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 45 of 267 · 20 per page

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  When he told the story at parties, he took his time: His mother and the other adults had been reading and rereading with increasing levels of despair and also hysteria a suicide note found in the hand of Lora Anne’s youngest son, an aspiring rapper and barber, who had shot himself once through the temple on the banks of the creek because he had been diagnosed with, among other rumored things, pancreatic cancer. Lora Anne was a preacher and drove miles upon miles to preach in nondenominational churches. Hartjes and his eleven cousins had been running around the rusty swing set, trying to coax it back into life, when out the wasps had come, and Hartjes, being slower and clumsier, had tripped and made himself an easy target. They’d stung him and he’d gone screaming into the house, and his mother had said it. “Then what am I supposed to say? I’m sorry?” Simon asked. “I just didn’t want you thinking I had lied about it, that’s all. I didn’t want you thinking it was a joke or that I’d made it up just to have something to say. I just wanted you to know that. I wasn’t complaining.” Hartjes drank the water he had been nursing, which was lukewarm now and tasted faintly of metal from the pipes. Simon hummed. He stirred the stew, which smelled to Hartjes like tomatoes and pepper, with the musky scent of venison. When Hartjes let his chair rock back and forth, balancing himself with the wide set of his feet, it sounded like a swinging door. His hunger felt distant, like it belonged to someone else.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  illi et inextricabili moli, sed immanitate praecepti consternata silens obstupescit. Tune formicula illa parvula atque ruricola, certa difficultatis tantae laborisque, miserta contubernalis magni dei socrusque saevitiam execrata discurrens naviter convocat corro- gatque cunctam formicarum accolarum classem: ‘ Miseremini terrae omniparentis agiles alumnae, mise- remini et Amoris uxori, puellae lepidae, periclitanti prompta velocitate succurrite/ Ruunt aliae super- que aliae sepedum populorum undae summoque studio singulae granatim totum digerunt acervum separatimque distributis dissitisque generibus e con- spectu perniciter abeunt. 11 “Sed initio noctis e convivio nuptiali vino ma- dens et fragrans balsama Venus remeat totumque revincta corpus rosis micantibus, visaque diligentia miri laboris, *Non tuum" inquit *Nequissima, nec tuarum manuum istud opus sed ilius, cui tuo, immo et ipsius malo placuisti’; et frusto cibarii panis ei proiecto cubitum facessit. Interim Cupido solus interioris domus unici cubiculi custo- dia clausus coercebatur acriter, partim. ne petulanti luxurie vulnus gravaret, partim ne cum sua cupita conveniret. Sic ergo distentis et sub uno tecto sepa- ratis amatoribus tetra nox exanclata. Sed Aurora commodum inequitante vocatae Psychae Venus infit talia : * Videsne illud nemus quod fluvio praeter. 264 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK VI

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Bones. Milton smirks to himself. There’s a thought. What he wants is not to maim himself but rather to pry open the world, bone it, remove the ugly hardness of it all, the way one might take the spine from a deer or a fish or some other animal snared. Milton lifts the knife from his hand and stabs it into the table. When he was younger, he killed senselessly because the thrill of the act was like dipping his face into a clear, rushing stream. He didn’t have to consider the lives he ended. It was as if they were merely parts of a game, tokens to trade with his friends. If there was any merciful part of his childhood, it was that, the cleanness of it, how the act didn’t taint them, how the violence seemed to leave no trace at all. But he’s older now, and the meat of the world is full of bones. Everybody’s walking around all the time full of bones, full of jagged shards, flecks of hardness that need taking out and would, upon swallowing, prompt a person to choke. There’s no mercy in the basement tonight. Nolan, Milton thinks, and he squats by the table and thumbs the numb place left by the knife. He digs his nail into the thin, translucent space left by the knife until he sees the blood pooling beneath the skin. The pain abates quickly and leaves behind a memory so friable, so delicate, that it’s like blowing an eyelash and making a wish. Idaho. Milton lies down on the floor. The oblong shapes of boxed-up boyhood toys throw curious shadows that shift along the walls and the raw, unfinished struts of the basement. They look like the muscles of some enormous animal, getting ready to leap, to strike, to snatch him down into its shadowy belly. MASS Aleksander Igorevich Shapovalov—Sasha to those who loved him most in the world and Alek to everyone else, including himself—stared at the radiographic scans presented to him by his doctor in the intimate corner examination room and tried to think of what he’d tell his mother. “There’s a good chance it’ s nothing,” Dr. Ngost said. “But you’ll have to get a biopsy.” “A biopsy,” Alek said. “Yes. We’ll take a small piece of the mass and examine it. Then we’ll know more.” “But I don’t feel sick,” Alek said. “I just came because of this cough. I don’t feel sick.” “There’s a chance that you aren’t. There’s a chance it’s just a mass that we can take out. It happens sometimes. The body is full of odd turns.” “Full of odd turns,” Alek repeated—a nonsense phrase, too casual. Full of odd turns, like a clock or some other machine, routes and paths inside him swerving this way and that, and then suddenly an aberration, a deviation, a mass swelling up from below.

• From Escape (2007)

  I knew that the only way I could protect myself in my marriage was by remaining of value to Merril. Like every other polygamist wife, I had no say in whom I would marry and no way to divorce my husband if it did not work out. Sex was the only currency I had to spend in my marriage—every polygamist wife knows that. Once we are no longer sexually attractive to our husbands, we are doomed. A woman’s value is assigned in marriage, not earned. We all knew that a woman who is in sexual favor with her husband has a higher value than his other wives. This has enormous significance because a woman’s sexual power determines how she will be treated by other wives and how she will be respected by her stepchildren. And because of this, our sex lives were not our own. People knew when you were in favor, and everyone spoke about who was and wasn’t sleeping with her husband. A woman who possesses high sexual status with her husband has more power over his other wives. This means he will listen to her complaints more seriously and will discipline wives she might be angry with. Knowing her husband will enact retribution for her is an enormous weapon for a wife to wield. Sexual power also will often exempt a wife from physical labor or other family responsibilities. She can make sure that the wives she dislikes or feels might be sexual competitors are assigned the worst jobs and made to work the hardest in the family. A woman who is no longer physically attractive to her husband is stranded on dangerous grounds. She often winds up as a slave to the dominant wife. She has no voice to report on any shortcomings or abuse in the family. The sexually favored wives will often recruit the children of the less powerful wives and reward them for turning on their biological mothers. It is nothing short of ruthless vengeance. Every member of a polygamous family knows which wives hold power. When a new wife enters a family, it is imperative for her to establish power with her husband sexually. While there are exceptions, most men routinely change their favorite wives and don’t remain loyal to any woman indefinitely. A woman without any sexual currency to spend may find it difficult to have children. This undermines her future completely. Without children—or with even just a few—a woman has little long-term value to her husband or status within his family. Children are a woman’s insurance policy. Even if her husband takes a new and younger wife, a woman who has produced a bevy of beautiful children for him will have respect and status within the family.

• From Escape (2007)

  The morning we left, Tammy was the only happy one. Cathleen was still sulky and quiet. I was resigned but told myself I might see some good sights. If this was the one trip I was ever going to take, I wanted to see and learn as much as possible. We all had breakfast before driving to the airport. Barbara was sitting next to Merril and seemed totally heartbroken about losing him for seven days. It was the longest separation they’d had in the four years since I’d been married to Merril. Merril seemed filled with dread. But there was no way out for him. If he took just Barbara, his image within the community would be damaged. He had to at least feign commitment to his other wives. When he kissed Barbara goodbye, she began to cry. We piled into the car for the drive to the Las Vegas airport. There was so much luggage that it had to be crammed in around Cathleen and me in the backseat. Tammy had claimed the front seat to be next to Merril. She talked nonstop. Tammy was a geyser of gossip and kept spewing. Merril said almost nothing during the three-hour drive. When Cathleen tried to engage in the conversation, Tammy cut her off and accused her of being rude. According to Tammy, this was her trip and the conversation should focus only on her. She told Cathleen not to interrupt. Cathleen began to pout. Merril was despondent over leaving Barbara. I was upset about leaving Arthur and Betty and weak from morning sickness. Cathleen was sullen and self-pitying. Tammy was manic and agitated on her double dose of Clomid and completely obsessed with getting pregnant. We were traveling with about six other FLDS couples. It was not uncommon within the community for members who could afford it to take several vacations a year to places like Cancún or California. We were quite a sight in the airport in our long dresses and long underwear. It’s a safe bet that we were the only ones traveling to Hawaii without bikinis, shorts, or T-shirts. The men were casually dressed in slacks and shirts while we were all shrouded in our multiple layers. People stared at us, but we didn’t care. The strange looks we got didn’t bother me because I still believed we were God’s chosen people. I was only twenty-two and my childhood faith continued to be absolute. Even though I didn’t want to marry Merril, it didn’t challenge my belief system in any way. I never doubted the central tenet of our faith, which said that in order to come to earth a spirit must be worthy to incarnate into a priesthood home. We had to prove ourselves worthy before we could inhabit the spirit of a child.

• From Escape (2007)

  Audrey looked at me with desperate eyes. “It’s someone I don’t really know and he’s younger than I. Maybe he’s a nice guy. But I’m in love with someone else. I’ve been trying and trying to get Father to take me to see the prophet so I could ask to marry the man I love.” I didn’t know how to comfort Audrey. She was speaking forbidden words. It was not allowed in the FLDS for a young woman to get her heart set on marrying a man of her own choosing. Occasionally a young girl would tell the prophet that she felt she belonged to a certain man, but she would always also insist that what she wanted most was to do the Lord’s will, saying something like “I want to be by this man’s side in marriage if it is where I belong.” Marriage in the FLDS was always a divine revelation. The prophet received the news and then told the lucky couple. Audrey’s love for a man she didn’t belong to was something that could get her into a lot of trouble and bring disgrace to Merril’s family. A woman could only see the prophet with her husband or father. It was impossible for a woman to see him alone—even someone like Audrey, who was already twenty. Merril had agreed to take her to the prophet, but he never came home in time to make it happen and the meetings kept getting cancelled. “I feel like my whole life is ending. If I could have had one opportunity to talk to the prophet I would feel different about what is happening,” she said. I could certainly relate—my world had collapsed when I was forced to marry Merril, even though I wasn’t in love with someone else. “I have to do this. There is no other option now.” Audrey paced around the room. “If I refuse this man there is no way I’d be allowed to marry the other man, anyway. I will only bring disgrace on Father’s family.” Complicating matters was the fact that the man Audrey was in love with already had one wife. She could marry him only if the prophet assigned Audrey to him, which was unlikely since he now had plans for her to marry someone else. She would be seen as being in rebellion if she made her wishes known now. Her husband-to-be came to the house a day or two later and took her on a hike. (He had Merril’s permission to do so.) His name was Merlin. When Audrey returned home she found me and we went into my bedroom, where she cried. “He was really nice to me, but every time I look at him, I see him as the man who is stealing my future happiness.” I listened but knew there was really nothing to say. The trap had closed on her, too. The once-radiant nuss princess now felt she was condemned to marry a nobody.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  «Then poor Psyche went in all haste to the top of the mountain, rather to end her wretched life than to fetch any water, and when she was come up to the ridge of the hill, she perceived that it was very deadly and impossible to bring it to pass, for she saw a great rock, very high and not to be approached by reason that it was exceeding rugged and slippery, gushing out most horrible fountains of waters, which, bursting forth from a cavernous mouth that sloped downwards, ran below and fell through a close and covered watercourse which they had digged out, by many stops and passages, into the valley beneath. On each side she saw great dragons creeping upon the hollow rocks and stretching out their long and bloody necks, with eyes that never slept devoted to watch- 269 15 LUCIUS APULEIUS proxumam convallem latenter incidebant. Dextra laevaque cautibus cavatis proserpunt et longa colla porrecti saevi dracones inconnivae vigiliae luminibus addictis et in perpetuam lucem pupulis excubantibus. Iamque et ipsae semet muniebant vocales aquae; nam et ‘ Discede, et ‘ Quid facis? Vide, et ‘Quid agis ? Cave,’ et * Fuge,’ et‘ Peribis" subinde clamant. Sic impossibilitate ipsa mutata in lapidem Psyche quamvis praesenti corpore, sensibus tamen aberat, et inextricabilis periculi mole prorsus obruta lacrimarum etiam extremo solacio carebat. Nec Providentiae bonae graves oculos innocentis animae latuit aerumna: nam primi lovis regalis ales illa re- pente propansis utrimque pinnis affuit rapax aquila, memorque veteris obsequii, quo ductu Cupidinis Iovi pocillatorem Phrygium sustulerat, opportunam ferens opem deique numen in uxoris laboribus percolens, alti culminis diales vias deserit, et ob os puellae praevolans incipit: ‘At tu simplex alio- quin et expers rerum talium, speras te sanctissimi nec minus truculenti fontis vel unam stillam posse furari vel omnino contingere! Diis etiam ipsique Iovi formidabiles aquas istas Stygias vel fando com- peristi, quodque vos deieratis per numina deorum, deos per Stygis maiestatem solere! Sed cedo istam urnulam, et protinus arreptam complexamque fes- tinat libratisque pinnarum nutantium molibus inter genas saevientium dentium et trisulca vibramina dra- conum remigium dextra laevaque porrigens volentes 270 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK VI

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  veritatem eruit, atque illam, minus quidem quam merebatur, sed quod dignus cruciatus alius excogitari non poterat, certe bestiis obiciendam pronuntiavit. . 29 Talis mulieris publicitus matrimonium confar- reaturus ingentique angore oppido suspensus ex- pectabam diem muneris, saepius quidem mortem mihimet volens consciscere, priusquam scelerosae mulieris contagio macularer vel infamia publici spectaculi depudescerem: sed privatus humana manu, privatus digitis, ungula rotunda atque mutila gladium stringere nequaquam poteram. Plane tenui specula solabar clades ultimas, quod ver in ipso ortu iam gemmulis floridis cuncta depingeret et iam purpureo nitore prata vestiret, et commodum dirupto spineo tegmine spirantes cinnameos odores promi- carent rosae, quae me priori meo Lucio redderent. Dies ecce muneri destinatus aderat; ad con- saeptum caveae prosequente populo pompatico favore deducor: ac dum ludicris scaenicorum choreis primitiae spectaculi dedicantur, tantisper ante por- tam constitutus pabulum laetissimi graminis, quod in ipso germinabat aditu, libens affectabam, subinde curiosos oculos patente porta spectaculi prospectu gratissimo reficiens. Nam puelli puellaeque virenti florentes aetatula, forma conspicui, veste nitidi, 524 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK X this mischievous woman, far less than she deserved, but because there could be.no more cruel death invented for the quality of her offence, was con- demned by him to be eaten of wild beasts. Behold with this woman was I appointed to have to do in wedlock before the face of all the people ; but I, being wrapped in great anguish, and fearing the day of the triumph, when we two should so abandon ourselves together, devised rather to slay myself than pollute my body with this mischievous harlot, and so be defamed as a public sight and spectacle. But it was impossible for me to do this, considering that I lacked human hands, I lacked fingers, and I was not able to draw a sword with my hoofs being round and short; howbeit I did console myself for this utter misfortune with a small ray of hope, for I rejoiced in myself that springtime was come and was now making all things bright with flourishing buds, and clothing the meadows very brightly, so that I was in good hope to find some roses now bursting through from their thorny coats and breathing forth their fragrant odours, to render me to my human shape that I had before as Lucius. When the day of the triumph came, I was led with great pomp and magnificence to the theatre, whither when I was brought, I first saw the preamble of the triumph, dedicated with dances and merry taunting jests. In the mean season I was placed before the gate of the theatre, where on the one side I saw the green and fresh grass growing before the entry thereof, whereon I did gladly feed ; and sometimes I conceived a great delectation when I saw, when the theatre gates were opened, how all things were finely prepared and set forth ; for there I might see young boys and maidens in the flower of their youth, 525 LUCIUS APULEIUS

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Maybe he’s had it wrong this whole time—it’s not that Abe and Tate bring it out of Nolan, and it’s not that Nolan brings it out of them. They’re always in the thick of violence. It moves through them like the Holy Ghost might—except the Holy Ghost never moved anybody to rape a girl or ruin her life. The Holy Ghost never moved anybody to bash a boy’s head in. There was some other god, then, a god for whom the spilling of blood was a prayer, an act of devotion. And they’ve been praying to that god their whole lives. The streetlights glow, and bits of grass stick up coarsely from the pools of shadow below them. Milton puts the butt of his hand to his eye, which is throbbing, low and deep. The pressure in his chest intensifies, and he thinks, in that moment, of cutting himself open to let it out. Toward home, then, he says to himself. Toward home. His steps are stiff, ragged, hard, but he keeps going. One foot in front of the other until he’s at his door. The lights are off. He unlocks the door and pushes it open with his hip. Then it’s down the stairs, into the warm cave of the basement. He tugs on the cord and the basement is once again bathed in dim, yellow light. His mouth is sour and skunky from vomit and spit. His hand feels filmy and gritty, from Abe’s come and blood and the dirt and the grass. He glances down and sees smudges on his palm, white mucosal remnants, like he’s squeezed snails or slugs. There was a time when he and Nolan were boys and playing out by the creek, when they’d catch frogs and other small animals and bash them with rocks until they resembled nothing like themselves or anything else. And when they got older, they shot deer and pulled fish from the river and held them up, grinning into cameras, smiling like Look what I’ve done. Milton turns and sees along the back wall of the basement his father’s work stand. Hard, flat wood with metal rivets to keep it in place. A string of knives hang along the wall. Milton puts his hand against one medium-size knife, touches its cold, silver surface. He takes it down and holds it against the fat of his palm. Nolan, he thinks. He slides the knife up, though not breaking skin. He presses it to the crease below his fingers. Nolan, he thinks again, and he puts the back of his hand against the table in the corner. He couldn’t cut his fingers off even if he wanted to. Not with this knife, its edge too dull, his bones too thick.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Lionel’s mouth was dry and he motioned for the cup back. She shook her head, refused him. “But then he came in. I made coffee, we talked a bit.” “What did you talk about?” “That’s so funny,” Lionel said. “People say that, We talked. But I don’t remember a single thing we said to each other. He asked, Where do you sleep? ” “No.” “He did.” Sophie put her face behind her hand and shook her head. She groaned. “It was nice, actually.” “Are you with someone?” “No,” Lionel said. “God no.” “Why not?” Lionel considered the question. Then he unbuttoned his left sleeve and rolled it up to his elbow. His forearm was covered in a network of scars, culminating in a series of deep gouges near his wrist. His forearms were paler than the rest of him, except for this cluster of keloids with their tannish, reddish undertones. And sometimes, in the winter months, they grew dry and rubbery. Sophie took in the view and Lionel watched her for the usual choreography of sympathy and disgust. She reached out and brushed her fingers across his arm and made a low, appraising hum. He could barely feel her touch. With the keloids, it was either too much sensation or nothing at all. Sometimes they burned powerfully or throbbed so much he couldn’t sleep. His doctors had said that it was a real pain, but also not a real pain. They stopped short of saying it was psychosomatic. They didn’t like that term, because it implied an unreal element, no matter how careful they were about contextualizing their comments. “What happened?” she asked. “If that’s not too personal?” “I tried to kill myself. Which, I guess, is a little obvious. But I made a real hash of it. My roommate found me. Then I did some inpatient stuff. And some outpatient stuff. Not a lot of room for extracurriculars.” “Sounds like a lot.” “Yeah, last year, I was just . . . in this bad way. I felt really unsafe. I felt so sick, all the time. Like, really sick. Like my heart was going to jump out of my chest. And I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t think. That was hardest—the not thinking. My mind wasn’t even empty, just hazy. Like standing in a room you know perfectly well, but you can’t see anything because it’s full of this burning smoke. It was just. Impossible, and I was so scared—like this was going to be my life, I was never going to be okay again. I wanted some relief, I guess. I wanted to get out.” “Did you always struggle with that stuff?” “No,” Lionel said. “Well . . . yes? No and yes. I was always anxious. But the first two years of grad school were really hard, brutal. And I found it really hard to cope.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  “What I said. You coming? Staying? I can’t be here,” Milton says. But that isn’t exactly what he means. What he really wants to say: Come with me. Come with me. Let’s go. Let’s get away from here. Let’s go be by ourselves. Let’s go. But he cannot ask that. And if he cannot ask it, Nolan cannot and will not answer him. “I’ll stay a little longer,” Nolan says. There are still three or four cops in the distance, watching the last of the smoke trickle out of the barrels. They put out the fire. They sent everyone home. But Nolan wants to stay here among the wreckage of the night, this lost evening. There’s a kind of sadness on his face, a flicker of regret, but Milton is not sure if the regret is for what’s happened to Abe or because the evening’s been busted up early. Nolan spits off to the side, kicks a few stones down the hill. “Maybe I’ll hit you up later. We can try this birthday thing again.” “All right,” Milton says. “Or you could stay, too,” Nolan says. “No, I can’t,” Milton says. “I guess not,” Nolan says, giving Milton a long, slow smile that leaves Milton chilled. Milton turns, moves underneath the black-stubble cedar and pine trees, the scent of burning paper wafting after him. He cuts into the woods, which are cloaked in a sooty mist. Milton runs without thinking, without caring what he will emerge into on the other side. What he craves is the sensation of distance traveled, raw mileage. It suddenly seems to him, snapping twigs and getting whipped by lashing vines, that Idaho is not the worst thing that could happen to him, that even if he were to stay, Nolan would already be lost to him. Milton reaches the other side of the woods. The night is thickening overhead. The mountain looms. He can see his house from here. His stomach turns. He retches. His throat is hot with vomit. His eyes water. In the distance, he can hear branches breaking. The woods shift with soft, hushed voices of motion. He leaves the woods entirely and steps back onto the street. Milton thinks again of all the homes and their interchangeable lives and wishes that it were as easy as stopping at someone else’s door, knocking, and switching places with the version of himself who lived there. If only he could enter into another version of his life, one in which things have not gone quite as horribly awry—if only he could pass from this world into the next or into the next, some other place without Abe or Tate, some place where he and Nolan might be as they were, though perhaps they have always been this way, full of violence and calamity.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  The light in Simon’s room was almost blue with cold. Hartjes dropped his jacket on the floor. He got into the bed and Simon climbed in next to him. Then on top of him. Simon’s hard hands scraped over his chest and stomach, started to go lower. Hartjes reached for them sharply, and in retaliation Simon latched onto his neck. The damp, persistent heat of it. Hartjes closed his eyes. Simon kissed and bit a path upward until Hartjes had no choice but to kiss him back. Hartjes closed his eyes and put his arms around Simon, held him close. He rocked their bodies together, and then he rolled onto Simon and pressed him flat into the mattress. He could give Simon this, he thought. He couldn’t want him back in the same way, but he could give him this. Hartjes kissed him rougher and more deeply, pressed Simon flatter. The bed shook a little. Simon moaned, but when Hartjes wouldn’t let him draw any fresh breath, he bucked. Hartjes held on, his own breath sour and hot now, their mouths fighting. Hartjes pushed at Simon, felt the terrible weakness of his limbs. At first Simon punched at his chest. He fought. He twisted. He kicked. He tried to get out from under Hartjes, but Hartjes wouldn’t let him. Hartjes ran the seam of his palm along Simon’s throat, felt the muscle of it jump and squirm like the backs of his dogs. No fur. Just the slippery animal surface, the gooseflesh, the chilled skin waiting. Hartjes squeezed, felt the muscle contract. Simon wheezed, gave a bronchial cough. Simon stared up at him. Hartjes could feel Simon getting hard and then going soft. He could feel the wet warmth cooling against his stomach. He could feel Simon twisting and writhing and trying to scrape something out of this. But he held on. The tiny vessels in Simon’s eyes thickened. The circles of his pupils shrank, opened, shivered in the blue of his irises. Simon turned red and his cheeks swelled like he was holding his breath. Hartjes tracked back through the hall and down the stairs and into the living room, where the light was on. Hartjes stumbled on the foot of the stairs. The living room was the same sepia shade as the upstairs, had the same blue-and-gold wallpaper that had faded with time. The light had been off. He and Simon had climbed the stairs in darkness. It was a trick being played on him. He gripped at his head and beat the hard fat of his palms against his skull. He should never have said anything about his mother. He should never have gone up those stairs. It all felt so impossible—that his mother was dead, that he’d hurt Simon, thinking he could give him what he wanted, that he stood now under a light that he had seen Simon turn off. None of it made sense. But that was a kind of sense, too.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Charles got off him then, and Lionel sat up. Blood had pooled in the back of his head, making him dizzy. He rested his back against the legs of the chair. And he took the pieces of the ruler from Charles. He felt safe with them there. A part of his old life, who he used to be. “Why’d you do it?” Charles asked, and when Lionel did not answer, he added, “It must have hurt like hell.” “You know how sometimes an animal will chew its arm off to get loose if it’s desperate enough?” Lionel turned his arm over and looked down at the scars there. They were mute. Whatever wisdom or clarity they had given him was gone. What he saw was a mass of tissue stitched back together. What he saw was only evidence of his body’s history. And to try to discern old moods, old insights, was just chasing shadows. “Be serious, Lionel.” Lionel wanted to laugh at that, being accused of not taking his own suicide seriously enough because he had tried to tell the truth about it. There was no why . No coherent theorem. It had been all gesture, as empty an idiom as the references from the potluck last night. When you tried to explain it, all the meaning went out of it. But Charles was looking at him with the expectation of an answer, and Lionel did not have one. Not a satisfactory one anyway. He felt as unprepared now to answer the question of why as he had when his mother first asked him last year. Why was an anachronism. “You only ask why if you’ve never tried it,” he said. Charles took Lionel’s hand in his own. Lionel saw Charles’s eyes flick to the particular array of scars. The hashwork of them. Nothing systematic or intentional about it. “I think you’re very brave,” Charles said with a degree of sincerity that made Lionel wish he could take back everything he had said. Sincerity was a condescending emotion. People went around calling you brave when you tried to kill yourself and failed. They called you brave when you went limping through your life, as if the very difficulty of it were a sign of moral courage or valor. But there was nothing noble in suffering. There was nothing brilliant or good about the failed endeavor to exit one’s life. There was nothing courageous about the persistence of life, the prolonged project of living. People called you brave for going on because it affirmed their own value system. They considered their own life worth living, and so they considered every life worthy. But it had to be true that life could be discarded when it was no longer of use. It had to be true that a person could ball their life up and throw it out with the trash if they found they had no desire to go on.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Some lives, Lionel thought, had to be ordinary or ugly or painful. Ending your life had to be on the table. If you were the one really in control, and you were in it for yourself, then ending your life certainly had to be an option if you wanted it to be. But people called you brave for going on. They called you brave even if you only lingered in the world because you’d lost your real courage at the moment it mattered most. “That’s what people say when they’re uncomfortable,” Lionel said. “What?” “I’m not brave.” “Don’t get worked up,” Charles said. “Man, whatever.” Lionel lay down under the table. Gray spiderwebs and caught dust billowed in the corners of the legs. He could see the pencil marks of the carpenter who had made the table. He reached up and brushed the faded blue numbers. He scratched the wood with his nails. Charles crawled under the table, too. They lay on their backs, head to head, looking up into the blank underside of the table as though it were the night sky. “You ever feel like your life is getting away from you, Lionel?” “Yeah. All the time.” “If I don’t get this thing at PNB, I think that might be it for me.” “As a dancer?” “Yeah. Maybe you can put in a word for me at your proctoring thing.” “Absolutely. You bet.” “A dancer only gets so many years. And that’s if they’re brilliant.” Lionel knew better than to say that Charles was brilliant. It would have been insulting. Charles sighed. “I’m going back to the program in the spring.” “If I had another three years of this ,” Charles said, waving, gesturing to Lionel’s life, apartment, world, whatever. “You had this little blip. And you’ll get to go back.” It was true, Lionel thought, that he’d return to his life. That had been the thing he wanted most. But listening to Charles, it sounded childish. It sounded simple and easy. It was another form of condescension. “You’re kind of self-pitying right now,” Lionel said. “All I’m saying is, you’ve got this nice setup. And I’m here with a bum fucking knee, about to suck some old guy’s dick so maybe he’ll arrange an audition for me. So that maybe I can get another two years out of doing the thing I love most. You tell me who’s self-pitying. You’re the cutter.” Lionel almost gasped at the fluidity of the remark. The way it snapped off at the end. “I think it’s possible for my life to be shitty and also for your life to be shitty. Maybe you should keep your eyes on your own paper,” Lionel said.

• From Escape (2007)

  Both of my mothers helped get me ready for the marriage ceremony. Rosie was helping me comb through my long hair, which was ten inches below my waist. It had rarely been cut. My biological mother, Nurylon, was fitting me into the dress she had made. They were laughing nervously to relieve tension. Most girls in my situation agreed to the arranged marriage to protect their families from being disgraced. I felt like I was being prepared for a ritual sacrifice—the proverbial lamb dressed and trussed, readied for slaughter. Both of my mothers had been involved in arranged marriages and had felt blessed to accept the prophet’s will. An arranged marriage was as natural to these women as the sunrise every morning. To me it felt sickening. When I was ready I got into the van with my father. We were driving to the prophet’s home in Salt Lake City for the ceremony. After we got to Uncle Roy’s, Merril went in to talk to him while my father, two mothers, and I waited in the van. My father was matter-of-fact when he spoke to me. “Carolyn, Merril is a good man, and I want you to know that if you want him to love you and love your children, you should always put his feelings first and find yourself in perfect obedience to him.” Children? I had yet to adjust to the idea of marriage or sex, and now he was talking to me about children? The shock and horror of the past two days were numbing. It felt like I was being submerged in ice water and every time I came up for air I was pushed down again. Take that, take this, and take that. I was gasping for air. The marriage ceremony was performed in the prophet’s office. I was told to stand next to Merril. He took my hand. It was the first time he had ever touched me. The prophet read our vows and we both agreed to a covenant marriage for all eternity. I felt my life rushing away from me. We sealed our marriage vows with a kiss. Uncle Roy instructed us in the importance of multiplying and replenishing the earth with children as a way of fulfilling our covenant with God. Everything felt serious, nothing felt safe. At the end of the ceremony, Merril dropped my hand and walked out of the room without looking back. His family followed him. I didn’t know what to do, so I followed my parents into a large dining room where someone was having a birthday party celebration.

• From Escape (2007)

  Fortunately for Linda, he never learned that she hadn’t been studying “theology,” too. He learned the name of the boy I liked and went to see him to tell him he was forbidden ever to speak to me again. My father gave me the same edict, too. I did not want to get the boy in any more trouble, so we did stop seeing each other. I was more concerned about what might happen to him than to me. My freedom was not all that was coming to an end. I feared my education was, too. I graduated from eighth grade that spring. The only high school in the community was a private high school that was run by those on the other side of the religious divide from my father. Uncle Roy would not allow us to attend that school. I was devastated. I thrived on school, and all of my closest friends would be going on to high school because their families were on the opposing side of the divide. Since we had been together since grade school, our friendships had continued despite the controversy. But high school was a dividing line. I wasn’t supposed to associate with them anymore. It felt like my happiness was sliding away. Without an education, I was doomed. The thought of losing my friends made me despair. The only alternative I had was to take a correspondence course. It felt good that there was some recourse for me, but I still hated the thought of being separated from my friends. What made me slightly more hopeful was learning that several girls who were older than me had gone on to community college after finishing the correspondence course. I dug into my courses with a vengeance. My father had given me a job answering phones at his construction company. I didn’t like it, but I was glad to get out of the house and do something other than babysit. When I wasn’t working, I stayed in my bedroom and studied. I finished three grades in my correspondence classes in less than a year. Then the miracle: Uncle Roy decided to let some committed students go to the private high school, despite the split. He wanted us to report back to our parents about what was going on in the school. My father was shocked when the prophet told him to send Linda and me to the private school. Linda started as a senior, and I entered as a sophomore because I wanted to be with my friends. Everyone welcomed me back with open arms. I had a lifeline back into a world that I loved, and I was overjoyed.

• From Escape (2007)

  When I had all four children together, we walked to the park near our house. I sat on a bench and wept as I watched my children swing and play. I wanted to be their mother. I wanted to watch them grow up. I was angry thinking how much of their lives I would miss by dying. Leaving them alone and motherless stabbed me with sorrow. But I ached in sorrow for myself. My unborn baby and I were dying and no one really cared. My husband wouldn’t miss me. My sister wives would be glad I was gone. My death would be seen as God’s will and there would be no questioning, no mourning. The only tears that would be shed for me were those I was shedding for myself. My children were exuberant and it felt as unbearable to watch them as it was to turn away. Shirley learned of my deteriorating condition from Tammy. Tammy and Shirley had been sister wives of Uncle Roy. Tammy was having coffee with her and condemning me to Shirley. Shirley knew how grave my condition was and went through the roof. For Shirley, this was a medical issue, not a religious one. She immediately called Merril and insisted he take me to the hospital. He made light of it and Shirley could tell he wasn’t going to act. The next day when she saw Merril at a community function she spoke to him in front of people she knew he was trying to impress. She told him I needed to go to the hospital immediately and if I didn’t he’d have a dead wife and a dead baby. I could not go to the hospital on my own. My husband had to authorize it. The volunteer ambulance drivers in Colorado City and Hildale were all members of the FLDS. Because of this they were under enormous pressure not to interfere with another man’s family. And so they would not take a woman (or her child) to the hospital unless her husband had given his approval. Shirley shamed Merril into sending me to the hospital, and I was en route an hour later. The doctor didn’t want to deliver me because the baby was still small and his lungs undeveloped. By now I was thirty-three weeks pregnant. I stabilized in the hospital quickly with adequate food and hydration. I stayed there for four weeks and then Andrew, my fifth child and third son, was born by Cesarean section. Andrew was small, but he nursed heartily and gained weight quickly. His survival was a miracle. Shirley said she’d never thought I’d carry Andrew as long as I did. Thankfully, only Merril was allowed to be present in the delivery room.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  The acuity of the words stung Lionel right between the eyes. The air in the room was dense. His tongue felt heavy and numb. Something lodged at the base of his throat when he tried to respond. He coughed experimentally to see if he could clear it, but the hard knot of whatever it was remained stubbornly fixed. His neck bulged under his fingers. His skin was flushed and warm to the touch. He thought briefly that he was having an allergic reaction, that weird sense of driving panic and dry throat. His heart hammered along, and his eyes watered. Even the wool of his sweater itched and burned against his arms. He made another attempt at coughing loose whatever was in his throat. He beat on his chest to break up the tension, but there was no give. “People do kill themselves,” Lionel wheezed. “They do.” “Easy, buddy,” Charles said nervously. He slapped Lionel between the shoulders. The jolt of it made Lionel’s plate slide from his lap to the floor with a loud thunk. The wilted kale, coated in dressing, and the greasy avocado made a sad little pile. The conversation, that wall of party noise, dropped away, and it was just the curious silence of the voyeur and the watched. Their attention felt like metal prods inserted into his joints. “I need,” Lionel rasped, but then he stood up on his gummy legs. He went around the back of the chaise, and the host reached for him. The others called out: Is he all right? If I had to sit next to Charlie— Charles, what did you do? First door on the right! • • • Last fall, Lionel tried to kill himself. His attempt had not been subtle, so his father had flown in from his suburb of Houston and his mother had driven from her suburb of Detroit. They converged on him in Madison, furious and terrified as they reprimanded him for yet again being so careless with himself. He was held in UW Hospital for a few days. Held, because he could not leave of his own volition. What Lionel remembered with great clarity was the pain in his lower back: a hot ache just over his sacrum that throbbed all night. The doctor frowned at his EKG. The nurses spent a lot of time monitoring his respiration rate and his blood pressure. They told him to calm down and to think positive thoughts. They asked him about what he did, what he studied, said that he was young, that he was healthy, that he was okay, safe. He didn’t have to be so afraid. But his pulse stayed high, and eventually they had to give him a sedative, and he dropped into a blank void of sleep.

• From Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (2022)

  partners in the earlier merger took back their two California stores, and Harold was left with the rest of the California stores. To keep competing with Kmart, Harold started taking the wealth he and Shirley had accumulated over two decades and invested it in a futile attempt to save his business. Within a few years, a piece of good luck fell in his path, in the form of an offer by Fred Meyer Inc. to buy him out. Fred Meyer was a successful regional discounter founded in Oregon and looking for a foothold in California. At the time, it had over forty stores in four states and had been a public company since 1960. He turned the offer down. Harold Staw eventually lost all of his retail operations, along with all his family’s accumulated wealth. The only thing that kept him and Shirley from becoming completely destitute was that fifty-year lease on the Montclair property. After ABC Stores was long gone, he was able to earn a bit of income by leasing it to other storefronts. Ironically, many of those tenants succumbed to the same refusal to adapt to the changing business landscape that was Harold’s undoing. CompUSA, for instance, made the list of 2002 Super Bowl advertisers that later went out of business as well as the list of Harold’s tenants. From the outside looking in at what happened to Harold Staw, it’s easy to see that he was ignoring some pretty clear signals that he was now in a losing game: his inability to compete with Kmart, the flight of the other independents in the face of the new environment, the attitude of his former merger partners, his close friend and attorney taking sides against him. If he didn’t have an opportunity to jettison ABC and profit from a position in Sage, he certainly had the chance afterward to get out on the favorable terms offered by Fred Meyer. Yet he nevertheless chose to keep investing in the doomed effort, eventually pouring in almost everything he had accumulated. The mystery of it all is why: What blinded such a nimble, flexible decision- maker to the clear signals right in front of him? How could some of the same behavior that helped him thrive (through grit, determination, and stick-to- itiveness) end up causing his failure (through inflexibility, intractability, and maybe even some hubris)?

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Maybe he’s had it wrong this whole time—it’s not that Abe and Tate bring it out of Nolan, and it’s not that Nolan brings it out of them. They’re always in the thick of violence. It moves through them like the Holy Ghost might—except the Holy Ghost never moved anybody to rape a girl or ruin her life. The Holy Ghost never moved anybody to bash a boy’s head in. There was some other god, then, a god for whom the spilling of blood was a prayer, an act of devotion. And they’ve been praying to that god their whole lives. The streetlights glow, and bits of grass stick up coarsely from the pools of shadow below them. Milton puts the butt of his hand to his eye, which is throbbing, low and deep. The pressure in his chest intensifies, and he thinks, in that moment, of cutting himself open to let it out. Toward home, then, he says to himself. Toward home. His steps are stiff, ragged, hard, but he keeps going. One foot in front of the other until he’s at his door. The lights are off. He unlocks the door and pushes it open with his hip. Then it’s down the stairs, into the warm cave of the basement. He tugs on the cord and the basement is once again bathed in dim, yellow light. His mouth is sour and skunky from vomit and spit. His hand feels filmy and gritty, from Abe’s come and blood and the dirt and the grass. He glances down and sees smudges on his palm, white mucosal remnants, like he’s squeezed snails or slugs. There was a time when he and Nolan were boys and playing out by the creek, when they’d catch frogs and other small animals and bash them with rocks until they resembled nothing like themselves or anything else. And when they got older, they shot deer and pulled fish from the river and held them up, grinning into cameras, smiling like Look what I’ve done. Milton turns and sees along the back wall of the basement his father’s work stand. Hard, flat wood with metal rivets to keep it in place. A string of knives hang along the wall. Milton puts his hand against one medium-size knife, touches its cold, silver surface. He takes it down and holds it against the fat of his palm. Nolan, he thinks. He slides the knife up, though not breaking skin. He presses it to the crease below his fingers. Nolan, he thinks again, and he puts the back of his hand against the table in the corner. He couldn’t cut his fingers off even if he wanted to. Not with this knife, its edge too dull, his bones too thick.