ ‘That is good. Thank you. I will make a donation to your convent, while I still live. You will hold it in your hand. I promise you. But there is one condition. You have to swear to me that every other friar in your convent has an equal share of what I am about to give you. Swear to that, on your holy brotherhood, without cavil or hesitation.’ ‘I swear it,’ the friar replied, ‘on the blood and bones of Christ.’ He shook hands with Thomas. ‘You can have trust in me.’ ‘All right then,’ Thomas said. ‘Just put your hand down my back. Down there. If you grope just behind my buttocks, you will find something that I have hidden away for your benefit.’ ‘Aha,’ the friar thought. ‘This is going with me. This is my prize.’

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  The way I saw it, Dad owed me. I’d looked after his kids all summer, I’d kept him in beer and cigarette money, and I’d helped him fleece that miner Robbie. I figured I had Dad in my back pocket. When I got home from school that afternoon, Mom was still curled up on the sofa bed, a small pile of paperbacks next to her. Dad was sitting at the drafting table, rolling a cigarette. He beckoned to me to follow him into the kitchen. Mom watched us go. Dad closed the door and looked at me gravely. “Your mother claims you back-talked her.” “Yes,” I said. “It’s true.” “Yes, sir,” he corrected me, but I didn’t say anything. “I’m disappointed in you,” he went on. “You know damn good and well that you are to respect your parents.” “Dad, Mom’s not sick, she’s playing hooky,” I said. “She has to take her obligations more seriously. She has to grow up a little.” “Who do you think you are?” he asked. “She’s your mother.” “Then why doesn’t she act like one?” I looked at Dad for what felt like a very long moment. Then I blurted out, “And why don’t you act like a dad?” I could see the blood surge into his face. He grabbed me by the arm. “You apologize for that comment!” “Or what?” I asked. Dad shoved me up against the wall. “Or by God I’ll show you who’s boss around here.” His face was inches from mine. “What are you going to do to punish me?” I asked. “Stop taking me to bars?” Dad drew back his hand as if to smack me. “You watch your mouth, young lady. I can still whip your butt, and don’t think I won’t.” “You can’t be serious,” I said. Dad dropped his hand. He pulled his belt out of the loops on his work pants and wrapped it a couple of times around his knuckles. “Apologize to me and to your mother,” he said. “No.” Dad raised the belt. “Apologize.” “No.” “Then bend over.” Dad was standing between me and the door. There was no way out except through him. But it never occurred to me to either run or fight. The way I saw it, he was in a tighter spot than I was. He had to back down, because if he sided with Mom and gave me a whipping, he would lose me forever. We stared at each other. Dad seemed to be waiting for me to drop my eyes, to apologize and tell him I was wrong so we could go back to being like we were, but I kept holding his gaze. Finally, to call his bluff, I turned around, bent over slightly, and rested my hands on my knees. I expected him to turn and walk away, but there were six stinging blows on the backs of my thighs, each accompanied by a whistle of air.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Imbécil. Probablemente sus hijos están en la casa, y está mirando lascivamente como un jodido pervertido. Intento pensar en que prácticamente estoy haciendo lo mismo, pero siento una urgencia protectora de conseguir un arma o algo. Esta no va a ser tu niñera, idiota. De repente el cortacésped se detiene, y giro hacia Jordan justo a tiempo para verla caminar hacia el borde de la piscina, respirando pesadamente y empapada en sudor. Se aparta el cabello del rostro, respira profundamente y luego da un paso, cayendo en la parte profunda de la piscina y hundiéndose, con ropa y todo. Dejo de respirar. Hace calor. Cerca de los treinta y dos grados y necesita refrescarse. Pero muevo la mirada hacia Kyle mientras inclina la barbilla, intentando conseguir un mejor vistazo. Entonces Jordan resurge a la superficie, flotando de espaldas y descansando allí, su camiseta moldeada a su cuerpo como una segunda piel. Duros, pequeños puntos señalan al cielo por debajo de su camiseta y veo una sonrisa curvarse en los jodidos labios de él. —Maldito infierno —siseo entre dientes. Volviendo a meter la cabeza en la habitación y cerrando la ventana de golpe. Dejando la habitación, salgo rápidamente al pasillo y bajo corriendo las escaleras. Moviéndome por la cocina, atravieso la lavandería y salgo por la puerta trasera. Jordan está nadando junto al borde de la piscina de nuevo, saliendo. Alzo la mirada para ver a Kyle observando mientras ella sale, su ropa aplastada contra su cuerpo y el agua corriendo por cada centímetro disponible de su piel. Él desliza su mirada hacia mí y le enseño mi dedo medio. Simplemente se ríe y sacude la cabeza, regresando a su jodida casa. Jordan toma su cabello, pasándoselo por su hombro y escurriéndolo. Bajo la mirada por sus piernas, donde el agua se desliza por sus tonificados muslos y sus pantalones cortos mezclándose con su trasero. Me enderezo, poniendo una expresión dura. —Jordan —la llamo. Se gira, mirándome, y duda solo un momento antes de dirigirse hacia mí. Debe tener alguna idea de que no está completamente presentable ahora mismo, porque cruza los brazos sobre su pecho. —Pensé que le había dicho a Cole que cortara el césped. —Intento esconder el gruñido construyéndose en mi pecho. Asiente y toma su agua fría de la mesa del césped.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  So the woeful maid is conducted to the ship with every formality and every ceremony. ‘Jesus Christ be with you all,’ she cried out from the deck. And the crowd shouted out, ‘Farewell! Farewell Constance!’ They had no more to say. She tried to maintain her composure, but it was difficult. Now I must leave her on the high seas and return once more to Syria. The mother of the sultan, a woman who was a pit of vice, knew all about her son’s intentions; the sultaness had heard that he was about to abandon his old religion. So she sent for her own privy council. They gathered in the palace according to her instructions, and when they were all assembled together she told them her plan. ‘Lords,’ she said, ‘you all know well enough that my son is about to turn away from the laws of the Koran, vouchsafed to Mahomet by God Himself, and to do great dishonour to our holy religion. But I make my vow, before you all, that I would rather die than disobey the least one of our religious laws. ‘What will happen to us if we accept this new dispensation? We will be the slaves of Rome. But that is not the worst of it. If we renounce Mahomet, we will be consigned to everlasting torment. No. It cannot be. But, my lords, I have a plan. Will you follow me in the enterprise I am about to reveal? Assuredly it will save us all.’ They assented, and swore an oath that they would all live or die by her side. They would persuade all of their friends and colleagues, too, to support and protect her. So, assured of their fealty, she began to describe to them the scheme that she had contrived. ‘First of all,’ she said, ‘we will pretend to embrace the false religion. A little baptismal water will not affect us. I will then throw such a feast and festival that the sultan will be paid back in kind. This heathen girl may be as white as the day she was baptized but, by the time I have finished with her, she will need more than holy water to wash away the blood. A Christian font will not be enough.’ Oh sultaness, root of iniquity! You are a harpie, unnatural and accursed. You are a reptile with a woman’s face, as wicked as the serpent who lies coiled in hell. You are false and fraudulent, confounding good and evil with your malice. You are a nest of vices. Dreadful Satan, you have been watchful and malicious ever since you fell from heaven. You know how to entrap women. It was you who tempted Eve, the source of all our woe. Now you wish to destroy this Christian marriage. And what will be the instrument of your guile? Alas it will be another woman.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  “Then just pass around the collection plate come Sunday.” I didn’t like Dad when he talked like that, and I tried to move away from him, but he just held me tighter. Back at home, we tried to calm Dad down. Mom gave him one of his presents, a brass cigarette lighter from the nineteen twenties in the shape of a Scottish terrier. Dad flicked it a couple of times, swaying back and forth; then he held it up to the light and studied it. “Let’s really light up this Christmas,” Dad said and thrust the lighter into the Douglas fir. The dried-out needles caught fire immediately. Flames leaped through the branches with a crackling noise. Christmas ornaments exploded from the heat. For a few moments, we were too stunned to do anything. Mom called for blankets and water. We were able to put the fire out, but only by knocking down the tree, smashing most of the ornaments, and ruining all our presents. Dad sat on the sofa the whole time, laughing and telling Mom that he was doing her a favor because trees were pagan symbols of worship. Once the fire was out and the sodden, burned tree lay smoldering on the floor, we all just stood there. No one tried to wring Dad’s neck or yell at him or even point out that he’d ruined the Christmas his family had spent weeks planning—the Christmas that was supposed to be the best we’d ever had. When Dad went crazy, we all had our own ways of shutting down and closing off, and that was what we did that night. I TURNED TEN THAT spring, but birthdays were not a big deal around our house. Sometimes Mom stuck a few candles in some ice cream and we all sang “Happy Birthday.” Mom and Dad might get us a little present—a comic book or a pair of shoes or a package of underwear—but at least as often, they forgot our birthdays altogether. So I was surprised when, on the day I turned ten, Dad took me outside to the back patio and asked what I wanted most in the world. “It’s a special occasion, seeing as how it puts you into double digits,” he said. “You’re growing up damn fast, Mountain Goat. You’ll be on your own in no time, and if there’s anything I can do for you now, before you’re gone, I want to do it.” I knew Dad wasn’t talking about buying me some extravagant present, like a pony or a dollhouse. He was asking what he could do, now that I was almost a grown-up, to make my last years as a kid everything I hoped they’d be. There was only one thing I truly wanted, something that I knew would change all our lives, but I was afraid to ask for it. Just thinking about saying the words out loud made me nervous. Dad saw my hesitation.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  He felt it was good for your soul to have buzzards and coyotes and snakes around. That was the way man was meant to live, he’d say, in harmony with the wild, like the Indians, not this lords-of-the-earth crap, trying to rule the entire goddamn planet, cutting down all the forests and killing every creature you couldn’t bring to heel. One day we heard on the radio that a woman in the suburbs had seen a mountain lion behind her house and had called the police, who shot the animal. Dad got so angry he put his fist through a wall. “That mountain lion had as much right to his life as that sour old biddy does to hers,” he said. “You can’t kill something just because it’s wild.” Dad stewed for a while, sucking on a beer, and then he told us all to get in the car. “Where are we going?” I asked. We hadn’t been on a single expedition since we moved to Phoenix. I missed them. “I’m going to show you,” he said, “that no animal, no matter how big or wild, is dangerous as long as you know what you’re doing.” We all piled into the car. Dad drove, nursing another beer and cussing under his breath about that innocent mountain lion and the chickenshit suburbanite. We turned in at the city zoo. None of us kids had ever been to a zoo before, and I didn’t really know what to expect. Lori said she thought zoos should be outlawed. Mom, who had Maureen in one arm and her sketch pad under the other, pointed out that the animals had traded freedom for security. She said that when she looked at them, she would pretend not to see the bars. At the entrance gate, Dad bought our tickets, muttering about the idiocy of paying money to look at animals, and led us down the walk. Most of the cages were patches of dirt surrounded by iron bars, with forlorn gorillas or restless bears or irritable monkeys or anxious gazelles huddled in the corners. A lot of the kids were having fun, gawking and laughing and throwing peanuts at the animals, but the sight of those poor creatures made my throat swell up. “I’ve got half a mind to sneak in here some night and free these critters,” Dad said. “Can I help?” I asked. He mussed my hair. “Me and you, Mountain Goat,” he said. “We’ll carry out our own animal prison break.” We stopped at a bridge. Below it, in a deep pit, alligators sunned themselves on rocks surrounding a pond. “The biddy who got that mountain lion shot didn’t understand animal psychology,” Dad said. “If you let them know you’re not afraid, they’ll leave you alone.” Dad pointed to the biggest, scaliest alligator. “Me and that nasty-looking bastard’s going to have us a staring contest.” Dad stood on the bridge glowering at the alligator.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  This is not to be underestimated. My nerves are shot as it is; the last thing I need would be an onslaught of thunder and silent screams, with cymbals, fangs, winds pushing forest fires across the land; I mean, who needs it? Then I started to write about my envy. I got to look in some cold dark corners, see what was there, shine a little light on what we all have in common. Sometimes this human stuff is slimy and pathetic—jealousy especially so—but better to feel it and talk about it and walk through it than to spend a lifetime being silently poisoned. Now I felt like I was getting somewhere, after all those weeks of emotionally swimming the English Channel, cold and afraid. Then I saw a documentary on TV about a couple with AIDS. And all the pieces of the solution finally came together. There was a lot of footage in that movie of ravaged bodies, the sorts of bodies we usually recoil from. One of the men in the couple had an emaciated back entirely purple with Kaposi’s. But once you, the viewer, got to know the spirit inside, you could see the beauty of that sick person lying under the mounds of quilts that friends had made. You could see the amazing fortitude of people going through horror with grace, looking right into the pit and seeing that this is what you’ve got, this disease, or maybe even this jealousy. So you do as well as you can with it. And this ravaged body or wounded psyche can and should still be cared for as softly and tenderly as possible. The more I wrote about it and the more I thought of the movie, the angrier I got at how often this writer friend mentioned her money to me, because that summer Sam and I had almost none, and she knew this. I kept writing about my childhood, about how often I had longed for what other girls had and for what other families seemed to be about. I taped Hillel’s line to the wall by my desk: “I get up. I walk. I fall down. Meanwhile, I keep dancing.” The way I dance is by writing. So I wrote about trying to pay closer attention to the world, about taking things less seriously, moving more slowly, stepping outside more often. Eventually what I was writing got funnier and compassion broke through, for me and also for my writer friend. And at this point I told her, as kindly as possible, that I needed a sabbatical from our friendship.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  But it actually doesn’t matter if he or she sees you break down, because you don’t have to be friendly with that person anymore. That person is a jerk. You double up therapy sessions for a few weeks until you’re back in the saddle, and then you ask someone else; someone you like much better. If you know for sure that some smart and civilized person loves your work, you can ask that person if she would be willing to look at a part of your novel or your latest short story. If this person writes, too, ask if she would like you to take a look at her draft. If she says no to both offers, pretend to be friendly, so she won’t think less of you than she already does. Then you can move into a trailer park near your therapist’s house until you’re well enough again to ask someone else. The second question my students ask about a writing partner is this: what if someone agrees to read and work on your stuff for you, and you have agreed to do the same for him, say, and it turns out that he says things about your work, even in the nicest possible tone of voice, that are totally negative and destructive? You find yourself devastated, betrayed. Here you’ve done this incredibly gutsy thing, shown someone your very heart and soul, and he doesn’t think it’s any good. He says how sorry he is that this is how he feels. Well, let me tell you this—I don’t think he is. I think destroying your work gave him real pleasure, pleasure he would never cop to, pleasure that is almost sexual in nature. I think you should get rid of this person immediately, even if you are married to him. No one should talk to you like this. If you write a long piece, and it is your first, and you are wondering if it’s publishable, and it isn’t, even by a long shot, someone should be able to tell you this in a way that is gentle yet not patronizing, so that you are encouraged—maybe not to pursue publication, but to pursue writing. Certainly this person might suggest you get a second opinion. But if he is too strident or adamant, ditch the sucker. Would you stand for someone talking this way to your children—for instance, telling them that they are not very talented at painting and shouldn’t even bother? Or that their poetry is not very interesting? Of course not. You’d want to go pay this person a little visit with your flamethrower. So why, if someone says something like this to you, would you want anything further to do with him? Why waste what little time you may have left with such scum?

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  When Mom got home that evening, she looked in the refrigerator. "What happened to the stick of margarine?" she asked. "We ate it," I said. … "It was the only thing to eat in the whole house," I said. Raising my voice, I added, "I was hungry." Mom gave me a startled look. I'd broken one of our unspoken rules: We were always supposed to pretend our life was one long and incredibly fun adventure. She raised her hand, and I thought she was going to hit me, but then she sat down at the spool table and rested her head on her arms. Her shoulders started shaking. … "It's not my fault if you're hungry!" she shouted. "Don't blame me. Do you think I like living like this? Do you?"

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  People buying jewelry were always happy, and even though Welch was a poor town, Becker’s Jewel Box had plenty of customers: older miners buying their wives a mother’s pin, a brooch with a birthstone for each of her children; teenage couples shopping for engagement rings, the girl giggling with excitement, the boy acting proud and manly. During the slow spells, Mr. Becker and I watched the Watergate hearings on a little black-and-white TV. Mr. Becker was captivated by John Dean’s wife, Maureen, who sat behind her husband when he was testifying and wore elegant clothes and pulled her blond hair back in a tight bun. “Hot damn, that’s one classy broad,” Mr. Becker would say. Sometimes, after watching Maureen Dean, Mr. Becker got so randy that he came behind me while I was cleaning the display case and rubbed up against my backside. I’d pull his hands off and walk away without saying a word, and that horndog would return to the television as if nothing had happened. When Mr. Becker went across the street to the Mountaineer Diner for lunch, he always took the key to the display case that held the diamond rings. If customers came in wanting to look at the rings, I had to run across the street to get him. Once he forgot to take the key, and when he returned, he made a big point of counting the rings in front of me. It was his way of letting me know he didn’t trust me in the slightest. One day after Mr. Becker had come back from lunch and ostentatiously checked the display cases, I was so furious that I looked around to see if there was anything in the entire darn store worth stealing. Necklaces, brooches, banjos—none of them did anything for me. And then the watch display caught my eye. I had always wanted a watch. Unlike diamonds, watches were practical. They were for people on the run, people with appointments to keep and schedules to meet. That was the kind of person I wanted to be. Dozens of watches ticked away in the counter behind the cash register. There was one in particular that made me ache. It had four different-colored bands—black, brown, blue, and white—so you could change your watchband to match your outfit. It had a price tag of $29.95, ten dollars short of a week’s salary. But if I wanted, it could be mine in an instant, and for free. The more I thought about that watch, the more it called to me. One day the woman who worked at the store Mr. Becker owned in War stopped by. Mr. Becker wanted her to give me some beauty tips. While she was showing me her different makeup applicators, the woman, who had stiff platinum hair and eyelashes tarred in mascara, told me I must be earning a truckload in commissions.