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 The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘So you must also have heard of the trouble of Noah and his family, trying to get his wife to go on board the ark. He would have given up all the animals, from aardvark to zebra, to dispatch her on a ship of her own. So now what are we going to do? Speed is necessary. This is no time for making speeches. We cannot wait. What you have to do is this. You have to find us three tubs or troughs - you know, the kind in which you knead dough or brew beer - but they have to be large enough to accommodate each one of us. And obviously they have to be able to float. Once you have them, put enough food in each of them for a day. There will be no need for any more. The waters will go down, as swiftly as they came up, at nine o’clock the next morning.’ ‘What about young Robin? And Jill, our maid?’ ‘I am afraid that they cannot be saved. Don’t ask me why. I cannot reveal the secrets of God. It must suffice that you and Alison and I will be rescued from the flood. You would be mad not to do this. So get on with it. Oh. One more thing. When you have found these three tubs, you must hang them high up from the rafters so that no one will know what we are doing. When you have done all this, and have stored all the food and drink, you must get hold of an axe. We will need it to break the ropes, and then cast off. We will also have to make a hole through the gable, over the stable, on the garden side, so that we can float free once the great rain has stopped. We will bob along as merrily as a white duck following her drake. Then I will shout to you, “Hi there, Alison! Hi there, John! Cheer up. The flood will soon be gone.” And you will shout back, “Good morning, Nicholas! I can see you again. There is daylight!” Then we will be masters of the world, just like Noah and his wife.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  We danced to a second song, and when we sat down again on the stools facing the pool table, our backs against the bar, he slid his arm behind me. That arm made me tense but not entirely unhappy. No one had flirted with me since Billy Deel, unless you counted Kenny Hall. Still, I knew what Robbie was after. I was going to tell him I wasn’t that sort of girl, but then I thought he would say I was getting ahead of myself. After all, the only thing he’d done was dance me slow and put his arm around me. I caught Dad’s eye. I expected him to come barreling across the room and whock Robbie with a pool cue for getting fresh with his daughter. Instead, he hollered to Robbie, “Do something worthwhile with those damned hands of yours. Get over here and play me a game of pool.” They ordered whiskeys and chalked their cues. Dad held back at first and lost some money to Robbie, then started upping the stakes and beating him. After every game, Robbie wanted to dance with me again. It went on that way for a couple of hours, with Robbie getting sloppy drunk, losing to Dad, and groping me when we danced or sat at the bar between games. All Dad said to me was “Keep your legs crossed, honey, and keep ’em crossed tight.” After Dad had taken him for about eighty bucks, Robbie started muttering angrily to himself. He snapped down the cue chalk, sending up a puff of blue powder, and missed a final shot. He flung his cue on the table and announced he’d had enough, then sat down next to me. His eyes were bleary. He kept saying he couldn’t believe that old fart had beat him out of eighty bucks, as if he couldn’t decide whether he was pissed off or impressed. Then he told me he lived in an apartment over the bar. He had a Roy Acuff record that wasn’t on the jukebox, and he wanted us to go upstairs and listen to it. If all he wanted to do was dance some more and maybe kiss a little, I could handle that. But I had the feeling he thought he was entitled to something in return for losing so much money. “I’m not sure,” I said. “Aw, come on,” he said and shouted at Dad, “I’m going to take your girl upstairs.” “Sure,” Dad said. “Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He pointed his pool cue at me. “Holler if you need me,” he said and winked at me as if to say he knew I could take care of myself, that this was just a part of my job. So, with Dad’s blessing, I went upstairs. Inside the apartment, we pushed through a curtain made from strands of beer-can pull tabs linked together. Two men sat on a couch watching wrestling on television.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  The blue was water. Mom was painting a picture of a woman drowning in a stormy lake. When she was finished, she sat for a long time in silence, staring at the picture. “So what are we going to do?” I finally asked. “Jeannette, you’re so focused it’s scary.” “You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “I’ll get a job, Jeannette,” she snapped. She threw her paintbrush into the jar that held her turpentine and sat there looking at the drowning woman. QUALIFIED TEACHERS were so scarce in McDowell County that two of the teachers I’d have at Welch High School had never been to college. Mom was able to land a job by the end of the week. We spent those days frantically trying to clean the house in anticipation of the return of the child-welfare man. It was a hopeless task, given all the stacks of Mom’s junk and the hole in the ceiling and the disgusting yellow bucket in the kitchen. However, for some reason he never came back. Mom’s job was teaching remedial reading in an elementary school in Davy, a coal-mining camp twelve miles north of Welch. Since we still had no car, the school’s principal arranged for Mom to get a ride with another teacher, Lucy Jo Rose, who had just graduated from Bluefield State College and was so fat she could barely squeeze behind the steering wheel of her brown Dodge Dart. Lucy Jo, whom the principal had more or less ordered to perform this service, took an instant dislike to Mom. She refused to say much during the trip, instead playing Barbara Mandrell tapes and smoking filter-tip Kools the entire time. As soon as Mom got out of the car, Lucy Jo made a big show of spraying Mom’s seat with Lysol. Mom, for her part, felt that Lucy Jo was woefully uninformed. When Mom mentioned Jackson Pollock once, Lucy Jo said that she had Polish blood and therefore did not appreciate Mom using derogatory names for Polish people. Mom had the same problems she’d had in Battle Mountain with organizing her paperwork and disciplining her students. At least one morning a week, she’d throw a tantrum and refuse to go to work, and Lori, Brian, and I would have to get her collected and down to the street where Lucy Jo waited with a scowl, blue smoke chugging up out of the Dart’s rusted-through tailpipe. But at least we had money. While I’d been bringing in a little extra cash babysitting, Brian was cutting other people’s weeds, and Lori had a paper route, it didn’t add up to much. Now Mom got paid about seven hundred dollars a month, and the first time I saw her gray-green pay-check, with its detachable stub and automated signatures, I thought our troubles were over. On paydays, Mom took us kids down to the big bank across from the courthouse to cash the check.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  That two-room squat was cramped, and Maureen and Dad would get into the worst screaming fights, with Maureen calling Dad a worthless drunk and Dad calling Maureen a sick puppy, the runt of the litter, who should have been drowned at birth. Maureen even stopped reading and slept all day, leaving the apartment only to buy cigarettes. I called and persuaded her to come up to see me and discuss her future. When she arrived, I scarcely recognized her. She’d bleached her hair and eyebrows platinum and was wearing dark makeup as thick as a Kabuki dancer’s. She lit one cigarette after another and kept glancing around the room. When I brought up some career possibilities, she told me that the only thing she wanted to do was help fight the Mormon cults that had kidnapped thousands of people in Utah. “What cults?” I asked. “Don’t pretend you don’t know,” she said. “That just means you’re one of them.” Afterward, I called Brian. “Do you think Maureen’s on drugs?” I asked. “If she’s not, she should be,” he said. “She’s gone nuts.” I told Mom that Maureen should get professional help, but Mom kept insisting that all Maureen needed was fresh air and sunshine. I talked to several doctors, but they told me that since it sounded like Maureen would refuse to seek help on her own, she could be treated only on the order of a court, if she proved she was a danger to herself or others. • • • Six months later, Maureen stabbed Mom. It happened after Mom decided it was time for Maureen to develop a little self-sufficiency by moving out and finding a place of her own. God helps those who help themselves, Mom told Maureen, and so for her own good, she would have to leave the nest and make her way in the world. Maureen couldn’t bear the idea that her own mom would kick her out onto the street, and she snapped. Mom insisted Maureen had not actually been trying to kill her—she’d just become confused and upset, she said—but the wounds required stitches, and the police arrested Maureen. She was arraigned a few days later. Mom and Dad and Lori and Brian and I were all there. Brian was fuming. Lori looked grief-stricken. Dad was half potted and kept trying to pick fights with the security guards. But Mom acted like her normal self—nonchalant in the face of adversity. As we sat waiting on the courtroom benches, she hummed tunelessly and sketched the other spectators. Maureen shuffled into the courtroom, shackled and wearing an orange jumpsuit. Her face was puffy, and she looked dazed, but when she saw us, she smiled and waved. Her lawyer asked the judge to set bail. I had borrowed several thousand dollars from Eric and had the cash in my purse.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘Who is it?’ ‘It’s me. Don’t you think you ought to eat something, Peter? How much time are you going to spend with all your sums and calculations? Let the devil take all these account books! Surely you have enough of God’s blessings without having to count them all? Come out. Forget your bags of money for a while. Are you not ashamed that dear John has not had a meal all day? Let us go to mass. And then eat.’ ‘My wife,’ the merchant replied, ‘you know nothing about men’s business. It is too complicated for you to understand, I suppose. But let me explain this to you. Take a group of twelve merchants. Only two of them will succeed and prosper. Only two will make a good profit in the course of their careers. We put on a brave face, of course, and make ourselves busy in the world. But we have to keep our affairs secret - until we are dead. The only alternative is to go on a pilgrimage. Or just disappear. That is the reason I pore over my books. I have to know how to master the tricks of the world. I am always in dread of failure, bankruptcy, and all the other hazards of business life. ‘I am going to Bruges tomorrow, as you know, but I will be back as soon as I can. While I am away I want you to be modest and courteous with everyone. Look after our property as carefully as you can. Keep the house neat and tidy. You have enough provisions, I am sure of that, so don’t overspend. You don’t lack meat or wine. You have all the clothes you need. But I’m feeling generous. Here is some silver for your purse.’ And with that he closed the door of the counting house and went down with his wife for luncheon. He had done enough work for the day. So they attended a quick mass and, as fast as they could, they sat down to eat. The tables were laid, the dishes come and gone in an instant. No one ate more than the monk. Then, after the meal was over, John took the merchant to one side and spoke to him very seriously. ‘Dear cousin Peter,’ he said, ‘I know that you are about to take horse and travel to Bruges. God be with you and speed you on your journey. Ride carefully. And be careful of what you eat. Your health may be at risk in this hot weather. Be temperate in all things. What am I saying? There is no need for elaborate courtesies between cousins like ourselves. Farewell. God protect you! That’s all I need to say. If there is anything I can do for you, by day or night, just let me know. I am always here to help you.’ He was much affected, and put the sleeve of his habit to his eyes. ‘Oh. There is one other thing.

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

  Maybe she is not ready for the deadness to be killed, or maybe, against all odds, she is. Maybe you can give her something from deep within to find or do or fight for that will break the trance for her. You’ll have to find this first within you, though. And then you’ll have it to give away. This woman may get to wake up. And then she will have something to give, a song to sing. Maybe it won’t be a song exactly, but maybe just a little tune, a calliope tune, the tune of survival. PublicationAll right, let’s talk about publication. Let’s talk about the myth of publication. Say you’ve finished your book, or a draft of the book, or a whole lot of stories, and you send them off to your agent, if you have one, or to a friend’s agent, or to an agent you’ve found listed in the Yellow Pages or in the Literary Market Place . Say you actually already have an editor somewhere, or an editor who once wrote you an admiring rejection letter, so you send your book or stories to him or her and to a couple of friends. As I’ve mentioned, I’m one of those people who feels beside herself the day after I’ve stuck the manuscript in the mail. It can’t have even arrived and already I’m feeling bitter and resentful about what cold, lazy, sadistic slime I’m surrounded by. There are other writers, and you may be one of them, who just push back their sleeves and get to work on the next piece. I could never be close to a person like this, but I know they exist. Anyway, if you are like me, you wait and wait and check your mail ten times each day, and feel devastated and rejected every hour that there is no response. Finally, if you are lucky, a week later you get a note from your agent’s assistant that the manuscript has in fact arrived, and maybe one of the friends has called to say that he or she has read part of it and that it is just terrific and not to worry, but you go ahead and have a small breakdown anyhow, waiting for your agent and editor to call and tell you that it’s brilliant. Every time the phone rings, you sing, “Let it please be him, oh, dear God, it must be him.” But it’s not him, and then you die and go on a massive eating binge and think about what phonies most of your friends are. And then you calm down. You go for a walk.

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

  I asked. They nodded and I told them all about my airline fears and how many moving parts there were to this trip east. They nodded again. They seemed to believe that between Jesus and a travel agent, things could probably be worked out. I sighed. My meeting was starting in another room, so I trudged off. My mind spun with images of the talk show, the airplane crash, and the madman with the Uzi at Dallas–Fort Worth. I was having a little trouble concentrating. The meeting ended, and on my way out, a little book on prayer caught my eye. I picked it up and stuck it in my purse, figuring I could look at it over dinner and then return it the next Sunday. All the way to the hamburger joint, I worried that I would be involved in a car accident and the book would be found on me. My survivors would know I had finally snapped, that I had become one of those fundamentalists who think the world is going to end tomorrow right after lunch. I made it to the restaurant, though, and when I sat down, I took out the little book. I opened it before I got it out of my purse so the cover wouldn’t show, as if it were the rankest sort of pornography, like Big Beautiful Butts or something. I started to read and within a page came upon this beautiful passage: “The Gulf Stream will flow through a straw provided the straw is aligned to the Gulf Stream, and not at cross purposes with it.” To make a long story short, I flew to New York and everything went fine. I didn’t have to stop in Dallas-Fort Worth, and I got home in time to teach my class. So now I always tell my students about the Gulf Stream: that what it means for us, for writers, is that we need to align ourselves with the river of the story, the river of the unconscious, of memory and sensibility, of our characters’ lives, which can then pour through us, the straw. When KFKD is playing, we are at cross purposes with the river. So we need to sit there, and breathe, calm ourselves down, push back our sleeves, and begin again. JealousyOf all the voices you’ll hear on KFKD, the most difficult to subdue may be that of jealousy.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  Phoebe never drove to Albuquerque, even when she was flying somewhere herself, so Caitlin rode down with Vix and her family in the RV, fitted for Nathan’s chair. At the airport, when Vix bent down to hug Nathan goodbye, he said, “Don’t worry ... I won’t forget you,” and he gave her his lopsided smile. “I won’t forget you either,” she promised. As she stood up she noticed a woman staring at Nathan. She was used to the way people looked at him, with a mixture of curiosity, pity, and revulsion. They’d look away if she happened to catch their eye. Once they were on the plane, seated and buckled in, Vix pulled a lunch bag out of her backpack. Tawny had packed two bologna sandwiches, several juice cartons, and bags of pretzels and potato chips, as if Vix were going on a camping trip. She unfolded a note scribbled on lined paper. In case you don’t like the airline food. Mother She wasn’t sure if she was going to laugh or cry. “What’s that?” Caitlin asked. “A note from my mother.” “She wrote to you already?” Vix nodded. “Phoebe loves having summers off from being a mother,” Caitlin said proudly. “She’s going to the south of France. She’ll send a postcard and bring me back something great to wear.” Vix was thinking her mother would give anything to go to France. But the Countess never missed opera season in Santa Fe. She’d throw huge parties and Tawny would be responsible for everything. The plane was taxiing down the runway now, picking up speed, faster and faster until they lifted into the air. As they did Vix closed her eyes, said a prayer, and clutched the arms of her seat. “Wait ...” Caitlin said. “Let me guess ... this is your first flight.” “Right. And don’t ask, How is it possible in this day and age.” Caitlin laughed. “You’re totally different,” she said, squeezing Vix’s arm. “I like that about you.”

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  40 ON A WEDNESDAY morning in late March, just after Vix stepped out of the shower, the phone rang. It was the woman named Frankie calling from Santa Fe. Vix’s father had had chest pains during the night. He was in the hospital. They didn’t know yet how serious it might be. Could she come right away? She called Angela, her boss, at home, explained the situation, threw some things into a bag, and headed for the airport. The news in Santa Fe was better than she’d expected. Her father had had a severe angina attack, but no real heart damage. By the time she got there they’d done angioplasty to remove the blockage. He was asleep. Frankie, an ample woman in sweats, with rusty hair, freckled skin, and fringed moccasins, gave Vix a hug. “Thanks for coming, sweetheart. We’re mighty lucky.” Vix excused herself to use the public phone in the hall where she called Tawny. “I’m in Santa Fe,” she told her. “Dad’s sick ... it’s his heart.” For a minute Tawny didn’t respond and Vix thought they’d been disconnected. “Hello ...” she said. “Are you still there?” “I’m here,” Tawny said quietly. “Does it look serious?” “How can it not be serious? I just told you, it’s his heart!” “Get hold of yourself, Victoria. They can do a lot these days. There are procedures ...” “He’s already had the procedure.” “That’s good.” “Are you coming? That’s all I want to know.” “I’m not married to him anymore. He’s not my responsibility.” “I didn’t know the divorce was final.” “It’s final enough.” “Well, nobody told me.” “How can I tell you if you never call?”

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

  Write down what the grown-ups said and did after they’d had a couple of dozen drinks, especially that one Fourth of July when your father made Fish House punch and the adults practically had to crawl from room to room. Remember that you own what happened to you. If your childhood was less than ideal, you may have been raised thinking that if you told the truth about what really went on in your family, a long bony white finger would emerge from a cloud and point at you, while a chilling voice thundered, “We told you not to tell.” But that was then. Just put down on paper everything you can remember now about your parents and siblings and relatives and neighbors, and we will deal with libel later on. “But how?” my students ask. “How do you actually do it?” You sit down, I say. You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively. So you sit down at, say, nine every morning, or ten every night. You put a piece of paper in the typewriter, or you turn on your computer and bring up the right file, and then you stare at it for an hour or so. You begin rocking, just a little at first, and then like a huge autistic child. You look at the ceiling, and over at the clock, yawn, and stare at the paper again. Then, with your fingers poised on the keyboard, you squint at an image that is forming in your mind—a scene, a locale, a character, whatever—and you try to quiet your mind so you can hear what that landscape or character has to say above the other voices in your mind. The other voices are banshees and drunken monkeys. They are the voices of anxiety, judgment, doom, guilt. Also, severe hypochondria. There may be a Nurse Ratched–like listing of things that must be done right this moment: foods that must come out of the freezer, appointments that must be canceled or made, hairs that must be tweezed. But you hold an imaginary gun to your head and make yourself stay at the desk. There is a vague pain at the base of your neck. It crosses your mind that you have meningitis. Then the phone rings and you look up at the ceiling with fury, summon every ounce of noblesse oblige, and answer the call politely, with maybe just the merest hint of irritation. The caller asks if you’re working, and you say yeah, because you are. Yet somehow in the face of all this, you clear a space for the writing voice, hacking away at the others with machetes, and you begin to compose sentences. You begin to string words together like beads to tell a story.

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

  This difficulty takes on a specific dimension when approached from a psychoanalytic perspective. In my efforts to understand the opacity of the “I” in language, I have turned increasingly to psychoanalysis since the publication of Gender Trouble. The usual effort to polarize the theory of the psyche from the theory of power seems to me to be counterproductive, for part of what is so oppressive about social forms of gender is the psychic difficulties they produce. I sought to consider the ways in which Foucault and psychoanalysis might be thought together in The Psychic Life of Power (Stanford, 1997). I have also made use of psychoanalysis to curb the occasional voluntarism of my view of performativity without thereby undermining a more general theory of agency. Gender Trouble sometimes reads as if gender is simply a self-invention or that the psychic meaning of a gendered presentation might be read directly off its surface. Both of those postulates have had to be refined over time. Moreover, my theory sometimes waffles between understanding performativity as linguistic and casting it as theatrical. I have come to think that the two are invariably related, chiasmically so, and that a reconsideration of the speech act as an instance of power invariably draws attention to both its theatrical and linguistic dimensions. In Excitable Speech, I sought to show that the speech act is at once performed (and thus theatrical, presented to an audience, subject to interpretation), and linguistic, inducing a set of effects through its implied relation to linguistic conventions. If one wonders how a linguistic theory of the speech act relates to bodily gestures, one need only consider that speech itself is a bodily act with specific linguistic consequences. Thus speech belongs exclusively neither to corporeal presentation nor to language, and its status as word and deed is necessarily ambiguous. This ambiguity has consequences for the practice of coming out, for the insurrectionary power of the speech act, for language as a condition of both bodily seduction and the threat of injury.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  when he was in jail; Mom had completely withdrawn into her own world; and Maureen was more or less living with neighbors. The ceiling in the bedroom had collapsed, and Brian had moved his bed onto the porch. He made walls by nailing boards along the railings, but it leaked pretty badly out there, too, so he still slept under the inflatable raft. I told Lori that Brian should come live with us in New York, and she agreed. But I was afraid Brian would want to stay in Welch. He seemed more of a country boy than a city kid. He was always wandering through the woods, tinkering with a discarded two-stroke engine, chopping wood, or carving a block of wood into an animal head. He never complained about Welch, and unlike Lori and me, he’d made a lot of friends there. But I thought it was in Brian’s long-term interest to get out of the town. I made a list of reasons he should move to New York, so I could argue him into it. I called him at Grandpa’s and presented my case. He’d need to get a job to pay his share of the rent and groceries, I said, but jobs were going begging in the city. He could share the living room with me—there was plenty of space for a second bed— the toilet flushed, and the ceiling never leaked. When I finished, Brian was silent for a moment. Then he said, “When’s the soonest I can come?” • • • Just like me, Brian hopped the Trailways bus the morning after completing his junior year. The day after he got to New York, he found a job at an ice-cream parlor in Brooklyn, not far from The Phoenix. He said he liked Brooklyn better than Manhattan or the Bronx, but he also developed a habit of dropping by The Phoenix when he got off work and waiting for me until three or four in the morning so we could take the subway together up to the South Bronx. He never said anything, but I think he figured that, as when we were kids, we both stood a better chance if we took on the world together. I now saw no point in going to college. It was expensive, and my aim in going would have been to get a degree to qualify me for a job as a journalist. But I now had my job at The Phoenix. As for the learning itself, I figured you didn’t need a college degree to become one of the people who knew what was really going on. If you paid attention, you could pick things up on your own. And so, if I overheard mention of something I was ignorant about—keeping Kosher, Tammany Hall, haute couture—I

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  The passageway behind the door was very long and very gloomy. It led to a window, which looked out at a view of bricks and oozing drain-pipes; and from here there was only one way to proceed, and that was upwards, via a set of naked stairs. The banister was sticky, but I grasped it, and began to climb. Before I had reached the third or fourth step, a door at the top of the staircase had opened, a head had emerged in the gap, and a lady’s voice called pleasantly: ‘Hallo down there! It’s rather steep, but worth the effort. Do you need a light?’ I answered that I did not, and climbed faster. At the top, a little out of breath, I was led by the lady into a tiny chamber that held a desk, and a cabinet, and a set of mismatched chairs. When she gestured, I sat; she herself perched upon the edge of the desk, and folded her arms. From a room nearby came the fitful crack-crack-crack of a typewriting machine. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘what can we do for you? I say, what an eye you have!’ I had removed my hat, as if I were a man, and, as she studied my cheek - and then, more warily, my close-clipped head - I fiddled with the ribbon on the hatband, rather awkwardly. She said, ‘Have you an appointment with us?’ and I answered that I hadn’t come about a house, at all. I had come about a girl. ‘A girl?’ ‘A woman, I should say. Her name is Florence, and she works here, for the charity.’ She gave a frown. ‘Florence,’ she said; then ‘are you sure? There’s really only Miss Derby, myself, and another lady.’ ‘Miss Derby,’ I said quickly, ‘knows who I mean. She definitely used to work here; for the last time I saw her she said - she said -’ ‘She said ... ?’ prompted the lady, more warily than ever - for my mouth had fallen open, and my hand had flown to my swollen cheek; and now I cursed, in a hopeless kind of miserable fury. ‘She said that she was leaving this post,’ I said, ‘and moving to another. What a fool I’ve been! I had forgotten it till now. That means that Florence hasn’t worked here for a year and a half, or more!’ The lady nodded. ‘Ah, well, you see, that was before my time. But, as you say, Miss Derby is sure to remember her.’ That, at least, was still true. I lifted my head. ‘Then, may I see her?’ ‘You may - but not today; nor even tomorrow, I’m afraid. She won’t be in now until Friday -’ ‘Friday!’ That was terrible. ‘But I must see Florence today, I really must! Surely you have a list, or a book, or something, that says where she has gone to.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  El silencio se estrecha entre nosotros y estoy empezando a sentirme estúpido. Como si hubiera malinterpretado todo y no estaba poniéndose cómoda bajo mi techo. Pero todas la veces que tuve vistazos de ella esta semana: encendiendo sus velas, trabajando en el jardín, nadando en la mañana o cocinando en la cocina y agitando su cabeza de arriba abajo por una de esas horrorosas bandas que escuchó esta semana, parecía como si estuviera en casa, ¿sabes? Estaba sonriendo mucho, nos pusimos lo suficientemente cómodos como para bromear e incluso se portó de forma traviesa conmigo, añadiendo esas estúpidas coles y aguacates al sándwich de pavo de mi almuerzo del otro día. Sonrío un poco, pensando en eso. No quiero que tenga algo peor porque piense que no la quiero en mi casa, o que se le está imponiendo algo. Quiero estar seguro que sabe que no tiene que irse. Parpadeo largo y fuerte, agotado de repente. Y odio jodidamente la idea de que esté en ese agujero de mierda con nadie allí que vaya a apreciar las cosas que hace. Dejo caer mis ojos y mi voz. —Por favor no me hagas dejarte allí. Veo su cabeza girar en mi dirección y sé cómo debo estar sonando. —Por favor —susurro de nuevo. Está viéndome fijamente, pero me reúso a mirarla, porque estoy asustado de que mis ojos digan algo más o revelarán algo que está balanceándose en el borde de mi cerebro y que todavía no quiero enfrentar. Está feliz en mi casa, está segura allí, tiene una cama y no hay jodidos ratones. Es así de simple. Sí. Así de simple. Después de un momento, la escucho inhalar tranquilamente mientras se estira y toma su cinturón de seguridad, abrochándolo. Trago. —Están pasando Fright Night en Netflix —dice—. ¿Mitad de pepperoni y mitad de taco? Sonrío. Girándome hacia ella, veo sus ojos azules mirándome con el mismo humor que tenía cuando estábamos cortando la sandía el otro día. Vuelvo a poner el auto en marcha y asiento. —Llama —le digo—. La recogeremos de camino a casa.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  If we kept to our budget, we believed, we could afford new clothes and shoes and coats, and buy a ton of coal at the cheaper off-season price. Eventually, we could install insulation, run a water pipe into the house, and maybe even add a water heater. But Mom never turned the money over to us. So even though she had a steady job, we were living pretty much like we had before. I’D STARTED SEVENTH grade that fall, which meant attending Welch High School. It was a big school, near the top of a hill looking down on the town, with a steep road leading up. Kids were bused in from way up in the hollows and from coal camps such as Davy and Hemphill that were too small to have their own high school. Some of the kids looked as poor as me, with home-cut hair and holes in the toes of their shoes. I found it a lot easier to fit in than at Welch Elementary. Dinitia Hewitt was there, too. That summer morning I’d spent swimming with Dinitia at the public pool was the happiest time I’d had in Welch, but she never invited me back, and even though it was a public pool, I didn’t feel I could go to the free swim unless I had an invitation from her. I saw her again only when school started, and neither of us ever mentioned that day at the pool. I guess we both knew that, given the way people in Welch thought about mixing, it would be too weird for us to try to be close friends. During lunch, Dinitia hung out with the other black kids, but we had a study hall together and passed notes to each other there. By the time she got to Welch High, Dinitia had changed. The spark had gone out of her. She started drinking malt ale during school. She’d fill a soda can with Mad Dog 20/20 and carry it right into class. I tried to find out what was wrong, but all I could pry from her was that her mother’s new boyfriend had moved in with them, and the fit was a little tight. One day just before Christmas, Dinitia passed me a note in study hall asking for girls’ names that began with D. I wrote down as many as I could think of—Diane, Donna, Dora, Dreama, Diandra—and then wrote, Why? She passed a note back saying, I think I’m pregnant. After Christmas, Dinitia did not return to school. When a month had gone by, I walked around the mountain to her house and knocked on the door. A man opened it and stared at me. He had skin like an iron skillet and nicotine-yellow eyes. He left the storm door shut, so I had to speak through the screen. “Is Dinitia home?” I asked.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —¿Por qué? —Porque... —hace una pausa y escucho una risa un poco entrecortada—, Jordan está, mmm... portándose mal, supongo que podría decirse. Me enderezo y frunzo las cejas. —¿Portándose mal? —repito—. ¿Qué significa eso? ¿Y por qué crees que me importa? No soy su papá. La música retumba en el fondo y puedo escuchar a una multitud hablando y riendo. Uno de mis chicos se va a casar en un par de semanas, así que el equipo lo sacó esta noche. Necesitamos al menos una persona sin resaca mañana, así que me quedé en casa. —Si tú lo dices, hombre —responde como si no creyera que no me importa—. Pero a tu hijo puede no gustarle lo que estoy viendo en este momento. Lo que todo el mundo está viendo en este momento. —¿De qué estás hablando? —pregunto. —Vas a tener que venir a averiguarlo. Solo espero que no llegues aquí demasiado tarde. Se escucha un clic y creo que colgó. —Dutch —grito al teléfono—. ¡Dutch! Exhalo y aparto el teléfono de mi oreja, cerrando de golpe la tapa del bote de basura. Pero me detengo, mirando bien algo que está encima. Levantando la tapa nuevamente, saco media hoja color rosa; la chica pin-up en el volante llama mi atención. Estudiándola, dejo que se cierre la tapa y la leo. ¡Noche de aficionados! ¡Mójate! (Tu camiseta, como sea) 27 de mayo a las 9 p.m. The Hook en Jamison Lane ¡¡¡Gran Premio $300!!

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  When the rising sun had roused the messenger, he took the shortest route to the castle. He presented the letter to the governor of that place who, on reading its contents, burst into lamentation. ‘Lord Christ,’ he said, ‘what is this world? It is a place of evil and of sin. Almighty God, why is it Your wish and will that the innocent should suffer? You are the judge of righteousness. Why do You allow the wicked to prosper? Oh Constance. I must now be your executioner or die a shameful death. There is no alternative.’ The old and the young of the castle wept at the news of Constance’s banishment. They could not believe that the king had sent such a cursed letter. Yet Constance remained calm. She accepted the will of Christ. She went down to the ship, looking deathly pale, and kneeled upon the shore. ‘Almighty Lord,’ she prayed, ‘I accept your command. He who saved me from false blame, when I lived in this land, will now protect me from harm. He will comfort me on the wild ocean. I do not know His means, but He is as strong now as He has always been. In Him I trust. Blessed be the Lord God and the Virgin Mother. They are my rudder and my sail.’ Her little child lay wailing in her arms. She cradled him and soothed him. ‘Peace, my son,’ she whispered to him. ‘I will never harm you.’ She took off the scarf she had been wearing and placed it over his eyes and hair. Then she rocked the child in her arms, praying softly all the while. ‘Mother Mary, bright queen of heaven, it is true that humankind fell through the sin of Eve. Through the fault of the first woman, your blessed son was nailed to the cross. Your own eyes witnessed His torment. Your woe was greater than the weight of all the world. There is no comparison between your suffering and my affliction. ‘You saw your son tortured and slain before your eyes. My little son is yet in life. Now, blessed lady to whom all pray in this vale of tears, glory of womanhood and fairest maid. You are a haven of refuge, and the bright star of day. In your gentleness you take pity on all those in distress. Take pity on my infant son. ‘Oh little child. You are innocent, without sin or guilt. Why does your cruel father wish to kill you?’ Then she turned to the governor of the castle. ‘Have mercy on him,’ she said. ‘Let my little son dwell with you here.’ He shook his head. ‘But if you dare not save him, for fear of punishment, then kiss him once in his father’s name.’

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

  Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft—you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft—you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy. What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head. First there’s the vinegar-lipped Reader Lady, who says primly, “Well, that’s not very interesting, is it?” And there’s the emaciated German male who writes these Orwellian memos detailing your thought crimes. And there are your parents, agonizing over your lack of loyalty and discretion; and there’s William Burroughs, dozing off or shooting up because he finds you as bold and articulate as a houseplant; and so on. And there are also the dogs: let’s not forget the dogs, the dogs in their pen who will surely hurtle and snarl their way out if you ever stop writing, because writing is, for some of us, the latch that keeps the door of the pen closed, keeps those crazy ravenous dogs contained. Quieting these voices is at least half the battle I fight daily. But this is better than it used to be. It used to be 87 percent. Left to its own devices, my mind spends much of its time having conversations with people who aren’t there. I walk along defending myself to people, or exchanging repartee with them, or rationalizing my behavior, or seducing them with gossip, or pretending I’m on their TV talk show or whatever. I speed or run an aging yellow light or don’t come to a full stop, and one nanosecond later am explaining to imaginary cops exactly why I had to do what I did, or insisting that I did not in fact do it. I happened to mention this to a hypnotist I saw many years ago, and he looked at me very nicely. At first I thought he was feeling around on the floor for the silent alarm button, but then he gave me the following exercise, which I still use to this day. Close your eyes and get quiet for a minute, until the chatter starts up. Then isolate one of the voices and imagine the person speaking as a mouse. Pick it up by the tail and drop it into a mason jar. Then isolate another voice, pick it up by the tail, drop it in the jar.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  We danced to a second song, and when we sat down again on the stools facing the pool table, our backs against the bar, he slid his arm behind me. That arm made me tense but not entirely unhappy. No one had flirted with me since Billy Deel, unless you counted Kenny Hall. Still, I knew what Robbie was after. I was going to tell him I wasn’t that sort of girl, but then I thought he would say I was getting ahead of myself. After all, the only thing he’d done was dance me slow and put his arm around me. I caught Dad’s eye. I expected him to come barreling across the room and whock Robbie with a pool cue for getting fresh with his daughter. Instead, he hollered to Robbie, “Do something worthwhile with those damned hands of yours. Get over here and play me a game of pool.” They ordered whiskeys and chalked their cues. Dad held back at first and lost some money to Robbie, then started upping the stakes and beating him. After every game, Robbie wanted to dance with me again. It went on that way for a couple of hours, with Robbie getting sloppy drunk, losing to Dad, and groping me when we danced or sat at the bar between games. All Dad said to me was “Keep your legs crossed, honey, and keep ’em crossed tight.” After Dad had taken him for about eighty bucks, Robbie started muttering angrily to himself. He snapped down the cue chalk, sending up a puff of blue powder, and missed a final shot. He flung his cue on the table and announced he’d had enough, then sat down next to me. His eyes were bleary. He kept saying he couldn’t believe that old fart had beat him out of eighty bucks, as if he couldn’t decide whether he was pissed off or impressed. Then he told me he lived in an apartment over the bar. He had a Roy Acuff record that wasn’t on the jukebox, and he wanted us to go upstairs and listen to it. If all he wanted to do was dance some more and maybe kiss a little, I could handle that. But I had the feeling he thought he was entitled to something in return for losing so much money. “I’m not sure,” I said. “Aw, come on,” he said and shouted at Dad, “I’m going to take your girl upstairs.” “Sure,” Dad said. “Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He pointed his pool cue at me. “Holler if you need me,” he said and winked at me as if to say he knew I could take care of myself, that this was just a part of my job. So, with Dad’s blessing, I went upstairs. Inside the apartment, we pushed through a curtain made from strands of beer-can pull tabs linked together. Two men sat on a couch watching wrestling on television.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Paso mi mano a través de mi cabello, listo para salir de mi maldita piel. ¿Cómo no pudo al menos enviar un mensaje de texto? Entiendo si él no me habla, pero tiene que saber que estaría preocupado. Por dejarme durante meses con todas estas preguntas… Me siento en la camioneta, pasando la siguiente media hora buscando sitios web y blogs de padres, tratando de descubrir cómo puedo hablar con él. No se le permite un teléfono celular durante el entrenamiento, y no puedo llamarlo a menos que haya una emergencia, e incluso entonces tengo que pasar por la Cruz Roja para localizarlo. Mierda. Siento que estoy en Twilight Zone en este momento. Él se fue. Sin forma de contactarlo inmediatamente durante ocho semanas. No hemos pasado mucho tiempo juntos los últimos años, pero todavía estaba a solo una llamada de distancia. No puedo dejar que las cosas se queden así durante dos meses. Busco la estación local de reclutamiento en el área y llamo a la oficina. Podría conseguir su dirección una vez que reciba su asignación. No hay respuesta, así que lo rastrearé mañana y descubriré cómo encontrarlo. Maldita sea. —¡Mierda! Me siento tan impotente. Sabiendo que su teléfono celular probablemente ha sido confiscado por ahora, lo llamo de todos modos y sostengo el teléfono en mi oreja. Va inmediatamente al correo de voz. —Cole —digo, tragando algunas veces para mojarme la garganta—. Yo... yo... Sacudo mi cabeza, cerrando los ojos. —Te amo —le digo—, y siempre estaré aquí para ti. Sé que... sé que no tengo excusa. Yo solo… —Lágrimas brotan de mis ojos y no sé qué más decir, excepto la verdad—. Traté de no enamorarme de ella. Lo intenté. Lo siento. Cuelgo y tiro el teléfono, sintiéndome vacío. No quiero a ninguno de los dos fuera sin que sepan que los amo. Estoy solo otra vez, y solo los quiero de vuelta. Ellos son todo. Jordan tenía razón. Debí habérselo contado, acabar con ello y procurar que lo aceptara. Yo nunca iba a dejarla de buen grado. ¿Cuánto tiempo pensaba mentirle? Incluso si ella y yo no terminamos las cosas, habría tenido que decírselo en algún momento. Enciendo el motor y cambio a reversa, retrocediendo fuera del estacionamiento y saliendo a toda velocidad. Volviendo a la carretera, me dirijo a la ciudad, revisando periódicamente mi teléfono en busca de mensajes. Jordan dejó casi todo en mi casa. Tomó algunas ropas, sus libros y algunas cosas personales, pero sus modelos, su cama, muebles y la pintura todavía están allí. Volverá por esas cosas, ¿verdad? No toda la esperanza está perdida todavía. La veré de nuevo Pero no la he visto en ninguna parte de la ciudad, no ha estado en el trabajo, y no he visto su auto. ¿Dónde está? Estaba tan tranquila la otra noche. Misteriosamente calmada, en realidad. Como si ya no le importara.