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 Hillbilly Elegy (2016)

  On my first day of golf practice, I showed up in dress shoes, thinking that was what golf shoes were. When an enterprising young bully noticed before the first tee that I was wearing a pair of Kmart brown loafers, he proceeded to mock me mercilessly for the next four hours. I resisted the urge to bury my putter in his goddamned ear, remembering Mamaw’s sage advice to “act like you’ve been there.” (A note about hillbilly loyalty: Reminded of that story recently, Lindsay launched into a tirade about how much of a loser the kid was. The incident occurred thirteen years ago.) I knew in the back of my mind that decisions were coming about my future. All of my friends planned to go to college; that I had such motivated friends was due to Mamaw’s influence. By the time I was in seventh grade, many of my neighborhood friends were already smoking weed. Mamaw found out and forbade me to see any of them. I recognize that most kids ignore instructions like these, but most kids don’t receive them from the likes of Bonnie Vance. She promised that if she saw me in the presence of any person on the banned list, she would run him over with her car. “No one would ever find out,” she whispered menacingly. With my friends headed for college, I figured I’d do the same. I scored well enough on the SAT to overcome my earlier bad grades, and I knew that the only two schools I had any interest in attending—Ohio State and Miami University—would both accept me. A few months before I graduated, I had (admittedly, with little thought) settled on Ohio State. A large package arrived in the mail, filled with financial aid information from the university. There was talk of Pell Grants, subsidized loans, unsubsidized loans, scholarships, and something called “work-study.” It was all so exciting, if only Mamaw and I could figure out what it meant. We puzzled over the forms for hours before concluding that I could purchase a decent home in Middletown with the debt I’d incur to go to college. We hadn’t actually started the forms yet—that would require another herculean effort on another day. Excitement turned to apprehension, but I reminded myself that college was an investment in my future. “It’s the only damned thing worth spending money on right now,” Mamaw said. She was right, but as I worried less about the financial aid forms, I began to worry for another reason: I wasn’t ready. Not all investments are good investments. All of that debt, and for what? To get drunk all the time and earn terrible grades? Doing well in college required grit, and I had far too little of it. My high school record left much to be desired: dozens of absences and tardy arrivals, and no school activities to speak of.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  Both men tucked their hands under my elbows as if confident that I wd side with them against the other. As I approached the house I had the startling sight of Hassan, that most immovable and cynical of men, limping across the little sandy piazza at a dangerous speed, a large wooden spoon still clasped in his hand like a weapon or the emblem of a guild. ‘Sir, Lord,’ he gasped, ‘the boy is very very stung.’ For a second or two, half-stupid in the heat as I was, I thought decorously, Englishly—or possibly Arabicly—only in metaphors. I actually thought I had committed some frightful faux pas , some mortal infringement of an obligation, & that the boy , my Taha, had made off in a dust cloud of enraged propriety or was at least in a mutinous sulk somewhere & giving Hassan an angry fright. But he did a funny little jabbing gesture with his spoon, & I realised he was speaking ‘without music’. It seems Taha had been sitting on the wooden step of the kitchen, engaged in no less an occupation than polishing my shoes, when, dropping the brush by accident, he had antagonised a scorpion which happened to be sauntering past & which had promptly stung him on the calf (his bare feet being doubtless too tough for a mere scorpion to pierce & his djellaba, as I saw it in my mind’s eye, being drawn up, bunched up between his knees). All of which, of course, was nothing uncommon, & I knew clearly enough what I had to do. Yet I was almost shocked to see how I took on Hassan’s panic, how it touched me myself & left me suddenly short of breath. I ran down to the house, with Hassan following on & making lachrymose interjections in Nubian, the words of each outburst bubbling and shrinking away like water thrown out from the house over the stones. Of course I have dealt with snake bites & so on several times before, & managed to master my sympathy & anxiety & present an impassive doctorly face. The poor boy was still sitting, but half lying back, in the kitchen doorway, motionless with fright or caution, but breathing heavily, salivating, sweat on his upper lip. He knew enough to be holding his leg tight in both hands just below the knee.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  The State of Alabama had argued that procedural rules barred Mr. Nelson from challenging the constitutionality of the protocol. The U.S. Supreme Court intervened. The legal question was whether condemned prisoners could file civil rights actions to challenge arguably unconstitutional methods of execution. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was especially active during the oral argument, asking me lots of questions about the propriety of correctional staff engaging in medical procedures. The Court ruled unanimously in our favor, deciding that a condemned prisoner could challenge unconstitutional methods of execution by filing a civil rights case. David Nelson died of natural causes a year after we won relief. Following the Nelson litigation, questions about the drug combination that most states used to carry out lethal injections arose. Many states were using drugs that had been banned for animal euthanasia because they caused a painful and torturous death. The drugs weren’t readily available in the United States, and so states had started importing them from European manufacturers. When the news spread that the drugs were being used in executions in the United States, European producers stopped making them available. The drugs became scarce, which prompted state correctional authorities to obtain them illegally, without complying with FDA rules that regulate the interstate sale and transfer of drugs. Drug raids of state correctional facilities were a bizarre consequence of this surreal drug dealing to carry out executions. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Baze v. Rees, later held that the execution protocols and drug combinations weren’t inherently unconstitutional. The executions would resume. What that meant for Alabama death row prisoners and EJI staff was seventeen executions in thirty months. It happened at the same time that we were representing children sentenced to life without parole all over the country. I’d flown to South Dakota, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Arkansas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and California to argue cases on behalf of condemned children over the preceding months. The courts, procedures, and players were all different, and the travel was exhausting. We were still very actively litigating on behalf of condemned children in Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana—Southern states where we had litigated previously. And, of course, our Alabama docket had never been more jammed or demanding. In a two-week period, I had been in California visiting Antonio Nuñez at a remote prison in the middle of the state before arguing his case in an appellate court there, while also actively trying to win relief for Trina Garnett in Pennsylvania and Ian Manuel in Florida. I had visited Ian and Joe Sullivan in a Florida prison, and both of them were struggling. Prison officials weren’t allowing Joe to have regular access to his wheelchair, and he had fallen repeatedly and injured himself. Ian was still in isolation. Trina’s medical condition was worsening.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  Many end up with unsuitable or very troubled partners in relationships that were doomed from the start. The contrast between them and children from good intact homes, as both go in search of love and commitment, is striking. (As I explain in this book, children raised in extremely unhappy or violent intact homes face misery in childhood and tragic challenges in adulthood. But because their parents generally aren’t interested in getting a divorce, divorce does not become part of their legacy.) Adults in their twenties from reasonably good or even moderately unhappy intact families had a fine understanding of the demands and sacrifices required in a close relationship. They had memories of how their parents struggled and overcame differences, how they cooperated in a crisis. They developed a general idea about the kind of person they wanted to marry. Most important, they did not expect to fail. The two groups differed after marriage as well. Those from intact families found the example of their parents’ enduring marriage very reassuring when they inevitably ran into marital problems. But in coping with the normal stresses in a marriage, adults from divorced families were at a grave disadvantage. Anxiety about relationships was at the bedrock of their personalities and endured even in very happy marriages. Their fears of disaster and sudden loss rose when they felt content. And their fear of abandonment, betrayal, and rejection mounted when they found themselves having to disagree with someone they loved. After all, marriage is a slippery slope and their parents fell off it. All had trouble dealing with differences or even moderate conflict in their close relationships. Typically their first response was panic, often followed by flight. They had a lot to undo and a lot to learn in a very short time. Those who had two parents who rebuilt happy lives after divorce and included children in their orbits had a much easier time as adults. Those who had committed single parents also benefited from that parent’s attention and responsiveness. But the more frequent response in adulthood was continuing anger at parents, more often at fathers, whom the children regarded as having been selfish and faithless. Others felt deep compassion and pity toward mothers or fathers who failed to rebuild their lives after divorce. The ties between daughters and their mothers were especially close but at a cost. Some young women found it very difficult to separate from their moms and to lead their own lives. With some notable exceptions, fathers in divorced families were less likely to enjoy close bonds with their adult children, especially their sons.

• From Hillbilly Elegy (2016)

  It’s part of the experience here.” In a place that always seemed a little foreign, Usha’s presence made me feel at home. I went to Yale to earn a law degree. But that first year at Yale taught me most of all that I didn’t know how the world worked. Every August, recruiters from prestigious law firms descend on New Haven, hungry for the next generation of high-quality legal talent. The students call it FIP—short for Fall Interview Program—and it’s a marathon week of dinners, cocktail hours, hospitality suite visits, and interviews. On my first day of FIP, just before second-year classes began, I had six interviews, including one with the firm I most coveted—Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP (Gibson Dunn for short)—which had an elite practice in Washington, D.C. The interview with Gibson Dunn went well and I was invited to their infamous dinner at one of New Haven’s fanciest restaurants. The rumor mill informed me that the dinner was a kind of intermediate interview: We needed to be funny, charming, and engaging, or we’d never be invited to the D.C. or New York offices for final interviews. When I arrived at the restaurant, I thought it a pity that the most expensive meal I’d ever eaten would take place in such a high-stakes environment. Before dinner, we were all corralled into a private banquet room for wine and conversation. Women a decade older than I was carried around wine bottles wrapped in beautiful linens, asking every few minutes whether I wanted a new glass of wine or a refill on the old one. At first I was too nervous to drink. But I finally mustered the courage to answer yes when someone asked whether I’d like some wine and, if so, what kind. “I’ll take white,” I said, which I thought would settle the matter. “Would you like sauvignon blanc or chardonnay?” I thought she was screwing with me. But I used my powers of deduction to determine that those were two separate kinds of white wine. So I ordered a chardonnay, not because I didn’t know what sauvignon blanc was (though I didn’t) but because it was easier to pronounce. I had just dodged my first bullet. The night, however, was young. At these types of events, you have to strike a balance between shy and overbearing. You don’t want to annoy the partners, but you don’t want them to leave without shaking your hand. I tried to be myself; I’ve always considered myself gregarious but not oppressive. But I was so impressed by the environment that “being myself” meant staring slack-jawed at the fineries of the restaurant and wondering how much they cost. The wineglasses look like they’ve been Windexed. That dude did not buy his suit at the three-suits-for-one sale at Jos. A. Bank; it looks like it’s made from silk. The linens on the table look softer than my bedsheets; I need to touch them without being weird about it.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  Obviously, restoring confidence in marriage won’t work if we naively call for a return to marriage as it used to be. To improve marriage, we need to fully understand the nature of contemporary man-woman relationships. We need to appreciate the difficulties modern couples confront in balancing work and family, separateness and togetherness, conflict and cooperation. It’s no accident that 80 percent of divorces occur in the first nine years of marriage. These new families should be our target. What threats to marriage can we change? First, there’s a serious imbalance between the demands of the workplace and the needs of family life. The corporate world rarely considers the impact of its policies on parents and children. Some companies recognize that parents need time to spend with their children but they don’t understand that the workplace exerts a major influence on the quality and stability of marriage. Heavy work schedules and job insecurity erode married life. Families with young children especially postpone intimate talk, sex, and friendship. These are the ties that replenish a marriage. When the boss calls, we go to the office. When the baby cries, we pick up the child. But when a marriage is starving, we expect it to bumble along. Most Western European countries provide paid family leave. What about us? Why do we persist in offering unpaid leave and pretend that it addresses the young family’s problem? One additional solution might be social security and tax benefits for a parent who wants to stay home and care for young children. That alone would lighten the burden on many marriages. Other suggestions for reducing the stresses on young families include more flex time, greater opportunities for part-time work, assurances that people who take family leave will not lose their place on the corporate ladder, tax advantages for families, and many other ideas that have been on the table for years. Public policy cannot create good marriages. But it can buffer some of the stresses people face, especially in those early, vulnerable years when couples need time to establish intimacy, a satisfying sex life, and a friendship that will hold them together through the inevitable challenges that lie ahead. Ultimately, if we’re really interested in improving marriage so that people have time for each other and their children, we need to realign our priorities away from the business world and toward family life. We might also try to help the legions of young adults who complain bitterly that they’re unprepared for marriage. Having been raised in divorced or very troubled homes, they have no idea how to choose a partner or what to do to build the relationship. They regard their parents’ divorce as a terrible failure and worry that they’re doomed to follow in the same footsteps. Many adults stay in unhappy marriages just to avoid divorce.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  It must be the effect of his overbearing and possessive mum. Odd what little children get up to; I was a committed transvestite at his age. But that seemed to get it out of the system,’ he added hastily. ‘I’m surprised the overbearing mum let you come to collect him,’ I admitted. ‘Got a bit of a head,’ said Gavin, in a way that suggested this was a known euphemism. The reunion with his son was a low-key affair, conducted by both as if nothing had happened, while Gavin and I carried on a pleasant conversation over the child’s head. ‘At least this little escapade has saved us from dinner at the Salmons,’ he conceded. ‘That man is the most insufferable little twerp. I’d better just give Philly a call, if I may.’ ‘Yes, of course.’ The phone was in the bedroom. ‘But you will be back home in no time at all.’ I tried to disguise my sudden swerve of attitude. ‘I mean, if you really want to, then do …’ ‘Thanks. Where is the phone?’ ‘Oh, I’ll show you.’ I felt extremely anxious, and as Gavin followed me across the hall, I turned and addressed him outside the bedroom door in an unnaturally carrying tone: ‘I suppose you want to confirm to the child’s mother that I have been a responsible uncle and not encouraged him in hard drugs or any other dangerous abuse.’ Gavin smiled at me politely, sensing he was missing a joke. ‘Partly that, but also I’m going to have a little talk with our runaway before he goes home to be eaten alive.’ ‘Yes, do save him from all that,’ I gabbled. ‘So you’re ringing to say you’ll not be coming straight home.’ ‘Quite so.’ I paused, considering how I could possibly disallow this. ‘Right,’ I said with a nod, opening the door resolutely and going into the room. To take another person in there was in itself disquieting; it made me conscious of how unaired it was, and of the fetor of socks and semen which would never have been allowed to accumulate in the Croft-Parkers’ dustless Regency sleeping quarters. Dirty clothes amassed on chairs and on the surrounding floor. The wardrobe doors were open. This was the most alarming thing to my eye, as I had imagined it as the only place in which Arthur could reasonably have hidden. As I went into the room I was ready, if need be, to find him merely sitting there, or standing around, waiting.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  A Romantic WeekendShe was meeting a man she had recently and abruptly fallen in love with. She was in a state of ghastly anxiety. He was married, for one thing, to a Korean woman whom he described as the embodiment of all that was feminine and elegant. Not only that, but a psychic had told her that a relationship with him could cripple her emotionally for the rest of her life. On top of this, she was tormented by the feeling that she looked inadequate. Perhaps her body tilted too far forward as she walked, perhaps her jacket made her torso look bulky in contrast to her calves and ankles, which were probably skinny. She felt like an object unraveling in every direction. In anticipation of their meeting, she had not been able to sleep the night before; she had therefore eaten some amphetamines and these had heightened her feeling of disintegration. When she arrived at the corner he wasn’t there. She stood against a building, trying to arrange her body in the least repulsive configuration possible. Her discomfort mounted. She crossed the street and stood on the other corner. It seemed as though everyone who walked by was eating. A large, distracted businessman went by holding a half-eaten hot dog. Two girls passed, sharing cashews from a white bag. The eating added to her sense that the world was disorderly and unbeautiful. She became acutely aware of the garbage on the street. The wind stirred it; a candy wrapper waved forlornly from its trapped position in the mesh of a jammed public wastebasket. This was all wrong, all horrible. Her meeting with him should be perfect and scrap-free. She couldn’t bear the thought of flapping trash. Why wasn’t he there to meet her? Minutes passed. Her shoulders drew together.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  “It’s the F.B.I.,” said Joey. There was a grudging silence before the buzzer squawked. When Joey reached the apartment door, Eliot poked his head out, one finger to his lips. His wispy brown hair stuck out in a ratty halo; his round, thin-lashed eyes were hysterically wide and moist. “Whatever you do, don’t mention drugs,” he whispered. “If you have to refer to them at all, say ‘gum’ or something. Only don’t be conspicuous.” “All right,” said Joey. “They’ve got the place wired,” explained Eliot. “We tore the apartment apart and we still can’t find the bug. Are you sure you weren’t followed?” Joey nodded. Eliot stretched his neck and stared into the empty hall, blinking his damp eyes hard. Satisfied, he let Joey in. Rita was lying on the couch in front of a partially dismantled TV screen with a soundless picture on it. Her large feet hung over the edge of the couch, her hands were limp at the ends of her thin, prominently veined wrists. Her head drooped sideways on her slender, listless neck, almost falling off the couch. When she saw Joey she lifted her head, and her dark eyes lighted. He flapped his hand at her and sat on a hard-backed chair. “Diane threw me out of the house,” he said. “Yeah?” said Eliot. He got on his knees and began looking through the records scattered on the floor. “It doesn’t matter. I wanted to move anyway. I’m in love. It’s all over between Diane and me.” “You should’ve made that decision five years ago,” said Rita. Eliot whirled around, waving a record. “You’ve got to hear this. It’s the most incredible thing.” “Oh, Jesus Christ, that record came out ten years ago,” said Rita. “Just because you’ve only heard it for the first time.” Eliot tore the record from its jacket, tossed the jacket across the room and knelt before the turntable. He lifted the needle and examined it, blowing delicately. Rita threw her long legs up and sat with her small bony knees together, her feet toeing in. “Who are you in love with?” “You know, she’s still showing those stupid home movies of you in the bathtub,” said Eliot. “She watches them and masturbates. It’s hilarious. She shows them to everybody.” “Who is it?” asked Rita. “This girl at the store named Daisy.” “Oh. I guess it figures.” She leaned forward to the cluttered table for a match. Her dark hair fell across her face with the graceful motion of a folding wing. She leaned back, exposing her face again. The lines under her eyes were deep and black with smeared makeup. “Got any pills, Joe?” Eliot jumped up. “Don’t say that!” he screamed. “Oh, you asshole,” said Rita. “Got any…socks?” “Sure.” Joey poured a colorful tumble into her palm. “What are you trying to do to me?” said Eliot through his teeth. “Are you working for them or what?”

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  After a bit I was sure that one of the standing figures, a big boy with swept-back glossy hair and an appealing smirk, must be Charles. The face was far leaner than now, and his whole person seemed well set-up; I had seen him less and less in control of his life, and was surprised for a moment to find a young man who would have known how to have a good time. He appeared again in a more studied portrait, where he was less handsome: the spontaneity and camaraderie, perhaps, of the shooting photo had animated him into beauty. Most of the pictures, however, derived from his African years. There were predictable snaps of Charles on a camel, with the Sphinx in the background—a tourist memento explained by the inscription on the back, ‘On leave, 1925’. Most of them, though, clearly—or, in many cases, fuzzily—depicted life in the field, and were full of reticent authenticity. Typically, they showed groups of natives, largely or wholly naked, standing round under dead-looking trees, gazing at flocks of goats or herds of cattle. In some Charles appeared, in shorts and sola topi, flanked by robed, shock-headed men of intense blackness. There was one heavily creased photograph of an exquisitely soulful black youth, cropped at an angle, where presumably another figure in the picture had been scissored off. After the scene in Charles’s bedroom this gave me a mild unease, as if it might be a magical act of elimination. In only one picture did a woman appear prominently. This was a very old-fashioned studio item, in which Charles, still young, and beautifully dressed, leant over the back of a little gilt sofa, on which a pretty, thin-lipped woman was sitting. Behind them the balustrade and pillars of the photographer’s set made as if to recede into a romantically hazy background and to confer on the couple the flushed transience of a Fragonard. Such arcadian hints, however, seemed to have been ignored by the sitters, who appeared tense, and though skilfully grouped by the artist, curiously separate. Had there been a woman in Charles’s life, then, an episode of which this was the unhappy reminder? It seemed more probable that it was a sister; and there was a troubled quality about the eyes of both sitters that suggested some family connexion. Did the people in wherever it was that they hailed from talk of the melancholy and ill-starred Nantwiches? It was certainly time to do that basic research which Charles had already several times recommended to me. I returned the photographs to their envelope: most of them had no annotation on the back, and though suggestive and informative in a general sort of way, they did little to enlighten me. I did not know how thoughtfully Charles had collected them for me, but it was quite possible that his had not been a very thoroughly photographed career.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  I rang the bell and prepared myself and my expression for the curt reception by Lewis and the subsequent pleasure of Charles in seeing me and knowing that I would take on the work. Over the phone I had agreed at least to look at some of the material; I was to tell him in a month if I thought that I could turn it into a book. ‘I know it’s queer,’ he had said. ‘I’m not famous. But the book could be.’ As before, nothing happened, so I rang again, stepping back as I did so into the street, in the way that callers do, both to nerve themselves for an encounter and to lessen the embarrassment that comes from being one of the street users who is seeking admittance to the private realm of the house. The windows were as opaque as before, but because I now knew what waited behind them I looked at them as if I could see through them into the friendly cluttered library and the silent dining-room. There was still no response, and I found myself complaining under my breath, ‘You did say four o’clock.’ There was no one else about, though after ringing the bell a third time and also, to command attention but not to seem importunate, knocking soundly a couple of times, I looked round again to see if I was still alone. A middle-aged man had now appeared at the end of the lane, and as he passed and went into one of the derelict properties across the way I felt obliged to go through a minimal pantomime of impatience and perplexity. This involved trying the door with the flat of my hand and finding that it was unlocked and gave, slightly, inwards. I pushed it half open; and darted in. In a voice quite unlike my own, I called out ‘Hello’. There was no reply. The library door, on the left, was open, so I went cautiously in. It looked untidier than before, with papers and cuttings spread on the main table: this I attributed to Charles’s search for material for me. I was surprised, as I turned to leave, by the sudden rising, yawning and shaking of a large black cat. It had been lying in Charles’s armchair by the fire and stared at me for a moment with something close to enmity before looking away, licking itself, and carrying on as if I weren’t there. It was a beautiful animal, tall and slender, with a nose both broad and long, and erect, triangular ears; it seemed a ceremonial more than a domestic cat, and its voiceless indifference to me heightened my sense of unease and irreality.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  Chapman had called in the state attorney general’s office to help defend Walter’s conviction, and they’d sent Assistant Attorney General Don Valeska, a longtime prosecutor with a reputation for being intense and combative. Valeska was a white man in his forties whose fit, medium frame suggested someone who stayed active; the glasses he wore added to his serious demeanor. His brother Doug was the district attorney in Houston County, and both men were aggressive and unapologetic in their prosecution of “bad guys.” Michael and I had reached out to Chapman once more before the hearing to see if we could persuade him to reopen the investigation and independently reexamine whether McMillian was guilty. But by now, Chapman and all of the law enforcement officers had grown tired of us. They seemed increasingly hostile whenever they had to deal with us. I had considered reporting to them the bomb threats and death threats we’d received, since they were likely coming from people in Monroe County, but I wasn’t sure anyone in the sheriff’s or D.A.’s office would care. The new judge on the case, Judge Thomas B. Norton Jr., had also grown weary of us. We’d had several pretrial hearings on different motions during which he would sometimes become frustrated because of the bickering between the lawyers. We kept insisting on obtaining all files and evidence the State had in its possession. We had uncovered so much exculpatory evidence that had not been disclosed previously that we were sure there was still more that had not been turned over. The judge finally told us that we were fishing after we’d made our ninth or tenth request for more police and prosecution files. I suspect that Judge Norton had scheduled the final Rule 32 hearing in part because he wanted to get this contentious, complicated case off his docket and out of his court. In the last pretrial appearance, the judge had asked, “How much time will you need to present your evidence, Mr. Stevenson?” “We’d like to reserve a week, your honor.” “A week? You’ve got to be joking. For a Rule 32 hearing? The trial in this case only lasted a day and a half.” “Yes, sir. We believe this is an extraordinary case and there are several witnesses and—” “Three days, Mr. Stevenson. If you can’t make your case in three days after all of this drama you’ve stirred up, you don’t really have anything.” “Judge, I—” “Adjourned.” —

• From The Folding Star (1994)

  I don't think any of them reached our side of the canal, but number one made the finest impression and had the greatest capacity: he was still going strong as the other two's offerings dwindled and trailed home across the water and a breeze caught them and frayed their thinning plumes. I understood for the first time that this patched-up brick barracks of a place was the school of St Narcissus itself and that today being the rentrée the young gentlemen were reasserting some immemorial right. Cherif and I watched a couple more rounds, until the novelty began to wear off and a hand-bell was heard tolling. Then I realised that there would be this new element in my life, and that across the little lost garden below, where nothing but a blackbird ever stirred among the leaves, there would come week in week out the noises of a school: the bells, the blurred unison of lessons and chapel, the scraping back of a hundred chairs, the abrupt silences and eruptions of racket. It was clear on the streets, too, as I walked over to the Altidores', that things had changed: a flat-footed straggler with his shirt-tails hanging out came panting past me and stopped, wincing with the stitch; two truants tugged off their ties before slipping into a video shop; in a sudden sally from a side-street a games-kitted crocodile lurched at a run into my path, headed by a manic bald master. It was the first day and there were the children caught up already in the severe rhythms of school, and looking back, like conscripts on a ship, to the lazy shore of home. For a moment I shared the truants' defiance and guilt and my heart raced with a long-forgotten panicky anticipation: I had to assert myself against the obscure medicinal hollowness of school. And of course my first assignation with Luc loomed and made me feel half master and half victim. His mother got hold of me first, and took me into the dining-room. She hoped I didn't mind coming to the house, it seemed better discipline than sending Luc across town to me—and then she knew where he was. I was already imagining the squeaking board that gave away her presence at the door. She went on with a number of blunt and incoherent instructions, which I barely took in—I was pretending I hadn't seen him, just at the moment I entered the hall, behind his mother's back, skidding through to the kitchen, a towel round his neck, a glimpse of his bare heels, a vision of his undomestic size and energy.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  It was the first time I had seen him since the day we had made our tentative assignation, and I felt a not quite pleasant choking and thumping of the heart. I had wondered—as Bill used to do—where he had been all week, though I suspected I had altered my own pattern slightly so as not to see him, as though, like a bride and groom, our contract would somehow be spoilt if we met before the appointed hour. He was sitting now on one of the long upholstered benches, leaning forward, his forearms on his knees, reading a leaflet from the Club rack, which carried information about concerts, plays and events. I came on him in profile, before he realised I was emerging from downstairs, and saw at once that he was merely killing time. He turned the leaflet over and over in his hands, and as he shifted there was a swift sleek gathering and relaxing of the muscles of his upper arms, left uncovered by a pale blue T-shirt. His bag was on the floor at his plimsolled feet. When he saw me he at once stood up, with a look of strained matiness. I grinned and changed gear. ‘Hi, Phil!’ I went towards him with one arm extended, and touched him on the shoulder. ‘Hi,’ he replied. A smile fled across his face. It was clear enough that he had been waiting for me but there was a childlike wariness to our greeting, like that of schoolboys introduced to each other by their parents. ‘How have you been? I didn’t see you downstairs.’ ‘Oh, I was there,’ he said. ‘Earlier on.’ He picked up his bag. It was impossible for either of us to say ‘Well, is this it, then?’; instead we found ourselves going towards the door together. A close follower of Corry form might have seen it as an interesting development—a suspicion confirmed by Michael, at the reception-desk, who said, ‘Goodnight, gentlemen’ in a tone of bitter reproach. It was about 8.30 and in the winter ‘Goodnight’ would have been the instinctive word; but Phil and I strolled out on to the street to find the sky still bright, the pavements and the buildings warm. The slow, late expanses of a high summer evening were before us. I carried on talking and, without hesitating turned not towards the station but in the direction of the Queensberry Hotel. We reacted differently to the slight panic of the occasion, he shutting up completely and looking very serious, whilst I carried on with unnatural brightness and ease. ‘Mm, it’s good to be out in the open air,’ I said. ‘What a beautiful evening!’ He seemed unable to find a reply to this. ‘It gets so crowded in there,’ I expanded. ‘Oh—yes …’ he said, catching and letting go the conversational straw.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  There was a perceptible conflict of claims on me as Charles, seated monumentally on the sofa, slower on the uptake, half turned to see me and then reached out his left hand for his unconventional and friendly greeting. ‘Ah, William. Let me see the worst. Let me see what they’ve done to my Boswell.’ He wore an elderly, Aschenbachish cream linen suit, not unstained. I went and sat beside him, and he took my hand again as he searched my face, appraised it as he had before. He offered no verdict, except ‘Well, at least I saw it before they spoilt it.’ ‘Is it really so bad?’ But he only patted my hand and then threw it away. ‘How’s the great work?’ he wanted to know. Staines, unprepared for Charles’s possessiveness, cut in here with instructions that we must drink. ‘And then there’s Aldo,’ he said, swivelling with extended hand and producing a small, curly-haired young man in graphic jeans from behind his armchair. As I walked round I saw that he had been looking through a pile of photographs on the floor. I shook his surprisingly large red hand, and he gave a privileged sort of smirk. ‘Aldo’s my bummaree,’ said Staines, ‘my John the Baptist.’ He had a nice, alert little body, and I realised he must be a part of the planned vulgarity. The martinis were extremely, almost disagreeably, strong on an empty stomach, and gave me a light head at once. We talked frothily for a while—Aldo, however, saying nothing at all, although Staines spoke for him in a supercilious way: ‘Oh Aldo doesn’t care for that, do you, Aldo?’ or, to suggest that under other circumstances the Italian might be a desirable conversationalist, ‘That’s what Aldo always says.’ Then Staines would touch some part of him and Bobby would nod and raise his eyebrows, as if to say there was no limit to what these queens would do. I was some way through my second drink when Staines asked us all to go through—not to the dining-room (‘We will have a special meal later’) but to the studio. I got an unpleasant feeling that we were all going to watch a sex film, and that with this company it would be most embarrassing and anaphrodisiac. Charles took my arm, more to connect me to himself than as a prop: he was clipping us together and hardly leant on me at all. There was an odd and rather revolting attitude of suppressed expectancy on everyone’s face, and I saw that I was the only one who did not know for sure what was going on.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  It was more of a statement than a question. “No, sir. Well, I’m working in Atlanta.” After calling the warden’s office to confirm that my visit had been properly scheduled, he finally admitted me, brusquely directing me to the small room where the visit would take place. “Don’t get lost in here; we don’t promise to come and find you,” he warned. The visitation room was twenty feet square with a few stools bolted to the floor. Everything in the room was made of metal and secured. In front of the stools, wire mesh ran from a small ledge up to a ceiling twelve feet high. The room was an empty cage until I walked into it. For family visits, inmates and visitors had to be on opposite sides of the mesh interior wall; they spoke to one another through the wires of the mesh. Legal visits, on the other hand, were “contact visits”—the two of us would be on the same side of the room to permit more privacy. The room was small and, although I knew it couldn’t be true, it felt like it was getting smaller by the second. I began worrying again about my lack of preparation. I’d scheduled to meet with the client for one hour, but I wasn’t sure how I’d fill even fifteen minutes with what I knew. I sat down on one of the stools and waited. After fifteen minutes of growing anxiety, I finally heard the clanging of chains on the other side of the door. The man who walked in seemed even more nervous than I was. He glanced at me, his face screwed up in a worried wince, and he quickly averted his gaze when I looked back. He didn’t move far from the room’s entrance, as if he didn’t really want to enter the visitation room. He was a young, neatly groomed African American man with short hair—clean-shaven, medium frame and build—wearing bright, clean prison whites. He looked immediately familiar to me, like everyone I’d grown up with, friends from school, people I played sports or music with, someone I’d talk to on the street about the weather. The guard slowly unchained him, removing his handcuffs and the shackles around his ankles, and then locked eyes with me and told me I had one hour. The officer seemed to sense that both the prisoner and I were nervous and to take some pleasure in our discomfort, grinning at me before turning on his heel and leaving the room. The metal door banged loudly behind him and reverberated through the small space. The condemned man didn’t come any closer, and I didn’t know what else to do, so I walked over and offered him my hand. He shook it cautiously. We sat down and he spoke first. “I’m Henry,” he said. “I’m very sorry” were the first words I blurted out. Despite all my preparations and rehearsed remarks, I couldn’t stop myself from apologizing repeatedly.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  I parked and found my way to the prison entrance and walked inside the main building with its dark corridors and gated hallways, where metal bars barricaded every access point. The interior eliminated any doubt that this was a hard place. I walked down a tunneled corridor to the legal visitation area, each step echoing ominously across the spotless tiled floor. When I told the visitation officer that I was a paralegal sent to meet with a death row prisoner, he looked at me suspiciously. I was wearing the only suit I owned, and we could both see that it had seen better days. The officer’s eyes seemed to linger long and hard over my driver’s license before he tilted his head toward me to speak. “You’re not local.” It was more of a statement than a question. “No, sir. Well, I’m working in Atlanta.” After calling the warden’s office to confirm that my visit had been properly scheduled, he finally admitted me, brusquely directing me to the small room where the visit would take place. “Don’t get lost in here; we don’t promise to come and find you,” he warned. The visitation room was twenty feet square with a few stools bolted to the floor. Everything in the room was made of metal and secured. In front of the stools, wire mesh ran from a small ledge up to a ceiling twelve feet high. The room was an empty cage until I walked into it. For family visits, inmates and visitors had to be on opposite sides of the mesh interior wall; they spoke to one another through the wires of the mesh. Legal visits, on the other hand, were “contact visits”—the two of us would be on the same side of the room to permit more privacy. The room was small and, although I knew it couldn’t be true, it felt like it was getting smaller by the second. I began worrying again about my lack of preparation. I’d scheduled to meet with the client for one hour, but I wasn’t sure how I’d fill even fifteen minutes with what I knew. I sat down on one of the stools and waited. After fifteen minutes of growing anxiety, I finally heard the clanging of chains on the other side of the door. The man who walked in seemed even more nervous than I was. He glanced at me, his face screwed up in a worried wince, and he quickly averted his gaze when I looked back. He didn’t move far from the room’s entrance, as if he didn’t really want to enter the visitation room. He was a young, neatly groomed African American man with short hair—clean-shaven, medium frame and build—wearing bright, clean prison whites.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  So much has happened so fast, we cannot hold it all in our minds. It’s simply overwhelming. But we must not forget a very important other side to all these changes. Because of our divorce culture, adults today have a greater sense of freedom. The importance of sex and play in adult life is widely accepted. We are not locked into our early mistakes and forced to stay in wretched, lifelong relationships. The change in women—their very identity and freer role in society—is part of our divorce culture. Indeed, two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women despite the high price they pay in economic and parenting burdens afterward. People want and expect a lot more out of marriage than did earlier generations. Although the divorce rate in second and third marriages is sky- high, many second marriages are much happier than the ones left behind. Children and adults are able to escape violence, abuse, and misery to create a better life. Clearly there is no road back. The sobering truth is that we have created a new kind of society that offers greater freedom and more opportunities for many adults, but this welcome change carries a serious hidden cost. Many people, adults and children alike, are in fact not better off. We have created new kinds of families in which relationships are fragile and often unreliable. Children today receive far less nurturance, protection, and parenting than was their lot a few decades ago. Long-term marriages come apart at still surprising rates. And many in the older generation who started the divorce revolution find themselves estranged from their adult children. Is this the price we must pay for needed change? Can’t we do better? I’d like to say that we’re at a crossroads but I’m afraid I can’t be that optimistic. We can choose a new route only if we agree on where we are and where we want to be in the future. The outlook is cloudy. For every person who wants to sound an alarm, there’s another who says don’t worry. For everyone concerned about the economic and emotional deprivations inherited by children of divorce there are those who argue that those kids were “in trouble before” and that divorce is irrelevant, no big deal. People want to feel good about their choices. Doubtless many do. In actual fact, after most divorces, one member of the former couple feels much better while the other feels no better or even worse. Yet at any dinner party you will still hear the same myths: Divorce is a temporary crisis. So many children have experienced their parents’ divorce that kids nowadays don’t worry so much. It’s easier. They almost expect it. It’s a rite of passage. If I feel better, so will my children. And so on. As always, children are voiceless or unheard.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  We don’t know if we can help them with educational methods because we haven’t tried. Our experience is too limited and our experimental models nonexistent. But when so many young people have never seen a good marriage, we have a moral obligation to try to intervene preventively. Most programs that give marital advice are aimed at engaged couples who belong to churches and synagogues. These are very good beginnings that should be expanded. But many offer too little and arrive too late to bring about changes in any individual’s values or knowledge. Nor is the excitement that precedes a wedding the best time for reflection on how to choose a lifetime partner or what makes a marriage work. Academic courses on marriage mostly look at families from the lofty perch of the family scholar and not from the perspective of children of divorce who feel “no one ever taught me.” In my opinion, a better time to begin helping these youngsters is during mid-adolescence, when attitudes toward oneself and relationships with the opposite sex are beginning to gel. Adolescence is the time when worries about sex, love, betrayal, and morality take center stage. Education for and about relationships should begin at that time, since if we do it right, we’ll have their full attention. It could be based in the health centers that have been established in many schools throughout the country. Churches and synagogues and social agencies might provide another launching place. Ideally, adolescents in a well-functioning society should have the opportunity to think and talk about a wide range of relationships, issues, and conflicts confronting them. As an opening gambit, think about asking the deceptively simple question: “How do you choose a friend?” A group of teenagers considering this problem could be drawn to the important question of how to choose a lover and life partner—and even more important, how not to choose one. Specific topics such as differences between boys and girls, cultural subgroups, and how people resolve tensions would follow based on the teenagers’ interests and their willingness to discuss real issues. Colleges could also offer continuing and advanced courses on an expanded range of subjects, including many problems that young men and women now struggle with alone. We are on the threshold of learning what we can and cannot do for these young people. Still one wonders, can an educational intervention replace the learning that occurs naturally over many years within the family? How do we create a corps of teachers who are qualified to lead meaningful courses on relationships? By this I mean courses that are true to life, honest, and respectful of students. I worry about the adult tendency to lecture or sermonize. In a society where the family has become a political issue, I’m concerned about attacks from the left and the right, about the many people who would attack such interventions the way they’ve attacked the Harry Potter books.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  It was late, and I had picked up the phone after hours because no one else was in the building; it was becoming a bad habit. The older woman on the other end of the line was pleading with me after offering a heartfelt description of her grandson, who had just been jailed for murder. “He’s already been in the jail for two nights, and I can’t get to him. I’m in Virginia, and my health is not good. Please tell me you’ll do something.” I hesitated before answering her. Only a handful of countries permitted the death penalty for children—and the United States was one of them. Many of my Alabama clients were on death row for crimes they were accused of committing when they were sixteen- or seventeen-year-old children. Many states had changed their laws to make it easier to prosecute children as adults, and my clients were getting younger and younger. Alabama had more juveniles sentenced to death per capita than any other state—or any other country in the world. I was determined to manage the growing demand for our services by taking on new cases only if the client was facing execution or formally condemned to death row. This woman had told me that her grandson was only fourteen. While the Supreme Court had upheld the death penalty for juveniles in a 1989 ruling, a year earlier the Court had barred the death penalty for children under the age of fifteen. Whatever perils this child faced, he was not going to be sent to death row. This lady’s grandson might be facing life imprisonment without parole, but given the overwhelming number of death penalty cases on our docket, I couldn’t rationalize taking on his case. As I considered how to answer this woman’s plea, she started speaking quickly, at a whisper: “Lord, please help us. Lead this man and protect us from any choice that is not yours. Help me find the words, Lord. Tell me what to say, Lord—” I didn’t want to interrupt her prayer, so I waited until she finished. “Ma’am, I can’t take the case, but I will drive down to the jail and see your grandson tomorrow. I’ll see what I can do. We likely won’t be able to represent him, but let me find out what’s going on, and perhaps we can help you find a lawyer who can assist you.” “Mr. Stevenson, I’m so grateful.” I was tired and already feeling overwhelmed with the cases I had. And cases with juveniles took an especially severe emotional toll on everyone who touched them. But I needed to go to a courthouse near the county where this boy was being held, so it wouldn’t be that big a deal to stop by and see the child.