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.

Page 231 of 501 · 20 per page

• From City of Night (1963)

  “He looks like a plainclothes dick to me,” said the first one—then turning to me: “Is ‘dick’ the right word, hon?—it sounds so strangely dated or something. Or would a plain-clothesman also be referred to as fuzz’?” “‘Dick’—like Dick Tracy,” I said with a straight face. He was right: The man did look like a plainclothes detective. Obviously, others had noticed him. The fairy next to me is saying: “Thats all he could be—a plainclothes dick!” But the other one was already dismissing him: “Why dont you take your pants off, hon,” hes saying to me, “so we can see what you look like all over—before buying?” And so hes decided this is the only way. “Im not wearing trunks,” I said. “Thats exactly what I mean,” he said, throwing up his hands in glee. “Lets see what you really look like!” That did it. I mumbled something about having to leave, and I walked away. They said something, but I didnt hear what it was—undoubtedly something Bitchy. But had I left really because I was annoyed at what he had said?—or was it that I had wanted all along to do what I was now doing?... I sat on the concrete ledge—near the man in sportclothes. Glancing up purposely suddenly, I see him looking at me. I wiped the sand off my pants, I light a cigarette—stretching the time that I could stay there without being obvious. This time I look at him directly for a response. He smiles at me. For no apparent reason suspecting strongly that the fairy just now had been right—that this man was indeed a detective—I put my shirt on, got up, started to move away without looking back. But soon Im aware that hes taken a few steps toward me. I faced him. He opened his mouth to say something, and then, in real or pretended embarrassment, he merely smiled again. Reacting to him as if he is a cop, I look at him coolly. “Im leaving the beach,” he blurted. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?” Now, Im not at all sure hes a cop—not because of what he said (Southern California is notorious for entrapment—theyll even offer you money and bust you later)—but because of the diffident tone of his voice; he appeared embarrassed the moment he had spoken. It is usually relatively easy, once youve made the scene in the bars and the beaches, to peg someone quickly at those places. But not this man. I keep shifting my suspicions. “Which way are you going?” I asked him. He shrugged. “Oh, anywhere. I havent got anything to do. I’ll drive you wherever youre going.” I want very much—because of a strong curiosity—to find out about this man. On the other hand, if I leave the beach now—and he merely drives me back downtown—I will have left for nothing, and it’s still early: the golden-tanning sun still holds the sky.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Pero creo que sé lo que iba a decir. Cuando me enteré que iba a ser padre. Pike Lawson no se ve lo suficiente mayor para ser padre de un hijo adulto, así que tuvo que haber sido muy joven cuando Cole nació. No más de dieciocho o diecinueve años. ¿Lo que lo pondría en unos treinta y ocho? ¿Más o menos? —Simplemente no podía comprender el hecho de que estaba renunciando a siete años de mi vida —continúa—. Pero siete años fueron y vinieron muy rápido. Asegurar un buen futuro requiere de una inversión y un compromiso, Cole, pero vale la pena. —¿Lo valió para ti? —cuestiona su hijo, arrancando un trozo de la hamburguesa, presionando ligeramente el costado de mi muslo. Es un gesto sutil que de hecho me gusta, a pesar de la tensión creciente en la habitación. Es su forma de hacerme saber que puede estar enojado, pero no lo está conmigo, y odia que probablemente me sienta incómoda en este momento. El padre de Cole toma un sorbo de su botella y la deja calmadamente en la mesa, su tono ahora es más duro. —Bueno, he tenido el dinero para pagar tu fianza de la cárcel —indica—. La última vez. Y la vez antes de esa. La mano de Cole se tensa alrededor de mi muslo, y mi cuello está tan caliente de repente que desearía tener una liga para mi cabello. Miles de preguntas dan vueltas en mi cabeza. ¿Por qué no se llevan bien? ¿Qué sucedió? El padre de Cole parece bueno, por lo poco que sé de él, pero Cole ha levantado un muro entre ellos, y su papá tiene casi tan mal genio como su hijo. Con la hamburguesa en mano, Cole aparta su plato y echa la silla hacia atrás, soltando mi pierna. —Voy a comer afuera —dice, soltando mi pierna—. Ven con nosotros si quieres, nena. Y deja los platos. Los lavaré en un rato. Abro la boca para hablar, pero me detengo, apretando los dientes. Bueno, esto será divertido. Cole se da vuelta y sale de la habitación, y momentos después escucho la puerta principal cerrarse de un golpe. Se escuchan voces amortiguadas desde afuera, y suena un claxon por la calle, pero de repente hace tanto silencio en la cocina que dejo de respirar. Con suerte Pike Lawson se olvidará que estoy aquí. ¿Cómo se supone que viva aquí? No puedo tomar un lado si van a hacer esto. Pero Pike habla, suavizando su voz. —Está bien —asegura, y lo veo mover su cabeza hacia mí por el rabillo del ojo—. Puedes ir con él si quieres. Giro mi cabeza, me encuentro con su mirada y le enseño una sonrisa tensa mientras me encojo de hombros. —Hace calor afuera —contesto. Ya estoy ardiendo con la tensión de aquí. Además, los amigos de Cole no son mis amigos, y afuera no será mejor.

• From City of Night (1963)

  One sharply cold windy Sunday afternoon—the clouds sweeping the newyork sky like sheets—I saw him coming toward me where I was standing. “You wanna score?” he says. “See that old cat over there?” He pointed to a small mousy man a few feet away. “He wants us both to come over to his house. Hes only good for five,” he explained, adding quickly when he saw me hesitating: “but most of the time hell lay more if he digs you.... Cummon, man,” he coaxed me. “Lets go with him. It’s a draggy day anyhow. And anyway, we get to eat there real good.” He adds, smiling secretly. “And we dont have to do much. Oh, hes Special!” Remembering the man I had walked around Times Square with, wearing a jacket and cap, I began to laugh. “Not that,” Pete says, “we wont be walking around Times Square in leather.” Without going to him, Pete motions yes to the man, who goes down the steps, into the subway. Pete and I follow. I was walking fast, to catch up with the man. “Cool it,” Pete explains. “I know where we get off.” Without glancing back, the man gets in one of the cars, and we got in another. “He doesnt want anyone to see him leaving with guys,” Pete said. I had been through this before: Unlike the black-dressed Al, who walked you around for an hour through Times Square, some scores dont want to be seen leaving the street with a younger man. “He lives in—hold on— Queens!” Pete laughed. “And dig this, spote: I think he teaches at Queens College. They even got a school now,” he says, shaking his head. We got off at Queens Plaza, and followed the man to a large apartment house. We waited at the corner for a few minutes, and then we walked into the lobby. It’s a moderate-priced apartment house, very quiet, softly lighted. We reached the second floor, and along the hallway, a door was open slightly. There stood the little man beaming at us sweetly. He had taken off his coat, and he was wearing a gayly colored apron now. “Hello, hello, hello!” he chirped merrily. “Im so glad you boys could come. I was hardly expecting—” Pete whispered to me (I couldnt see how the man could help but hear him, but possibly neither cared): “Play it Cool and go along with it.” At times Pete seemed to have an enormous tolerance for the quirks of the people he knew: a tolerance which could instantly turn into intolerance when he felt he’d been had. “Itll be just a few minutes, boys,” the old man announced, “and then we’ll have a Lovely dinner. You boys must be famished, and I just happen to have some Very Nice Steaks. Now,” he says, and his voice trembles slightly, “you boys get—uh—Comfortable.” He stood watching us intently. I glanced at Pete, and he had begun to unbutton his shirt.

• From City of Night (1963)

  (This is how I happen to be here now, drinking tea, selfconsciously, with this man: Only a few nights earlier, at the Stirrup Club, I had noticed a man wearing knee-length boots, a dark leather jacket with a goldsewn insignia of a rapacious bird, a cap much like that of a policeman, and a silver chain around his left shoulder. I asked the person I was with who he was. “Neil,” he answered, “the weirdest character in San Francisco. I’d keep away from him if I were you.”... Later that night, Neil had come over—he knew the man I was with—and introduced himself. Brazenly, he asked me to have lunch with him the next day. Considering him the most ridiculous man I had ever seen—but still greatly intrigued—I said yes.) “Shall I freshen up your tea?” “No, thanks, Ive had enough.” “Tea is very invigorating in the afternoon, especially after a big lunch,” he insisted curiously—and poured out another cup. It seemed so ludicrous—this hybrid movie-set room (like a small-scale parody, at times, of a medieval chamber, with anachronistic touches of Contemporary California) and the man in the incredible costume—so ludicrously incongruous it all seemed, to sit sipping the carefully laid out tea (and cookies!) from the small tilac-decorated china cups. Glancing over the teacup, into another room (to avoid looking directly at this man and thereby to thwart his excoriating gaze by not acknowledging it—and throughout lunch he had hardly spoken, concentrating merely on studying me), I catch sight of a foot—just the tip—jutting from behind the slightly open door. I asked Neil: “Are you alone?” “Oh, yes! Just you and me—and my cat,” he answered, savoring the tea loudly as if to induce me to take mine. I dismiss the foot, which hasnt moved. It is probably a shoe—or, more likely, a boot—tossed behind the door. The telephone screams, and I almost drop the cup nervously. Excusing himself, Neil goes into the other room. He steps carefully over the jutting foot as he goes through the door. The door, slightly farther ajar now, reveals, still unmoving, what is definitely a boot. “Hello?” he answers the telephone. A pause. “Hello?” again. Silence. I hear him hang the telephone up. There is a shuffling sound of moving in that next room. The boot disappears entirely. “Ive been getting these Mysterious Calls,” Neil explained, returning. “At least once a day—sometimes more often. Someone calls up, listens to my voice, doesnt say a word.” “Someone must be trying to bug you,” I offered.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  The hunters feel profoundly uneasy about slaughtering the beasts, who are their friends and patrons, and to assuage this anxiety, they surround the hunt with taboos and prohibitions. They say that long ago the animals made a covenant with humankind and now a god known as the Animal Master regularly sends flocks from the lower world to be killed on the hunting plains, because the hunters promised to perform the rites that will give them posthumous life. Hunters often abstain from sex before an expedition, hunt in a state of ritual purity, and feel a deep empathy with their prey. In the Kalahari Desert, where wood is scarce, the Bushmen have to rely on light weapons that can only graze the skin, so they anoint their arrows with a lethal poison that kills the animal very slowly. A tribesman has to remain with his victim, crying when it cries and participating symbolically in its death throes. Other tribes identify with their prey by donning animal costumes. After stripping the meat from the bones, some reconstruct their kill by laying out its skeleton and pelt; others bury these inedible remains, symbolically restoring the beast to the netherworld from which it came.12 The hunters of the Palaeolithic age may have had a similar worldview. Some of the myths and rites they devised appear to have survived in the traditions of later, literate cultures. Animal sacrifice, for example, the central rite of nearly every religious system in antiquity, preserved prehistoric hunting ceremonies and continued to honor a beast that gave its life for the sake of humankind.13 One of the functions of ritual is to evoke an anxiety in such a way that the community is forced to confront and control it. From the very beginning, it seems, religious life was rooted in acknowledgment of the tragic fact that life depends upon the destruction of other creatures.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Christians in the developing cities of the Northeast had also become disillusioned with the Deist establishment, whose revolution had signally failed to inaugurate a better world. Many of the denominations were anxious to create a “space” that was separate from the federal government. They had been deeply perturbed by the fearful stories of the French Revolution, which seemed to epitomize the dangers of untrammeled rationality, and were appalled that Thomas Paine, who had supported their own war for liberty, had published The Age of Reason (1794) when the Terror was at its height. If their democratic society was to avoid the dangers of mob rule, the people must become more Godly. “If you wish to be free indeed, you must be virtuous, temperate, well-instructed,” insisted Lyman Beecher (1775–1863), a leading Evangelical pastor of Cincinnati. 5 America was the new Israel, insisted Timothy Dwight, president of Yale; its expanding frontier was a sign of the coming Kingdom, so to be worthy of their calling, Americans must become more religious. 6 Deism was now regarded as a satanic foe, responsible for the inevitable failures of the infant nation: giving to nature the honor due to Jesus Christ, Deism would promote atheism and materialism. 7 Yet despite their apparently visceral recoil from the Enlightenment, Evangelicals were eager to embrace its natural theology. They remained deeply dependent upon Scottish Common Sense philosophy and Paley’s argument from design and saw Newton’s God as essential to Christianity. The natural laws that scientists had discovered in the universe were tangible demonstrations of God’s providential care and provided the faith of Jesus Christ with unshakable, scientific certainty. At the same time as he called for a religion of the heart, Lyman Beecher also insisted that Evangelical Christianity was “eminently a rational system.” 8 And by this he meant the rationality of science. 9 In the same spirit, James McCosh (1811–94), president of Princeton, argued that theology was a “science” that, “from an investigation of the works of nature, would rise to a discovery of the character and will of God.” Any theologian, he declared, must proceed in the same way as he does in every other branch of investigation. He sets out in search of facts; he arranges and coordinates them, and rising from the phenomena which present themselves to their cause, he discovers, by the ordinary laws of evidence, a cause of all subordinate causes. 10 God functioned in exactly the same way as any natural phenomenon; in the modern world, there was only one path to truth, so theology must conform to the scientific method. During the 1840s, Charles Grandison Finney (1792–1875), a pivotal figure in American religion, brought the rough, democratic Christianity of the frontiers to the urban middle classes.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  She would have gone on, I think, if there had not, at that moment, come the sound of the front door opening, and then of feet upon the parlour floor. ‘Oh hell !’ I said. I put my cup down, gazed wildly about me for a second, then ran past the girl to the pantry door. I didn’t stop to think; I didn’t say a word to her or even look at her. I simply hopped inside the little cupboard, and pulled the door shut behind me. Then I put my ear to it, and listened. ‘Is there someone out there?’ It was Florence’s voice. I heard her stepping, cautiously, into the kitchen. Then she must have seen her friend. ‘Annie, oh, it’s you! Thank goodness. For a moment I thought - what’s the matter?’ ‘I’m not sure.’ ‘Why do you look so queer? What’s going on? What has happened to the step at the front of the house? And what’s this mess on the stove?’ ‘Florrie -’ ‘What?’ ‘I think I might as well tell you; indeed, I really think I’m quite obliged to tell you...’ ‘What? You’re frightening me.’ ‘There’s a girl in your pantry.’ There was a silence then, during which I swiftly surveyed my options. They were, I found, very few; so I decided on the noblest. I took hold of the handle of the pantry door, and slowly pushed it open. Florence saw me, and twitched. ‘I was just about to leave,’ I said. ‘I swear it.’ I looked at the girl called Annie, who nodded. ‘She was,’ she said. ‘She was.’ Florence gazed at me. I stepped out of the pantry and edged past her, into the parlour. She frowned. ‘What on earth have you been doing?’ she asked, as I searched for my hat. ‘Why does everything look so strange?’ She picked up a box of matches, and lit the two oil-lamps and then a couple of candles. The light was taken up by a thousand polished surfaces, and she started. ‘You have cleaned the house!’ ‘Only the downstairs rooms. And the yard. And the front step,’ I said, in increasing tones of wretchedness. ‘And I made you supper.’ She gaped at me. ‘Why!’ ‘Your house was dirty. The woman next door said you were famous for it ...’ ‘You met the woman next door?’ ‘She gave me some tea.’ ‘I leave you in my home for one day and you quite transform it. You get yourself in with my neighbours. You’re thick, I suppose, with my best friend. And what has she been telling you?’ ‘I haven’t told her anything, I’m sure!’ called Annie from the kitchen.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  She came towards me, and took hold of the knot to straighten it; the pulse at my throat began at once to knock against her fingers, and I started a fruitless fumbling at my hips for a pair of pockets in which to thrust my hands. ‘What a fidget you are,’ she said mildly, quite as if she were addressing Cyril; but her cheeks, I noticed, had not paled - nor was her voice, I thought, quite steady. She finished at my throat at last, then stepped away again. ‘There is just my hair,’ I said. I took two brushes and dampened them in my water-jug, and combed the hair away from my face till it was flat and sleek; then I greased my palms with macassar - I had macassar, now - and ran them over my head until the hair felt heavy, and the little, overheated room was thick with scent. And all the time, Florence leaned against the frame of the parlour door and watched me; and when I had finished, she laughed. ‘My word, what a pair of beauties!’ This was Ralph, come that moment along the passageway, with Cyril at his feet. ‘We didn’t recognise them, did we, son?’ Cyril held up his arms to Florence, and she lifted him with a grunt. Ralph put his hand upon her shoulder and said, in an altogether softer tone, ‘How fair you look, Flo. I haven’t seen you look so fair, for a year and more.’ She tilted her head, graciously; they might for a moment have been a knight and his lady, in some medieval portrait. Then Ralph looked my way, and smiled; and I didn’t know who it was that I loved more, then - his sister, or him. ‘Now, you will manage with Cyril, won’t you?’ said Florence anxiously, when she had handed the baby back to Ralph and begun to button her coat. ‘I should think I will!’ said her brother. ‘We won’t be late.’ ‘You must be as late as you like; we shall not wonder. Only mind you are careful. They are rather rough streets, that you must cross...’

• From The Case for God (2009)

  The same applies to the creation myth that was central to ancient religion and has now become controversial in the Western world because the Genesis story seems to clash with modern science. But until the early modern period, nobody read a cosmology as a literal account of the origins of life. In the ancient world, it was inspired by an acute sense of the contingency and frailty of existence. Why had anything come into being at all, when there could so easily have been nothing? There has never been a simple or even a possible answer to this question, but people continue to ask it, pushing their minds to the limit of what we can know. One of the earliest and most universal of the ancient cosmologies is particularly instructive to us today. It was thought that one of the gods, known as the “High God” or “Sky God” because he dwelt in the farthest reaches of the heavens, had single-handedly created heaven and earth.39 The Aryans called him Dyaeus Pitr, the Chinese Tian (“Heaven”), the Arabians Allah (“the God”), and the Syrians El Elyon (“Most High God”). But the High God proved to be an unviable deity, and his myth was jettisoned. It suffered from an internal contradiction. How could a mere being—even such a lofty one—be responsible for being itself? As if in response to this objection, people tried to elevate the High God to a special plane. He was considered too exalted for an ordinary cult: no sacrifices were performed in his honor; he had no priests, no temples, and virtually no mythology of his own. People called on him in an emergency, but otherwise he scarcely ever impinged on their daily lives. Reduced to a mere explanation—to what would later be called First Cause or Prime Mover—he became Deus otiosus, a “useless” or “superfluous” deity, and gradually faded from the consciousness of his people. In most mythologies, the High God is often depicted as a passive, helpless figure; unable to control events, he retreats to the periphery of the pantheon and finally fades away. Today some of the indigenous peoples—Pygmies, Aboriginal Australians, and Fuegians—also speak of a High God who created heaven and earth, but, they tell anthropologists, he has died or disappeared; he “no longer cares” and “has gone far away from us.”40

• From City of Night (1963)

  Jamey burst in, in a very brief striped bikini. “I went to the beach,” he explained breathlessly. “I just heard about the party, and I was told it was going to be very informal—so voilà!” —striking a bathingbeauty pose. He catches sight of Lance and rushes toward him. “Well, Lance, welcome back—it hasnt been the same without you. And the other day, when I saw you—you know, at the Rendezvous Room (though I hardly expect you remember), I said, My God, whats happened to Lance!—he looks terrible.” He stares calculatingly at Lance, and what he sees displeases him: It is again the Lance of the legend which Jamey must see destroyed. “And by the way, Lance-sweetheart, did you find him?... Oh, you know, whoever you were... looking... for... remember?—oh, look, theres Chick!” rushing away from Lance, leaving the words suspended behind him like a curse. “Chick, honey!” Jamey gushes. “I didnt expect to see you here—after that awful scene you had last night. I heard all about it! Did that tramp really rob you? Youve got to be more careful about picking anybody up on the Boulevard these days,” he says loudly, aiming at anyone here who might have been picked up on the Boulevard. Later I hear him say to someone else: “I think Lance is trying to fool us—hes not as happy as hes pretending. And what the hell’s happened to that little tramp Dean?” “I dont know,” the other answers. “I thought maybe he’d be here.... Youve got to admit,” he said, “Lance looks good.” “Dont let him fool you, honey, hes just pretending to look good. Dont you notice how there isnt too much light in here?” “Thank heaven for that, sweetie—you dont suffer from the dark yourself.” The stage is set. Lance O’Hara is surrounded by the waiting chorus.... But so far, Lance was perfect—laughing, moving from group to group, recalling incidents, love affairs, shamelessly flattering the extravagantly gushing women. “Didnt I tell you theyd all come?” he whispered to me. “The vicious fairies. And theyre disappointed it’s not a wake yet.” Like a summer storm in those areas where in one instant it changes from bright to thundering dark, it happened. Dean stood at the door—the same youngman who had talked to me that night on the Boulevard. Lance had been talking to someone. The sudden silence descending over the room like a blackwinged bird made him stop instinctively. All eyes alternated between the youngman at the door and Lance. Lance was suddenly livid, the circles around his eyes deepened. He whirled about, smiling—moving toward the youngman. “Dean! Youre just in time for the party!” His voice shook. The breathless chorus rehearses its lines. “Where have you been?” he asked casually, placing his hand falsely steadily on the boy’s shoulder.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  52 When, for example, John William Colenso (1814–83), missionary bishop of Natal, was ostracized for his critical study of the Pentateuch, Lyell introduced him to his club and gave him financial help and the two became firm friends. When the Reverend Frederic William Farrar (1831–1903) wrote an article on the Flood, arguing, on evidence provided by the Higher Criticism and geological science, that the deluge had not in fact covered the entire earth, his essay was rejected by the editors of William Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible . But Darwin supported Farrar’s candidacy for the Royal Society, and Farrar was one of the bearers of Darwin’s coffin and preached a moving eulogy beside his grave. 53 In the United States, the more liberal Christians were open to the Higher Criticism. Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87), Lyman’s son, believed that doctrine and belief should take second place to charitable work and argued that it was unchristian to penalize somebody for holding a different theological opinion. The liberals were also willing to “christen” Darwinism, arguing that God was at work in the process of natural selection and that humanity was gradually evolving to a greater spiritual perfection: soon men and women would find that no gulf separated them from God and that they were able to live at peace with one another. But a rift was developing between the liberals and conservatives. In dedicated opposition to the Higher Criticism, Charles Hodge insisted that every single word of the Bible was divinely inspired and infallibly true. His son Archibald wrote a classic defense of the literal truth of the Bible with his younger colleague Benjamin Warfield. All the stories and statements of the Bible were “absolutely errorless and binding for faith and obedience.” Everything in scripture was unqualified “truth to the facts.” 54 In 1886, the revivalist preacher Dwight Lyman Moody (1837–99) founded the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago to combat the Higher Criticism, his aim to create a cadre to oppose the false ideas that, he argued, would bring the nation to destruction. Similar colleges were founded by William B. Riley in Minneapolis in 1902 and by the oil magnate Lyman Stewart in Los Angeles in 1907. For some, the Higher Criticism was becoming a symbol of everything that was wrong in the modern world. “If we have no infallible standard,” argued the Methodist clergyman Alexander McAlister, “we may as well have no standard at all;” once biblical truth had been unraveled, all decent values would disappear. 55 For the Methodist preacher Leander W. Mitchell, the Higher Criticism was to blame for the drunkenness and infidelity now widespread in the United States, 56 while the Presbyterian M. B. Lambdin saw it as the cause of the rising divorce rate, graft, corruption, crime, and murder. 57 But the stridency of these claims reflects an anxiety.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  Prompted by Bork, presumably, Hilliard came at me from new angles, with new questions, and I lost track of the plot. I often had no idea what I was saying. The judge, at one point, scolded me for not making sense, for being overly complicated. “Just answer the questions concisely,” he said. “How concisely?” I said. “Twenty words or less,” he said. Hilliard asked his next question. I ran a hand over my face. “There’s no way I can answer that question in twenty words or less,” I said. The judge required lawyers on both sides to stay behind their tables while questioning witnesses, and to this day I think that ten yards of buffer might have saved me. I think if Hilliard had been able to get closer, he might have cracked me, might have reduced me to tears. Toward the end of his two-day cross I was numb. I’d hit bottom. The only place to go was up. I could see Hilliard decide that he’d better let me go before I started to rise and make a comeback. As I slid off the stand I gave myself a grade of D minus. Cousin Houser and Strasser didn’t disagree. THE JUDGE IN our case was the Honorable James Burns, a notorious figure in Oregon jurisprudence. He had a long, dour face, and pale gray eyes that looked out from beneath two protruding black eyebrows. Each eye had its own little thatch roof. Maybe it was because factories were so much on my mind in those days, but I often thought Judge Burns looked as if he’d been built in some far-off factory that manufactured hanging judges. And I thought he knew it, too. And took pride in it. He called himself, in all seriousness, James the Just. In his operatic basso he’d announce, “You are now in the courtroom of James the Just!” Heaven have mercy on anyone who, thinking James the Just was being a bit dramatic, dared to laugh. Portland was still a small town—minuscule, really—and we’d heard through the grapevine that someone had recently bumped into James the Just at his men’s club. The judge was having a martini, moaning about our case. “Dreadful case,” he was saying to the bartender and anyone who’d listen, “perfectly dreadful.” So we knew he didn’t want to be there any more than we did, and he often took out his unhappiness on us, berating us over small points of order and decorum. Still, despite my horrid performance on the stand, Cousin Houser and Strasser and I had a sense that James the Just was inclining toward our side. Something about his demeanor: He was slightly less ogreish to us. On a hunch, therefore, Cousin Houser told the opposing counsel that, if they were still considering our original settlement, forget it, the offer was no longer on the table. That same day, James the Just called a halt to the trial and admonished both sides.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  1967 I didn’t handle it well. Not well at all. Knowing what his reaction would be, and dreading it, I put off telling Johnson the whole story. I shot him a quick note, saying the meeting with Onitsuka had gone fine, telling him I’d secured national distribution rights. But I left it at that. I think I must have held out hope, in the back of my mind, that I might be able to hire someone else to go east. Or that Wallace would blow the whole plan up. And in fact I did hire someone else. A former distance runner, of course. But he changed his mind, backed out, just days after agreeing to go. So, frustrated, distracted, mired in a cycle of anxiety and procrastination, I turned to the much simpler problem of finding someone to replace Johnson at the store in Santa Monica. I asked John Bork, a high school track coach in Los Angeles, a friend of a friend. He jumped at the chance. He couldn’t have been more eager. How could I have known he’d be quite so eager? The next morning he appeared at Johnson’s store and announced that he was the new boss. “The new—what?” Johnson said. “I’ve been hired to take over for you when you go back east,” Bork said. “When I go—where?” Johnson said, reaching for the phone. I didn’t handle that conversation well, either. I told Johnson that, haha, hey, man, I was just about to call you. I said I was sorry he’d heard the news that way, how awkward, and I explained that I’d been forced to lie to Onitsuka and claim we already had an office on the East Coast. Thus, we were in one heck of a jam. The shoes would soon be on the water, an enormous shipment steaming for New York, and no one but Johnson could handle the task of claiming those shoes and setting up an office. The fate of Blue Ribbon rested on his shoulders. Johnson was flabbergasted. Then furious. Then freaked. All in the space of one minute. So I got on a plane and flew down to visit him at his store. HE DIDN’T WANT to live on the East Coast, he told me. He loved California. He’d lived in California all his life. He could go running year-round in California, and running, as I knew, was all to Johnson. How was he supposed to go running during those bitter cold winters back east? On and on it went. All at once his manner changed. We were standing in the middle of his store, his sneaker sanctuary, and in a barely audible mumble he acknowledged that this was a make-or-break moment for Blue Ribbon, in which he was heavily invested, financially, emotionally, spiritually. He acknowledged that there was no one else who could set up an East Coast office.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Jordan se rezaga detrás de ellos en silencio, cruzando los brazos y apoyándose contra el marco de la puerta. Sus ojos están abatidos, y no creo que me haya mirado desde anoche cuando Cole llamó. Tenía que trabajar hoy, y ella tomó el turno de día en el bar, y entre la mudanza de todos sus artículos de tocador a su propio baño y estar encerrada en su habitación haciendo quién sabe qué esta noche y yo dando los toques finales en su auto, no hemos hablado mucho. Supongo que no sé qué decir más de lo que ella lo hace. Miro a Lindsay, sus labios con demasiado labial rojo que combina con el sujetador de encaje rojo asomándose por su camisa de seda negra, y por unos cinco minutos, veinte años atrás, pensé que era sexy y segura de sí misma. Ahora, no es atractiva en absoluto, porque sé lo que hay dentro. Con suerte, solo tengo que aguantarla por una noche o dos. Cole se había mudado de nuevo con ella los últimos días, pero están reemplazando las ventanas para tormenta en su departamento, por lo que necesitaban un lugar donde quedarse mientras los trabajadores terminan. —Puedes tener toda la privacidad que deseas en un hotel —le recuerdo—. Ofrecí pagar. —Papá, vamos —murmura Cole, caminando hacia el refrigerador para tomar un refresco. Mira a Jordan, pero ella no está mirando a nadie a los ojos. La habitación se vuelve silenciosa, y es tan incómodo. Me aclaro la garganta. —Bueno, a menos que quieras compartir una habitación con Cole —le digo a Lindsay—, no hay otro lugar, excepto el sótano. —¿Qué hay de la habitación de invitados? —replica. —Esa es la habitación de Jordan. —Jordan ni siquiera debería estar viviendo aquí —dice, casi en un silbido. Y luego se dirige a Jordan—. ¿Puedes compartir una habitación con mi hijo por un par de noches para poder tener la habitación de invitados? —Ya no es un cuarto de invitados —digo mordaz, mi corazón golpea de repente—. Es su habitación. No hay una jodida forma... —Esto es ridículo. —Lindsay me mira—. Soy la madre de tu hijo, y necesito un cuarto. —Mira a Jordan de nuevo—. Has pasado mucho tiempo en una cama con Cole. Otra noche o dos no te matarán, ¿verdad? Avanzo, plantando mis manos sobre la isla. —Ella no dormirá con Cole. Ya no están juntos. Es injusto. —Es una cama —dice finalmente Cole, suspirando—. Solo es dormir. Podemos manejarlo. Miro a Jordan, esperando que pelee y me ayude, pero lo único que hace es levantar los ojos, encontrarse con los míos y no decir nada. Como si fuese quien permite que esto suceda, y está esperando que haga algo. Si no va a respaldarme, entonces me veo estúpido, luchando por su honor. Es una niña grande. No entenderán por qué soy el único que protesta. Y ahora estoy asustado.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  After a competent preparation by apologies, and encouragement to go through my part with spirit and constancy, he stood up near the fire, whilst I went to fetch the instruments of discipline out of a closet hard by: these were several rods, made each of two or three strong twigs of birch tied together, which he took, handled, and viewed with as much pleasure, as I did with a kind of shuddering presage. Next we took from the side of the room a long broad bench, made easy to lie at length on by a soft cushion in a callico-cover; and everything being now ready, he took his coat and waistcoat off; and at his motion and desire, I unbuttoned his breeches, and rolling up his shirt rather above his waist, tucked it on securely there; when directing naturally my eyes to that humoursone master-movement, in whose favour all these dispositions were making, it seemed almost shrunk into his body, scarce showing its tip above the sprout of hairy curls that clothed those parts, as you may have-seen a wren peeping its head out of the grass. Stooping them to untie his garters, he gave them to me for the use of tying him down to the legs of the bench: a circumstance no farther necessary than, as I suppose, it made part of the humour of the thing, since he prescribed it to himself, amongst the rest of the ceremonial. I led him then to the bench, and according to my cue, played at forcing him to lie down: which, after-some little show of reluctance, for form-sake, he submitted to; he was straightway extended flat upon his: belly, on the bench, with a pillow under his face; and as he thus tamely lay, I tied him slightly hand and feet, to the legs of it; which done, his shirt remaining trussed up over the small of his back, I drew his breeches quite down to his knees; and now he lay, in all the fairest, broadest display of that part of the back-view; in which a pair of chubby, smooth-cheeked and passing white posteriors rose cushioning upwards from two stout, fleshful thighs, and ending their cleft, or separation by an union at the small of the back, presented a bold mark, that swelled, as it were, to meet the scourge.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  The average man or woman had never ventured farther than one hundred miles from his or her own front door, so the mere mention of global travel by airplane would unnerve any father, and especially mine, whose predecessor at the paper had died in an air crash. Setting aside money, setting aside safety concerns, the whole thing was just so impractical. I was aware that twenty-six of twenty-seven new companies failed, and my father was aware, too, and the idea of taking on such a colossal risk went against everything he stood for. In many ways my father was a conventional Episcopalian, a believer in Jesus Christ. But he also worshipped another secret deity—respectability. Colonial house, beautiful wife, obedient kids, my father enjoyed having these things, but what he really cherished was his friends and neighbors knowing he had them. He liked being admired. He liked doing a vigorous backstroke each day in the mainstream. Going around the world on a lark, therefore, would simply make no sense to him. It wasn’t done. Certainly not by the respectable sons of respectable men. It was something other people’s kids did. Something beatniks and hipsters did. Possibly, the main reason for my father’s respectability fixation was a fear of his inner chaos. I felt this, viscerally, because every now and then that chaos would burst forth. Without warning, late at night, the phone in the front hall would jingle, and when I answered there would be that same gravelly voice on the line. “Come getcher old man.” I’d pull on my raincoat—it always seemed, on those nights, that a misting rain was falling—and drive downtown to my father’s club. As clearly as I remember my own bedroom, I remember that club. A century old, with floor-to-ceiling oak bookcases and wing-backed chairs, it looked like the drawing room of an English country house. In other words, eminently respectable. I’d always find my father at the same table, in the same chair. I’d always help him gently to his feet. “You okay, Dad?” “Course I’m okay.” I’d always guide him outside to the car, and the whole way home we’d pretend nothing was wrong. He’d sit perfectly erect, almost regal, and we’d talk sports, because talking sports was

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  What sweet satisfaction it would have been to tell Wallace where he could shove his equity, then storm out and take my business elsewhere. But in 1965 there was no elsewhere. First National Bank was the only game in town and Wallace knew it. Oregon was smaller back then, and it had just two banks, First National and U.S. Bank. The latter had already turned me down. If I got thrown out of the former, I’d be done. (Today you can live in one state and bank in another, no problem, but banking regulations were much tighter in those days.) Also, there was no such thing as venture capital. An aspiring young entrepreneur had very few places to turn, and those places were all guarded by risk-averse gatekeepers with zero imagination. In other words, bankers. Wallace was the rule, not the exception. To make everything more difficult, Onitsuka was always late shipping my shoes, which meant less time to sell, which meant less time to make enough money to cover my loan. When I complained, Onitsuka didn’t answer. When they did answer, they failed to appreciate my quandary. Time and again I’d send them a frantic telex, inquiring about the whereabouts of the latest shipment, and in response I’d typically get a telex that was maddeningly obtuse. Little more days. It was like dialing 911 and hearing someone on the other end yawn. Given all these problems, given Blue Ribbon’s cloudy future, I decided that I’d better get a real job, something safe to fall back on when everything went bust. At the same moment Johnson devoted himself exclusively to Blue Ribbon, I decided to branch out. By now I’d passed all four parts of the CPA exam. So I mailed my test results and résumé to several local firms, interviewed with three or four, and got hired by Price Waterhouse. Like it or not, I was officially and irrevocably a card-carrying bean counter. My tax returns for that year wouldn’t list my occupation as self-employed, or business owner, or entrepreneur. They would identify me as Philip H. Knight, Accountant. MOST DAYS I didn’t mind. For starters, I invested a healthy portion of my paycheck into Blue Ribbon’s account at the bank, padding my precious equity, boosting the company’s cash balance. Also, unlike Lybrand, the Portland branch of Price Waterhouse was a midsized firm. It had some thirty accountants on staff, compared to Lybrand’s four, which made it a better fit for me. The work suited me better, too. Price Waterhouse boasted a great variety of clients, a mix of interesting start-ups and established companies, all selling everything imaginable—lumber, water, power, food. While auditing these companies, digging into their guts, taking them apart and putting them back together, I was also learning how they survived, or didn’t. How they sold things, or didn’t. How they got into trouble, how they got out. I took careful notes about what made companies tick, what made them fail.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  I recall that we were sitting in my office, watching raindrops race down the windowpane. Occasionally we’d look through the books, curse the numbers, then look back at the raindrops. “We have to pay Nissho,” I said quietly. “Yes, yes, yes,” Hayes said. “But to cover a check this large? We’ll have to drain all our other bank accounts dry. All. Dry.” “Yes.” We had retail stores in Berkeley, Los Angeles, Portland, New England, each with its own bank account. We’d have to empty them all, divert all that money to the home office account for a day or two—or three. Along with every cent from Johnson’s factory in Exeter. We’d have to hold our breath, like walking past a graveyard, until we could replenish those accounts. And still we might not be able to cover that massive check to Nissho. We’d still need a little luck, a payment or two to land from one of the many retailers who owed us money. “Circular funding,” Hayes said. “Magical banking,” I said. “Son of a bitch,” Hayes said, “if you look at our cash flow over the next six months, we’re in good shape. It’s just this one payment to Nissho that’s screwing up everything.” “Yes,” I said, “if we can get past this one payment, we’re home free.” “But this is some payment.” “We’ve always covered checks to Nissho within a day or two. But this time it might take us—what—three? Four?” “I don’t know,” Hayes said, “I honestly don’t know.” I followed two raindrops racing down the glass. Neck and neck. You are remembered for the rules you break. “Damn the torpedoes,” I said. “Pay Nissho.” Hayes nodded. He stood. We looked at each other for one long second. He said he’d tell Carole Fields, our head bookkeeper, what we’d decided. He’d have her start moving the money around. And come Friday he’d have her cut the check to Nissho. These are the moments, I thought. TWO DAYS LATER Johnson was in his new office at the Exeter factory, doing paperwork, when a mob of angry workers suddenly appeared at his door. Their paychecks had bounced, they said. They wanted answers. Johnson, of course, had no answers to give. He implored them to hold on, there must be some mistake. He phoned Oregon, reached Fields, and told her what was happening. He expected her to say it was all a big misunderstanding, an accounting error. Instead she whispered, “Oooh, shit.” Then hung up on him. A PARTITION WALL separated Fields’s office from mine. She ran around the wall and up to my desk. “You’d better sit down,” she blurted. “I am sitting down.” “It’s all hitting the fan,” she said. “What is?” “The checks. All the checks.”

• From City of Night (1963)

  And now the Professor turns back to the page he had skipped. I knew whom the picture would be of: “This—Is—Robbie,” he announced. (I saw a handsome youngman sitting on a foreign car, squinting at the sun, smiling widely as if someday he would own the world; as if the world for him was a mirror. But even in the picture he seemed to resent the brightness of the sun, greater than his own.) “I have here,” the Professor sighed, hugging the album closely again, “the indefinable shape of love—to which, dear child, you must not deny my adding your photograph....” I wondered suddenly if. I would photograph with the same hard look.... I remember Mr King: “Pictures in a fuckedup album.”) “Yes, Love, indeed,” the Professor said, “which has many forms. Who loved the most? I? They? Who was the taker, who the giver? Who can tell? Someday—at the last of my Research—I shall know.... Now,” he said, “take the chair and come stand near me—please....” I placed the album under the heavy book with the Professor’s name on the cover. I could feel the bulging eyes on me as I lifted the book, slipped the album under it on the shelf. I went and stood by the bed. When I was ready to leave, the Professor waved as usual. Again he sighed after me: “God Is Love!” Outside, the malenurse stared frozenly at me. 5 The next day I received a third telegram: “NECESSARY” had become “VITAL,” and now “VITAL” was replaced by “URGENT.” The implied desperation of the telegrams, by now, didnt surprise me, and when I saw the Professor the next day, I expected he would be as composed as I had left him. I was wrong. Now he seemed very tired. During the “interview” he reached incessantly for a glass of water, swallowed pills. I noticed that the red mark on the tape-measure had been discarded, or it had fallen off.... The words still tumbled on anarchically: He strung a necklace on which the beads were his love affairs: describing them intimately. Suddenly—at the end of the interview, as I stood by the bed, his huge arms hugged me to him. The smooth rubbery flesh of his gigantic face brushed briefly against my cheek. I pushed him away—moved back quickly. From a distance of about two feet his great eyes stared at me, very long. Then, after many moments of such intense wordless relentless staring, he gasped at me: “Those papers!—under the album!—get them!” Responding quickly to his sudden urgency, I brought the papers to him. He went through them feverishly, and then he brought out three closely printed sheets bound together. He flung them at me. “Read it if you can read!” he shouted viciously.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  The democratization of Europe was not a peaceful process but was achieved in a series of bloody revolutions, civil wars, the assassination of the nobility, militant dictatorships, and reigns of terror. During the 1640s and 1650s, for example, England had seen a violent civil war, the execution of King Charles I (1649), and a period of republican rule under the Puritan government of Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658). Levelers, Quakers, Diggers, and Muggletonians had developed their own revolutionary piety. 36 If God dwelled in nature— if, as some said, God was nature—there was no need for clerics and churches, and everybody should share the nation’s prosperity. George Fox (1624–91), founder of the Society of Friends, taught Christians to seek their own inner light and “make use of their own understanding without direction from another”; 37 in the scientific age, religion should be “experimental,” every one of its doctrines tested empirically against each person’s experience. 38 For Richard Coppin, the God within was the only true authority. Because God informed all things, Jacob Bauthumely regarded the worship of a distinct, separate God as blasphemous, while Laurence Clarkson called upon the omnipresent God to empower the people to bring the aristocracy down. This fervid piety was not quelled by the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 under King Charles II; it simply went underground. The next thirty years were a time of extreme anxiety, since people feared another violent revolution. 39 A flourishing market economy was developing in London and the southeast, but the poor resented the affluence of the new commercial classes, the authority of the recently established Church of England, and the privileges of the landed gentry. In Cambridge, the mathematician and clergyman Isaac Barrow (1630–77) developed a liberal Anglicanism that he hoped would help to build an orderly society, modeled on the cosmos, in which all people kept to their proper orbits and worked together harmoniously for the common good. A regular member of these discussion groups was the young Isaac Newton (1642–1727). 40 Like Descartes, Newton aspired to create a universal science capable of interpreting the whole of human experience. Where Descartes’ quest had been solitary, Newton understood the importance of cooperation in science. He wanted to build on the achievements of his great predecessors, and felt, as he wrote to his friend Robert Hooke, as though he were “standing on the shoulders of giants.” 41 But these giants had left some unanswered questions: What kept the planets in their orbits?