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 The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  reason for getting out of it, after you have committed to them. They themselves never finish anything. In the end, they tend to blame others for not realizing their visions—society, nebulous antagonistic forces, or bad luck. Or they try to find a sucker who will do all of the hard work in bringing to life their vague idea but who will take the blame if it all goes wrong. Often such people had parents who were inconsistent, would turn on them suddenly for the smallest misdeed. Consequently their goal in life is to avoid situations in which they might open themselves up to criticism and judgment. They handle this by learning to talk well and impressing people with stories but running away when called to account, always with an excuse. Look carefully at their past for signs of this, and if they seem the type, be amused by their stories but take it no further. The Sexualizer: They seem charged with sexual energy, in a way that is refreshingly unrepressed. They have a tendency to mix work with pleasure, to blur the usual boundaries for when it is appropriate to use this energy, and you might imagine that this is healthy and natural. But in truth it is compulsive and comes from a dark place. In their earliest years such people probably suffered sexual abuse in some way. This could have been directly physical or something more psychological, which the parent expressed through looks and touching that was subtle but inappropriate. A pattern is deeply set from within and cannot be controlled—they will tend to see every relationship as potentially sexual. Sex becomes a means of self-validation, and when they are young, such types can lead an exciting, promiscuous life, as they will tend to find people to fall under their spell. But as they get older, any long periods without this validation can lead to depression and suicide, so they become more desperate. If they occupy positions of leadership, they will use their power to get what they want, all under the guise of being natural and unrepressed. The older they get, the more pathetic and frightening this becomes. You cannot help or save them from their compulsion, only save yourself from entanglement with them on any level. The Pampered Prince/Princess: They will draw you in with their regal air. They are calm and ever so slightly imbued with a feeling of superiority. It is pleasant to meet people who appear confident and destined to wear a crown. Slowly you might find yourself doing favors for them, working extra hard for no pay, and not really understanding how or why. Somehow they express the need to be taken care of, and they are masters at getting others to pamper them. In childhood, their parents indulged them in their slightest whim and protected them from any kind of harsh intrusion from the outside world. There are also some children who incite this behavior

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  354The History of Christianity II õWhen South Sudan became an independent country in 2011, it was no time at all before a political power struggle and tensions between different ethnic groups plunged this largely Christian country into civil war. Huntington’s thesis gives us no tools to understand a situation like this: the “bloody borders” that so often appear between Christians themselves. õThe point here is that we need to think of Christianity and Islam not as giant, monolithic, fixed, clashing civilizations, but as lived religions that play out in specific contexts. They mean something particular to each person who practices them. GLOBAL CAPITALISM õA global economy arose after the end of European colonialism in the 1960s. Enormous multinational companies became more and more adept at extracting material and human resources and moving their factories where costs are lowest—and national governments grew less and less able to control their domestic economies. õGlobalization has brought tremendous benefits to some people, and overall it has raised the standard of living in many developing countries, like India and China. But the same forces have also brought great misery to millions of people who have lost jobs to overseas workers or watched their communities eroded by foreign companies and a consumer culture that seems to steamroll over traditional values. õMany commentators have pointed out that radicalized Muslim communities see Western Christians as dangerous missionaries— not missionaries of the gospel, but missionaries of crass consumer capitalism. õAnd the most ascendant form of Christianity in recent years has been the prosperity gospel: the health-and-wealth strain of the faith that says prayers and church donations can lead to earthly health and prosperity.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  Bongani and the other East Bank guys, because of where they were from, what they looked like—they just had very little hope. You’ve got two options in that situation. You take the retail job, flip burgers at McDonald’s, if you’re one of the lucky few who even gets that much. The other option is to toughen up, put up this facade. You can’t leave the hood, so you survive by the rules of the hood. I chose to live in that world, but I wasn’t from that world. If anything, I was an imposter. Day to day I was in it as much as everyone else, but the difference was that in the back of my mind I knew I had other options. I could leave. They couldn’t. Once, when I was ten years old, visiting my dad in Yeoville, I needed batteries for one of my toys. My mom had refused to buy me new batteries because, of course, she thought it was a waste of money, so I snuck out to the shops and shoplifted a pack. A security guard busted me on the way out, pulled me into his office, and called my mom. “We’ve caught your son shoplifting batteries,” he said. “You need to come and fetch him.” “No,” she said. “Take him to jail. If he’s going to disobey he needs to learn the consequences.” Then she hung up. The guard looked at me, confused. Eventually he let me go on the assumption that I was some wayward orphan, because what mother would send her ten-year-old child to jail? THE WORLD DOESN’T LOVE YOU My mom never gave me an inch. Anytime I got in trouble it was tough love, lectures, punishment, and hidings. Every time. For every infraction. You get that with a lot of black parents. They’re trying to discipline you before the system does. “I need to do this to you before the police do it to you.” Because that’s all black parents are thinking from the day you’re old enough to walk out into the street, where the law is waiting. In Alex, getting arrested was a fact of life. It was so common that out on the corner we had a sign for it, a shorthand, clapping your wrists together like you were being put in handcuffs. Everyone knew what that meant. “Where’s Bongani?” Wrist clap. “Oh, shit. When?” “Friday night.” “Damn.” My mom hated the hood. She didn’t like my friends there. If I brought them back to the house, she didn’t even want them coming inside. “I don’t like those boys,” she’d say.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “All my life I’ve been told there’s something really wrong with me because of the way I am as a woman. But if ’m a man, then ’m a nice young man. The way I am is just fine.” Edna waited for more. “Some of it is fun. I was tied up so tight all the time as a he-she. It feels good to be free to do little things, like go to a public bathroom in peace or to be touched by a barber. It’s nice to be smiled at by strangers or flirted with at a lunch counter.” Edna studied my face. “Then why are your eyes even sadder than I remember?” “Oh, I think ...” I sighed. Edna interrupted me. “I’m interested in what you think, Jess. But tell me how you feel.” I had forgotten how much I loved femmes. Another butch would have nodded when I sighed, content that the whole story had been articulated in the rush of ait. But Edna pressed for words. “T feel like a ghost, Edna. Like I’ve been buried alive. As far as the world’s concerned, I was born the day I began to pass. I have no past, no loved ones, no memories, no me. No one really sees me or speaks to me or touches me.” Edna’s eyes filled with tears. She reached forward and took my hand in hers. The waiter interrupted us. “More coffee, sir?” I shook my head. When he’d walked out of earshot, Edna told me, “I feel like a ghost, too, Jess. Should I still call you Jess?” My smile felt shy. “Sometimes people call me Jesse and I don’t correct them. You can call me whatever you want, just try to remember the right pronoun in a public place. It could get real ugly.” Edna sighed and nodded. I'd forgotten she was Rocco’s lover, too. “Did you know, Edna,” I asked her, “did you know I would make the same decision Rocco made?” Edna shook her head. “I only knew your options were as few as hers. But when you were young I recognized something in you that I’d seen in Rocco.” I chewed my lower lip, waiting for the words of a woman who knew me. “T don’t know how to say this. ?m afraid Pll make a mistake,” she hesitated. “Try,” I urged her. “Please. I need to hear it.” “T don’t think femmes ever see butches as one big group. After a while you see how many different ways there are for butches to be. You see them young and defiant, you see them change, you watch them harden up or be destroyed. Soft ones and bitter ones and troubled ones. You and Rocco were granite butches who couldn’t soften your edges. It just wasn’t in your nature.”

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  235Lecture 24—Apocalyptic Faith in the 1800s and Beyond õ Miller began studying the Bible intently, and he became convinced that he’d hit on the true way to interpret biblical prophecy. He claimed that he’d discovered the date when Jesus would return to Earth. The Second Coming was to occur between March 1843 and March 1844. William Miller was a master of self-promotion, and at the peak of Miller’s career, he had probably 50,000 followers nationwide. õ But there was a problem: March 1844 came and went, and Jesus failed to show up. In response to the confusion, one of Miller’s followers took another look at the calculations and concluded that he’d been off by a year. õ Miller announced a new date: He promised that Jesus would definitely return on October 22, 1844. And his followers threw themselves into evangelism, printing tracts and preaching about the end times with more zeal than ever. But the world failed to end again, and his followers were crushed. NEW APOCALYPTIC CHURCHES õ However, the Millerite movement was not really over. A Millerite named Hiram Edson initially felt deep despair. But he eventually experienced a vision convincing him that Christ had, indeed, returned on the date Miller predicted. õ This return had been a heavenly event, not an earthly one, and Edson believed that the Bible’s end-time prophecies were still to come. A group of ex-Millerites, who called themselves Adventists, took heart in Edson’s vision and explanation of the prophecy. They later organized as the Seventh-day Adventist denomination in 1863. õ Another apocalyptic movement that emerged about a generation after Miller’s predictions is the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are best known today for their determined door-to-door missionary work. They are dogged in their work because they believe we are in the end times and Armageddon is close at hand.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “We're all at this same crossroads, not just you,” I reminded her. “If you can’t open up to your friend, who the hell can you talk tor” Ed sighed. “I know I’ve got to talk about it.” “Will somebody tell me what the hell’s going on around here?” Grant wailed. Ed sighed. “I started on male hormones. I got them from this creepy quack.” “Holy shit,’ Grant said. “Wow. Hey, how the hell did you know, Jess?” I shrugged. “Your voice is changing, Ed. Just a little bit. I can hear it. Besides, I oughta know, ’m wrestling with the same shit myself.” Grant rapped the table with her fist in time to the music playing on the jukebox. “Hey, Ed. Can you give me the name of that doctor? I’m not saying I’m gonna do anything. I wouldn’t mind having some options, though. You know what I mean?” Ed nodded. 156 = Leslie Feinberg I thumped the table in frustration. “I wish I could talk to Rocco. Does anybody know where she is?” Heads shook no. “What happens? Does it just last for a little while? I mean can you go back to being a butch later, when it’s safe to come out?” Grant smiled sadly. “I saw this movie once. It was about this guy with a disease there was no cure for. So these scientists froze him. Later in the future they found a cure for the disease so these other doctors brought him back and cured him. The only thing was, he was from the past. He didn’t fit anymore.” I fought back tears. “Yeah, but we’re not sick.” Jan nodded her head. “Yeah, and what makes you think itll ever be safe again? It may be over for people like us. We may be stuck out here forever.” Jan’s head dropped low. “My sister says I can move out to Olean with her and her husband. They run a little dairy. The thing is, they said it’s only OK if I move out there alone, without Katie. They said they don’t want their daughters to see anything perverted.” Jan banged her fist on the table. “I’m forty-four fucking years old and my little sister’s treating me like she’s my mother. It’s not right. None of this is right.” I nodded. “What are you gonna do?” She shrugged. “I don’t know yet.” She put her arm around my shoulder. “I’m supposed to be the old bull. But now I wish I had someone older to talk to. I wish Butch Ro was still alive. She’d know what we should do.” I smiled sadly. “I don’t think so, Jan. I don’t think any of us knows what to do.” Grant stood up. “I’m going to buy a case of beer and go home to watch TV. You guys wanna come over?” I shook my head. Grant and Jan left together.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  different hue across the wilderness: salmon, rose, lavender. The scent of sage was overpowering. Even before I saw the golden eagle gliding in the updraft above me, I heard it scream, as clearly as if it had come from my own throat. I longed to soar in flight with the eagle, but I felt rooted to the earth. The mountains rose to meet me. I walked toward them, seeking sanctuary, but something held me back. “Buck it,’ Mulroney spat. “Turn her over, her cunt’s too fuckin’ loose.” “Jeez Lieutenant, how come these fuckin’ bulldaggers don’t fuck men and they got such big cunts?” “Ask your wife,’ Mulroney said. The other cops laughed. I panicked. I tried to return to the desert but I couldn’t find that floating opening between the dimensions I’d passed through before. An explosion of pain in my body catapulted me back. I was standing on the desert floor again, but this time the sands had cooled. The sky was overcast, threatening to storm. The air pressure was unbearable. It was hard to breathe. From a distance I heard the eagle scream again. The sky was growing as dark as the mountains. Wind blew through my hair. 66 Leslie Feinberg I closed my eyes and turned my face up to the desert sky. And then, finally it released—the welcome relief of warm rain down my cheeks. THE RING WAS GONE. The only tangible proof it had ever existed were the blood blisters on my ring finger; the cops must have pried it off while my hands were cuffed and swollen. The ring was gone. I sat in my apartment and stared out the window. I couldn’t tell how long I'd been awake. Justine and Peaches had bailed me out. I recalled they told me there were no charges filed against any of us. Justine wanted to come upstairs with me when I got home, but I was adamant: I wanted to be alone. The first thing I did was take a bath. I put my head back and tried to luxuriate in the tub. Then I noticed the water turning deeper shades of pink and a current of red water between my legs. I instantly recalled the feel of the hard piece of shit against my tongue and I climbed out of the bathtub in panic, just making it to the toilet in time. Now I was tranquil. I didn’t feel much of anything at all. But even through this blessed serenity I grieved for the ring that would have protected me, ot at least offered me its wisdom. The ring was gone. There was nothing to hope for now. The ring was gone. Betty knocked on the door and let herself in. She noticed the plate of fried chicken she’d brought me last night was untouched. The chicken looked like human limbs, and I couldn’t bring myself to bite into flesh. The thought had sent me flying into the bathroom, retching,

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “Havin” a hard day, kid?” one of the butches at the bar asked me. “A hard day?” My laughter sounded shrill. “TI got kicked out of school, got no place to live, and ’m gonna lose my goddamn job if I can’t find a place to sleep so I can be on time.” She pursed her lips, nodded, and took a swig of her beer. “You can stay at our place for a while if you want,’ she said casually. “Are you fucking with me?” I demanded. She shook her head. “You need a place to stay? My girlfriend and I have an apartment over our garage. You can stay there if you want, it’s up to you.” She signaled to the bartender. “Meg, get the kid a beer, on me, OK?” We introduced ourselves. “Jes’ what?” she asked. “Jess, that’s my name. Just Jess.” She snorted, “Jes’ Jess, huh? Well, I’m jes’ Toni.” Meg slammed a bottle of beer in front of me. “Thanks for the beer, Toni.” I saluted her with the bottle. “Can I move in tonight?” Stone Butch Blues 49 Toni laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. If I’m not too drunk to get the key in the door. Hey, Betty!” Tont’s girlfriend came out of the bathroom and stood beside her. “Hey, Betty, meet Dondi. This kid’s an orphan. Parents died in a flaming car wreck, you know?” Toni laughed and took a swig of beer. Betty pulled away from Toni. “That’s not funny.” I intervened. “Toni said you got a place I could stay. I really need a place to sleep, I mean real bad.” Betty looked at Toni, shrugged, and walked away. “It’s OK with her,” Toni said. “I’m going back to sit with Betty. I'll find you before we leave.” I finished my beer and put my head down on the bar. The room was spinning and I wanted to sleep so badly. Meg rapped her knuckles on the bar near my head. “You drunk or something?” “No, I’m just working round the clock,” I told her. I didn’t think she liked me. Then she brought me another beer. “T didn’t order one.” “It’s on the house,” she said. Go figure. As the crowd started thinning out I found an empty chair near the noisy backroom, leaned my head against the wall, and fell asleep. When I awoke, Betty was tugging on my sleeve, telling me it was time to go home. Toni sang “Roll Me Over in the Clover” as 50 Leslie Feinberg Betty tried to get her into the car. I lay down on the back seat and immediately fell asleep again. “C’mon, wake up,” Betty urged me. We were in their driveway. Betty struggled to prop Toni up against the car. “Don’t give me two problems to deal with,” Betty told me curtly. I got out of the car and helped her get Toni upstairs. “You can sleep on the couch tonight,” Betty said.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Then she looked up and smiled. “Tough day, Jess?” I laughed. “T got kicked out of school and ran away from home.” She whistled and shook her head. “Td take you home with me, but my husband keeps trying to give away the kids we already got.” I asked Eddie if I could work a double. “T’ll let you know later,’ he said. At 11:00 P.M. the work ran out and he sent me home. I tried to sleep sitting up at the bus station, but the cops kept coming by and asking me to show them my ticket. I bought a ticket for Niagara Falls, but they woke me every time a bus left for the Falls and wanted to know why I wasn’t on it. | walked around and ate breakfast and drank coffee and walked around some more. At noon I went to a movie matinee. When I woke up, I was late for work. Eddie warned me not to be late again. “You look like hell,’ Gloria whispered. “Thanks a lot.” I started thinking, “Hey, Gloria, remember when you told me about that bar your brother went to in the Falls?” Gloria tensed. “Yeah, so?” “So does he know of any bars like that here in town?” She shrugged. “It’s important, Gloria. Honest to god, I really need to know.” Gloria looked nervous. She cleaned her inky hands on her apron as though she wanted to wipe her hands of the whole topic. At lunchtime she pressed a piece of paper into my hand. “What’s this?” The slip of paper had the word Abbas written on it. “T called my brother. I asked him where he goes. He said he used to go there.” I smiled from ear to ear. “Do you know where it is?” “What do I have to do, drive you there?” “OK.” I put up my hands in surrender. “Just asking.” I called information and got the address. After my shift I washed up in the bathroom and changed into clean clothes. I looked at the ring on my finger. It fit snugly. I pledged to never take it off. Maybe now it was time for the ring to reveal to me the secrets of sutviving my own life. I raced downtown to Abba’s and then stood outside, pacing and smoking. I was just as scared to go into this bar as I’d been to enter Tifka’s. Only this time I was carrying everything I owned in two pillowcases. Where would I go if I was rejected here? I took a deep breath and walked into Abba’s. It was real crowded inside, which made me feel anonymous and safe. I squeezed in at the bar. “A Genny,” I called out to the bartender. She narrowed her eyes. “Let’s see some ID.” “They never asked me at Tifka’s,” I protested. She shrugged. “So go get a beer at Tifka’s,” she said as she walked away. I hit the bar with my fist.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  In the beginning, all did not proceed as Pericles had envisioned. The Spartans and their allies did not grow frustrated as the war dragged on, but only bolder. The Athenians were the ones to become discouraged, seeing their lands destroyed without retaliation. But Pericles believed his plan could not fail as long as the Athenians remained patient. Then, in the second year of the war, an unexpected disaster upended everything: a powerful plague entered the city; with so many people packed within the walls it spread quickly, killing over one third of the citizenry and decimating the ranks of the army. Pericles himself caught the disease, and as he lay dying he witnessed the ultimate nightmare: all that he had done for Athens over so many decades seemed to unravel at once, the people descending into group delirium until it was every man for himself. If he had survived, he almost certainly would have found a way to calm the Athenians down and broker an acceptable peace with Sparta, or adjust his defensive strategy, but now it was too late. Strangely enough, the Athenians did not mourn for their leader. They blamed him for the plague and railed at the ineffectiveness of his strategy. They were not in a mood anymore for patience or restraint. He had outlived his time, and his ideas were now seen as the tired reactions of an old man. Their love of Pericles had turned to hate. With him no longer there, the factions returned with a vengeance. The war party became popular. The party fed off the people’s growing bitterness toward the Spartans, who had used the plague to advance their positions. The hawks promised they would regain the initiative and crush the Spartans with an offensive strategy. For many Athenians, such words came as a great relief, a release of pent-up emotions. As the city slowly recovered from the plague, the Athenians managed to gain the upper hand, and the Spartans sued for peace. Wanting to completely defeat their enemy, the Athenians pressed their advantage, only to find the Spartans recover and turn the tables. Back and forth it went, year after year. The violence and bitterness on both sides increased. At one point Athens attacked the island of Melos, a Spartan ally, and when the Melians surrendered, the Athenians voted to kill all of their men and sell the women and children into slavery. Nothing remotely like this had ever happened under Pericles. Then, after so many years of a war without end, in 415 BC several Athenian leaders had an interesting idea about how to deliver the fatal blow.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Kreutzer Sonata , clearly based on their marriage and painting her in the worst light. For Sonya, the effect of all this was that she felt like she was losing her mind. Finally, in 1894, she snapped. Imitating one of the characters in a Tolstoy story, she decided to commit suicide by walking out into the snow and freezing herself to death. A family member caught up with her and dragged her back to the house. She repeated the attempt twice more, with no better effect. Now the pattern became sharper and more violent. Tolstoy would push her buttons; she would do something desperate; Tolstoy would feel remorse for his coldness and beg for her forgiveness. He would give in to her on some issues, for instance, allowing the family to retain the copyrights on his earlier books. Then some new behavior on her part would make him regret this. She constantly tried to pit the children against him. She had to read everything he wrote in his diaries, and if he hid them, she would somehow find them and read them on the sly. She watched his every move. He would berate her wildly for her meddling, sometimes falling ill in the process, which made her regret her actions. What was holding them together? Each one craved the acceptance and love of the other, but it seemed impossible to expect that anymore. After years of suffering through this, in late October of 1910, Tolstoy finally had had enough: in the middle of the night he stole away from the house with a doctor friend accompanying him, determined to finally leave Sonya. He was trembling all the way, in terror of being surprised and overtaken by his wife, but finally he boarded a train and got away from her. When she got the news, Sonya attempted suicide yet again, throwing herself in the nearby pond, only to be rescued just in time. She wrote Tolstoy a letter, begging him to come back. Yes, she would change her ways. She would renounce all luxuries. She would become spiritual. She would love him unconditionally. She could not live without him. For Tolstoy, his taste of freedom was short-lived. The newspapers were now full of accounts of his running away from his wife. Everywhere the train stopped, reporters, devoted fans, and the curious mobbed him. He could not take anymore the packed and freezing conditions on the train. Soon he fell deathly ill and had to be carried to a stationmaster’s cottage near the railway tracks in some out-of-the-way village. In bed, it was clear now he was dying. He heard that Sonya had arrived in town but could not bear the thought of seeing her now. The family kept her outside, where she continued to peer through the window at him as he lay dying. Finally, when he was unconscious, she was allowed in. She knelt beside him, kissed him continually on the forehead, and whispered into his ear, “Forgive

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  tribunal he had formed now held his fate in its hands. The charges against him were based on pure innuendo, but Robespierre made certain he was found guilty and sentenced to death. Upon hearing the sentence, he yelled at his judges, “My name is engraved on every institution of the revolution—the army, the committees, the tribunal. I have killed myself!” That same afternoon he and other condemned men were put in carts and led to the Place de la Révolution. Along the way, Danton passed the residence where Robespierre lived. “You’re next,” Danton shouted in his booming voice, pointing his finger at Robespierre’s apartment. “You will follow me!” Danton was the last one to be executed that day. An enormous crowd had followed the cart, and now they were quiet as he was led up the stairs. He could not help but think of Louis, whom he had reluctantly sent to the guillotine, and the many former friends who had died during the Terror. It had taken a few months, but he had grown sick of all the bloodshed, and he could sense the crowd before him was feeling the same way. As he laid his neck on the block, he shouted to the executioner, “Make sure you show my head to the people. It is worth a look!” After the execution of Danton, Robespierre unleashed what became known as the Great Terror. During four tumultuous months, the tribunal sent close to twenty thousand French men and women to the guillotine. But Danton had anticipated the shift in mood: the French public had had enough of the executions, and they turned against Robespierre with remarkable speed. In late July, in a heated meeting at the assembly, its members voted to arrest Robespierre. He tried to defend himself, but the words came out haltingly. One member shouted, “It is the blood of Danton that chokes you!” The following morning, without a trial, Robespierre was guillotined, and days later the assembly abolished the revolutionary tribunal. — At around the time of Robespierre’s execution, the new leaders of the revolution were looking for ways to drum up funds for the various emergencies France was facing, and someone mentioned the recent rediscovery of Louis’s magnificent coronation carriage, the Sacre . Perhaps they could sell it. A few of them went to inspect it, and they were aghast at what they perceived as its sheer hideousness. One deputy described it as “a monstrous assemblage built of the people’s gold and an excess of flattery.” All agreed that no one would buy such a grotesquerie. They had all of the gold from the coach removed and melted, sending it to the treasury. They dispatched the salvaged bronze to the republic’s foundries to help forge some much-needed cannons. When it came to the painted panels on the doors, with all of their mythological symbols, they found them too weird for anyone’s tastes and promptly had them burned. • • •

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  Clover. Sassafras. Douglas fir. Scottish myrtle. The boy. The motor oil. The body, it fills up. And your thirst overflows what holds it. And your ruin, you thought it would nourish him. That he would feast on it and grow into a beast you could hide in. But every box will be opened in time, in language. The line broken, like Trevor, who stared too long into your face, saying, Where am I? Where am I? Because by then there was blood in your mouth. By then the truck was totaled into a dusked oak, smoke from the hood. Trevor, vodka-breathed and skull-thin, said, It feels good. Said, Don’t go nowhere as the sun slid into the trees. Don’t this feel good? as the windows reddened like someone seeing through shut eyes. Trevor who texted you after two months of silence— writing please instead of plz. Trevor who was running from home, his crazy old man. Who was getting the fuck out. Soaked Levi’s. Who ran away to the park because where else when you’re sixteen. Who you found in the rain, under the metal slide shaped like a hippopotamus. Whose icy boots you took off and covered, one by one, each dirt-cold toe, with your mouth. The way your mother used to do when you were small and shivering. Because he was shivering. Your Trevor. Your all-American beef but no veal. Your John Deere. Jade vein in his jaw: stilled lightning you trace with your teeth. Because he tasted like the river and maybe you were one wing away from sinking. Because the calf waits in its cage so calmly to be veal. Because you remembered and memory is a second chance. Both of you lying beneath the slide: two commas with no words, at last, to keep you apart. You who crawled from the wreck of summer like sons leaving their mothers’ bodies. A calf in a box, waiting. A box tighter than a womb. The rain coming down, its hammers on the metal like an engine revving up. The night standing in violet air, a calf shuffling inside, hoofs soft as erasers, the bell on its neck ringing and ringing. The shadow of a man growing up to it. The man with his keys, the commas of doors. Your head on Trevor’s chest. The calf being led by a string, how it stops to inhale, nose pulsing with dizzying sassafras. Trevor asleep beside you. Steady breaths. Rain. Warmth welling through his plaid shirt like steam issuing from the calf’s flanks as you listen to the bell across the star-flooded field, the sound shining like a knife. The sound buried deep in Trevor’s chest and you listen. That ringing. You listen like an animal learning how to speak. III

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Theresa slapped the tabletop. “It’s always been hard. When has it ever been easier?” “T don’t fucking believe it!” I shouted. “Pm trying to tell you I can’t take it anymore, and you’re saying ’m going under?” Theresa leaned back in her chair and searched my face with her eyes. “Jess, I didn’t say you were going under.” The words echoed in the silence of the kitchen. I stood up and walked toward the bedroom. “Jess, wait a minute. Where are you going?” “To bed,” I told her. “I’m really tired.” Stone Butch Blues 151 When I arrived at the temp agency at dawn, I saw two men leaning up against the entrance to the labor office on Chippewa Street. “Hey, bulldagger,” the dark-haired man called to me. His friend laughed. They were both drunk. There must not be any jobs inside again. The blond man squeezed his crotch. “I got some work here for you, bulldagger. It’s a big job, you think you can handle it?” I pushed past their laughter. “Hi, Sammy.” I called out to the dispatcher. He smiled apologetically. “You want to wait around, Jess? Maybe by 10:30 we'll need a couple of guys.” I wondered if I fit into that work category— one of the guys. I looked around at the men who were waiting for work. Some stared into space, their non-filter cigarettes burning dangerously close to their tobacco- stained fingers. Others glared at me with heavy-lidded anger. I had done nothing to them, but at the moment I was the nearest person to hate. “Naw, Sammy. Call me later if you got anything. OK?” Sammy nodded and waved. “Maybe tomorrow, Jess.” “Yeah, maybe tomorrow.” I began to shore myself up to walk past the two men who I knew were waiting for me outside. As I 152 = Leslie Feinberg passed them, the dark-haired man hurled an empty pint bottle of rum at my feet. I fell backward, against the brick wall, startled. “You fucking he-shes. You stole our jobs,” he shouted as I hurried away. I wondered who I could blame. That night I awoke from a dream. Moonlight illuminated our bedroom. I wanted to go back to the dream, but I was wide awake. I was still immersed in the feel of it. In the dream I was walking through a town. All the windows were shattered. There was no sign of life: I couldnt find people. No dogs barked. Everything was silent. The town was surrounded by fields and woods. I followed a trail of wispy smoke in the sky above the forest. I found a hut in a small clearing. A small fire burned inside. I crawled inside the hut on all fours. I pressed my cheek to the warm earth floor near the fire and waited.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Deep narcissists have a sharp break in this early development, and so they never quite construct a consistent and realistic feeling of a self. Their mothers (or fathers) might be deep narcissists themselves, too self-absorbed to acknowledge the child, to encourage its early efforts at independence. Or alternatively the parents could be enmeshers—overinvolved in the child’s life, suffocating it with attention, isolating it from others, and living through its advancement as a means to validate their own self-worth. They give the child no room to establish a self. In the backgrounds of almost all deep narcissists we find either abandonment or enmeshment. The result is that they have no self to retreat to, no foundation for self-esteem, and are completely dependent on the attention they can get from others to make them feel alive and worthy. In childhood, if such narcissists are extroverts, they can function reasonably well, and even thrive. They become masters at attracting notice and monopolizing attention. They can appear vivacious and exciting. In a child, such qualities can seem a sign of future social success. But underneath the surface, they are becoming dangerously addicted to the hits of attention they stimulate to make them feel whole and worthy. If they are introverts, they will retreat to a fantasy life, imagining a self that is quite superior to others. Since they will not get validation of this self-image from others because it is so unrealistic, they will also have moments of great doubt and even self-loathing. They are either a god or a worm. Lacking a coherent core, they could imagine themselves to be anyone, and so their fantasies will keep shifting as they try on new personalities. The nightmare for deep narcissists generally arrives in their twenties and thirties. They have failed to develop that inner thermostat, a cohesive sense of self to love and depend upon. The extroverts must constantly attract attention to feel alive and appreciated. They become more dramatic, more exhibitionistic and grandiose. This can become tiresome and even pathetic. They have to change friends and scenes so that they can have a fresh audience. Introverts fall deeper into a fantasy self. Being socially awkward yet radiating superiority, they tend to alienate people, increasing their dangerous isolation. In both cases, drugs or alcohol or any other form of addiction can become a necessary crutch to soothe them in the inevitable moments of doubt and depression. You can recognize deep narcissists by the following behavior patterns: If they are ever insulted or challenged, they have no defense, nothing internal to soothe them or validate their worth. They generally react with great rage, thirsting for vengeance, full of a sense of righteousness. This is the only way they know how to assuage their insecurities. In such battles, they will position themselves as the wounded victim, confusing others and even drawing sympathy.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  concerned a young man, Hazel Motes, determined to spread the gospel of atheism to a new scientific age. He thinks he has “wise blood,” with no need for any kind of spiritual guidance. The novel chronicles his descent into murder and madness and was published in 1952. After months of hospitalization and having sufficiently recovered at home, Flannery returned to Connecticut for a visit with the Fitzgeralds, hoping that in the near future she could perhaps resume her old life at their country home. One day, as she and Sally were taking a drive in the country, Flannery mentioned her rheumatoid arthritis, and Sally decided to finally tell her the truth that her overprotective mother, in league with the doctors, had kept from her. “Flannery, you don’t have arthritis, you have lupus.” Flannery began to tremble. After a few moments of silence, she replied, “Well, that’s not good news. But I can’t thank you enough for telling me. . . . I thought I had lupus, and I thought I was going crazy. I’d a lot rather be sick than crazy.” Despite her calm reaction, the news stunned her. This was like a second bullet in her side, the original sensation returning with double the impact. Now she knew for sure that she had inherited the disease from her father. Suddenly she had to confront the reality that perhaps she did not have long to live, considering how quickly her father had gone downhill. It was now clear to her that there would be no plans or hopes for living anywhere else but Milledgeville. She cut short the trip to Connecticut and returned home, feeling depressed and confused. Her mother was now the manager of her family’s farm, called Andalusia, just outside Milledgeville. Flannery would have to spend the rest of her life on this farm with her mother, who would take care of her. The doctors seemed to think she could live a normal length of life thanks to this new miracle drug, but Flannery did not share their confidence, experiencing firsthand the many adverse side effects and wondering how long her body could endure them. She loved her mother, but they were very different. The mother was the chatty type, obsessed with status and appearances. In her first weeks back, Flannery felt a sense of panic. She had always been willful, like her father. She liked living on her own terms, and her mother could be quite intense and meddlesome. But beyond that, Flannery associated her creative powers with living her own life outside Georgia, encountering the wide world, among peers with whom she could talk about serious matters. She felt her mind expanding with those larger horizons. Andalusia would feel like a prison, and she worried that her mind would tighten up in these circumstances. But as she contemplated death staring her in the face, she thought deeply about the course of her life. What clearly mattered to her more than friends or where she

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly. Once, after my fourteenth birthday, crouched between the seats of an abandoned school bus in the woods, I filled my life with a line of cocaine. A white letter “I” glowed on the seat’s peeling leather. Inside me the “I” became a switchblade—and something tore. My stomach forced up but it was too late. In minutes, I became more of myself. Which is to say the monstrous part of me got so large, so familiar, I could want it. I could kiss it. The truth is none of us are enough enough. But you know this already. The truth is I came here hoping for a reason to stay. Sometimes those reasons are small: the way you pronounce spaghetti as “bahgeddy.” It’s late in the season—which means the winter roses, in full bloom along the national bank, are suicide notes. Write that down. They say nothing lasts forever but they’re just scared it will last longer than they can love it. Are you there? Are you still walking? They say nothing lasts forever and I’m writing you in the voice of an endangered species. The truth is I’m worried they will get us before they get us. Tell me where it hurts. You have my word. — Back in Hartford, I used to wander the streets at night by myself. Sleepless, I’d get dressed, climb through the window—and just walk. Some nights I would hear an animal shuffling, unseen, behind garbage bags, or the wind unexpectedly strong overhead, a rush of leaves clicking down, the scrape of branches from a maple out of sight. But mostly, there were only my footsteps on the pavement steaming with fresh rain, the scent of decade-old tar, or the dirt on a baseball field under a few stars, the gentle brush of grass on the soles of my Vans on a highway median. But one night I heard something else. Through the lightless window of a street-level apartment, a man’s voice in Arabic. I recognized the word Allah. I knew it was a prayer by the tone he used to lift it, as if the tongue was the smallest arm from which a word like that could be offered. I imagined it floating above his head as I sat there on the curb, waiting for the soft clink I knew was coming. I wanted the word to fall, like a screw in a guillotine, but it didn’t. His voice, it went higher and higher, and my hands, they grew pinker with each inflection. I watched my skin intensify until, at last, I looked up—and it was dawn. It was over. I was blazed in the blood of light. Salat al-fajr: a prayer before sunrise. “Whoever prays the dawn prayer in congregation,” said the Prophet Muhammad, “it is as if he had prayed the whole night long.”

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  233Lecture 24—Apocalyptic Faith in the 1800s and Beyond õ In John’s vision, this all culminates in the battle of Armageddon, when Jesus and the saints finally defeat these evil powers. They also defeat Satan, and an angel casts him down into a pit for 1,000 years. This is a period of time known as the millennium. The millennium is said to be a time of perfect peace, a time when God’s kingdom will be fully realized on earth. õ After 1,000 years Satan is released from the pit, and he immediately tries to marshal a final battle against the righteous. But God rains down fire on Satan and his evil forces, winning the battle. After this last showdown, the final judgment comes. The righteous will glorify God forever in heaven, while the wicked will be condemned to hell. INTERPRETATION õ Christians have had a hard time agreeing on exactly how to interpret the parts of the Bible that may speak to the end times. Over the centuries, Christians have fallen into three broad schools of thought regarding when Christ will return and how. They are called amillennialist, postmillennialist, and premillennialist Christians. ✳ Amillennialists do not read Revelation’s passage about the binding of Satan and Christ’s 1,000-year earthly reign as a literal prediction. They read it as a metaphor. Amillennialists believe that Christ will not literally rule on earth. Instead, they believe that Jesus is already reigning from heaven at the right hand of God. Today, this view is the accepted doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church . ✳ Postmillenialism became more prominent among Protestants through the mid-19 th century. The term postmillenialism refers to when these Christians think Christ will return: They believe Christ will return after the millennium, the 1,000-year earthly reign of the saints. Postmillennialists are generally optimistic about the course of human history; despite all the sin, they believe that things are getting better and better. 234 The History of Christianity II ✳ Likewise, premillennialism refers to when these Christians think Christ will return: They believe Christ will come the millennium— in the flesh—to establish his 1,000-year reign with the saints, his followers, on earth. This means that until Jesus returns to begin his rule, human affairs will descend lower and lower into sin and despair. õ In the 19 th century, premillennialism began to gain more influence in America. A few charismatic leaders shaped the way that many American evangelicals—and many Protestants around the world—still think about the end times today. õ One of the great figures in the history of American apocalyptic thought was William Miller. As a young man he wasn’t very religious at all, but in his 30s, he had a conversion experience.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  doves were satisfied with his plan, but in the end, his reputation for wisdom carried the day and his strategy was approved. Several months later the fateful war began. In the beginning, all did not proceed as Pericles had envisioned. The Spartans and their allies did not grow frustrated as the war dragged on, but only bolder. The Athenians were the ones to become discouraged, seeing their lands destroyed without retaliation. But Pericles believed his plan could not fail as long as the Athenians remained patient. Then, in the second year of the war, an unexpected disaster upended everything: a powerful plague entered the city; with so many people packed within the walls it spread quickly, killing over one third of the citizenry and decimating the ranks of the army. Pericles himself caught the disease, and as he lay dying he witnessed the ultimate nightmare: all that he had done for Athens over so many decades seemed to unravel at once, the people descending into group delirium until it was every man for himself. If he had survived, he almost certainly would have found a way to calm the Athenians down and broker an acceptable peace with Sparta, or adjust his defensive strategy, but now it was too late. Strangely enough, the Athenians did not mourn for their leader. They blamed him for the plague and railed at the ineffectiveness of his strategy. They were not in a mood anymore for patience or restraint. He had outlived his time, and his ideas were now seen as the tired reactions of an old man. Their love of Pericles had turned to hate. With him no longer there, the factions returned with a vengeance. The war party became popular. The party fed off the people’s growing bitterness toward the Spartans, who had used the plague to advance their positions. The hawks promised they would regain the initiative and crush the Spartans with an offensive strategy. For many Athenians, such words came as a great relief, a release of pent-up emotions. As the city slowly recovered from the plague, the Athenians managed to gain the upper hand, and the Spartans sued for peace. Wanting to completely defeat their enemy, the Athenians pressed their advantage, only to find the Spartans recover and turn the tables. Back and forth it went, year after year. The violence and bitterness on both sides increased. At one point Athens attacked the island of Melos, a Spartan ally, and when the Melians surrendered, the Athenians voted to kill all of their men and sell the women and children into slavery. Nothing remotely like this had ever happened under Pericles. Then, after so many years of a war without end, in 415 BC several Athenian leaders had an interesting idea about how to deliver the fatal blow. The city-state of Syracuse was the rising power on the island of Sicily. Syracuse was a critical ally of the Spartans, supplying them with much-needed resources. If the

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  There’s a story Lan would tell, of Lady Triệu, the mythical woman warrior who led an army of men and repelled the Chinese invasion of ancient Vietnam. I think of her, seeing you. How, as legend goes, armed with two swords, she’d fling her yard-long breasts over her shoulders and cut down the invaders by the dozens. How it was a woman who saved us. “Who die now?” Lan swings around, her face, made stark by the overhead light, ripples with this new knowledge. “Who gonna die, Little Dog?” She flips her hand back and forth, as if opening a locked door, to indicate emptiness. “Somebody kill you? For what?” But I’m not listening. I’m rolling down the window, arms burning with each turn on the handle. Cool November air slips in. My stomach grabs as I watch you mount the front steps, the nine-inch machete glinting in your hand. You knock on the door, shouting. “Come out, Carl,” you say in Vietnamese. “Come out, you fucker! I’m taking her home for good. You can have the car, just give me my sister.” At the word sister your voice cracks into a short, busted sob, before regaining control. You bash the door with the machete’s wooden butt. The porch lights turn on, your pink nightgown suddenly green under the fluorescent. The door opens. You step back. A man appears. He half lunges from the doorway as you backpedal down the steps. The blade locked at your side, as if pinned in place. “He has a gun,” Lan whisper-shouts from the car, now lucid. “Rose! It’s a shotgun. It shoots two eaters at once. They eat your lungs inside out. Little Dog, tell her.” Your hands float over your head, the metal clanks on the driveway. The man, huge, his shoulders sloped under a grey Yankees sweatshirt, steps up to you, says a few words through his teeth, then kicks the machete to the side. It disappears in the grass with a flash. You mumble something, make yourself small, cup your hands under your chin, the posture you take after receiving a tip at the salon. The man lowers his gun as you back away, shaking, toward the car. “It’s not worth it, Rose,” Lan says, cupping her mouth with both hands. “You can’t beat a gun. You just can’t. Come back, come back in the helicopter.” “Ma,” I hear myself say, my voice cracking. “Ma, come on.” You edge slowly into the driver’s seat, turn to me with a nauseated stare. There’s a long silence. I think you’re about to laugh, but then your eyes fill. So I turn away, to the man carefully eyeing us, hand on his hip, the gun clamped between his armpit, pointed at the ground, protecting his family.