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 Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And because of those eyes with their constant menace, Ste- phen must play her conciliatory rôle; and this she must do in spite of his rudeness, for now he was openly rude and hostile. And he bullied. It was almost as though he took pleasure in bullying his wife when Stephen was present; her presence seemed to arouse in the man everything that was ill-bred, petty and cruel. He would make thinly-veiled allusions to the past, glancing sideways at Stephen the while he did so; and one day when she flushed to the roots of her hair with rage to see Angela humble and fearful, he laughed loudly: ‘Im just a plain tradesman, you know; if you don’t like my ways, then you’d better not come here.’ Catch- ing Angela’s eye, Stephen tried to laugh too. A soul-sickening business. She would feel degraded; she would feel herself gradually losing all sense of pride, of common decency even, so that when she returned in the evening to Morton she would not want to look the old house in the eyes. She would not want to face those pictures of Gordons that hung in its hall, and must turn away, lest they by their very silence rebuke this descendant of theirs who was so unworthy. Yet sometimes it seemed to her that she loved more intensely because she had lost so much — there was nothing left now but Angela Crossby. THE WELL OF LONELINESS 207 2 Wazcuinc this deadly decay that threatened all that was fine in her erstwhile pupil, Puddle must sometimes groan loudly in spirit; she must even argue with God about it. Yes, she must actually argue with God like Job; and remembering his words in affliction, she must speak those words on behalf of Stephen: ‘ Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet Thou dost destroy me.’ For now in addition to every- thing else, she had learnt of the advent of Roger Antrim. Not that Stephen had confided in her, far from it, but gossip has a way of travelling quickly. Roger spent most of his leisure at The Grange. She had heard that he was always going over from Worcester. So now Puddle, who had not been much given to prayer in the past, must argue with God, like Job. And perhaps, since God probably listens to the heart rather than to the lips, He forgave her. 3

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  Fagott agreed. ‘Naturally you don’t understand. As for the meeting, you are totally deluded. After driving off to the said meeting, which incidentally was not even scheduled for last night, Arkady Apollonovich dismissed his chauffeur at the Acoustics Commission building on Clean Ponds’ (the whole theatre became hushed), ‘and went by bus to Yelokhovskaya Street to visit an actress from the regional itinerant theatre, Militsa Andreevna Pokobatko, with whom he spent some four hours.’ ‘Aie!’ someone cried out painfully in the total silence. Arkady Apollonovich’s young relation suddenly broke into a low and terrible laugh. ‘It’s all clear!’ she exclaimed. ‘And I’ve long suspected it. Now I see why that giftless thing got the role of Louisa!’ 1 And, swinging suddenly, she struck Arkady Apollonovich on the head with her short and fat violet umbrella. Meanwhile, the scoundrelly Fagott, alias Koroviev, was shouting: ‘Here, honourable citizens, is one case of the exposure Arkady Apollonovich so importunately insisted on!’ ‘How dare you touch Arkady Apollonovich, you vile creature!’ Arkady Apollonovich’s wife asked threateningly, rising in the box to all her gigantic height. A second brief wave of satanic laughter seized the young relation. ‘Who else should dare touch him,’ she answered, guffawing, ‘if not me!’ And for the second time there came the dry, crackling sound of the umbrella bouncing off the head of Arkady Apollonovich. ‘Police! Seize her!!’ Sempleyarov’s wife shouted in such a terrible voice that many hearts went cold. And here the cat also leaped out to the footlights and suddenly barked in a human voice for all the theatre to hear: ‘The séance is over! Maestro! Hack out a march!’ The half-crazed conductor, unaware of what he was doing, waved his baton, and the orchestra did not play, or even strike up, or even bang away at, but precisely, in the cat’s loathsome expression, hacked out some incredible march of an unheard-of brashness. For a moment there was an illusion of having heard once upon a time, under southern stars, in a café-chantant, some barely intelligible, half-blind, but rollicking words to this march: His Excellency reached the stage Of liking barnyard fowl. He took under his patronage Three young girls and an owl!!! Or maybe these were not the words at all, but there were others to the same music, extremely indecent ones. That is not the important thing, the important thing is that, after all this, something like babel broke loose in the Variety.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  232 noituloveR lapaP :23 erutceL Gregory’s intemperate language led Henry to summon a synod o at Worms in 1076 that sought, in turn, to depose Gregory from the papacy. Gregory then excommunicated Henry, divested him of his royal authority, and released his subjects of their fealty. Lacking support from his nobles to effectively depose Gregory o in turn, Henry went through an elaborate repentance at Canossa, but the actual issue of investiture remained unresolved. When conflict again flared, Gregory sought to excommunicate o and depose Henry a second time, but the German princes rallied to Henry. Henry entered Italy with an army in 1084, and Gregory was forced into exile. The Concordat of Worms in 1122 subsequently agreed that o appointments should be in the power of the church but stated that rulers could advise during the process. • Gregory VII’s internal reforms of the church also moved in the direction of greater centralized control by the papacy. In all ecclesiastical disputes—say, between bishops—Gregory o insisted that appeal was to be made to the pope rather than to synods of bishops, an initiative that bishops in some regions understandably resented. The moral standards of local clergy were addressed through o the imposition of compulsory celibacy; Gregory wrote an encyclical in 1074 that absolved Christians of obedience to bishops who allowed married priests. Similarly, simony— the practice of buying ecclesiastical positions—was strictly forbidden. It was Gregory VII who demanded that Berengar, the theologian o who had offered a minimalist “symbolic” understanding of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, perform a confession of faith with respect to the “real presence” of Christ, thus presumably stimulating greater reverence for the Eucharist.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Taking the popes one by one, their utterances were, upon the whole, opposed to inhumane measures and uniformly against the forced baptism of the Jews. Gregory the Great protected them against frenzied persecution in Southern Italy. Innocent IV., 1247, denied the charge of child murder brought against them, and threatened with excommunication Christians oppressing them.909 Martin IV., in 1419, issued a bull in which he declared that he was following his predecessors in commanding that they be not interrupted in their synagogal worship, or compelled to accept baptism, or persecuted for commercial transactions with Christians. On the other hand, the example of Innocent III. gave countenance to the severest measures, and Eugenius IV. quickly annulled the injunctions of his predecessor, Martin IV. As for the princes, the Jews were regarded as being under their peculiar jurisdiction. At will, they levied taxes upon them, confiscated their goods, and expelled them from their realms. It was to the interest of princes to retain them as sources of revenue, and for this reason they were inclined to protect them against the violence of blind popular prejudice and rage. Frederick II. imposed upon them perpetual slavery as a vengeance upon them for the crucifixion.910 The inception of the Crusades was accompanied by violent outbursts against the Jews. Innocent III., in 1216, established the permanent legal basis of their persecution. Their expulsion from Spain, in 1492, represents the culminating act in the mediaeval drama of their sufferings. England, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, and Hungary joined in their persecution. In Italy they suffered least. Tens of thousands were burned or otherwise put to death. They were driven, at one time or another, from almost every country. The alternative of baptism or death was often presented to them. The number of those who submitted to death was probably larger than the number who accepted baptism. Most of those, however, who accepted baptism afterwards openly returned to the faith of their fathers or practised its rites in secret.911 It is an interesting fact that, during these centuries of persecution, the Jews, especially in Spain and France, developed an energetic literary activity. Gerschom, Raschi, and the Kimchis belong to France. The names of Maimonides and Benjamin of Tudela head a long list of scholarly Spanish Jews. The pages of Graetz are filled with the names and achievements of distinguished students in medicine and other departments of study.912

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The attention of scholars is chiefly concentrated on the Speculum perfectionis published by Sabatier, 1898, and the original Rule of the Franciscan Tertiaries. The Speculum perfectionis is a life of Francis and, according to Sabatier (Introd. li.), is the first biography, dating back to 1227. The discovery of the document is one of the most interesting and remarkable of recent historical discoveries. The way it came to be found was this:— Materials for the Life of Francis are contained in a volume entitled Speculum vitae St. Francisci et sociorum ejus, published first at Venice, 1504, and next at Paris, 1509. In studying the Paris edition of 1509, Sabatier discovered 118 chapters ascribed to no author and differing in spirit and style from the other parts. He used the document in the construction of his biography and was inclined to ascribe it to the three companions of Francis,—Leo, Angelo, and Rufino. See Vie de S. François, pp. lxxii. sq. At a later time he found that in several MSS. these chapters were marked as a distinct document. In the MS. in the Mazarin library he found 124 distinctive chapters. In these are included the 16 of the Paris edition of 1509. These chapters Sabatier regards as a distinct volume, the Speculum perfectionis, written by Leo, the primary composition bearing on Francis’ career and teachings. The date for its composition is derived from the Mazarin MS. which gives the date as MCCXXVIII. This date Sabatier finds confirmed by indications in the document itself, p. xxii. etc. This sympathetic, lucid, and frank narrative puts Francis in a new light, as a martyr to the ambitious designs of Gregory IX. who set aside the rule of absolute poverty which was most dear to Francis’ heart and placed over him a representative of his own papal views. Leo, so Sabatier contends (Introd. p. li.), wrote his work immediately after the announcement by Elias of Cortona of the intention to erect an imposing cathedral over the "Little Poor Man." Leo was unable to suppress his indignation and so uttered his protest against the violent manipulation of Francis’ plan and memory.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  For some reason the procurator looked at the secretary and the convoy with hatred. ‘And it is not for you, insane criminal, to reason about it!’ Here Pilate shouted: ‘Convoy, off the balcony!’ And turning to the secretary, he added: ‘Leave me alone with the criminal, this is a state matter!’ The convoy raised their spears and with a measured tramp of hobnailed caligae walked off the balcony into the garden, and the secretary followed the convoy. For some time the silence on the balcony was broken only by the water singing in the fountain. Pilate saw how the watery dish blew up over the spout, how its edges broke off, how it fell down in streams. The prisoner was the first to speak. ‘I see that some misfortune has come about because I talked with that young man from Kiriath. I have a foreboding, Hegemon, that he will come to grief, and I am very sorry for him.’ ‘I think,’ the procurator replied, grinning strangely, ‘that there is now someone else in the world for whom you ought to feel sorrier than for Judas of Kiriath, and who is going to have it much worse than Judas! . . . So, then, Mark Ratslayer, a cold and convinced torturer, the people who, as I see,’ the procurator pointed to Yeshua’s disfigured face, ‘beat you for your preaching, the robbers Dysmas and Gestas, who with their confrères killed four soldiers, and, finally, the dirty traitor Judas—are all good people?’ ‘Yes,’ said the prisoner. ‘And the kingdom of truth will come?’ ‘It will, Hegemon,’ Yeshua answered with conviction. ‘It will never come!’ Pilate suddenly cried out in such a terrible voice that Yeshua drew back. Thus, many years before, in the Valley of the Virgins, Pilate had cried to his horsemen the words: ‘Cut them down! Cut them down! The giant Ratslayer is trapped!’ He raised his voice, cracked with commanding, still more, and called out so that his words could be heard in the garden: ‘Criminal! Criminal! Criminal!’ And then, lowering his voice, he asked: ‘Yeshua Ha-Nozri, do you believe in any gods?’ ‘God is one,’ replied Yeshua, ‘I believe in him.’ ‘Then pray to him! Pray hard! However . . .’ here Pilate’s voice gave out, ‘that won’t help. No wife?’

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  acknowledging that authority. In 1303, he died as a prisoner in the Vatican. In 1309, the French pope Clement V took up residence in o Avignon, a town in the southern region of France, beginning what’s known as the “Babylonian Captivity of the Church,” a period of more than a century when the popes resided outside of Rome. The death of Gregory XI in 1378 resulted in a divided papacy, o with Clement VII reigning at Avignon and Urban VI in Rome. The “Great Schism” of pope and antipope continued until the Council of Constance in 1414 and was not completely resolved until 1417. Extreme Responses • Such extreme circumstances generated and seemed (at least to some) to justify extreme behavior, even beyond that generated by the sheer need to survive in famine and plague. Christians seemed to have lost their moral bearings. • Until the 12th century, bishops had followed the advice of Bernard of Clairvaux with respect to heretics: “Faith should come through persuasion rather than force,” but that reasonable position changed with the decree Ad abolendam of Pope Lucius III in 1184. The initiative is all the more severe when we remember that heresy was not nearly the threat to the church in the 14th century that it had been in the 2nd and 3rd, when only rhetoric was used as a weapon. Lucius declared that bishops were to make inquisition for o heresy in their dioceses and hand heretics over to secular authority for punishment. When this local process proved ineffective, Pope Gregory IX o took control of the inquisition around 1233, using members of the new mendicant orders as inquisitors. The mendicant inquisitors were answerable only to the papacy, not to local 245

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  My body ached from stress and the dick whipping 12 had put on me a couple of days ago. I sat at the bar going over my real books as music pumped through the speakers, and patrons buzzed around the back of the bakery. I was in the midst of it all, yet I really wasn’t there. I hadn’t been anywhere mentally since I’d found out Whisky had planned on trading me in for a new model. Sucking my teeth, I added up how much I’d lose because of Whisky. Ten to twenty grand a month, depending on income. “Fuckin’ niggah,” I hissed, realizing how much losing him was gonna hurt me. He’d been the one who dished out the payouts to the po-po. “Ya a’ight, sis?” Runner asked, his breath smelling like a garbage bag full of weed. “Haze or Chronic?” With a big Kool-Aid grin, he laughed. “Shit, maybe a lil’ of both. Want me to roll you a blunt to go with that tall-ass glass of yak? What, you guzzlin’ gallons now?” “Nah. Just a little stressed. What’chu gettin’ into?” I asked, hoping he was on his way out. I didn’t want him playing me too close until 12 had knocked off Whisky. “A chicken-head if she calls me on time. A hood-rat if the chicken don’t call first. Unless you need me.” Laughing at the truth, I handed Runner the keys to my whip and a wad of cash. “Do yo thang.” “Word? Money and the ride? Must be a niggah’s birthday.” I gulped my yak. “It’s cool. 12 got me, he’ll make sure I—” “Get to the crib safe,” 12 cut in from out of nowhere. “Cool,” Runner said, then answered his celly. “I’ll check y’all later.” He pointed to his phone. “Chicky, chicky,” he mouthed, disappearing in the crowd. “Sweets, I hate to do this to you. But there’s a problem.” 12 put his hand on my shoulder. My legs were splayed in an M again, mounted on my desk as Poochie, a big bouncer of a brutha, stared at my naked and still swollen poom-poom. The phatness of it made his eyes dance in his head. Turning to 12, he got the same confirmation as Lil’ Lee did: It was cool to move forward. “How you gonna push your shit up in my place? Ya knows the rules, Poochie. I don’t give a fuck how big your ass is. Three hundred and fifty pounds of muscle or not, can’t nobody flip weed in my spot. Now lick your way to forgiveness,” I said, then closed my eyes when I heard 12 cock his burner.

• From The Girls (2016)

  “You better believe we’ll talk.” When she heard Frank’s footsteps returning, she gave me one last look, then rose to meet him. They left me alone at the table. The overhead light on my arms and hands was severe and unlovely. They went on the porch to sit, my mother keeping her cigarette butts in a mermaid tin. From my bedroom I heard their staggered talk late into the night, my mother’s laugh, simple and thoughtless. The smoke from their cigarettes drifting through the screen. The night boiled inside me. My mother thought life was as easy as picking gold from the ground, as if things could be that way for her. There was no Connie to temper my upset, just the suffocating constancy of my own self, that numb and desperate company. —There are ways I made sense of my mother later. How fifteen years with my father had left great blanks in her life that she was learning to fill, like those stroke victims relearning the words for car and table and pencil. The shy way she looked at herself in the oracle of the mirror, as critical and hopeful as an adolescent. Sucking in her stomach to zip her new jeans. —In the morning, I came into the kitchen and found my mother at the table, her bowl of tea already drained, sediment flecking the bottom. Her lips were tight, her eyes wounded. I walked past her without speaking, opening a bag of ground coffee, purple and heady, my mother’s replacement for the Sanka that my father liked. “What was that about?” She was trying to be calm, I could tell, but the words were rushed. I shook the grounds into the maker, turned on the burner. Keeping a Buddhist calm on my face as I went about my tasks, untroubled. This was my best weapon, and I could feel her getting agitated. “Well, now you’re quiet,” she said. “You were very rude to Frank last night.” I didn’t respond. “You want me to be unhappy?” She got to her feet. “I’m talking to you,” she said, reaching to snap the stove off. “Hey,” I said, but her face made me shut up. “Why can’t you let me have anything?” she said. “Just one little thing.” “He’s not going to leave her.” The intensity of my feeling startled me. “He’s never going to be with you.” “You don’t know anything about his life,” she said. “Not anything. You think you know so much.” “Oh yeah,” I said. “Gold. Right. Big success there. Just like Dad. I bet he asked you for money.” My mother flinched. “I try with you,” she said. “I’ve always tried, but you aren’t trying at all. Look at yourself. Doing nothing.” She shook her head, tightening her robe. “You’ll see. Life will come up on you so fast, and guess what, you’ll be stuck with the person you are. No ambition, no drive.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Mikala, on the other hand, was more reserved when it came to dealing with men. She believed in the one-man-for-one-woman theory, and had stuck to that since she began dating. She was all about true love and putting in hard work to maintain a relationship. Like her mother, she had that old-school thinking, believing a man and his woman should stay together through the hard times, no matter what. That’s why she’d put up with Jamel’s bullshit for so long. But right about now he was beginning to test her patience. Her needs weren’t being met in the sheets, and she was one sexually frustrated sista. If she didn’t love her man so much she’d be out in the street searching for his substitute. Mikala laid across the bed in the plush condominium that she shared with Jamel. She thought about their relationship and wondered why things had been going so wrong for the past few months. Jamel used to fill her with so much joy, but now she was starting to wonder if she was just putting up with his shit just to be in a relationship. Still, she was willing to put her heart and soul into working things out with Jamel, but the way he was fronting on her was just crazy. Whenever she tried to talk about their problems, Jamel pushed her away. He worked long hours on the job and when he came home, all he wanted to do was eat and sleep. The weekends were no better because he was either too busy running ball or shooting pool with his boys. They used to get their swerve going at least three times a week. Now she was lucky if he fucked her three times in a month. And whenever they did have sex, it was usually just a quickie, with him bustin’ off in five minutes and rollin’ over to crash right afterward. This nigga wasn’t even considerate enough to let her get her thing off before he did. Shit, Mikala was so horny and in need of some good hard dick that she was about to explode. She’d met Jamel while they were both attending Morgan State University. Mikala had majored in Computer Engineering, while Jamel had studied Business Management. Chastity, who shared some of the same classes as Jamel, introduced them and they’d hit it off instantly. After graduation they’d moved in together and Mikala had managed to get a six-figure job working for SciTech, the state’s largest growing computer engineering firm, while Jamel worked for the federal government as a financial consultant. In the beginning, their relationship was banging. Two young, intelligent Black professionals with well-defined life goals. But the last few months had been rough as hell, and their future plans were in jeopardy of getting deaded if that niggah didn’t clean up his act.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  Varenukha observed on the usher’s departure. ‘And I dislike this undertaking extremely,’ Rimsky grumbled, glancing spitefully at the poster through his horn-rimmed glasses, ‘and generally I’m surprised he’s been allowed to present it.’ ‘No, Grigory Danilovich, don’t say so! This is a very subtle step. The salt is all in the exposure.’ ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, there’s no salt, in my opinion . . . and he’s always coming up with things like this! . . . He might at least show us his magician! Have you seen him? Where he dug him up, devil knows!’ It turned out that Varenukha had not seen the magician any more than Rimsky had. Yesterday Styopa had come running (‘like crazy’, in Rimsky’s expression) to the findirector with the already written draft of a contract, ordered it copied straight away and the money handed over to Woland. And this magician had cleared out, and no one had seen him except Styopa himself. Rimsky took out his watch, saw that it read five minutes past two, and flew into a complete rage. Really! Likhodeev had called at around eleven, said he’d come in half an hour, and not only had not come, but had disappeared from his apartment. ‘He’s holding up my business!’ Rimsky was roaring now, jabbing his finger at a pile of unsigned papers. ‘Might he have fallen under a tram-car like Berlioz?’ Varenukha said as he held his ear to the receiver, from which came low, prolonged and utterly hopeless signals. ‘Wouldn’t be a bad thing . . .’ Rimsky said barely audibly through his teeth. Just then a woman in a uniform jacket, visored cap, black skirt and sneakers came into the office. From a small pouch at her belt the woman took a small white square and a notebook and asked: ‘Who here is Variety? A super-lightning telegram. 2 Sign here.’ Varenukha scribbled some flourish in the woman’s notebook, and as soon as the door slammed behind her, he opened the square. After reading the telegram, he blinked and handed the square to Rimsky. The telegram contained the following: ‘Yalta to Moscow Variety. Today eleven thirty brown-haired man came criminal investigation nightshirt trousers shoeless mental case gave name Likhodeev Director Variety Wire Yalta criminal investigation where Director Likhodeev.’ ‘Hello and how do you do!’ Rimsky exclaimed, and added: ‘Another surprise!’ ‘A false Dmitri!’ 3 said Varenukha, and he spoke into the receiver. ‘Telegraph office? Variety account. Take a super-lightning telegram. Are you listening? “Yalta criminal investigation. Director Likhodeev in Moscow Findirector Rimsky.” ’ Irrespective of the news about the Yalta impostor, Varenukha again began searching all over for Styopa by telephone, and naturally did not find him anywhere. Just as Varenukha, receiver in hand, was pondering where else he might call, the same woman who had brought the first telegram came in and handed Varenukha a new envelope. Opening it hurriedly, Varenukha read the message and whistled. ‘What now?’ Rimsky asked, twitching nervously.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  That night they checked into a phat hotel in midtown Manhattan and fucked like rabbits, then ordered room service and filled each other in on the details that had caused their world to go dark. “It was Jimmy,” Pluto told her. “That niggah capped G, then did himself. Fucked my head up. That fool little niggah popped himself.” Monique lay there crying quietly inside. Not for Jimmy, and not for G’s ass neither! She was crying for her damn self, and for what Juicy and Jimmy, that retarded-ass sister-and-brother team, had cost her. “G didn’t deserve that shit,” Pluto went on, and Monique could hear the pain that was still in his voice. “He was my niggah, straight up. A real motherfucker who was out there handlin’ a real fuckin’ world. None of us saw that shit coming. All of us slept that night and it cost us our boss. And that’s fucked up.” Monique sat up and rubbed Pluto’s fat stomach. The funk coming off him told her he probably hadn’t washed his ass the whole time he was on Rikers. But so what. She let her hand wander down between his legs and started to jack his gummy dick anyway. “Yeah,” Pluto repeated sadly, ignoring her fingers. “That shit was fucked up.” No, Monique thought. What was fucked up was the fact that Juicy got away. That bitch had dipped outta New York with that niggah Gino and all of G’s money too. Ace said he had gone by G’s crib to get a key outta the safe, only to discover the key was gone and so was all the bank in G’s crib and in all his other stashes too. “What’s fucked up, baby,” Monique went ahead and spoke her thoughts out loud, “is how that bitch Juicy got away. We got left hanging while she got to roll outta here with her life intact and all of G’s money too. That trick shoulda got popped for real. Right along with her brother in the G-Spot.” Pluto nodded, and Monique could tell he was thinking real deep because his dick wouldn’t even get hard. “Don’t worry. I got this. Me and Ace gonna find that bitch and get her back to New York. And when we do, she ain’t never gonna leave again.” “Yeah,” Monique said, excitement surging through her at the thought of getting her some revenge on the bitch she hated the most. “I know just how to make that happen too, Papa. Remember, she’s real tight with that trick named Rita who tried to get my brother Maurice locked up. We can use that bitch and her little sisters as bait. Get next to them, and we can get next to Juicy. I guarantee it.”

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  She watched with her mouth hanging open as Juicy ran barefoot through the ice and snow with a sheet around her waist, then staggered over to the curb and flagged down a bootleg taxi and disappeared into the night. Monique cut her lights on, then pulled out into traffic and headed in the same direction. She knew exactly where that skank bitch was probably going. Straight to that Puerto Rican bitch Rita. The same bitch who had threatened to get one of Monique’s brothers locked up over her hot-in-the-ass little sister last summer. She followed the cab down the slippery streets and a few minutes later Monique sat boiling outside of Rita’s house. She sucked on her burnt thumb and watched as Rita opened her front door and Juicy jumped outta the cab and ran her ass inside the apartment. That bitch is gonna get hers, Monique promised. She didn’t need to know all the little details in order to know what time it was. G was gone and so was all of Pluto’s front money, his muscle, and his pull. Every ounce of their bad fortune was tied to that bitch Juicy, and that burned Monique up worse than the hot stove. If it’s the last fuckin’ thing I do in this world, Monique swore to herself again, I’m gonna get her ass back. And if Rita and her ho-ass fuckin’ little sisters wasn’t careful, they could end up getting some too. • • • Shit was hot all over Harlem for weeks. The po-po was outta control, and hustlers was getting knocked every day. As soon as word hit the streets that G had got took down, Harlem was on fire with chaos and turmoil. Moonie did the fuckin’ bird and nobody knew where he had gone. Some young hustler named Flex called himself taking over G’s project operation and got popped with a quickness. Ace and Pluto both got bum-rushed by the police. They caught Ace coming outta his grandmother’s crib and when he pulled out his tool and started firing, they shot out every window in the joint, catching Grandma with a bullet through her forehead as she sat in her rocker. They got Pluto about four o’clock one morning when they kicked the door down and maced him and Monique right in their bed. About twenty cops rushed in and beat the hell outta Pluto, cracking him down to the floor with their nightsticks and digging their boot heels all up in his soft stomach.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty… what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but I will sing. I will sing while you croak, I will dance over your dirty corpse. … To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion, or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing. It is to you, Tania, that I am singing. I wish that I could sing better, more melodiously, but then perhaps you would never have consented to listen to me. You have heard the others sing and they have left you cold. They sang too beautifully, or not beautifully enough. It is the twenty-somethingth of October. I no longer keep track of the date. Would you say—my dream of the 14th November last? There are intervals, but they are between dreams, and there is no consciousness of them left. The world around me is dissolving, leaving here and there spots of time. The world is a cancer eating itself away. … I am thinking that when the great silence descends upon all and everywhere music will at last triumph. When into the womb of time everything is again withdrawn chaos will be restored and chaos is the score upon which reality is written. You, Tania, are my chaos. It is why I sing. It is not even I, it is the world dying, shedding the skin of time. I am still alive, kicking in your womb, a reality to write upon.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Flame tensed. “Cunt” irked the hell out of her. Got on her last damn nerve along with having a white man call her any kind of ho. Rolling her eyes, she went along with his game. Had no choice because she needed the paper, but she swore it would be the last time. She was a Harlem girl and hustla by nature, had worked many a brotha over for his cream. But she wasn’t a ho—’til life gave her no wins. “Give me that sweet chocolate,” Robert urged. Flame rolled over onto her back, widely parted her legs, then made her lower lips smack like they were kissing at him. Inching away as he crawled toward her, she slowly slipped her finger inside her heated tunnel, grinded against it until she became moist enough for him to hear it, then carefully removed it and sucked her juices until her hand was bone dry. Scissoring her thighs closed, then open, her pussy played peekaboo, teasing him. If she was putting on a show, Robert had to put on one too. He had to beg for it. She couldn’t settle for him just wanting the pussy, she had to make him foam at the mouth for a taste. Without words, she talked to him. Wrapping her ankles around his head, she thrust her hips upward, making her clit ring brush his nose, then released herself back onto the floor when he attempted to lick her. Five separate times she seesawed her midsection to his mouth, causing his patience to weaken and her wetness to overflow. She didn’t give a damn that Robert was just a vic or how pink he was, with the blaze that was burning between her legs and no Power around to satisfy her fire, Robert was getting fucked today. And so was she. Getting herself off was the only way she could live with fucking for a dollar, because when it came down to it, that’s exactly what her hustle had become. Selling dreams and ass for cash—and her life. So she saw no reason not to get her nut off too especially because it could be her last one. Just the thought of her breath being snatched away twisted her up, made her work her middle even though Robert’s dick was little. Flame wasn’t gonna half-ass nothing, she was goin’ hard to make the scam phatten her and Enrique’s pockets. “Come here.” Robert gripped her dancer’s waist and slid her toward him. “Why are you running away from me? You know I want you,” he whispered, on the verge of exploding thick in his voice. Flame ran her fingers through her fire-engine-red hair. “I know, baby. I know,” she cooed. “But you’ve got to give me more than that if you want some more of this puddin’. Don’t you want . . .” she dipped two fingers inside her twat, rubbed her milk on his lips “. . . this?”

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  She bawled as she backtracked. Her café au lait breasts dragged down Whisky’s chest, then stomach, before she reached her final destination: a flaccid piece of meat that no longer saluted or wanted her mouth. Whisky reached for the lamp on the nightstand, yelling, “What the hell?” “Not a fuckin’ move, Whisky!” I threatened, waving the burner from him to her. “You want me to splatter yo bitch? Huh?” Grabbing her waist, he tried to push her off him. “Uh-unh,” I said, walking closer to them. “You enjoyed her doggy-style. Now it’s my turn to get a taste.” With her back to me, she begged. Pleaded. Prayed for someone to save her when I stuck the barrel of my gun in her asshole, then rammed it as far up as I could. “Ya better suck like you ain’t never sucked before. Matter of fact, tea bag him!” Whimpering, the chick pulled Whisky’s soft penis in her hands. Lifting it skyward, she rested her head between his thighs, cocked open her mouth, and dunked his nuts in and out of it. “Slurp, bitch. Ya betta moan like you love it.” “Come—” Whisky began. “Oh, don’t worry. I am. Y’all got yours off, I’m gonna get mine off too,” I said, letting loose three shots in her ass, literally blowing her back out. This Week . . . A bunch of pretty mu’fuckas walked by vying for attention as I threw back a double shot of Courvoisier and chased it, upping the game two bills. 12 o’clock, the niggah I’d held down while he’d rocked a baker’s dozen in the bing before springing on an appeal, sat opposite me. He nodded and called my play, slapping a couple hundred on top of the stack. Reading the other gamblers, my eyes stopped on Lil’ Lee. I knew there was going to be trouble. He was a diesel, blue-black brutha who snuck up on people like nighttime. Down ten Gs, he gripped the edge of the other side of the table while his lower lip twitched—a sure sign that he was frustrated, ready to explode. There was an excess of pussy buzzing around and too much money on the green felt for him to get down. Weak-ass niggahs like him were always distracted by fat asses and the possibility of riding them. That’s one of the reasons I’d gotten in on the game. No way was I going to walk away with less than I came in with. Especially in my own spot: Sweets Treats, an all-night bakery that served up confections in the front and offered every kind of sweet a person could imagine in the back. Drugs, liquid, down-low hoes, and gambling, with a little money-laundering added in for extra flavor. “Hurry up, yo. We ain’t got all day,” Runner, my brother and right hand, who’d outrun the police more times than any of us could count, rushed me.

• From The Girls (2016)

  “Not right away, definitely not.” Her mouth puckered. “But if Frank moves in—” “I live here, too,” I said. “You were just gonna let him move in one day, without even telling me?” “You’re fourteen.” “This is bullshit.” “Hey! Watch it,” she said, tucking her hands into her armpits. “I don’t know why you’re being so rude, but you need to quit it, and fast.” The nearness of my mother’s pleading face, her naked upset—it stoked a biological disgust for her, like when I smelled the bellow of iron in the bathroom and knew she had her period. “This is a nice thing I’m trying to do,” she said, “inviting your friend along. Can I get a break here?” I laughed, but it was dripping with the sickness of betrayal. That’s why she’d wanted to make dinner. It was worse now, because I’d been so easily pleased. “Frank’s an asshole.” Her face flared, but she pushed herself to get calm. “Watch your attitude. This is my life, understand? I’m trying to get just a little bit happy,” she said, “and you need to give me that. Can you give me that?” She deserved her anemic life, its meager, girlish uncertainties. “Fine,” I said. “Fine. Good luck with Frank.” Her eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?” “Forget it.” I could smell the raw meat coming to room temperature, a biting tinge of cold metal. My stomach tightened. “I’m not hungry anymore,” I said, and left her standing in the kitchen. The radio still playing songs about first loves, about dancing by the river, the meat thawed enough so my mother would be forced to cook it, though no one would eat it. —It was easy after that to tell myself that I deserved the money. Russell said that most people were selfish, unable to love, and that seemed true of my mother, and my father, too, tucked away with Tamar in the Portofino Apartments in Palo Alto. So it was a tidy trade, when I thought about it like that. Like the money I was filching, bill by bill, added up to something that could replace what had gone missing. It was too depressing to think it had maybe never been there in the first place. That none of it had—Connie’s friendship. Peter ever feeling anything for me besides annoyance at the obviousness of my kiddish worship. My mother left her purse lying around, like always, and that made the money inside seem less valuable, something she didn’t care enough about to take seriously. Still, it was uncomfortable, poking around in her purse, like the rattly inside of my mother’s brain. The litter was too personal—the wrapper from a butterscotch candy, a mantra card, a pocket mirror. A tube of cream, the color of a Band-Aid, that she patted under her eyes. I pinched a ten, folding it into my shorts. Even if she saw me, I’d just say I was getting groceries—why would she suspect me?

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  “Forget you, nigga! If you want skinny, get with one of your crackhead bitches! I don’t have to take your shit!” I yelled. I slammed the phone down in Smooth Willie’s ear. I tried to calm my hot self down. Something just wasn’t right about me having all this daily tension collecting in my back. Probably because I wasn’t getting served properly at home. After such a frustrating day at work I decided to make some solo moves. I was gonna take myself out on a date and party all night in the city—Chocolate City. I predicted there had to be at least one pretty nigga that could turn my head and give me some respect. I’d spent enough time fucking myself at work, so I put on some tight jeans trimmed in pink that showed my butt crack; a black Las Vegas top; pink boots; and a pink rabbit fur jacket that I’d purchased on sale from Wilson’s Suede and Leather. As for the perfume, I grabbed the first thing that I could find on my dresser. Ironically, I ended up squirting on one of Smooth’s favorites, but so what! I decided to bump and grind at one of the most popular nightspots in D.C. I paid the parking attendant, parked the car, and crossed the street armed with a sense of adventure. As I paraded by an assortment of onlookers, men stared at me like I was some strange color, like blue or green. I felt like a fuckin’ Martian who’d just touched down. At first, I didn’t know what to think. “You see dat? That’s one phat-ass motherfucker! Gooot damn! I’d like to hit that from the back!” someone remarked. “I’m wit you on this one—she damn sure is a dime!” another man answered, twisting up his face and making it ugly in the process. Other men cussed at the sight of my curves and tried to hand me business cards, and some even followed behind me like a pack of wild dogs in heat. I laughed, but inside I wasn’t sure that shit was amusing. Truthfully, the ruckus I was causing on the sidewalk embarrassed me and made me wonder why Smooth Wille kept treating me like some second-class bottom bitch. Shit, maybe I had gained a little weight, but I didn’t have to be runway model thin to turn a man’s head. I thought most hood niggas like plenty of tits and ass anyway! I ignored every comment until I heard one particular voice. “Excuse me, sweetheart. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  There’s twenty-two dachas 4 in all, and only seven more being built, and there’s three thousand of us in Massolit.’ ‘Three thousand one hundred and eleven,’ someone put in from the corner. ‘So you see,’ the Bos’n went on, ‘what can be done? Naturally, it’s the most talented of us that got the dachas . . .’ ‘The generals!’ Glukharev the scenarist cut right into the squabble. Beskudnikov, with an artificial yawn, walked out of the room. ‘Five rooms to himself in Perelygino,’ Glukharev said behind him. ‘Lavrovich has six to himself,’ Deniskin cried out, ‘and the dining room’s panelled in oak!’ ‘Eh, that’s not the point right now,’ Ababkov droned, ‘it’s that it’s half past eleven.’ A clamour arose, something like rebellion was brewing. They started telephoning hated Perelygino, got the wrong dacha, Lavrovich’s, found out that Lavrovich had gone to the river, which made them totally upset. They called at random to the commission on fine literature, extension 930, and of course found no one there. ‘He might have called!’ shouted Deniskin, Glukharev and Quant. Ah, they were shouting in vain: Mikhail Alexandrovich could not call anywhere. Far, far from Griboedov’s, in an enormous room lit by thousand-watt bulbs, on three zinc tables, lay what had still recently been Mikhail Alexandrovich. On the first lay the naked body, covered with dried blood, one arm broken, the chest caved in; on the second, the head with the front teeth knocked out, with dull, open eyes unafraid of the brightest light; and on the third, a pile of stiffened rags. Near the beheaded body stood a professor of forensic medicine, a pathological anatomist and his dissector, representatives of the investigation, and Mikhail Alexandrovich’s assistant in Massolit, the writer Zheldybin, summoned by telephone from his sick wife’s side. A car had come for Zheldybin and first of all taken him together with the investigators (this was around midnight) to the dead man’s apartment, where the sealing of his papers had been carried out, after which they all went to the morgue. And now those standing by the remains of the deceased were debating what was the better thing to do: to sew the severed head to the neck, or to lay out the body in the hall at Griboedov’s after simply covering the dead man snugly to the chin with a black cloth? No, Mikhail Alexandrovich could not call anywhere, and Deniskin, Glukharev and Quant, along with Beskudnikov, were being indignant and shouting quite in vain. Exactly at midnight, all twelve writers left the upper floor and descended to the restaurant. Here again they silently berated Mikhail Alexandrovich: all the tables on the veranda, naturally, were occupied, and they had to stay for supper in those beautiful but airless halls.

• From Saint Augustine (Penguin Lives) (1999)

  Julian’s hatred of Augustine came from the feeling that the thugs of Augustine and Jerome had hounded Pelagius out of the Church. Julian was an admirer of Pelagius and a friend of Caelestius, the Pelagian condemned in Africa. When Zosimus, too, condemned Pelagius, Julian refused to sign the ban. He left his diocese in southern Italy (Eclanum) to join other resisters in northern Italy. They issued a call for an ecumenical council to reinstate Pelagius. That is why Julian went to Valerius with tales of Augustine’s hostility to marriage. Brown says of this move: “For the first, and last, time that we know of in the history of the Early Church, the clergy sought out the opinion of a married layman on the delicate issue of sex and marriage” (B and S 415). Rushing to the fray, Augustine dashed off a book to Valerius denying that he was opposed to marriage—he was going to be tarred often with the brush of Jerome’s notorious statements on marriage. Julian answered with four books against Augustine’s one. A collection of excerpts from this long work was prepared for Valerius (who presumably had no time to read all four books). Augustine’s agents in Ravenna got a copy of the excerpts and sent them to Africa. Augustine replied instantly, since he could not tell when a copy of the complete work might be obtained. Then, when the entire book did arrive, he answered that as well. The war was on, and neither man would tire or give an inch till one of them died (Augustine, fifteen years into the campaign). Though Julian’s attacks exist now only in the lengthy extracts Augustine gives when trying to refute them, in one sense Julian won this war. The picture of Augustine that many people have picked up is one that Julian created, by his own words or by Augustine’s repeated return to themes chosen by Julian. It is the picture of a man pessimistic about politics and other human activity, burdened with a semi-Manichean awareness of the power of evil, and haunted by a memory of sex.