Despair

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 Another Country (1962)

  This note of despair, of buried despair, was insistently, constantly struck. It stalked all the New York avenues, roamed all the New York streets; was as present in Sutton Place, where the director of Eric’s play lived and the great often gathered, as it was in Greenwich Village, where he had rented an apartment and been appalled to see what time had done to people he had once known well. He could not escape the feeling that a kind of plague was raging, though it was officially and publicly and privately denied. Even the young seemed blighted—seemed most blighted of all. The boys in their blue jeans ran together, scarcely daring to trust one another, but united, like their elders, in a boyish distrust of the girls. Their very walk, a kind of anti-erotic, knee-action lope, was a parody of locomotion and of manhood. They seemed to be shrinking away from any contact with their flamboyantly and paradoxically outlined private parts. They seemed—but could it be true? and how had it happened?—to be at home with, accustomed to, brutality and indifference, and to be terrified of human affection. In some strange way they did not seem to feel that they were worthy of it. Now, late on a Sunday afternoon, having been in New York four days, and not yet having written his parents in the South, Eric moved through the tropical streets on his way to visit Cass and Richard. He was having a drink with them to celebrate his return. “I’m glad you think it’s something to celebrate,” he had told Cass over the phone. She laughed. “That’s not very nice. You sound as though you haven’t missed us at all.” “Oh, I certainly want to see all of you. But I don’t know if I ever really missed the city very much. Did you ever notice how ugly it is?” “It’s getting uglier all the time,” Cass said. “A perfect example of free enterprise gone mad.” “I wanted to thank you,” he said, after a moment, “for writing me about Rufus.” And he thought, with a rather surprising and painful venom, Nobody else thought to do it. “Well, I knew,” she said, “that you’d want to know.” Then there was a silence. “You never knew his sister, did you?” “Well, I knew he had one. I never met her; she was just a kid in those days.” “She’s not a kid now,” Cass said. “She’s going to be singing Sunday, down in the Village, with some friends of Rufus’s. For the first time. We promised to bring you along. Vivaldo will be there.” He thought of Rufus. He did not know what to say. “She’s something like her brother, huh?” “I wouldn’t say that. Yes and no.” Briefly: “You’ll see.” This brought them to another silence, and, after a few seconds, they hung up.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Then the doors slammed, a loud sound, and it made him jump. The train, as though protesting its heavier burden, as though protesting the proximity of white buttock to black knee, groaned, lurched, the wheels seemed to scrape the track, making a tearing sound. Then it began to move uptown, where the masses would divide and the load become lighter. Lights flared and teetered by, they passed other platforms where people waited for other trains. Then they had the tunnel to themselves. The train rushed into the blackness with a phallic abandon, into the blackness which opened to receive it, opened, opened, the whole world shook with their coupling. Then, when it seemed that the roar and the movement would never cease, they came into the bright lights of 125th Street. The train gasped and moaned to a halt. He had thought that he would get off here, but he watched the people move toward the doors, watched the doors open, watched them leave. It was mainly black people who left. He had thought that he would get off here and go home; but he watched the girl who reminded him of his sister as she moved sullenly past white people and stood for a moment on the platform before walking toward the steps. Suddenly he knew that he was never going home any more. The train began to move, half-empty now; and with each stop it became lighter; soon the white people who were left looked at him oddly. He felt their stares but he felt far away from them. You took the best. So why not take the rest? He got off at the station named for the bridge built to honor the father of his country. And walked up the steps, into the streets, which were empty. Tall apartment buildings, lightless, loomed against the dark sky and seemed to be watching him, seemed to be pressing down on him. The bridge was nearly over his head, intolerably high; but he did not yet see the water. He felt it, he smelled it. He thought how he had never before understood how an animal could smell water. But it was over there, past the highway, where he could see the speeding cars. Then he stood on the bridge, looking over, looking down. Now the lights of the cars on the highway seemed to be writing an endless message, writing with awful speed in a fine, unreadable script. There were muted lights on the Jersey shore and here and there a neon flame advertising something somebody had for sale. He began to walk slowly to the center of the bridge, observing that, from this height, the city which had been so dark as he walked through it seemed to be on fire.

• From Another Country (1962)

  The cab stopped for a red light, just before entering the park, and the driver lit a cigarette. She, too, lit a fresh cigarette: and the two tiny flames almost seemed to be signaling one another. Just so, she now remembered, as the cab lurched forward, had she wandered, aimlessly and bitterly, through the city, when Richard first began to go away from her. She had wanted to be noticed, she had wanted a man to notice her. And they had: they had noticed that she was a sexual beggar, no longer young. Terrifying, that the loss of intimacy with one person results in the freezing over of the world, and the loss of oneself! And terrifying that the terms of love are so rigorous, its checks and liberties so tightly bound together. There were many things she could not demand of Eric. Their relationship depended on her restraint. She could not go to him now, for example, at two in the morning: this liberty was not in their contract. The premise of their affair, or the basis of their comedy, was that they were two independent people, who needed each other for a time, who would always be friends, but who, probably, would not always be lovers. Such a premise forbids the intrusion of the future, or too vivid an exhibition of need. Eric, in effect, was marking time, waiting—waiting for something to be resolved. And when it was resolved—by the arrival of Yves, the signing of a contract, or the acceptance, in Eric, of a sorrow neither of them could name—she would be locked out of his bed. He would use everything life had given him, or taken from him, in his work— that would be his life. He was too proud to use her, or anyone, as a haven, too proud to accept any resolution of his sorrow not forged by his own hands. And she could not be bitter about this, or even sorrowful, for this was precisely why she loved him. Or, if not why, the why of such matters being securely locked away from human perception, it was this quality in him which she most admired, and which she knew he could not live without. Most men could—did: this was why she was so menaced. Therefore, she too, was marking time, waiting—for the blow to fall, for the bill to come in. Only after she had paid this bill would she really know what her resources were. And she dreaded this moment, dreaded it—her terror of this moment sometimes made her catch her breath. The terror was not merely that she did not know how she would rebuild her life, or that she feared, as she grew older, coming to despise herself: the terror was that her children would despise her. The rebuilding of her own life might have reduced itself, simply, to moving out of Richard’s house— Richard’s house! how long had she thought of it as Richard’s house?—and getting a job.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Je ne peux pas. » C’est peut-être la phrase la plus vraie qu’il ait prononcée de toute la matinée. Le refus d’avancer, de répéter la boucle, de se laisser prendre dans le pli de ce langage qui dépouille le monde de toute son honnêteté. Il ne veut pas se laisser engloutir à nouveau par cette manière de regarder les choses sans les regarder, par cette parole creuse, oblique. Le simple fait de dire qu’on est désolé, ou que quelqu’un ne mérite pas quelque chose, n’efface pas ce qui s’est ou ne s’est pas passé, ou qui a ou n’a pas agi. Wallace est fatigué. « Tu ne peux pas quoi ? Qu’est-ce que tu ne peux pas ? Tu ne veux pas me parler ? OK. Tu ne veux pas me voir, OK. Vas-y. Entendu. Pas de problème. — Ce n’est pas ce que je voulais dire. — Et tu voulais dire quoi, alors ? » Qu’il a envie d’être seul. Qu’il ne veut parler à personne. Qu’il ne veut plus être là, nulle part. Que le monde l’a usé jusqu’à la corde. Qu’il n’aimerait rien tant que se glisser hors de sa vie, dans la suivante. Qu’il est terrifié, qu’il a peur. Qu’il voudrait s’allonger et ne plus jamais se lever. Ce qu’il veut dire, c’est qu’il ne sait pas ce qu’il veut, mais qu’il sait que ce n’est pas ça, la voie qui se présente, pavée de mots qu’ils ont déjà prononcés et d’actions qu’ils ont déjà accomplies. Ce qu’il veut, c’est tout défaire et réessayer. « Je ne sais pas. J’ai juste envie d’être seul dans mon appartement. J’ai juste envie de dormir. — Pas de problème. OK. » Miller fouille dans les poches de son cardigan. Il en sort un paquet de cigarettes et en allume une, tire une longue bouffée et recrache la fumée. Il se passe la main dans les cheveux. « Merde, dit-il. Merde. — Je ne suis pas fâché. — Je sais. C’est bon. Ça me fout en l’air, tout ça, c’est tout. — Tout ça quoi ? — Je ne sais pas, Wallace. Toi, moi, la crise avec Cole et Vincent. J’ai même pas envie d’aller faire du bateau. J’ai juste dit ça pour calmer le jeu. — Je sais. Je m’en suis douté. Je suis désolé. — Mais je vais y aller quand même, dit-il en tirant de nouveau sur sa cigarette. Je vais aller faire du putain de bateau avec Yngve et les autres. — Je ne peux pas venir, Miller. — Je sais bien. On se voit plus tard ? » Il parle doucement, tout bas. Wallace touche le bord du cardigan de Miller, glisse la main dans les mailles épaisses, jusqu’à sa peau nue. « Je ne sais pas, Miller. Peut-être. — J’ai besoin de plus que d’un peut-être, Wallace, dit-il en recrachant la fumée du coin de sa bouche.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Il repense bien vite à cette période affreuse, l’an dernier, où il a dû se présenter aux examens préliminaires, et a passé trois mois sans pouvoir sortir de son lit, manger ou se laver régulièrement. Ces trois mois ont représenté une longue dérive obscure vers une zone informe et glaciale. Il a passé tout ce temps à s’enfiler des vieilles séries médicales sur internet et à regarder la lumière changer sur les murs, prostré dans son lit. Quand il réussissait à s’extraire de sa couche, il trempait dans sa baignoire pendant des heures, se sentant apeuré, et tout petit. Il passait des heures à se demander ce qu’il allait faire s’il échouait. Ce n’était pas tant l’humiliation qui l’effrayait que la chute brutale dans l’inconnu. Il allait devoir quitter le programme. Il allait devoir trouver autre chose à faire de sa vie. C’était ça qui l’avait paralysé pendant tous ces mois. Il lui était impossible de faire quoi que ce soit. Puis, un jour de la fin septembre, Henrik était passé chez Wallace et avait enfoncé la sonnette jusqu’à ce qu’il cède et le laisse entrer. Une fois en haut, il avait déposé par terre une pile d’articles de recherche, de carnets et de marqueurs et avait dit à Wallace de s’y mettre. Plusieurs heures par jour, Henrik avait appris à Wallace tout ce qu’il n’avait pas intégré jusque-là. Ils avaient couvert la signalisation cellulaire, les gradients, la morphologie, la structure des protéines, la composition des parois cellulaires, l’intégralité de la lignée des tissus gonadiques des mouches et des nématodes, les tests de quantification des levures. Une technique après l’autre, Henrik dessinait des diagrammes, patiemment ou pas, et quand ça ne marchait pas, il cognait du plat de la main, qu’il avait épaisse, sur la table et criait : Il faut que tu retiennes ça, Wallace. Concentre-toi . Wallace l’écoutait sans rien dire. Il prenait des notes. Il lisait les articles, chaque nuit, jusqu’à ce que le texte nage devant ses yeux. Il perdit trois kilos, puis cinq, puis sept et demi. Henrik commença à l’emmener à la salle de sport. Le força à faire du jogging et à lire, à se rappeler à tout moment un quelconque détail obscur du développement embryologique des nématodes. À se rappeler le mécanisme de la dégradation de certaines protéines de certains tissus dans certaines conditions spécifiques, puis d’autres conditions, d’autres tissus, des scénarios qui s’ouvraient et se refermaient comme une porte fixée sur des gonds mal vissés. Wallace finit par savoir comment la lumière se déplaçait dans la barbe d’Henrik. Et dans ses cheveux épais. La longue pente de sa bouche. Il apprit à déchiffrer les humeurs d’Henrik comme les mammifères, sur des îles volcaniques, apprennent à reconnaître les lents signaux annonciateurs d’une éruption. Le morne après-midi de décembre où Wallace passa ses examens préliminaires, un peloton d’exécution plutôt qu’un test, la première personne qu’il chercha au déjeuner en l’honneur des lauréats fut Henrik. Mais Henrik regardait déjà ailleurs, par la fenêtre.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He stood at the center of the bridge and it was freezing cold. He raised his eyes to heaven. He thought, You bastard, you motherfucking bastard. Ain’t I your baby, too? He began to cry. Something in Rufus which could not break shook him like a rag doll and splashed salt water all over his face and filled his throat and his nostrils with anguish. He knew the pain would never stop. He could never go down into the city again. He dropped his head as though someone had struck him and looked down at the water. It was cold and the water would be cold. He was black and the water was black. He lifted himself by his hands on the rail, lifted himself as high as he could, and leaned far out. The wind tore at him, at his head and shoulders, while something in him screamed, Why? Why? He thought of Eric. His straining arms threatened to break. I can’t make it this way. He thought of Ida. He whispered, I’m sorry, Leona, and then the wind took him, he felt himself going over, head down, the wind, the stars, the lights, the water, all rolled together, all right. He felt a shoe fly off behind him, there was nothing around him, only the wind, all right, you motherfucking Godalmighty bastard, I’m coming to you. 2It was raining. Cass sat on her living-room floor with the Sunday papers and a cup of coffee. She was trying to decide which photograph of Richard would look best on the front page of the book-review section. The telephone rang. “Hello?” She heard an intake of breath and a low, vaguely familiar voice: “Is this Cass Silenski?” “Yes.” She looked at the clock, wondering who this could be. It was ten-thirty and she was the only person awake in her house. “Well”—swiftly—“I don’t know if you remember me, but we met once, downtown, in a night club where Rufus was working. I’m his sister—Ida? Ida Scott——” She remembered a very young, striking, dark girl who wore a ruby-eyed snake ring. “Why, yes, I remember you very well. How are you?” “I’m fine. Well”—with a small, dry laugh—“maybe I’m not so fine. I’m trying to locate my brother. I been calling Vivaldo’s house all morning, but he’s not home”—the voice was making an effort not to tremble, not to break—“and so I called you because I thought maybe you’d seen him, Vivaldo, I mean, or maybe you could tell me how to reach him.” And now the girl was crying. “You haven’t seen him, have you? Or my brother?” She heard sounds coming from the children’s bedroom. “Please,” she said, “try not to be so upset. I don’t know where Vivaldo is this morning but I saw your brother last night. And he was fine.” “You saw him last night?” “Yes.” “Where’d you see him? Where was he?”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Until now they had never gone out much at night except to occasional studio parties, or occasional cafés of the milder sort for a cup of coffee with Barbara and Jamie; but that spring Mary seemed fanatically eager to proclaim her allegiance to Pat’s miser- able army. Deprived of the social intercourse which to her would have been both natural and welcome, she now strove to stand up to a hostile world by proving that she could get on without it. The spirit of adventure that had taken her to France, the pluck that had steadied her while in the Unit, the emotional, hot- headed nature of the Celt, these things must now work together in Mary to produce a state of great restlessness, a pitiful revolt against life’s injustice. The blow struck by a weak and thoughtless hand had been even more deadly than Stephen had imagined; more deadly to them both, for that glancing blow coming at a time of apparent success, had torn from them every shred of illusion. Stephen, who could see that the girl was fretting, would be seized with a kind of sick apprehension, a sick misery at her own powerlessness to provide a more normal and complete existence. So many innocent recreations, so many harmless social pleasures must Mary forego for the sake of their union — and she still young, still well under thirty. And now Stephen came face to face with the gulf that lies between warning and realization — all her painful warnings anent the world had not served to lessen the blow when it fell, had not served to make it more tolerable to Mary. Deeply humiliated Stephen would feel, when she thought of Mary’s exile from Morton, when she thought of the 438 THE WELL OF LONELINESS insults this girl must endure because of her loyalty and her faith —all that Mary was losing that belonged to her youth, would rise up at this time to accuse and scourge Stephen. Her courage would flicker like a lamp in the wind, and would all but go out; she would feel less steadfast, less capable of continuing the war, that ceaseless war for the right to existence. Then the pen would slip from her nerveless fingers, no longer a sharp and purposeful weapon. Yes, that spring saw a weakening in Stephen herself — she felt tired, and sometimes very old for her age, in spite of her vigorous mind and body. Calling Mary she would need to be reassured; and one day she asked her: ‘ How much do you love me?’ Mary answered: ‘So much that I’m growing to hate .. . Bitter words to hear on such young lips as Mary’s.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Le simple poids de tout cela le force à faire une pause. Il appuie sa main contre le bâtiment en brique et vomit dans la ruelle. Deux garçons épais qui passent sur le trottoir s’arrêtent. « Ça va ? », demandent-ils de leur accent monotone du Midwest. « Ça va, mec ? » Wallace leur fait signe de circuler, et, ne demandant pas mieux, ils circulent, poursuivent leur soirée. Dans la rue, des gens interpellent leurs amis. D’autres font la queue au bar un peu plus loin, parfois avec une cigarette. Dehors, ça sent la pluie, le tabac, la bière et la pisse. Wallace s’essuie le coin de la bouche. Ses yeux le piquent. Une fois chez lui, il se plonge de nouveau dans la baignoire. Cette fois, l’eau n’est pas assez brûlante pour lui décoller la peau des os, mais elle est tout de même d’une tiédeur satisfaisante. Il appuie sa tête contre le mur carrelé pendant que le niveau monte. Ses entrailles en feu gargouillent. Les carreaux sont jaunes et la lumière trop vive est atténuée par un foulard bleu qu’il a drapé autour du néon du lavabo, au risque de mettre le feu. Mais il ne compte pas rester assez longtemps dans la baignoire pour ça. Que fait Miller en cet instant ? Il avait dit qu’il appellerait, mais il ne l’a pas fait. Il doit être chez lui, avec Yngve et Lukas, et Emma et Thom, ou Cole et Vincent ; peut-être même qu’ils sont tous ensemble. Wallace s’asperge le visage, se frotte les yeux, tente de s’arracher à son incertitude. Tout aurait pu se passer autrement s’il était resté dans le lit de Miller ce matin ; tout aurait pu tourner d’une autre façon. Mais ça ne sert à rien de se dire ça maintenant, de vouloir que les choses soient différentes. Quand donc une telle attitude a-t-elle fonctionné pour lui ? Quand donc a-t-il été dans son pouvoir de transformer le monde en fonction de ses désirs, ou de ses besoins ? Le monde avance sans lui, le laisse à la traîne ; Wallace n’a pas pour habitude de se satisfaire de l’état des choses. Il appuie sa tête contre le rebord de la baignoire, perdu dans la contemplation du tapis de bain marron et des cheveux pris dans le tissu. Au bout d’un moment, Wallace sort de l’eau et va se planter devant le miroir. Il touche son ventre qui pendouille presque jusqu’à ses cuisses, et passe son autre main sur son pénis flasque. Il s’empoigne et tente d’imaginer un scénario sexuel en regardant son propre corps. Il tente de se déclencher mentalement une érection, de trouver une étincelle ou une braise de désir enfouie bien profond dans sa conscience, mais rien ne vient, rien ne remue en lui.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “So long,” he said, and turned away. He wanted to leave before Jane precipitated a race riot. And he also realized that he had become the focus of two very different kinds of attention. The blacks now suspected him of being an ally—though not a friend, never a friend!—and the whites, particularly the neighborhood Italians, now knew that he could not be trusted. “Hurry home,” Jane called behind him, “hurry home! Is it true that they’ve got hotter blood than ours? Is her blood hotter than mine?” And laughter rang down the street behind this call, the suppressed, bawdy laughter of the Italians—for, after all, Vivaldo was one of them, and a male, and apparently, a gifted one—and the delighted, vindictive laughter of the Negroes. For a moment, behind him, they were almost united—but then, each, hearing the other’s laughter, choked their laughter off. The Italians heard the laughter of black men; the black men remembered that it was a black girl Vivaldo was screwing. He crossed the Avenue. He wanted to go home and he wanted to eat and he wanted to get drunk and, also, perhaps out of simple fury, he wanted to get laid—but he did not feel that anything good would happen to him tonight. And he felt that if he were a real writer, he would simply go home and work and throw everything else out of his mind, as Balzac had done and Proust and Joyce and James and Faulkner. But perhaps they had never held in their minds the nameless things he held in his. He felt a very peculiar, a deadly resignation: he knew that he would not go home until it was too late for him to go anywhere else, or until Ida answered the phone. Ida: and he felt an eerie premonition, as though he were old, walking years from now through familiar streets where no one knew or noticed him, thinking of his lost love, and wondering, Where is she now? Where is she now? He passed the movie theater and the tough boys and tough men who always stood outside it. It was ten o’clock. He turned west on Waverly Place and walked to a crowded bar where he could get a hamburger. He forced himself to have a hamburger and a beer before he called his apartment again. There was no answer. He went back to the bar and ordered a whiskey and realized that he was running out of money. If he were going to keep on drinking he would have to go to Benno’s, where he had a tab.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “Then he took me to that place he has, way over on the East River. I kept wondering what I was going to do. I didn’t know what to do. I watched his face in the taxicab. He put his hand on my leg. And he tried to take my hand. But I couldn’t move. I kept thinking of what that black man had said to me, and his face when he said it, and I kept thinking of Rufus, and I kept thinking of you. It was like a merry-go-round, all these faces just kept going around in my mind. And a song kept going around in my head, Oh, Lord, is it I? And there he sat, next to me, puffing on his cigar. The funny thing was that I knew if I really started crying or pleading, he’d take me home. He can’t stand scenes. But I couldn’t even do that. And God knows I wanted to get home, I hoped you wouldn’t be here, so I could just crawl under the sheets and die. And, that way, when you came home, I could tell you everything before you came to bed, and—maybe—but, no, we were going to his place and I felt that I deserved it. I felt that I couldn’t fall much lower, I might as well go all the way and get it over with. And then we’d see, if there was anything left of me after that, we’d see.” She threw down about two fingers of whiskey and immediately poured herself another drink. “There’s always further to fall, always, always.” She moved from the table, holding her glass, and leaned against the icebox door. “And I did everything he wanted, I let him have his way. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.” She gestured aimlessly with her glass, tried to drink from it, dropped it, and suddenly fell on her knees beside the table, her hands against her belly, weeping.

• From Another Country (1962)

  The old seemed reconciled to being there, to having no teeth, no hair, having no life. Some laughed together, the young, with dead eyes set in yellow faces, the slackness of their bodies making vivid the history of their degradation. They were the prey that was no longer hunted, though they were scarcely aware of this new condition and could not bear to leave the place where they had first been spoiled. And the hunters were there, far more assured and patient than the prey. In any of the world’s cities, on a winter night, a boy can be bought for the price of a beer and the promise of warm blankets. Rufus shivered, his hands in his pockets, looking through the window and wondering what to do. He thought of walking to Harlem but he was afraid of the police he would encounter in his passage through the city; and he did not see how he could face his parents or his sister. When he had last seen Ida, he had told her that he and Leona were about to make it to Mexico, where, he said, people would leave them alone. But no one had heard from him since then. Now a big, rough-looking man, well dressed, white, with black-and-gray hair, came out of the bar. He paused next to Rufus, looking up and down the street. Rufus did not move, though he wanted to; his mind began to race, painfully, and his empty stomach turned over. Once again, sweat broke out on his forehead. Something in him knew what was about to happen; something in him died in the freezing second before the man walked over to him and said: “It’s cold out here. Wouldn’t you like to come in and have a drink with me?” “I’d rather have a sandwich,” Rufus muttered, and thought You’ve really hit the bottom now. “Well, you can have a sandwich, too. There’s no law that says you can’t.” Rufus looked up and down the street, then looked into the man’s ice-cold, ice-white face. He reminded himself that he knew the score, he’d been around; neither was this the first time during his wanderings that he had consented to the bleakly physical exchange; and yet he felt that he would never be able to endure the touch of this man. They entered the bar and grill. “What kind of sandwich would you like?” “Corned beef,” Rufus whispered, “on rye.” They watched while the meat was hacked off, slammed on bread, and placed on the counter. The man paid and Rufus took his sandwich over to the bar. He felt that everyone in the place knew what was going on, knew that Rufus was peddling his ass. But nobody seemed to care. Nobody looked at them.

• From Push (1996)

  So back to the kitchen, git her pies, pile my own plate higher than the first time, know if I don't she just gonna make me go back again. I sit her pies down on the tray. Try not to look at her. Try to watch the white people on TV running on the beach sand. Try not to see grease running down Mama's chin, try not to see her grab whole ham hock wif her hand, try not to see myself doing the same thing. Eating, first 'cause she make me, beat me if I don't, then eating hoping pain in my neck back go away. I keep eating till the pain, the gray TV light, and Mama is a blur; and I just fall back on the couch so full it like I'm dyin' and I go to sleep, like I always do; almost. Almost, go to sleep; it's the pain in my shoulder keep me from totally conking out this time. I feel Mama's hand between my legs, moving up my thigh. Her hand stop, she getting ready to pinch me if I move. I just lay still still, keep my eyes close. I can tell Mama's other hand between her legs now 'cause the smell fill the room. Mama can't fit into bathtub no more. Go sleep, go sleep, go to sleep, I tells myself. Mama's hand creepy spider, up my legs, in my pussy. God please! Thank you god I say as I fall asleep. I'm twelve, no I was twelve, when that shit happen. I'm sixteen now. For past couple of weeks or so, ever since white bitch Lichenstein kick me outta school shit, 1983 and 1987, twelve years old and sixteen years old, first baby and this one coming, all been getting mixed up in my head. Mama jus' hit me wif fry in' pan? Baby, brand-new and wrapped in white blankets, or fat and dead-eyed lying in crib at my grandmother's house. Everything seem like clothes in washing machine at laundry mat—round 'n round, up 'n down. One minute Mama's foot smashing into side of my head, next I'm jumping over desk on Mrs Lichenstein's ass. But now, right now, I'm standing at the sink finishing the dishes. Mama sleep on couch. It's Friday, October 16, 1987. I got to get through Saturday and Sunday 'fore I get to Monday—the alternative. "School?" Mama say. "Go down to welfare, school can't help you none, now." Lady at Lane Bryant on one-two-five call these leggings YELLOW NEON. I'm wearing them and my X sweat shirt. Put some Vaseline on my face, nuffin' I can do about my hair till I git some money to git my braids put back in. I look at my poster of Farrakhan on the wall. Amen Allah! Radio clock glowing red 8:30 a.m. Time to go! Mama sleep. I be back before she wake up, back in time to clean up and fix breakfast for Mama.

• From Another Country (1962)

  4And the summer came, the New York summer, which is like no summer anywhere. The heat and the noise began their destruction of nerves and sanity and private lives and love affairs. The air was full of baseball scores and bad news and treacly songs; and the streets and the bars were full of hostile people, made more hostile by the heat. It was not possible in this city, as it had been for Eric in Paris, to take a long and peaceful walk at any hour of the day or night, dropping in for a drink at a bistro or flopping oneself down at a sidewalk café—the half-dozen grim parodies of sidewalk cafés to be found in New York were not made for flopping. It was a city without oases, run entirely, insofar, at least, as human perception could tell, for money; and its citizens seemed to have lost entirely any sense of their right to renew themselves. Whoever, in New York, attempted to cling to this right, lived in New York in exile—in exile from the life around him; and this, paradoxically, had the effect of placing him in perpetual danger of being forever banished from any real sense of himself. In the evenings, and on week ends, Vivaldo sat in his undershorts at the typewriter, his buttocks sticking to the chair, sweat rolling down his armpits and behind his ears and dripping into his eyes and the sheets of paper sticking to each other and to his fingers. The typewriter keys moved sluggishly, striking with a dull, wet sound—moved, in fact, rather the way his novel moved, lifelessly, pushed forward, inch by inch by recalcitrant inch, almost entirely by the will. He scarcely knew what his novel was about any longer, or why he had ever wished to write it, but he could not let it go. He could not let it go, nor could he close with it, for the price of that embrace was the loss of Ida’s, or so he feared. And this fear kept him suspended in a pestilential, dripping limbo.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Then there was silence, except for the voice of Bessie Smith. When my bed get empty, make me feel awful mean and blue, “Oh, sing it, Bessie,” Vivaldo muttered. My springs is getting rusty, sleeping single like I do. Rufus picked up his drink and finished it. “Did you ever have the feeling,” he asked, “that a woman was eating you up? I mean—no matter what she was like or what else she was doing—that that’s what she was really doing?” “Yes,” said Vivaldo. Rufus stood. He walked up and down. “She can’t help it. And you can’t help it. And there you are.” He paused. “Of course, with Leona and me—there was lots of other things, too——” Then there was a long silence. They listened to Bessie. “Have you ever wished you were queer?” Rufus asked, suddenly. Vivaldo smiled, looking into his glass. “I used to think maybe I was. Hell, I think I even wished I was.” He laughed. “But I’m not. So I’m stuck.” Rufus walked to Vivaldo’s window. “So you been all up and down that street, too,” he said. “We’ve all been up the same streets. There aren’t a hell of a lot of streets. Only, we’ve been taught to lie so much, about so many things, that we hardly ever know where we are.” Rufus said nothing. He walked up and down. Vivaldo said, “Maybe you should stay here, Rufus, for a couple of days, until you decide what you want to do.” “I don’t want to bug you, Vivaldo.” Vivaldo picked up Rufus’ empty glass and paused in the archway which led into his kitchen. “You can lie here in the mornings and look at my ceiling. It’s full of cracks, it makes all kinds of pictures. Maybe it’ll tell you things it hasn’t told me. I’ll fix us another drink.” Again he felt that he was smothering. “Thanks, Vivaldo.” Vivaldo dragged his ice out and poured two drinks. He came back into the room. “Here. To all the things we don’t know.” They drank. “You had me worried,” said Vivaldo. “I’m glad you’re back.” “I’m glad to see you,” said Rufus. “Your sister left me a phone number to call in case I saw you. It’s the lady who lives next door to you. I guess maybe I should call her now.” “No,” said Rufus, after a moment, “it’s too late. I’ll go on up there in the morning.” And this thought, the thought of seeing his parents and his sister in the morning, checked and chilled him. He sat down again in the easy chair and leaned back with his hands over his eyes. “Rufus,” Leona had said—time and again—“ain’t nothing wrong in being colored.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  Eric smiled, grimly. “I’m not sure that there is a comparison, Vivaldo. Sex is too private. But if you went to bed with a guy just because he wanted you to, you wouldn’t have to take any responsibility for it; you wouldn’t be doing any of the work. He’d do all the work. And the idea of being passive is very attractive to many men, maybe to most men.” “It is?” He put his feet on the floor and took a long swallow of his drink. He looked over at Eric and sighed and smiled. “You make the whole deal sound pretty rough, old buddy.” “Well, that’s the way it looks from where I’m sitting.” Eric grimaced, threw back his head, and sipped his whiskey. “Maybe I’m crying because I wanted to believe that, somewhere, for some people, life and love are easier—than they are for me, than they are. Maybe it was easier to call myself a faggot and blame my sorrow on that.” Then silence filled the room, like a chill. Eric and Vivaldo. stared at each other with an oddly belligerent intensity. There was a great question in Eric’s eyes and Vivaldo turned away as though he were turning from a mirror and walked to the kitchen door. “You really think it makes no difference?” “I don’t know. Does the difference make any difference?” “Well,” said Vivaldo, tapping with his thumbnail against the hinges of the door, “I certainly think that the real ball game is between men and women. And it’s physically easier.” He looked quickly at Eric. “Isn’t it? And then,” he added, “there are children.” And he looked quickly at Eric again. Eric laughed. “I never heard of two cats who wanted to make it failing because they were the wrong size. Love always finds a way, dad. I don’t know anything about baseball, so I don’t know if life’s a baseball game or not. Maybe it is for you. It isn’t for me. And if it’s children you’re after, well, you can do that in five minutes and you haven’t got to love anybody to do it. If all the children who get here every year were brought here by love, wow! baby, what a bright world this would be!” And now Vivaldo felt, at the very bottom of his heart, a certain reluctant hatred rising, against which he struggled as he would have struggled against vomiting. “I can’t decide,” he said, “whether you want to make everybody as miserable as you are, or whether everybody is as miserable as you are.” “Well, don’t put it that way, baby. How happy are you? That’s got nothing to do with me, nothing to do with how I live, or what I think, or how miserable I am—how are you making it?”

• From Another Country (1962)

  And he watched that sullen, wiry body. He watched his face. The dome of his forehead seemed more remarkable than ever, and more pure, and his mouth seemed, at once, more cruel and more defenseless. This nakedness was the proof of Yves’ love and trust, and it was also the proof of Yves’ force. Yves, one day, would no longer need Eric as he needed Eric now. Now, Yves tilted back his head and finished his drink and turned to Eric with a smile. “You are drinking very slowly tonight. What is the matter?” “I’m getting old.” But he laughed and finished his drink and handed his glass to Yves. And, as Yves walked away from him, as he heard him in the kitchen, as he looked out over the yellow, winking lights along the shore, something opened in him, an unspeakable despair swept over him. Madame Belet had arrived and he heard Yves and the old peasant woman in the kitchen. Their voices were muted. On the day that Yves no longer needed him, Eric would drop back into chaos. He remembered that army of lonely men who had used him, who had wrestled with him, caressed him, and submitted to him, in a darkness deeper than the darkest night. It was not merely his body they had used, but something else; his infirmity had made him the receptacle of an anguish which he could scarcely believe was in the world. This anguish rendered him helpless, though it also lent him his weird, doomed grace and power, and it baffled him and set the dimensions of his trap. Perhaps he had sometimes dreamed of walking out of the drama in which he was entangled and playing some other role. But all the exits were barred—were barred by avid men; the role he played was necessary, and not only to himself. And he thought of these men, that ignorant army. They were husbands, they were fathers, gangsters, football players, rovers; and they were everywhere. Or they were, in any case, in all of the places he had been assured they could not be found and the need they brought to him was one they scarcely knew they had, which they spent their lives denying, which overtook and drugged them, making their limbs as heavy as those of sleepers or drowning bathers, and which could only be satisfied in the shameful, the punishing dark, and quickly, with flight and aversion as the issue of the act.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Enfin arrivé à son appartement, Wallace se rend compte qu’il a oublié son téléphone chez Miller. C’est une complication, mais ce n’est pas tragique. Demain, c’est lundi. Il verra Miller au bâtiment de sciences de la vie où il travaille. Il lui demandera de lui rapporter le téléphone, mardi ou un autre jour – un simple service, juste deux amis qui s’entraident. Propre, efficace. Rien à voir avec le fait d’ouvrir sa vie de force, d’éclater le passé comme un œuf. Wallace se fait couler un bain chaud et se plonge dans la baignoire profonde et blanche. Il peut à peine supporter la chaleur de l’eau bleuâtre qui lui arrive à la poitrine. La salle de bains est silencieuse, trop éclairée. S’il n’avait pas peur de rester dans le noir, il éteindrait, mais il redoute de s’endormir, et il n’aimerait pas ça, se noyer dans sa baignoire tout seul. Qui le retrouverait ? Un voisin ? Son propriétaire ? Quand l’odeur de son cadavre pourri filtrerait dans le couloir ? Quand quelqu’un s’en plaindrait ? Ou est-ce que Miller viendrait le chercher ? Wallace presse ses genoux l’un contre l’autre. La surface de l’eau se ride. Il s’enfonce davantage dans la chaleur cuisante. Sa peau devient couleur argile, rouge, elle le pique comme si l’eau lui causait une brûlure réelle. Il se savonne puis se rince ; l’eau devient grise de savon, de peau morte et de crasse. Il sent encore la fumée, du feu, et peut-être aussi de l’histoire de Miller, celle du temps où, alors qu’il fumait, il a cogné un garçon jusqu’au sang. Wallace plonge la tête dans l’eau, pour chasser la fumée de ses yeux. Il s’enfonce encore davantage, jusqu’au menton. Ses jambes flottent. Il se noierait en un instant. Vers le milieu de la matinée, Wallace est réveillé par des coups insistants à sa porte. Il s’extrait du lit où il somnole par intermittence depuis des heures, en pull vert et short en coton bleu. Malgré les persiennes baissées, il règne une clarté aveuglante dans l’appartement. Quand Wallace ouvre la porte, Miller se tient là, devant lui, les cheveux mouillés, sortant de la douche, la peau rouge et fraîche. Il a l’air comme écorché. « Tu es parti. Tu es parti. Après toutes ces conneries que j’ai dites, tu es parti. — Je sais. Je suis désolé. Je ne voulais pas déranger, c’est tout. — Je t’avais dit que tu ne dérangeais pas, je t’avais dit que je voulais que tu restes. Et tu es parti. Tu es parti , Wallace. » Wallace est déjà fatigué. Vont-ils vraiment se courir après comme ça ? D’un bout de la ville à l’autre, d’un lit à l’autre ?

• From Another Country (1962)

  He thought of his friends—what friends? He was not sure that he had ever really been friends with Vivaldo or Richard or Cass; and Rufus was dead. He was not certain who, long, long after the event, had sent him the news—he had the feeling that it had to be Cass. It could scarcely have been Vivaldo, who was made too uneasy by what he knew of Eric’s relation to Rufus—knew without being willing to admit that he knew; and it would certainly not have been Richard. No one, in any case, had written very often; he had not really wanted to know what was happening among the people he had fled; and he felt that they had always protected themselves against any knowledge of what was happening in him. No, Rufus had been his only friend among them. Rufus had made him suffer, but Rufus had dared to know him. And when Eric’s pain had faded, and Rufus was far away, Eric remembered only the joy that they had sometimes shared, and the timbre of Rufus’ voice, his half-beat, loping, cocky walk, his smile, the way he held a cigarette, the way he threw back his head when he laughed. And there was something in Yves which reminded him of Rufus —something in his trusting smile and his brave, tough vulnerability. It was a Thursday when the news came. It was pouring down rain, all of Paris was wavering and gray. He had no money at all that day, was waiting for a check which was mysteriously entangled in one of the bureaucratic webs of the French cinema industry. He and Yves had just divided the last of their cigarettes and Yves had gone off to try and borrow money from an Egyptian banker who had once been fond of him. Eric had then lived on the Rue de la Montagne Ste. Geneviève, and he labored up this hill, in the flood, bareheaded, with water dripping down his nose and eyelashes and behind his ears and down his back and soaking through his trench-coat pocket, where he had unwisely placed the cigarettes. He could practically feel them disintegrating in the moist, unclean darkness of his pocket, not at all protected by his slippery hand. He was in a kind of numb despair and intended simply to get home and take off his clothes and stay in bed until help came; help would probably be Yves, with the money for sandwiches; it would be just enough help to enable them to get through yet another ghastly day. He traversed the great courtyard and started up the steps of his building; and behind him, near the porte-cochère, the bell of the concierge’s loge sounded, and she called his name. He went back, hoping that she was not going to ask him about his rent. She stood in her door, with a letter in her hand. “This just came,” she said. “I thought it might be important.” “Thank you,” he said.

• From Push (1996)

  "We never did, you know—" I look at Mama like she fucking crazy! What she talking about? "You know," she repeat. "What you got to do to get it." "He never fuck you," I say shock. "Oh yeah," she say. "But not like faggots, in the ass and all, so I know—" Her voice trail off, stupid bitch. I'm jus' staring at her. I wanna kill her. I remember what I know from AIDS Awareness Day at school. Look at Mama, say, "You better get tested." That's all really I got to say. Mama look at me like she wanna say something. "You welcome back home," she say. "I home here," I say. Silence. "Well I guess I better go see 'bout Abdul 'n do homework." Mama don't move. So, you know, I jus' get up and leave. Song playing in my head now, not rap. Not TV colors flashing funny noise pictures in on me, scratching and itching in my brain at the same time. I see a color I don't know the name for, maybe one like only another kind of animal thas not human can see. Like butterflies? I ask Ms Rain tomorrow do butterflies see colors. Song caught on me like how plastic bags on tree branches. I sit on my bed. New picture on wall now. I got Alice Walker up there with Harriet Tubman 'n Farrakhan. But she can't help me now. Where my Color Purple} Where my god most high? Where my king? Where my black love? Where my man love? Woman love? Any kinda love? Why me? I don't deserve this. I not crack addict. Why I get Mama for a mama? Why I not born a light-skin dream? Why? Why? It's a movie, splashing like swimming pool at Y, in my head. I see Abdul running away from me, he is like little animal running toward a cliff, I am running running too, all over is clowns with evil eyes laffing at me I can't run fast enuff, the music is playing louder now I going off cliff myself now, maybe I don't come back. Don't see Abdul. A huh! A Huh! I can't breathe! Song loud now real loud. I stop running. It's grass green all aroun'. I listen to song, I can hear it now. It's Aretha. I always did wish she was my mother or Miss Rain or Tina Turner; a mother I be proud of, love me. I breathe in, lay down on my bed. Bed, I remember, I finded for myself when Mama go off on me that last time. Aretha singing, "Gotta find me an angel gotta find me an angel in my liifffe." Heart hurt. I don't know what to do. If not for Abdul (name mean servant of god) I... I... my god, Jezus— allah most high, ABDUL! Mama, Carl, me, Abdul Abdul Abdul, he my angel, my little angel. Do Abdul got it? I don't know what to do.

• From Another Country (1962)

  If he were leaving me , if he were being unfaithful to me —unfaithful, what a word!—I don’t think I’d try to hold him that way. I don’t think I’d try to punish him. After all—he doesn’t belong to me, nobody belongs to anybody.” They began walking again, down a long corridor, toward the ladies. “He said these terrible things to me, he said that he would sue me for divorce and take Paul and Michael away from me. And I listened to him, it didn’t seem real. I didn’t see how he could say those things, if he’d ever loved me. And I watched him. I could see that he was just saying these things to hurt me, to hurt me because he’d been hurt—like a child. And I saw that I’d loved him like that, like a child, and now the bill for all that dreaming had come in. How can one have dreamed so long? And I thought it was real. Now I don’t know what’s real. And I felt betrayed, I felt that I’d betrayed myself, and you, and everything—of value, everything, anyway, that one aspires to become, one doesn’t want to be simply another grey, shapeless monster.” They passed the cheerful ladies and Cass looked at them with wonder and with hatred. “Oh, God. It’s a miserable world.” He said nothing, for he did not know what to say, and they continued their frightening promenade through the icy and angular jungle. The colors on the walls blared at them—like frozen music; he had the feeling that these rooms would never cease folding in on each other, that this labyrinth was eternal. And a sorrow entered him for Cass stronger than any love he had ever felt for her. She stood as erect as a soldier, moving straight ahead, and no bigger, as they said in the South, than a minute. He wished that he could rescue her, that it was within his power to rescue her and make her life less hard. But it was only love which could accomplish the miracle of making a life bearable—only love, and love itself mostly failed; and he had never loved her. He had used her to find out something about himself. And even this was not true. He had used her in the hope of avoiding a confrontation with himself which he had, neverthelesss, and with a vengeance, been forced to endure.