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.

Page 231 of 267 · 20 per page

• From Manhunt (2022)

  Indi scrubbed at the wound and Beth held her breath and fought down the lump of bubbling misery at the back of her throat. A fierce stinging pain lit up her cheek as Indi cleaned the cut. It felt as though a swarm of wasps were stinging her along some fault line in her body, some appetizing orifice raw and tender enough to be preyed upon. She let out a muffled groan. “Hold still.” Indi bent down close to Beth, her round face and double chin shining with perspiration, the fine black hairs on her upper lip just visible against her skin. She drew a yellowed Q-tip glistening with some kind of solvent quick along Beth’s wound, then mopped at it with a folded rag. A moment later came the muted sting of the suture needle tugging at her cheek. In and out. Hot, bright flashes of discomfort. The ceiling swam. She felt as though she were being pressed flat against the table by some massive hand, the air squeezed out of her lungs, her whole awareness slowing to a nauseous, muddy churn. For a while Beth drifted in that gray-brown haze of pain, a headache building where the bridge of her nose crossed her eyeline. Indi removed her staples one by one and cleaned the gashes in her leg. Fran came in and made Beth drink something horribly bitter while Indi talked. Beth heard herself crying, flat and miserable, like a baby wailing from the bottom of a well. They lifted up her legs, taking one each, and Indi put a swab inside her. Everything hurt. The room tilted. It came apart. The men were waiting. And then it was dark outside and Indi was beside her again, hips spilling from the edges of her rolling stool, glasses pushed up onto her hair and her nose buried in a book. Kerosene lamps burned in the gloom, casting flickering shadows on the walls and curtains. Indi looked up from her paperback as Beth swallowed. Her mouth was dry and cottony and tasted sour. Her head ached as though it might split down her nose and through her philtrum at any moment. “Indi, will you fuck me?” The other woman sighed, passing a hand over her face. She had little hands, plump and perfect like a baby doll’s. “You need to rest, honey. You’re dehydrated, you have at least two broken ribs, you came within a quarter inch of losing your left hamstring—” Beth slid a hand onto Indi’s knee. Her arm felt as though it were weighted down with bars of lead. The other woman’s skin was cool against her burning fingertips through the thin fabric of her skirt. “Please.” “Bethany, no.” The expression on the other woman’s face told her this fell outside the needling push and pull of their occasional liaisons, the power games of her abjection and Indi’s disdainful refusal. Beth letting her bruised dignity drop like a nightie to the floor.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Courses at the Celebrity Centre focused on communication and self-presentation skills, which were especially prized in the entertainment industry. The drills and training routines would have felt somewhat familiar to anyone who had done scene work in an acting class. Many actors, at once insecure but competitive by nature, were looking for an advantage, which Scientology promised to give them. The fact that anyone was interested in them at all must have come as a welcome surprise. Others who passed through Scientology at the same time as Paul Haggis were actors Tom Berenger, Christopher Reeve, and Anne Francis; and musicians Lou Rawls, Leonard Cohen, Sonny Bono, and Gordon Lightfoot. None stayed long. Jerry Seinfeld took a communication course, which he still credits with helping him as a comedian. Elvis Presley bought some books as well as some services he never actually availed himself of. Rock Hudson visited the Celebrity Centre but stormed out when his auditor had the nerve to tell him he couldn’t leave until he finished with his session, although the matinee idol had run out of time on his parking meter. The exemplary figure that Hubbard sought eluded capture. VERY EARLY ONE MORNING in July 1977, the FBI, having been tipped off about Operation Snow White, carried out raids on Scientology offices in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, carting off nearly fifty thousand documents. One of the files was titled “ Operation Freakout.” It concerned the treatment of Paulette Cooper, the journalist who had published an exposé of Scientology, The Scandal of Scientology , six years earlier. After having been indicted for perjury and making bomb threats against Scientology, Cooper had gone into a deep depression. She stopped eating. At one point, she weighed just eighty-three pounds. She considered suicide. Finally, she persuaded a doctor to give her sodium pentothal, or “truth serum,” and question her under the anesthesia. The government was sufficiently impressed that the prosecutor dropped the case against her, but her reputation was ruined, she was broke, and her health was uncertain. The day after the FBI raid on the Scientology headquarters, Cooper was flying back from Africa, on assignment for a travel magazine, when she read a story in the International Herald Tribune about the raid. One of the files the federal agents discovered was titled “Operation Freakout.” The goal of the operation was to get Cooper “incarcerated in a mental institution or jail.” One of the doors the federal agents opened during the raid in Los Angeles led to the darkened basement of the old Cedars of Lebanon Hospital on Fountain Avenue, newly christened as Scientology’s Advanced Org building. There were no lights, so the heavily armed agents made their way down the stairs with flashlights. They found a warren of small cubicles, each occupied by half a dozen people dressed in black boiler suits and wearing filthy rags around their arms to indicate their degraded status.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Traveling afoot as usual, with a pair of blouses and some handkerchiefs in my pockets, I had not proceeded two leagues when I met an old woman; she approached me with a look of suffering and implored alms. Far from I had just received such cruel examples, and knowing no greater worldly happiness than what comes of obliging a poor person, I instantly drew forth my purse with the intention of selecting a crown and giving it to this woman; but the unworthy creature, much quicker than I, although I had at first judged her aged and crippled, leaps nimbly at my purse, seizes it, aims a powerful blow of her fist at my stomach, topples me, and the next I see of her, she has put a hundred yards betwixt us; there she is, surrounded by four rascals who gesture threateningly and warn me not to come near. "Great God!" I cried with much bitterness, "then it is Impossible for my soul to give vent to any virtuous impulse without my being instantly and very severely punished for it!" At this fatal moment all my courage deserted me; today I beg Heaven's forgiveness in all sincerity, for I faltered; but I was blinded by despair. I felt myself ready to give up a career bese two alternatives: that of going to join the scoundrels who had just robbed me, or that of returning to Lyon to accept Saint-Florent's offer. God had mercy upon me; I did not succumb, and though the fresh hope He quickened in me was misleading, since so many adversities yet lay in store for me, I nevertheless thank Him for having held me upright: the unlucky star which guides me, although innocent, to the gallows, will never lead me to worse than death; other supervision might have brought me to infamy, and the one is far less cruel than the other. I continue to direct my steps toward Vienne, having decided to sell what remains to me in order to get on to Grenoble: I was walking along sadly when, at a quarter league's distance from this city, I spied a plain to the right of the highway, and in the fields were two riders busily trampling a man beneath their horses' hooves; after having left him for dead, the pair rode off at a gallop. Th an unluckier person than I; health and strength at least remain to me, I can earn my living, and if that poor fellow is not rich, what is to become of him ?"

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  The woman with whom I had lodgings had recommended him to me as someone whose influence and wealth might be able to meliorate the harshness of my situation; after having waited a very long time in this man's antechamber, I was admitted; Monsieur Dubourg, aged forty-eight, had just risen out of bed, and was wrapped in a dressing gown which barely hid his disorder; they were about to prepare his coiffure; he dismissed his servants and asked me what I wanted with him. "Alas, Monsieur," I said, greatly confused, "I am a poor orphan not yet fourteen years old and I have already become familiar with every nuance of misfortune; I implore your commiseration, have pity upon me, I beseech you," and then I told in detail of all my ills, the difficulty I was having to find a place, perhaps I even mentioned how painful it was for me to have to take one, not having been born for a menial's condition. My suffering throughout it all, how I exhausted the little substance I had... failure to obtain work, my hope he would facilitate matters and help me find the wherewithal to live; in sum, I said everything that is dictated by the eloquence of wretchedness, always swift to rise in a sensitive soul.... After having listened to me with many distractions and much yawning, Monsieur Dubourg asked whether I had always been well-behaved. "I should be neither so poor nor so embarrassed, Monsieur," I answered him, "had I wished to cease to be." "But," said Dubourg upon hearing that, "but what right have you to expect the wealthy to relieve you if you are in no way useful to them?" "And of what service are you speaking, Monsieur? I asked nothing more than to render those decency and my years will permit me fulfill."

• From Manhunt (2022)

  No word from Fran or Beth or Robbie. She tried not to think about what might have happened to them because of her. Because she’d slapped the child now scratching herself in the blue glow of the screen. She thought of the baby, Mackenzie’s only daughter, swept off to who knew where, and with trembling hands unclasped her medical bag and looked inside. Her father had given it to her when she completed her residency at Concord Hospital. Black leather, a little creased now, and steel fasteners to bind its jaws. How her mother had rolled her eyes telling her about their trip to the custom leatherworker. The man said you’re sure you don’t want the gold-plated clasps? And your father told him why would I? She is a doctor, not the Sultan of Oman. I want her to use the bloody thing. She remembered the tears in his dark eyes as he’d said, I’m very proud of you . Now it held Sophie’s fertility treatment, a syringe of expired clomiphene to stimulate her ovarian follicles. She held it up, squinting in the low light to check for bubbles, and then made her way to lower herself slowly and awkwardly, one hand braced on the couch, down to the floor at Sophie’s side. The girl drew up one bare leg and planted her little foot on Indi’s shoulder. “Remember,” she said, not looking away from the television. “If I get sick from this, Doe’s going to kill your friends and shoot you in the stomach.” I’m going to die in this place. In this also-ran little dystopian cult. A teenager whose parents shorted medical stocks is going to kill me for not getting her pregnant. “I remember, Sophie.” The foot withdrew. Indi pinched the slender woman’s belly, chose her spot, and gave her the injection. “Be gentle ,” Sophie snarled. She slapped Indi across the face the second the needle was out and the gauze taped into place, just hard enough to humiliate. “I’m going to be in a delicate condition soon. I don’t need you jabbing me .” Indi stood with a sharp grunt of effort and turned from the couch, not wanting the younger woman to see her expression. Her whole face tingled. She felt an overwhelming urge to grab hold of the girl and shake her. To pull her hair until she bawled. “Of course. I’ll be more careful. I’m so sorry.” Across the room, the security light above the barracks-side entrance burned green as someone accessed it. The door hissed open and a tall, solid woman in riot gear stepped through and made a beeline for Sophie. Indi backed slowly away from the couch, the television, and their island of blue light. “There are people moving down the Screw,” said the guard, stopping short and folding her arms. “Ten or fifteen of them. Camp people.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  What did I do to him, I asked myself, to have deserved such cruel treatment at his hands? I save his life, restore his fortune to him, he snatches away what is most dear to me! A savage beast would have been less cruel! O man, thus are you when you heed nothing but your passions! Tigers that dwell in the wildest jungles would quail before such ignominies... these first pangs of suffering were succeeded by some few minutes of exhaustion; my eyes, brimming over with tears, turned mechanically towards the sky; my heart did spring to the feet of the Master who dwelleth there... that pure glittering vault... that imposing stillness of the night... that terror which numbed my senses... that image of Nature in peace, nigh unto my whelmed, distraught soul... all distilled a somber horror into me, whence there was soon born the need to pray. I cast myself down, kneeling before that potent God denied by the impious, hope of the poor and the downtrodden. "Holy Majesty, Saintly One," I cried out in tears, "Thou Who in this dreadful moment deign to flood my soul with a celestial joy, Who doubtless hath prevented me from attempting my life; O my Protector and my Guide, I aspire to Thy bounties, I implore Thy clemency, behold my miseries and my torments, my resignation, and hear Thou my entreaties: Powerful God I Thou knowst it, I am innocent and weak, I am betrayed and mistreated; I have wished to do well in imitation of Thee, and Thy will hath punished it in me: may Thy will be done, O my God I all its sacred effects are cherished by me, I respect them and cease to complain of them; but if however I am to find naught but stings and nettles terrestrially, is it to offend Thee, O my Sovereign Master, to supplicate Thy puissance to take me into Thy bosom, in order untroubled to adore Thee, to worship Thee far away from these perverse men who, alas I have made me meet with evils only, and whose bloodied and perfidious hands at their pleasure drown my sorrowful days in a torrent of tears and in an abyss of agonies."

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Never in my life have I suffered so much. Clement steps forward; he is armed with a cat-o'-nine-tails; his perfidious designs glitter in his eyes. "'Tis I," says he to Severino, "'tis I who shall avenge you, Father, I shall correct this silly drab for having resisted your pleasures." He has no need of anyone else to hold me; with one arm he enlaces me and forces me, belly down, across his knees; what is going to serve his caprices is nicely discovered. At first, he tries a few blows, it seems they are merely intended as a prelude; soon inflamed by lust, the beast strikes with all his force; nothing is exempt from his ferocity; everything from the small of my back to the lower part of my thighs, the traitor lays cuts upon it all; daring to mix love with these moments of cruelty, he fastens his mouth to mine and wishes to inhale the sighs agony wrests from me... my tears flow, he laps them up, now he kisses, now he threatens, but the rain of blows continues; while he operates, one of the women excites him; kneeling before him, she works with each hand at diverse tasks; the greater her success, the more violent the strokes delivered me; I am nigh to being rent and nothing yet announces the end of my sufferings; he has exhausted every possibility, still he drives on; the end I await is to be the work of his delirium alone; a new cruelty stiffens him: my breasts are at the brute's mercy, he irritates them, uses his teeth upon them, the cannibal snaps, bites, this excess determines the Crisis, the incense escapes him.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Then Monsieur de Bressac told me how he had gone about the interception of Madame's messages, and how the suspicion had been born which had led him to decide to stop them. "What has your duplicity done for you, unworthy creature? You have risked your life without having saved my aunt's: the die is cast, upon my return to the chateau I will find a fortune awaiting me, but you must perish; before you expire you must learn that the virtuous road is not always the safest, and that there are circumstances in this world when complicity in crime is preferable to informing." And without giving me time to reply, without giving evidence of the least pity for the frightful situation I was in, he dragged me toward the tree destined for me and by which his valet stood expectantly. "Here she is," he said, "the creature who wanted to poison my aunt and who may already have committed the terrible crime in spite of my efforts to prevent it; no doubt, it would have been better to have put her into the hands of justice, but the law would have taken away her life, and I prefer to leave it to her in order that she have longer to suffer." The two villains then lay hands on me, in an instant they strip me naked. "Pretty buttocks," said the Count in a tone of cruelest irony, brutally handling those objects, "superb flesh... excellent lunch for the dogs." When no article of clothing is left upon me, I am secured to the tree by a rope attached around my waist; so that I may defend myself as best I can, my arms are left free, and enough slack is provided for me to advance or retreat about two yards. The arrangements completed, the Count, very much moved, steps up to have a look at my expression, he turns and passes around me; his savage way of handling me seems to say that his murderous fingers would like to dispute the rage of his mastiff's steel teeth.... "Come," says he to his lieutenant, "free the animals, the time has arrived." They are loosed, the Count excites them, all three fling themselves upon my poor body, one would think they were sharing it in such wise that not one of its parts would be exempt from assault; in vain I drive them back, they bite and tear me with renewed fury, and throughout this horrible scene, Bressac, the craven Bressac, as if my torments had ignited his perfidious lust... the beastly man gives himself up, while he regards me, to his companion's criminal caresses. "Enough," said he after several minutes had gone by, "that will do. Tie up the dogs and let's abandon this creature to her sweet fate.

• From Manhunt (2022)

  It’s not your sister.” Her own hands were numb but steady on the handgun’s grip and over the other girl’s finger on the trigger. “It’s just a man in a disguise. We let it go, sooner or later it’s going to come out of its skin.” Her dry mouth. Tears stinging the corners of her eyes. “It’s going to hurt us. Rape us. Eat us, if it can.” “Aim,” said Molly. The guns came up. Ramona could smell Molly’s cigarette smoke, thick and stale, and the sour stench of rotten crabapples crushed underfoot, their guts mingled with the pulp of the tree’s fleshy pink petals. Karin trembled against her. She thought of the big freak she’d winged that day on the edge of the woods, of the glistening edges of her unzipped cheek. Karin whimpered. “Pigs!” the old woman screamed, spit flying, the breeze tugging at her fine white hair. “Fucking gestapo!” Beside her, Eyebrows was whispering something to Karin’s blond brick, their foreheads together. Ramona’s mouth twitched. She began to squeeze, or Karin did. Later, she thought, in a moment of terrible clarity, each of us will tell herself the other was the one who pulled the trigger. “Fire.” As she sat waiting on the steps of the super’s trailer at the edge of the farm compound, Beth thought for the first time in months of the house on Iris Avenue in Wilbraham. The Flying Saucer Collective, a shabby two-story place right off Park Avenue where seven queers cooked communal vegan meals and brewed their own trash-can beer and fought over how to properly store sourdough starter. There was an herb garden nobody weeded and somebody’s mother’s old paisley shawls tacked up as wall hangings in the living room. Morning glories withering on the trellis leaned against the east wall. A real Pinterest board of a house, just unkempt enough to be chic without sliding into dereliction. For a year and a half after dropping out she’d lived on the second floor in a filthy closet of a room, slowly dating her way through a rotating cast of roommates and friends of friends: skinny trans mascs, angry leatherdykes, demisexuals with half-ironic bowl cuts who talked endlessly about Tumblr gender discourse and whether wearing bow ties was class warfare until each half-assed relationship inevitably flamed out into brittle, silent resentment. Tension boiling around the scarred kitchen table on board game night. It was actually good that the world had ended, because now no one could make her play Settlers of Catan. And then, three days into the nonstop onslaught of broadcast carnage in the wake of the Liverpool Massacre, Aster called a house meeting. They called it via email, which was typical passive-aggressive bullshit, and as soon as Beth saw the notification on her phone and read the subject line—IMPORTANT: HOUSING SITUATION—she knew what it meant. She was the situation. She and Venus and V’s girlfriend, Tara, who’d been staying with them since the news hit.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  That is what I suffered, Madame, but at least my honor was respected even though my modesty assuredly was not. Their calm restored, the bandits spoke of regaining the road, and that same night we reached Tremblai with the intention of approaching the woods of Chantilly, where it was thought a few good prizes might be awaiting us. Nothing equaled my despair at being obliged to accompany such persons, and I was determined to part with them as soon as I could do so without risk. The following day we fell hard by Louvres, sleeping under haystacks; I felt in need of Dubois' support and wanted to pass the night by her side; but it seemed she had planned to employ it otherwise than protecting my virtue from the attacks I dreaded; three of the thieves surrounded her and before my very eyes the abominable creature gave herself to all three simultaneously. The fourth approached me; it was the captain. "Lovely Therese," said he, "I hope you shall not refuse me at least the pleasure of spending the night with you?" and as he perceive my extreme unwillingness, "fear not," he went on; "we'll have a chat together, and I will attempt nothing without your consent. "O Therese," cried he, folding me in his arms, " 'tis all foolishness, don't you know, to be so pretentious with us. Why are you concerned to guard your purity in our midst? Even were we to agree to respect it, could it be compatible with the interests of the band? No need to hide it from you, my dear; for when we settle down in cities, we count on you to snare us some dupes." "Why, Monsieur," I replied, "since it is certain I should prefer death to these horrors, of what use can I be to you, and why do you oppose my flight?" "We certainly do oppose it, my girl," Coeur-de-fer rejoined, "you must serve either our pleasures or our interests; your poverty imposes the yoke upon you, and you have got to adapt to it. But, Therese, and well you know it, there is nothing in this world that cannot be somehow arranged: so listen to me, and accept the management of your own fate: agree to live with me, dear girl, consent to belong to me and be properly my own, and I will spare you the baneful role for which you are destined." "I, Sir, I become the mistress of a -"

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  The thirty-six-year-old woman, six months pregnant, as I have told you, is perched upon a pedestal eight feet high; unable to pose but one leg, she is obliged to keep the other in the air; round about her, on the floor, are mattresses garnished three feet deep with thorns, splines, holly; a flexible rod is given to her that she may keep herself erect; it is easy to see, on the one hand, that it is to her interest not to tumble, and on the other, that she cannot possibly retain her balance; the alternatives divert the monks; all four of them cluster around her, during the spectacle each has one or two women to excite him in divers manners; great with child as she is, the luckless creature remains in this attitude for nearly a quarter of an hour; at last, strength deserts her, she falls upon the thorns, and our villains, wild with lust, one last time step forward to lavish upon her body their ferocity's abominable homage... the company retires. The superior put me into the keeping of the thirty-year-old girl of whom I made mention; her name was Omphale; she was charged to instruct me, to settle me in my new domicile. But that night I neither saw nor heard anything. Annihilated, desperate, I thought of nothing but to capture a little rest. In the room where I had been installed I noticed other women who had not been at the supper; I postponed consideration of these new objects until the following day, and occupied myself with naught else but repose. Omphale left me to myself; she went to put herself to bed; scarcely had I stepped into mine when the full horror of my circumstances presented itself to me in yet more lively colors: I could not dispel the thought of the execrations I had suffered, nor of those to which I had been a witness. Alas! if at certain times those pleasures had occurred to my wandering imagination, I had thought them chaste, as is the God Who inspires them, given by Nature in order to comfort human beings; I had fancied them the product of love and delicacy. I had been very far from believing that man, after the example of savage beasts, could only relish them by causing his companion to shudder... then, returning to my own black fate...

• From Sexual Politics (1970)

  Through Athena’s deciding vote, Orestes is not only acquitted but reinvested with his patrimony. Having entirely appropriated the creative force of fertility for the male, patriarchal dogma shall not stop short of devaluating female existence as well. And such is the force of the decision: “Zeus so ordained and Zeus was right…their two deaths are in no way to be compared” Apollo legislates, finding Clytemnestra, in taking the life of Agamemnon, husband, king and father, guilty of a very grave crime indeed, but exonerating Orestes in taking a woman’s life, though it be his own mother’s. The Furies, whose wrath Aeschylus had designed to give off the pathos of foregone defeat, are never permitted to pose any real threat, and lament helplessly: The old is trampled by the new! Curse on you younger gods who overrule The ancient laws… The Furies, who are of course fertility goddesses, had considered wreaking their revenge in a murrain all over Greece, “a sterile blight” on “plant and child.” But Athena stands by to cajole them out of their rage and into an ancillary role within the new order. By dint of fair talk and the threat that since their day is over they would be wise to co-operate, she coaxes the Furies into a bargain which appears to afford them no benefits beyond survival—yet is an absolute necessity to the new order. For all his boasting that he is the sole source of life, patriarchal man, by tacit concession, appears to acknowledge that he cannot prosper without the assistance of the female principle. So Athena wheedles the Furies to provide. Blessings from earth and sea and sky; blessing that breathes In wind and sunlight through the land; that beast and field Enrich my people with unwearied fruitfulness, And armies of brave sons be born… Ignominious in their defeat, The Furies jump at the offer of a home in Athens and launch into five pages of local chamber of commerce rhapsody. In Aeschylus’ dramatization of the myth one is permitted to see patriarchy confront matriarchy, confound it through the knowledge of paternity, and come off triumphant. Until Ibsen’s Nora slammed the door announcing the sexual revolution, this triumph went nearly uncontested. III DIGRESSION ON THE EVIDENCE OF SEXUALITY

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  And let me tell you, that old, old, old, decrepit geometry book hit my heart with the force of a nuclear bomb. My hopes and dreams floated up in a mushroom cloud. What do you do when the world has declared nuclear war on you? [image "A comic-style illustration of a character labeled ‘Mister P’ being hit by another character throwing a book. The impact is emphasized with the word ‘SMASH!’ prominently displayed nearby." file=image_rsrc4RW.jpg] Hope Against Hope [image file=image_rsrc4RJ.jpg] Of course, I was suspended from school after I smashed Mr. P in the face, even though it was a complete accident. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly an accident. After all, I wanted to hit something when I threw that ancient book. But I didn’t want to hit somebody, and I certainly didn’t plan on breaking the nose of a mafioso math teacher. “That’s the first time you’ve ever hit anything you aimed at,” my big sister said. “We are so disappointed,” my mother said. “We are so disappointed in you,” my father said. My grandmother just sat in her rocking chair and cried and cried. I was ashamed. I’d never really been in trouble before. A week into my suspension, I was sitting on our front porch, thinking about stuff, contemplating, when old Mr. P walked up our driveway. He had a big bandage on his face. “I’m sorry about your face,” I said. “I’m sorry they suspended you,” he said. “I hope you know that wasn’t my idea.” After I smashed him in the face, I figured Mr. P wanted to hire a hit man. Well, maybe that’s taking it too far. Mr. P didn’t want me dead, but I don’t think he would have minded if I’d been the only survivor of a plane that crashed into the Pacific Ocean. [image "A comic-style illustration of a person standing on a tiny island featuring a single palm tree. The island is labeled ‘The world’s smallest reservation.’ The person has a speech bubble saying ‘Sigh.’" file=image_rsrc4RX.jpg] At the very least, I thought they were going to send me to jail. “Can I sit down with you?” Mr. P asked. “You bet,” I said. I was nervous. Why was he being so friendly? Was he planning a sneak attack on me? Maybe he was going to smash me in the nose with a calculus book. But the old guy just sat in peaceful silence for a long time. I didn’t know what to do or say, so I just sat as quietly as he did. That silence got so big and real that it felt like three people sat on the porch. “Do you know why you hit me with that book?” Mr. P finally asked. It was a trick question. I knew I needed to answer correctly or he’d be mad. “I hit you because I’m stupid.” “You’re not stupid.” Wrong answer. Shoot. I tried again.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  I mean, I can’t even tell you how I found the strength to get up every morning. And yet, every morning, I did get up and go to school. Well, no, that’s not exactly true. I was so depressed that I thought about dropping out of Reardan. I thought about going back to Wellpinit. I blamed myself for all of the deaths. I had cursed my family. I had left the tribe, and had broken something inside all of us, and I was now being punished for that. No, my family was being punished. I was healthy and alive. Then, after my fifteenth or twentieth missed day of school, I sat in my social studies classroom with Mrs. Jeremy. Mrs. Jeremy was an old bird who’d taught at Reardan for thirty-five years. [image "Comic strip titled ‘Why I Did Actually Miss a Lot of School’ with five panels illustrating various reasons for missing school, including funerals, transportation issues, and family concerns." file=image_rsrc4T8.jpg] I slumped into her class and sat in the back of the room. “Oh, class,” she said. “We have a special guest today. It’s Arnold Spirit. I didn’t realize you still went to this school, Mr. Spirit.” The classroom was quiet. They all knew my family had been living inside a grief-storm. And had this teacher just mocked me for that? “What did you just say?” I asked her. “You really shouldn’t be missing class this much,” she said. If I’d been stronger, I would have stood up to her. I would have called her names. I would have walked across the room and slapped her. But I was too broken. Instead, it was Gordy who defended me. He stood with his textbook and dropped it. Whomp! He looked so strong. He looked like a warrior. He was protecting me like Rowdy used to protect me. Of course, Rowdy would have thrown the book at the teacher and then punched her. Gordy showed a lot of courage in standing up to a teacher like that. And his courage inspired the others. Penelope stood and dropped her textbook. And then Roger stood and dropped his textbook. Whomp! Then the other basketball players did the same. Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! And Mrs. Jeremy flinched each and every time, as if she’d been kicked in the crotch. Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! Then all of my classmates walked out of the room. A spontaneous demonstration. Of course, I probably should have walked out with them. It would have been more poetic. It would have made more sense. Or perhaps my friends should have realized that they shouldn’t have left behind the FRICKING REASON FOR THEIR PROTEST! And that thought just cracked me up. It was like my friends had walked over the backs of baby seals in order to get to the beach where they could protest against the slaughter of baby seals. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that bad. But it was sure funny.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  But I was almost blind drunk on that blurred night on my rez. And I recited poetry! That was so goofy and arrogant! Maybe some of you were there. I remember that some Indians tried to heckle me. But Randy, ever my protector, silenced them with a mean stare. And then he, ever the listener, sat in front of me, a one-person audience. I don’t know how long I recited poetry, but I do know that Randy paid attention. And I remember that I wept that night and told Randy how afraid I was of being trapped again. I was afraid of becoming a reservation drunk. I told him I wanted to become a professional poet, a real writer, and there was no way it would ever happen. I told Randy that I was doomed to fail. But Randy stood and grabbed my shoulders. He was nearly as drunk as I was. He was young and strong, so it hurt when he grabbed me. He wasn’t my best friend anymore. We’d stopped being best friends when I left the reservation school. When I left Wellpinit. Let me be real honest here. When I left Wellpinit, I also left my best friend. And that’s like a betrayal, right? No, it isn’t like a betrayal. It is betrayal. In leaving, I betrayed my best friend. In leaving, I betrayed my tribe. But sometimes you have to do that. I have lived an amazing life. I think I have changed the whole world for the better. At least a little bit. And I know my books, my stories, have helped a lot of people. A lot of other Indians. And none of that would’ve happened if I hadn’t left Wellpinit. Great things have happened to me because I left. But it has also caused me so much pain. And I know it caused all of you pain, too. I know some of you are still mad at me for leaving. That’s okay. I understand. But you have to understand that I didn’t leave because I wanted to hurt any of you. I left because I wanted to save myself. I am happy I left the reservation. My life has been magical. But I know I gave up so much. I know I lost so much beauty when I left. But, hey, most of you don’t know this. All of it almost fell apart. I almost fell apart. I ended up drunk on the reservation that night, reciting my poetry, and I was ready to give up. I had given up. But Randy, my handsome, blue-eyed Indian, stared hard at me, and he said, “Junior, those poems are amazing. You’re going to be famous.” “No,” I said. “That’s not me.” “You’re going to travel the whole world reading your poems,” he said. “But what about you?” I asked. “I’m always going to be here,” he said. “And you’ll always be somewhere else. Somewhere bigger.” “That’s not fair,” I said. “It’s not fair to you.”

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  5. Cultural outsiders who write young adult fiction tend to romanticize the impoverishment of Indians. Junior is having none of this: “It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you’re poor because you’re stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you’re stupid and ugly because you’re Indian. And because you’re Indian you start believing that you’re destined to be poor. It’s an ugly circle and there’s nothing you can do about it. Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.” How does Junior’s direct language address this stereotypical portrayal of Indians? What about his language draws the teen reader into the realities of his life? 6. Junior’s parents, Rowdy’s father, and others in their community are addicted to alcohol, and Junior’s white “friend with potential,” Penelope, has bulimia. “There are all kinds of addicts, I guess,” he says. “We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away.” Compared to the characters in Jon Hassler’s young adult novel, Jemmy (Atheneum, 1980), how does Junior’s understanding of addiction transcend ethnicity and class? 7. Junior refers to his home reservation as “the rez,” a familiar name for the place in which he was born, the place in which his friends and relatives for many generations back were born and are buried, and the land to which he is tied that, no matter how bad things get, will now and forever be called “home.” What would Junior think of a cultural outsider, such as Ian Frazier, who visits a reservation to gather material for a book and then calls his book On the Rez? 8. At Junior’s grandmother’s funeral, held on the football field to accommodate all the people who loved her, Junior’s mother publicly gives a white billionaire his comeuppance to the delight of the whole community. “And then my mother started laughing,” Junior says. “And that set us all off. It was the most glorious noise I’d ever heard. And I realized that, sure, Indians were drunk and sad and displaced and crazy and mean but, dang, we knew how to laugh. When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing. And so, laughing and crying, we said goodbye to my grandmother. And when we said goodbye to one grandmother, we said goodbye to all of them. Each funeral was a funeral for all of us. We lived and died together.” How does this story reflect a cultural insider’s perspective and how does it disrupt stereotypes about stoic Indians?

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  And you must never, never, never, never, never blame your parents for your poverty, no matter how many jobs they lose or how much money they spend on beer and cigars and broken cars, because your mother and father are like gravity and oxygen and your world will EXPLODE without them. But the number one bad thing about being poor is the feeling that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you’re poor because you are stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you’re stupid and ugly because you’re Indian. And because you’re Indian you start believing you’re destined to be poor. It’s an ugly circle, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor. And now you’re probably thinking, “Hey, buddy, if you’re so aware of your problems, if you’re so freaking smart, then why don’t you do something about them? Huh, buddy, huh? And, by the way, I think moose are pretty cool.” Well, I once read that human beings are hardwired like computers. Sure, you can shove gigabytes of software into a computer, but that doesn’t really change the hardware. The essence of the computer will never change. And I don’t think human beings change, no matter how many gigabytes of happy thoughts and happier pills you shove down our throats. What it comes down to is this: You don’t have many choices when you’re poor, and choiceless people are unhappy people. I think it is completely impossible to be poor and happy. Oh, I know that a gazillion different politicians and philosophers have said, “Money doesn’t solve all of your problems.” But they’re lying. It’s been scientifically proven that money will solve most of your problems and give you a fighting chance at the rest of them. Have you ever noticed that the only people who say that money isn’t everything are the people who already have plenty of money? And, okay, I know that sounds hateful, like I’m some communist rebel trying to stick it to THE MAN, but I don’t even know who THE MAN is. Though I’ve got the sneaking suspicion that THE MAN lives in a nice house with an intelligent wife and talented children and they all have enough food to eat, so I think I’d rather be and eat like THE MAN than hate THE MAN. Trust me, I’d rather love and be loved. I am not a hateful person. I’m just a poor Indian kid who wants to have a better life. A great life. An amazing life. And I know you’re probably thinking, “How can a dirt-poor reservation kid live an amazing life?” Well, to tell the truth, I don’t have a clue where to begin. But I want the amazing; I want it so bad, so maybe the wanting is the beginning. Maybe wanting is the beginning of every story.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  When I wished to describe Monsieur du Harpin's awful traffic and prove that the misfortune that had struck me was naught but the fruit of his vengeance and the consequence of his eagerness to be rid of a creature who, through possession of his secret, had become his master, these pleadings were interpreted as so many recriminations, and I was informed that for twenty years Monsieur du Harpin had been known as a man of integrity, incapable of such a horror. I was transferred to the Conciergerie, where I saw myself upon the brink of having to pay with my life for having refused to participate in a crime; I was shortly to perish; only a new misdeed could save me: Providence willed that Crime serve at least once as an aegis unto Virtue, that crime might preserve it from the abyss which is some-day going to engulf judges together with their imbecility. I had about me a woman, probably forty years old, as celebrated for her beauty as for the variety and number of her villainies; she was called Dubois and, like the unlucky Therese, was on the eve of paying the capital penalty, but as to the exact form of it the judges were yet mightily perplexed: having rendered herself guilty of every imaginable crime, they found themselves virtually obliged to invent a new torture for her, or to expose her to one whence we ordinarily exempt our sex.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  I wished to defend myself, I wanted to denounce the true villain; my speeches were interpreted as calumniatory recriminations to which Dubois opposed nothing but a contemptuous smile. O fatal effects of misery and biased prepossession, of wealth and of insolence! Were it thinkable that a woman who had herself called Madame la Baronne de Fulconis, who proclaimed a high degree and displayed opulence, who asserted she owned extensive holdings and arrogated a family to herself; were it to be conceived that such a personage could be guilty of a crime wherefrom she did not appear to have the slightest thing to gain? And, on the other hand, did not everything condemn me? I was unprotected, I was poor, 'twas a very sure thing I'd done a fell deed. The squadron officer read me the catalogue of Bertrand's deposed charges. 'Twas she had accused me; I'd set the inn afire to pillage her with greater ease, and she'd been robbed indeed to her last penny; I'd flung her infant into the flames in order that, blinded by the despair with which this event would overwhelm her, she'd forget all else and give not a thought to my maneuvers; and, furthermore, Bertrand had added, I was a girl of suspect virtue and bad habits who had escaped the gallows at Grenoble and whom she had only taken in charge, very foolishly, thanks to the excessive kindness she had shown a young man from her own district, my lover, no doubt. I had publicly and in broad daylight solicited monks in Lyon: in one word, there was nothing the unworthy creature had not exploited in order to seal my doom, nothing that calumny whetted by despair had not invented in order to besmirch me. Upon the woman's insistence, a juridical examination had been conducted on the premises. The fire had begun in a hayloft into which several persons had taken oath I had entered the evening of that fatal day, and that was true. Searching for a water closet to which I had not been very clearly directed by a maid I had consulted, I had entered this loft having failed to locate the sought after place, and there I had remained long enough to make what I was accused of plausible, or at least to furnish probabilities of its truth; and 'tis well known: in this day and age those are proofs. And so, do what I could to defend myself, the officer's single response was to ready his manacles. "But, Monsieur," I expostulated before allowing him to put me in irons, "if I robbed my traveling companion at Villefranche, the money ought to be found upon my person; search me."

• From The Liars' Club: A Memoir (1995)

  I had personally done surgery on that wart, picking the seeds out of it with a straight pin not a week before, and sure enough, there was no trace of it that morning. Which gave me pause. But I was spiteful enough to tell her that I didn’t much want to sign up with any god who sent tidal waves crashing down on trailer parks but took time for her old wart. (Despite my breathtaking gullibility, I was able to spew out such random hunks of elementary logic sometimes.) Back home, the light in our windows was gradually turning a darker and darker shade of charcoal. Mother was hanging draperies over the big picture window, and through that window, I could see the Sharps’ Chevy backing out of their driveway, tarp and all. What if old Mr. Sharp’s right about God and Jesus? I must have said out loud. Or maybe I suggested we pray just in case—I don’t remember. What’s dead clear now is how Mother lifted her middle finger to the ceiling and said, Oh, fuck that God! Between that and the tornado sirens and the black sky that had slid over all our windows and Grandma stone deaf to that blasphemy because she was tatting those weensy stitches, I began to think we’d be washed out to sea for all our sins at any minute. Lecia must have gotten scared too, because she started lobbying for us to get in the car and drive to Aunt Iris’s house right away. Daddy’s sister lived sixty miles north in the hills outside Kirbyville. “Let’s just go,” she kept saying. I remember she argued that the big traffic had already died down. She even tried to talk to Grandma, who was lost in her lace-making. Daddy called about then, and Mother surprised us by picking up the phone herself. I remember that she had a dish towel in one hand, and she sounded pissed off that he was calling at all. She told him that the car was running outside, that we were walking out the door that very minute. In fact, she hadn’t even hauled her daddy’s Gladstone bag out of the closet yet. The TV was blaring Dennis the Menace. I was sitting on the floor with Lecia, cutting fringe on a paper-bag Indian costume, when Mother slammed down the receiver. Now I know that she needed him there that day, and her fury was the closest she could get to an invitation. Daddy was lost to us in that fury. The line was severed, and in the mist that occupied my skull that morning, he floated away, getting smaller and smaller. I looked over to Lecia, who shrugged and went back to cutting her fringe with a sick precision. At that instant, I knew we should have evacuated long before. The slow psychic weight of doom settled over me.