Anxiety

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 Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  several hours on hold. Those who actually believed you were serious would not commit themselves. Others just cussed you out. Meanwhile, the magazine was going to press. The Druid called three times and encouraged you to keep trying. Finally, with the composing room screaming for the final pages, an accommodation of sorts was reached, unknown to the President and his staff. While Webster’s Second distinguished the meanings of the two words, the racier Third Edition listed them as synonyms. The Druid gave you a final call to explain this and to approve—not without trepidation—the original quote. The magazine went to press. Government continued apace. At one o’clock you go out for a sandwich. Megan asks you to bring her a Tab. Downstairs, you semi-revolve through the doors and think about how nice it would be not to have to return at all, ever. You also think about how nice it would be to hole up in the nearest bar. The glare from the sidewalk stuns you; you fumble in your jacket pocket for your shades. Sensitive eyes, you tell people. You shuffle off to the deli and pick up a pastrami-on-rye and an egg cream. The bald man behind the counter whistles cheerfully as he slices the meat. “Nice and lean today,” he says. “And now for a little mustard —just how your mom used to make it.” “What do you know about it,” you ask. “Just passing the time, pal,” he says, wrapping it all up. All of this, the dead meat on ice behind glass, everything, puts you off your meal. Outside, waiting for a light, you are accosted by a man leaning up against a bank. “My man, check it out here. Genuine Cartier watches. Forty dollars. Wear the watch that’ll make ’em watch you. The genuine article. Only forty bucks.” The man stands beside the torso of a mannequin, the arms of which are covered with watches. He holds one out to you. “Check it out.” If you take it, you’ll feel committed. But you don’t want to be rude. You take the watch and examine it. “How do I know it’s real?”

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Bring their doubts and anxieties to the surface and they can be led and lured to follow you. No one can see you as someone to follow or fall in love with unless they first reflect on themselves somehow, and on what they are missing. Be- fore the seduction proceeds, you must place a mirror in front of them in son, he schemes to get for himself whatever is beautiful and good; he is bold and forward and strenuous, always devising tricks like a cunning huntsman." —PLATO, SYMPOSIUM, TRANSLATED BY WALTER HAMILTON We are all like pieces of the coins that children break in half for keepsakes— making two out of one, like the flatfish—and each of us is forever seeking the half that will tally with himself . . . And so all this to-do is a relic of that original state of ours when we were whole, and now, when we are longing for and following after that primeval wholeness, we say we are in love. —ARISTOPHANES'S SPEECH IN PLATO'S SYMPOSIUM, QUOTED IN JAMES MANDRELL, DON JUAN AND THE POINT OF HONOR Don John: Well met, pretty lass! What! Are there such handsome Creatures as you amongst these Fields, these Trees, and Rocks? • Charlotta: I am as you see, Sir. • Don John: Are you of this Village? • Charlotta: Yes, Sir. • Don John: What's your name? • Charlotta: Charlotta, Sir, at your Service. • Don John: Ah what a fine Person 'tis! What piercing Eyes! • Charlotta: Sir, you make me ashamed. . . . • Don John: Pretty Charlotta, you are not marry'd, are you? • Charlotta: No, Sir, but I am soon to be, with Pierrot, son to Goody Simonetta. • Don John: What! Shou'd such a one as you be Wife to a 208 • The Art of Seduction which they glimpse that inner emptiness. Made aware of a lack, they now can focus on you as the person who can fill that empty space. Remember: most of us are lazy. To relieve our feelings of boredom or inadequacy on our own takes too much effort; letting someone else do the job is both easier and more exciting. The desire to have someone fill up our emptiness is the weakness on which all seducers prey. Make people anxious about the future, make them depressed, make them question their identity, make them sense the boredom that gnaws at their life. The ground is prepared. The seeds of seduction can be sown. In Plato's dialogue Symposium—the West's oldest treatise on love, and a text that has had a determining influence on our ideas of desire—the cour- tesan Diotima explains to Socrates the parentage of Eros, the god of love.

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  swine (w. pic.); Pedro, the name of five kings of Portugal. Finally, Penguins. Flightless and clumsy on land. You know the feeling. The Emperor reaches a height of four feet. No mention of edibility. In the picture they look like eccentric Polar Explorers dressed for a reception at the Sherry Netherland. Your colleagues are abuzz with details from their own pieces. Wade has one about an inventor who has just received his hundredth patent, for a rotary nose-hair clipping device. Wade gets the inventor on the phone and learns that he was also responsible for the automatic toilet- bowl cleaning revolution, although the big companies stole the idea out from under him and made millions. He gives Wade a long account of this injustice and then says he can’t discuss the matter because it’s under litigation. All this should be wonderfully diverting, yet there is a forced quality to your laughter. You find it hard to listen to what other people are saying, or to understand the words of the article on which you are ostensibly working. You read the same paragraph over and over, trying to remember the difference between a matter of fact and a matter of opinion. Should you call up the president of the Polar Explorers and ask if it’s true that someone was wearing a headdress made out of walrus skin? Does it matter? And why does the spelling of Triscuit look so strange? You keep watching the door for Clara. Odd phrases of French run through your brain. The first thing to do is call the writer and get from him the number of someone who can confirm that such a society exists, that it had a reception at the hotel mentioned, on the date mentioned, that this is a matter of fact and not fiction. Names are named. You must find out if these names belong to real people and, if so, how they are spelled. Rittenhouse announces that he’s just had a call from Clara, who is sick and won’t be in: the reprieve you have been waiting for. The boa constrictor wrapped around your heart eases its grip. Who knows? The illness might prove serious. “Actually,” Rittenhouse continues, “what she said is that she would not be in this morning. She’s not certain if she will be feeling well enough to come in this afternoon. She can’t say at this point.” He pauses and tugs on his glasses, considering whether further qualification is necessary, and then concludes, “Anyone wishing to consult her may call

• From What Are Biblical Values? (2019)

  There is little doubt that the writers of these texts imagined that the present world would literally come to an end. The end is always followed by a new beginning. There is presumably some continuity from this world to the next, as there is in the resurrection of the dead. But the transformation is extreme and presupposes the destruction of the old world. Human life and the life of the natural world are intertwined. Humans and nature suffer a like fate. At no point do any of these texts suggest that human beings may exploit or ravage the earth with impunity, but neither do they provide strong motivation for tending it or preserving it. As David Horrell concludes, the biblical texts, especially the New Testament, “leave us with an uncertain and ambivalent legacy when it comes to the possible contribution of their future visions to theological and ethical views of the environment.”41 But while there is little doubt that the authors of Revelation and 2 Peter believed quite literally that the physical destruction of the world was imminent, we cannot take these texts at face value two thousand years later. As the skeptical contemporaries of 2 Peter observed, things continue, more or less as they were, despite the passing of millennia. In fact, there is no more reason to take biblical accounts of the end of history literally than there is to take the accounts of creation as factual. The extremes of history lie outside the scope of human experiential knowledge. They are accessible only by visionary imagination; the descriptions of apocalypses, especially in the Book of Revelation, are richly imaginative. As such, they are not sources of information about the future but expressions of human hopes and fears in the present, often expressed in language drawn from ancient myths.42 The descriptions of cosmic destruction in Revelation should be read not as predictions but as fantasies of catastrophe, inspired by the clash between the temporal dominion of the Roman empire and the emerging faith in the lordship of Jesus.43 While the natural world plays a prominent part in the imagery of Revelation, the primary concern of the book is for the followers of Jesus. In that sense, it is anthropocentric, and its relevance to environmental concerns is indirect. The most significant part of the book for the discussion of ecology may well be the vision of the new creation in chapters 21–22. Chapter 21 is devoted to the new Jerusalem, built of gold and precious metals. This city will have no need of sun or moon, for the Lamb will be its light. Chapter 22 goes on to speak of the river of the water of life44 and the tree of life. Nothing accursed will be found there anymore. This is certainly a vision of a harmonious world, one in which the earth is no longer at odds with humanity.45 It is concerned more with cultic and social concerns than with the restoration of nature as we know it.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Napoleon's use of temptation had two elements: behind you is a grim "Pah!" she said. "We are constantly making Him past; ahead of you is a future of wealth and glory, if you follow me. Integral promises that we never to the temptation strategy is a clear demonstration that the target has noth-keep! What does it matter ing to lose and everything to gain. The present offers little hope, the future if we fail to keep this can be full of pleasure and excitement. Remember to keep the future gains one? He can always find other girls to preserve vague, though, and somewhat out of reach. Be too specific and you will their virginity for Him. " • disappoint; make the promise too close at hand, and you will not be able to . . . Before the time came postpone satisfaction long enough to get what you want. for them to leave, they had each made repeated trials of The barriers and tensions in temptation are there to stop people from the dumb fellow's riding giving in too easily and too superficially. You want them to struggle, to ability, and later on, when resist, to be anxious. Queen Victoria surely fell in love with her prime they were busily swapping tales about it all, they minister, Benjamin Disraeli, but there were barriers of religion (he was a agreed that it was every bit dark-skinned Jew), class (she, of course, was a queen), social taste (she was as pleasant an experience a paragon of virtue, he a notorious dandy). The relationship was never as they had been led to consummated, but what deliciousness those barriers gave to their daily en-believe, indeed more so. And from then on, counters, which were full of constant flirtation. whenever the opportunity Many such social barriers are gone today, so they have to be arose, they whiled away manufactured—it is the only way to put spice into seduction. Taboos of many a pleasant hour in the dumb fellow's arms. • any kind are a source of tension, and they are psychological now, not reli-One day, however, a gious. You are looking for some repression, some secret desire that will companion of theirs make your victim squirm uncomfortably if you hit upon it, but will tempt happened to look out from the window of her cell, saw them all the more. Search in their past; whatever they seem to fear or flee the goings-on, and drew from might hold the key. It could be a yearning for a mother or father fig-the attention of two others ure, or a latent homosexual desire. Perhaps you can satisfy that desire by to what was afoot. Having

• From The Greatest Controversies of Early Christian History (2013)

  45 pleasures of the fl esh; thus, the natural tendency for rigorous ascetics was to remain unmarried. o Recall that these Jews came from about the same time and place as Jesus did. Jesus, like the Essenes, was an apocalypticist who devoted himself to the coming kingdom and maintained that one’s entire focus should be on the kingdom, not on life and its pleasures in the here and now. It’s not at all implausible that Jesus, like the Essenes, was unmarried. Paul’s Views on Marriage  The apostle Paul was not a disciple of Jesus. A zealous Jew, Paul was originally opposed to the Christian mission and message. He initially believed that the Christian claim that Jesus—a seemingly powerless fi gure—was the messiah was blasphemous.  But then, Paul had a revelation; he came to think that Jesus was not the one who would save Israel from its foreign oppressors, but the one who would save all people from their sins. Paul believed that Jesus’s death was a sacrifi ce to God that made people right with God, and his resurrection showed that he would soon return in judgment on the earth to destroy the forces of evil and set up God’s kingdom.  In several passages in his letters, Paul makes it quite clear that Jesus is returning soon and that people need to prepare for the judgment. Paul was so convinced of the imminence of this event that he urged his followers to be completely committed to the coming kingdom, so much so that they were not to change their social status.  This exhortation becomes clear in 1 Corinthians, in which Paul tells people who are married that because the end is coming soon, they should not seek to change their status. o In view of the impending crisis, Paul advises his followers to remain as they are: “Are you free from a wife, do not seek a wife.” Those who marry, Paul explains, will experience distress in this life, for which the appointed time has grown short.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  her wear something she did Eventually this becomes a habit; we are nice, even when it isn't really nec-not wish to. When she occasionally dared to do essary. We try to please other people, to not step on their toes, to avoid dis-anything, however small, agreements and conflict. without his leave, he Niceness in seduction, however, though it may at first draw someone to treated her like a servant, and she was in tears for you (it is soothing and comforting), soon loses all effect. Being too nice can several days. • . . . Before literally push the target away from you. Erotic feeling depends on the cre-assembled company he ation of tension. Without tension, without anxiety and suspense, there can would give her such be no feeling of release, of true pleasure and joy It is your task to create brusque replies that everyone lowered their eyes, that tension in the target, to stimulate feelings of anxiety, to lead them to and the Duchess would and fro, so that the culmination of the seduction has real weight and inten-blush, though her passion sity. So rid yourself of your nasty habit of avoiding conflict, which is in any Mix Pleasure with Pain • 377 case unnatural. You are most often nice not out of your own inner good- for him was in no way ness but out of fear of displeasing, out of insecurity. Go beyond that fear curtailed." • For the princess, Riom was a and you suddenly have options—the freedom to create pain, then magically sovereign remedy against dissolve it. Your seductive powers will increase tenfold. boredom. People will be less upset by your hurtful actions than you might imag- —STENDHAL, LOVE, ine. In the world today, we often feel starved for experience. We crave TRANSLATED BY GILBERT AND emotion, even if it is negative. The pain you cause your targets, then, is SUZANNE SALE bracing—it makes them feel more alive. They have something to complain about, they get to play the victim. As a result, once you have turned the pain into pleasure they will readily forgive you. Stir up their jealousy, make them feel insecure, and the validation you later give their ego by preferring them over their rivals is doubly delightful. Remember: you have more to fear by boring your targets than by shaking them up. Wounding people binds them to you more deeply than kindness. Create tension so you can release it. If you need inspiration, find the part of the target that most irritates you and use it as a springboard for some therapeutic conflict. The more real your cruelty, the more effective it is. In 1818, the French writer Stendhal, then living in Milan, met the Countess Metilda Viscontini. For him, it was love at first sight. She was a proud, somewhat difficult woman, and she intimidated Stendhal, who was terribly afraid of displeasing her with a stupid comment or undignified act.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Letting your targets feel that your affection is neither temporary nor superficial will often make them fall deeper under your spell. In some, though, it can arouse an anxiety: the fear of commitment, of a claustrophobic relationship with no exits. Never let your spiritual lures seem to be leading in that direction, then. To focus attention on the distant future may implicitly constrict their freedom; you should be seducing them, not offering to marry them. What you want is to make them lose themselves in the moment, experiencing the timeless depth of your feelings in the present tense. Religious ecstasy is about intensity, not temporal extensity. Giovanni Casanova used many spiritual lures in his seductions—the occult, anything that would inspire lofty sentiments. For the time that he was involved with a woman, she would feel that he would do anything for her, that he was not just using her only to abandon her. But she also knew that when it became convenient to end the affair, he would cry, give her a magnificent gift, then quietly leave. This was just what many young women wanted—a temporary diversion from marriage or an oppressive family. Sometimes pleasure is best when we know it is fleeting. Mix Pleasure with Pain The greatest mistake in seduction is being too nice. At first, perhaps, your kindness is charming, but it soon grows monotonous; you are trying too hard to please, and seem insecure. Instead of overwhelming your targets with niceness, try inflicting some pain. Lure them in with focused attention, then change direction, appearing suddenly uninterested. Make them feel guilty and insecure. Even instigate a breakup, subjecting them to an emptiness and pain that will give you room to maneuver— now a rapprochement, an apology, a return to your earlier kindness, will turn them weak at the knees. The lower the lows you create, the greater the highs. To heighten the erotic charge, create the excitement of fear. The Emotional Roller Coaster One hot summer afternoon in 1894, Don Mateo Díaz, a thirty-eight-year-old resident of Seville, decided to visit a local tobacco factory Because of his connections Don Mateo was allowed to tour the place, but his interest was not in the business side. Don Mateo liked young girls, and hundreds of them worked in the factory. Just as he had expected, that day many of them were in a state of near undress because of the heat—it was quite a spectacle. He enjoyed the sights for a while, but the noise and the The more one pleases generally, the less one temperature soon got to him. As he was heading for the door, though, a pleases profoundly. worker of no more than sixteen called out to him: "Caballero, if you will —STENDHAL, LOVE, give me a penny I will sing you a little song." TRANSLATED BY GILBERT AND The girl's name was Conchita Pérez, and she looked young and inno- SUZANNE SALE

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  KENNEDY, ACCEPTANCE SPEECH AS THE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, QUOTED IN JOHN HELLMANN, THE KENNEDY OBSESSION: THE AMERICAN MYTH OF JFK The normal rhythm of life oscillates in general between a mild satisfaction with oneself and a slight discomfort, originating in the knowledge of one's personal shortcomings. We should like to be as handsome, young, strong or clever as other people of our acquaintance. We wish we could achieve as much as they do, long for similar advantages, positions, the same or greater success. To be delighted with oneself is the exception and, often enough, a smoke screen which we produce for ourselves and of course for others. Somewhere in it is a lingering feeling of discomfort with ourselves and a slight self-dislike. I assert that an increase of 210 • The Art of Seduction on a collective adventure, to go back to ideals we had given up. But before anyone joined his crusade they had to be made aware of how much they had lost, what was missing. A group, like an individual, can get mired in routine, losing track of its original goals. Too much prosperity saps it of strength. You can seduce an entire nation by aiming at its collective insecu- rity, that latent sense that not everything is what it seems. Stirring dissatis- faction with the present and reminding people about the glorious past can unsettle their sense of identity. Then you can be the one to redefine it—a grand seduction. Symbol: Cupid's Arrow. What awakens desire in the seduced is not a soft touch or a pleasant sensation; it is a wound. The ar- row creates a pain, an ache, a need for relief Before desire there must be pain. Aim the arrow at the victim's weakest spot, creating a wound that you can open and reopen. Reversal I f you go too far in lowering the targets' self-esteem they may feel too in- secure to enter into your seduction. Do not be heavy-handed; like Lawrence, always follow up the wounding attack with a soothing gesture. Otherwise you will simply alienate them. Charm is often a subtler and more effective route to seduction. The Victorian Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli always made people feel better about themselves. He deferred to them, made them the center of attention, made them feel witty and vibrant. He was a boon to their vanity, and they grew addicted to him. This is a kind of diffused seduction, lacking in ten- sion and in the deep emotions that the sexual variety stirs; it bypasses peo- ple's hunger, their need for some kind of fulfillment.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  him, feelings of friendship turning into affection and desire. Once they felt —PLATO, SYMPOSIUM, TRANSLATED BY WALTER uncertain about themselves, they were susceptible to falling in love. HAMILTON Most of us protect ourselves from the harshness of life by succumbing to routines and patterns, by closing ourselves off from others. But underlying these habits is a tremendous sense of insecurity and defensiveness. We We are all like pieces of the feel we are not really living. The seducer must pick at this wound and bring coins that children break in half for keepsakes— these semiconscious thoughts into full awareness. This was what Lawrence making two out of one, did: his sudden, brutally unexpected jabs would hit people at their weak like the flatfish— and each spot. of us is forever seeking the half that will tally with Although Lawrence had great success with his frontal approach, it is himself . . . And so all often better to stir thoughts of inadequacy and uncertainty indirectly, by this to-do is a relic of that hinting at comparisons to yourself or to others, and by insinuating some- original state of ours when we were whole, and now, how that your victims' lives are less grand than they had imagined. You when we are longing for want them to feel at war with themselves, torn in two directions, and anx- and following after that ious about it. Anxiety, a feeling of lack and need, is the precursor of all de- primeval wholeness, we say we are in love. sire. These jolts in the victim's mind create space for you to insinuate your poison, the siren call of adventure or fulfillment that will make them follow —ARISTOPHANES'S SPEECH IN PLATO'S SYMPOSIUM, QUOTED IN you into your web. Without anxiety and a sense of lack there can be no JAMES MANDRELL, DON JUAN seduction. AND THE POINT OF HONOR Desire and love have for their object things or qualities which a man does not at present possess but which he Don John: Well met, pretty lass! What! Are lacks. there such handsome —SOCRATES Creatures as you amongst these Fields, these Trees, and Rocks? • Charlotta: I am as you see, Sir. • Don Keys to Seduction John: Are you of this Village? • Charlotta: Yes, Sir. • Don John: What's Everyone wears a mask in society; we pretend to be more sure of our- your name? • Charlotta: selves than we are. We do not want other people to glimpse that Charlotta, Sir, at your doubting self within us. In truth, our egos and personalities are much more Service. • Don John: Ah fragile than they appear to be; they cover up feelings of confusion and what a fine Person 'tis! What piercing Eyes! •

• From Middlesex (2002)

  When shewas finished therewassilence. "Thankyou," saidMr.da Silva, as surprisedas die restofus."Thatwas verynicely done." The bell rang. Immediatelythe Objectleanedaway fromme.She rana hand through her hairagain,astiioughrinsingit inthe shower. She slipped out ofthedesk andlefttheroom. Oncertain days, whenthe greenhousewaslitjustsoandthe Obscure Object's blouse unbuttoned twobuttons,when thelightilluminated the scapulars dangling betweenthecups ofherbrassiere,didCalliope feel anyinkling ofhertrue biological nature?Didsheever,whilethe ObscureObject passed in the hall,think thatwhatshe was feeling was wrong?Yesandno. Letme remind you whereallthiswashap- pening. It wasperfectiy acceptableatBaker& Inglis togeta crushon a fellowclassmate. At a girls'schoolacertain amountofemotionalen- ergy,normally expendedonboys,getsredirectedinto friendships. Girlswalkedarm inarm at B&I,the way French schoolgirls do. They competedforaffection. Jealousies arose.Betrayalsoccurred. It was common to comeintothebathroomandhearsomebodysobbing in oneofthestalls.Girlscriedbecauseso-and-sowouldn'tsit by them atlunch,orbecausetheirbestfriendhad a newboyfriendwhomo- nopolized hertime.Ontopofthis,schoolritualsreinforcedaninti- mateatmosphere. TherewasRingDay,whereBigSistersinitiated LittleSistersinto maturitybygivingthemflowersandgoldbands. There wastheDistaff Dance,amaypolewithoutmen,heldinthe spring. Therewerethebimonthly "Heart-to-Hearts," confessional meetingsrun bytheschool chaplain,whichinvariably endedin paroxysmsof huggingand weeping.Nevertheless,theethos ofthe school remainedmilitandy heterosexual.Myclassmatesmightact cozy during theday, butboyswerethenumberone after-schoolac- tivity. Anygirl suspected ofbeingattractedtogirls wasgossiped about, victimized, andshunned.Iwasawareofallthis.Itscaredme. I didn't knowifthe wayIfeltabouttheObscureObjectwasnor- mal ornot. My friendstendedtoget envious crushesonothergirls. Reetika swooned overthe way Alwyn Brierplayed Finlandiaon the piano. Linda Ramirezwas smittenwithSofiaCracchiolobecauseshe was taking threelanguages atonce. Wasthat it?WasthecrushI had on the Object aresultofherelocutionarytalent? Idoubtedit.Itfelt 327 physical,my crush.Itwasn'tajudgment butatumultin myveins. For that reasonIkept quiet about it.Ihid outinthebasement bath- roomto thinkthe matterthrough. Every day, whenever Icould,I took the backstairsdowntothedesertedwashroomand shutmyself up foratleast halfanhour. Isthere anyplace as comforting asanold,institutional,prewar bathroom?Thekindof bathroom theyusedtobuildinAmerica when thecountrywasontherise.The basement bathroom atBaker &Ingliswas done up like a box at theopera.Edwardianlighting fix- tures gleamedoverhead.Thesinkswere deep whitebowls set inblue slate.Whenyou bent to washyourface yousawtinycracksinthe porcelain,asin a Mingvase.Gold chains heldthedrain-stoppersin place.Beneath the taps, drippinghadworntheporcelainthinin green stripes. Aboveeach sinkhunganovalmirror.Iwantednothingtodo withanyofthem.("Thehatred ofmirrorsthatbeginsinmiddle age" started early forme.) Avoidingmyreflection,Iheadedstraightfor thetoiletstalls.Therewere three, and Ichosethemiddle.Likethe others,itwasmarble. GrayNewEnglandmarble,twoinches thick, quarriedinthenineteenthcenturyandstudded withfossilsmillions of years old.Iclosedthedoorandlatchedit. Itook a Safe-T-Guard fromthedispenserandlaidit overthetoiletseat.Germ-protected, I loweredmyunderpants,liftedmy kilt,andsat.RightawayIcould feel mybodyrelaxing,mystoop unkinking itself.Ibrushedmyhair outofmyface so thatIcouldsee.There werelittle fern-shaped fos- sils,andfossils that lookedlikescorpions stingingthemselvesto death.Down beneathmylegsthe toiletbowl had a ruststain,an- cient, too. The basement bathroom wasthe oppositeof ourlockerroom. Thestalls were sevenfeethighand extended allthewaytothe floor. Fossilized marble concealedmeeven better thanmyhair.Inthebase- mentbathroom wasatimeframe Ifeltmuch morecomfortable with, not therat race oftheschoolupstairs butthe slow, evolutionary progressof the earth,ofitsplantand animallife formingoutof the generative, primeval mud.Thefaucets dripped withdieslow, inex- orable movement oftime andIwasalone down there, andsafe.Safe frommy confused feelingsabouttheObscure Object; andsafe, too, fromthe bits of conversation I'dbeen overhearing frommy parents' 328

• From Middlesex (2002)

  "This is in a book you read?" Desdemona's voice was tight. "Pare's On Monsters and Marvels has most of this. The Church got into it, too. In his Embryological Sacra, Cangiamilla recommended intra-uterine baptisms. Suppose you were worried that you might be carrying a monstrous baby. Well, there was a cure for that. You sim- ply filled a syringe with holy water and baptized the infant before it was born." "Don't worry, Desdemona," Lefty said, seeing how anxious she looked. "Doctors don't think that anymore." "Of course not," said Dr. Philobosian. "All this nonsense comes from the Dark Ages. We know now that most birth deformities result from the consanguinity of the parents." "From the what?" asked Desdemona. "From families intermarrying." Desdemona went white. "Causes all lands of problems. Imbecility. Hemophilia. Look at the Romanovs. Look at any royal family. Mutants, all of them." "I don't remember what I was thinking that night," Desdemona said later while washing the dishes. "I do," said Lina. "Third one from the right. With the red hair." "I had my eyes closed." "Then don't worry." Desdemona turned on the water to cover their voices. "And what about the other thing? The con . . the con . . ." . "The consanguinity?" "Yes. How do you know if the baby has that?" "You don't know until it's born." "Mana!" "Why do you think the Church doesn't let brothers and sisters get married? Even first cousins have to get permission from a bishop." 116 "I thought it was because . . ." and she trailed off, having no an- swer. "Don't worry," Lina said. "These doctors exaggerate. If families marrying each other was so bad, we'd all have six arms and no legs." But Desdemona did worry. She thought back to Bithynios, trying to remember how many children had been born with something wrong with them. Melia Salakas had a daughter with a piece missing from the middle of her face. Her brother, Yiorgos, had been eight years old his whole life. Were there any babies with hair shirts? Any frog babies? Desdemona recalled her mother telling stories about strange infants born in the village. They came every few generations, babies who were sick in some way, Desdemona couldn't remember how exactiy— her mother had been vague. Every so often these ba- bies appeared, and they always met with tragic ends: they killed themselves, they ran off and became circus performers, they were seen years later in Bursa, begging or prostituting themselves. Lying alone in bed at night, with Lefty out working, Desdemona tried to recall the details of these stories, but it was too long ago and now Eu- phrosyne Stephanides was dead and there was no one to ask. She

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  Late at night when he and the other preachers sat around talking after a long service, I often heard him say he would rather take a beating than beg.We said we were living by faith, but any reasonable observer would have said we were barely scraping by. Each revival cost thousands of dollars in rent, fees, and ads. Brother Terrell had to make monthly payments on the tent, PA system, organ, and other equipment. My mother and other members of the evangelistic team stayed up all night praying with him that God would meet our needs. And I guess he did, but at the last minute and often with barely enough. Someone donated a house for us to live in during one revival, but it didn’t have electricity or running water. Pam and I took baths together outdoors in a galvanized aluminum tub with water that came through a hose connected to a windmill. When we finished, Randall and Gary plopped into the same dingy water and showered off with the hose afterward. We didn’t go hungry, but we ate mayonnaise sandwiches and pork and beans for lunch, and bologna sandwiches and pork and beans for dinner. I wondered from time to time why miracles performed under the tent were perfect and complete, while in our daily lives God left things half finished. It was as if something distracted him midway through a job and he wandered off, leaving us with just enough food in our bellies and just enough hope in our souls.When a windstorm damaged the tent, or one of the trucks that hauled the equipment had engine trouble, or a speaker blew, or a creditor demanded immediate payment, the financial strain increased. The men and women who traveled with Brother Terrell were in their early to midtwenties and completely dedicated to helping him spread the gospel. Mama and the others often signed their paychecks and put them back in the offering, trusting God to meet their needs. Betty Ann found it more difficult. In the eight years she had been married to Brother Terrell, she had watched his reputation grow and his ministry expand, but they still lived like poor people. All of the money that came in went to the ministry. There was no home, no stability, no reliable income. Loud and angry voices sometimes filtered through the walls of the Terrells’ bedroom all night long. Brother Terrell emerged the next morning looking beaten. My mother would sit and drink coffee with him and “try to encourage him.” Afterward, she counseled Betty Ann on how a minister’s wife had to support him, especially in hard times.One night in Huntsville, Alabama, as Brother Terrell stood in front of the prayer ramp, offering buckets in hand, the Woman Who Used To Be Big walked up and snatched the microphone from him. She had joined the tribes that followed us as we moved in the vicinity of their hometowns.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  Our room had been carved out of a once-bigger suite. Now the angles of the walls were skewed. Even Tessie, pint-sized, felt con- stricted. For some reason the bathroom was nearly as large as the bedroom. The toilet stood stranded on loose tiles and ran continu- ously. The tub had a skid mark where the water drained out. There was a queen-size bed for my parents and, in the corner, a cot set up for me. I hauled my suitcase up onto it. My suitcase was a bone of contention between Tessie and me. She had picked it out for me before our trip to Turkey. It had a floral pattern of turquoise and green blossoms which I found hideous. Since going off to private school— and hanging around the Object— my tastes had been chang- ing, becoming refined, I thought. Poor Tessie no longer knew what to buy me. Anything she chose was greeted by wails of horror. I was adamantly opposed to anything synthetic or with visible stitching. My parents found my new urge for purity amusing. Often my father would rub my shirt between his thumb and fingers and ask, "Is this preppy?" With the suitcase Tessie had had no time to consult me, and so there it was, bearing a design like a place mat's. Unzipping the suit- case and flipping it open, I felt better. Inside were all the clothes I'd chosen myself: the crew neck sweaters in primary colors, the Lacoste shirts, the wide -wale corduroys. My coat was from Papagallo, lime green with horn-shaped buttons made from bone. "Do we have to unpack or can we leave everything in our suit- cases?" I asked. "We better unpack and put our suitcases in the closet," Milton an- swered. "Give us a little more room in here." I put my sweaters neatly in the dresser drawers, my socks and un- derpants, too, and hung my pants up. I took my toiletry case into the bathroom and put it on the shelf. I had brought lip gloss and per- fume with me. I wasn't certain that they were obsolete. 404 I closed the bathroom door, locked it, and bent close to the mir- ror to examine my face. Two dark hairs, still short, were visible above my upper lip. I got tweezers out of my case and plucked them. This made my eyes water. My clothes felt tight. The sleeves of my sweater were too short. I combed my hair and, optimistically, desperately, smiled at myself. I knew that my situation, whatever it was, was a crisis of some kind. I could tell that from my parents' false, cheery behavior and from our speedy exit from home. Still, no one had said a word to me yet. Milton and Tessie were treating me exactly as they always had— as their daughter, in otiier words. They acted as though my problem was medical and therefore fixable. So I began to hope so, too. Like a

• From Middlesex (2002)

  ther, and her great-grandfather, performing a family legacy of precise, codified, thorough worrying. As the beads clicked together, Desde- mona gave herself up to them. What was the matter with God? Why had He taken her parents and left her to worry about her brother? What was she supposed to do with him? "Smoking, drinking, and now worse! And where does he get the money for all his foolishness? From my cocoons, that's how!" Each bead slipping through her fin- gers was another resentment recorded and released. Desdemona, with her sad eyes, her face of a girl forced to grow up too fast, wor- ried with her beads like all the Stephanides men before and after her (right down to me, if I count). She went to the window and put her head out, heard the wind rustiing in the pine trees and the white birch. She kept counting her worry beads and, little by little, they did their job. She felt better. She decided to go on with her life. Lefty wouldn't come back tonight. Who cared? Who needed him anyway? It would be easier for her if he never came back. But she owed it to her mother to see that he didn't catch some shameful disease or, worse, run off with a Turkish girl. The beads continued to drop, one by one, through Desdemona's 29 hands. But she was no longer counting her pains. Instead, the beads now summoned to her mind images in a magazine hidden in their fa- ther's old desk. One bead was a hairstyle. The next bead was a silk slip. The next was a black brassiere. My grandmother had begun to matchmake. Lefty, meanwhile, carrying a sack of cocoons, was on his way down the mountain. When he reached the city, he came down Kapali Carsi Caddesi, turned at Borsa Sokak, and soon was passing through the arch into the courtyard of the Koza Han. Inside, around the aquama- rine fountain, hundreds of stiff, waist-high sacks foamed over with silkworm cocoons. Men crowded everywhere, either selling or buy- ing. They had been shouting since the opening bell at ten that morn- ing and their voices were hoarse. "Good price! Good quality!" Lefty squeezed through the narrow paths between the cocoons, holding his own sack. He had never had any interest in the family livelihood. He couldn't judge silkworm cocoons by feeling or sniffing them as his sister could. The only reason he brought the cocoons to market was that women were not allowed. The jostling, the bumping of porters and sidestepping of sacks made him tense. He thought how nice it would be if everyone would just stop moving a moment, if they would stand still to admire the luminosity of the cocoons in the evening light; but of course no one ever did. They went on yelling

• From Middlesex (2002)

  Sourmelina insisted on getting a porter to carry their suitcases to the car, a black- and-tan Packard. She tipped him and climbed behind the wheel, attracting looks. A woman driving was still a scandalous sight in 1922. After resting her cigarette holder on the dashboard, she pulled out the choke, waited the requisite five seconds, and pressed the ignition button. The car's tin bonnet shuddered to life. The leather seats began to vibrate and Desdemona took hold of her hus- band's arm. Up front, Sourmelina took off her satin-strap high heels to drive barefoot. She put the car into gear and, without checking 87 . . . traffic, lurched off down Michigan Avenue toward Cadillac Square. My grandparents' eyes glazed over at the sheer activity, streetcars rumbling, bells clanging, and the monochrome traffic swerving in and out. In those days downtown Detroit was filled with shoppers and businessmen. Outside Hudson's Department Store the crowd was ten thick, jostiing to get in the newfangled revolving doors. Lina pointed out the sights: the Cafe Frontenac . . the Family . Wait Theatre . . and the enormous electric signs: Ralston . & Bond Blackstone Mild 10<t Cigar. Above, a thirty-foot boy spread Meadow Gold Butter on a ten-foot slice of bread. One building had a row of giant oil lamps over the entrance to pro- mote a sale on until October 31. It was all swirl and hubbub, Desde- mona lying against the backseat, already suffering the anxiety that modern conveniences would induce in her over the years, cars mainly, but toasters, too, lawn sprinklers and escalators; while Lefty grinned and shook his head. Skyscrapers were going up everywhere, and movie palaces and hotels. The twenties saw the construction of nearly all Detroit's great buildings, the Penobscot Building and the second Buhl Building colored like an Indian belt, the New Union Trust Building, the Cadillac Tower, the Fisher Building with its gilded roof. To my grandparents Detroit was like one big Koza Han during cocoon season. What they didn't see were the workers sleep- ing on the streets because of the housing shortage, and the ghetto just to the east, a thirty-square-block area bounded by Leland, Ma- comb, Hastings, and Brush streets, teeming with the city's African Americans, who weren't allowed to live anywhere else. They didn't see, in short, the seeds of the city's destruction— its second destruc- tion—because they were part of it, too, all these people coming from everywhere to cash in on Henry Ford's five-dollar-a-day promise. The East Side of Detroit was a quiet neighborhood of single- family homes, shaded by cathedral elms. The house on Hurlbut Street Lina drove them to was a modest, two-story building of root- beer-colored brick. My grandparents gaped at it from the car, unable to move, until suddenly the front door opened and someone stepped out.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  kissed girl with a face ringed with curls. But as I approached thirteen a Dionysian element stole over my features. My nose, at first deli- cately, then not so delicately, began to arch. My eyebrows, growing shaggier, arched, too. Something sinister, wily, literally "satyrical" en- tered my expression. And so the last thing the hockey ball (coming closer now, unwill- ing to endure any more exposition)— the last thing the hockey ball symbolized was Time itself, the unstoppability of it, the way we're chained to our bodies, which are chained to Time. The hockey ball rocketed forward. It hit the side of my mask, which deflected it into the center of the net. We lost. The Hornets celebrated. In disgrace, as usual, I returned to the gymnasium. Carrying my mask, I climbed out of the green bowl of the hockey field, which was like an outdoor theater. Taking small steps, I walked along the gravel 294 path back to the school. In the distance, down the hill and across the road, lay Lake St. Clair, where my grandfather Jimmy Zizmo had faked his death. The lake still froze in winter, but bootieggers didn't drive over it anymore. Lake St. Clair had lost its sinister glamour and, like everything else, had become suburban. Freighters still plied the shipping channel, but now you mostly saw pleasure boats, Chris- Crafts, Santanas, Flying Dutchmen, 470s. On sunny days the lake still managed to look blue. Most of the time, however, it was the color of cold pea soup. But I wasn't thinking about any of that. I was measuring my steps, trying to go as slowly as possible. I was looking at the gymna- sium doors with an expression of wariness and anxiety. It was now, when the game was over for everyone else, that it be- gan for me. While my teammates were catching their breath, I was psyching myself up. I had to act with grace, with swift, athletic tim- ing. I had to shout from the sidelines of my being, "Heads up, Stephanides!" I had to be coach, star player, and cheerleader all in one. For despite the Dionysian revelry that had broken out in my body (in my throbbing teeth, in the wild abandon of my nose), not every- thing about me had changed. A year and a half after Carol Horning came to school with brand-new breasts, I was still without any. The brassiere I'd finally wheedled out of Tessie was still, like the higher physics, of only theoretical use. No breasts. No period, either. All through sixth grade I'd waited and then through the summer after- ward. Now I was in seventh grade and still I was waiting. There were hopeful signs. From time to time my nipples became sore. Gingerly touching them, I felt a pebble beneath the pink, tender flesh. I always

• From Middlesex (2002)

  The humming of my parents' voices from behind my bedroom wall, which throughout my childhood had filled me with a sense of security, had now become a source of anxiety and panic. So I ex- changed it for walls of marble, which echoed only with the sound of dripping water, of the flushing of my toilet, or of my voice softly reading The Iliad aloud. And when I got tired of Homer, I started reading the walls. That was another selling point of the basement bathroom. It was covered with graffiti. Upstairs, class photos showed rows and rows of student faces. Down here it was mostiy bodies. Sketched in blue ink were little men with gigantic sexual parts. And women with enor- mous breasts. Also various permutations: men with dinky penises; and women with penises, too. It was an education both in what was and what might be. Over the gray marble this new, jagged etching of bodies doing things, growing parts, fitting together, changing shape. Plus also jokes, words to the wise, confessions. In one spot: "I love sex." In another, "Patty C. is a slut." Where else would a girl like me, hiding from the world a knowledge she didn't quite understand her- self—where else would she feel more comfortable than in this subter- ranean realm where people wrote down what they couldn't say, where they gave voice to their most shameful longings and knowl- edge? For that spring, while the crocuses bloomed, while the head- mistress checked on the daffodil bulbs in the flower beds, Calliope, too, felt something budding. An obscure object all her own, which in addition to the need for privacy was responsible for bringing her down to the basement bathroom. A kind of crocus itself, just before flowering. A pink stem pushing up through dark new moss. But a strange kind of flower indeed, because it seemed to go through a 329 number of seasons in a single day. It had its dormant winter when it slept underground. Five minutes later, it stirred in a private spring- time. Sitting in class with a book in my lap, or riding home in car pool, I'd feel a thaw between my legs, the soil growing moist, a rich, peaty aroma rising, and then— while I pretended to memorize Latin verbs— the sudden, squirming life in the warm earth beneath my skirt. To the touch, the crocus sometimes felt soft and slippery, like the flesh of a worm. At other times it was as hard as a root. How did Calliope feel about her crocus? This is at once the easiest and the hardest thing to explain. On the one hand she liked it. If she pressed the corner of a textbook against it, the sensation was pleasur- able. This wasn't new. It had always felt nice to apply pressure there. The crocus was part of her body, after all. There was no reason to ask questions.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  From the moment she learned that she was pregnant, my grand- mother was again tormented by fears that the baby would suffer a hideous birth defect. In the Orthodox Church, even the children of closely related godparents were kept from marrying, on the grounds that this amounted to spiritual incest. What was that compared with this? This was much worse! So Desdemona agonized, unable to sleep at night as the new baby grew inside her. That she had promised the Panaghia, the All-Holy Virgin, that she would never have another child only made Desdemona feel more certain that the hand of judg- ment would now fall heavy on her head. But once again her anxieties were for naught. The following spring, on April 27, 1928, Zoe Stephanides was born, a large, healthy girl with the squarish head of her grandmother, a powerful cry, and nothing at all the matter with her. Milton had little interest in his new sister. He preferred shooting his slingshot with his friends. Theodora was just the opposite. She 134 was enthralled with Zoe. She carried the new baby around with her like a new doll. Their lifelong friendship, which would suffer many strains, began from day one, with Theodora pretending to be Zoe's mother. The arrival of another baby made the house on Hurlbut feel crowded. Sourmelina decided to move out. She found a job in a florist's shop, leaving Lefty and Desdemona to assume the mortgage on the house. In the fall of that same year, Sourmelina and Theodora took up residence nearby in the O'Toole Boardinghouse, right be- hind Hurlbut on Cadillac Boulevard. The backs of the two houses faced each other and Lina and Theodora were still close enough to visit nearly every day. On Thursday, October 24, 1929, on Wall Street in New York City, men in finely tailored suits began jumping from the windows of the city's famous skyscrapers. Their lemming-like despair seemed far away from Hurlbut Street, but little by little the dark cloud passed over the nation, moving in the opposite direction to the weather, un- til it reached the Midwest. The Depression made itself known to Lefty by a growing number of empty barstools. After nearly six years of operating at full capacity, there began to be slow periods, nights when the place was only two-thirds full, or just half. Nothing de- terred the stoic alcoholics from their calling. Despite the interna- tional banking conspiracy (unmasked by Father Coughlin on the radio), these stalwarts presented themselves for duty whenever St.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  Despite the Cold War secrecy, bits of information leaked out to us kids. The deepening threat to our finances made itself known in the form of a jagged wrinkle, like a lightning bolt, that flashed above the bridge of my mother's nose whenever I asked for something expen- sive in a toy store. Meat began appearing less often on our dinner table. Milton rationed electricity. If Chapter Eleven left a light on for more than a minute, he returned to total darkness. And to a voice in the darkness: "What did I tell you about kilowatts!" For a while we lived with a single lightbulb, which Milton carried from room to room. "This way I can keep track of how much power we're using," he said, screwing the bulb into the dining room fixture so that we could sit down to dinner. "I can't see my food," Tessie complained. "What do you mean?" said Milton. "This is what they call ambiance? After dessert, Milton took a handkerchief out of his back pocket, un- screwed the hot lightbulb, and, tossing it like an unambitious juggler, conveyed it into the living room. We waited in darkness as he fum- bled through the house, knocking into furniture. Finally there was a brownout in the distance and Milton cheerily called out, "Ready!" He kept up a brave front. He hosed down the sidewalk outside the diner and kept the windows spodess. He continued to greet cus- tomers with a hearty "How's everything?" or a "Yahsou, patrioteF But the Zebra Room's swing music and old-time baseball players couldn't stop time. It was no longer 1940 but 1967. Specifically, the night of Sunday, July 23, 1967. And there was something lumpy under my father's pillow. Behold my parents' bedroom: furnished entirely in Early Ameri- can reproductions, it offers them connection (at discount prices) with the country's founding myths. Notice, for instance, the veneer headboard of the bed, made from "pure cherrywood," as Milton likes to say, just like the little tree George Washington chopped down. Di- rect your attention to the wallpaper with its Revolutionary War mo- tif. A repeating pattern showing the famous trio of drummer boy, fife player, and lame old man. Throughout my earliest years on earth those bloodied figures marched around my parents' bedroom, here disappearing behind a "Monticello" dresser, there emerging from be- hind a "Mount Vernon" mirror, or sometimes having no place to go at all and being cut in half by a closet. Forty-three years old now, my parents, on this historic night, lie sound asleep. Milton's snores make the bed rattle; also, the wall con- 235 necting to my room, where I'm asleep myself in a grownup bed. And something else is rattling beneath Milton's pillow, a potentially dan- gerous situation considering what the object is. Under my father's pillow is the .45 automatic he brought back from the war.