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 8 of 267 · 20 per page

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  kid decked out for his first prom, looking spiffy in a white tux and a black bow tie, his hair cut short and flat, his shoes freshly polished. My whole life seemed to spill out into the river, swirling away from me, everything I had ever been or ever wanted to be. I couldn't get my breath; I couldn't stay afloat; I couldn't tell which way to swim. A hallucination, I suppose, but it was as real as anything I would ever feel. I saw my parents calling to me from the far shoreline. I saw my brother and sister, all the townsfolk, the mayor and the entire Chamber of Commerce and all my old teachers and girlfriends and high school buddies. Like some outlandish sporting event: everybody screaming from the sidelines, rooting me on—a loud stadium roar. Hotdogs and popcorn—stadium smells, stadium heat. A squad of cheerleaders did cartwheels along the banks of the Rainy River; they had megaphones and pompoms and smooth brown thighs. The crowd swayed left and right. A marching band played fight songs. All my aunts and uncles were there, and Abraham Lincoln, and Saint George, and a nine-year-old girl named Linda who had died of a brain tumor back in fifth grade, and several members of the United States Senate, and a blind poet scribbling notes, and LBJ, and Huck Finn, and Abbie Hoffman, and all the dead soldiers back from the grave, and the many thousands who were later to die —villagers with terrible burns, little kids without arms or legs—yes, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were there, and a couple of popes, and a first lieutenant named Jimmy Cross, and the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War, and Jane Fonda dressed up as Barbarella, and an old man sprawled beside a pigpen, and my grandfather, and Gary Cooper, and a kind-faced woman carrying an umbrella and a copy of Plato's Republic, and a million ferocious citizens waving flags of all shapes and colors—people in hard hats, people in headbands—they were all whooping and chanting and urging me toward one shore or the other. I saw faces from my distant past and distant future. My wife was there. My unborn daughter waved at me, and my two sons hopped up and down, and a drill sergeant named Blyton sneered and shot up a finger and shook his head. There was a choir in bright purple robes. There was a cabbie from the Bronx. There was a slim young man I would one day kill with a hand grenade along a red clay trail outside the village of My Khe. The little aluminum boat rocked softly beneath me. There was the wind and the sky. I tried to will myself overboard. I gripped the edge of the boat and leaned forward and thought, Now. I did try. It just wasn't possible.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  "Anyway," Rat said, "the days aren't so bad, but at night the pictures get to be a bitch. I start seeing my own body. Chunks of myself. My own heart, my own kidneys. It's like —I don't know—tt's like staring into this huge black crystal ball. One of these nights I'll be lying dead out there in the dark and nobody'll find me except the bugs—I can see it—I can see the goddamn bugs chewing tunnels through me—I can see the mongooses munching on my bones. I swear, it's too much. I can't keep seeing myself dead." Mitchell Sanders nodded. He didn't know what to say. For a time they sat watching the shadows come, then Rat shook his head. He said he'd done his best. He'd tried to be a decent medic. Win some and lose some, he said, but he'd tried hard. Briefly then, rambling a little, he talked about a few of the guys who were gone now, Curt Lemon and Kiowa and Ted Lavender, and how crazy it was that people who were so incredibly alive could get so incredibly dead. Then he almost laughed. "This whole war," he said. "You know what it is? Just one big banquet. Meat, man. You and me. Everybody. Meat for the bugs." The next morning he shot himself. He took off his boots and socks, laid out his medical kit, doped himself up, and put a round through his foot. Nobody blamed him, Sanders said. Before the chopper came, there was time for goodbyes. Lieutenant Cross went over and said he'd vouch that it was an accident. Henry Dobbins and Azar gave him a stack of comic books for hospital reading. Everybody stood in a little circle, feeling bad about it, trying to cheer him up with bullshit about the great night life in Japan. The Lives of the Dead But this too is true: stories can save us. I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, and even still, right here, I keep dreaming Linda alive. And Ted Lavender, too, and Kiowa, and Curt Lemon, and a slim young man I killed, and an old man sprawled beside a pigpen, and several others whose bodies I once lifted and dumped into a truck. They're all dead. But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  On his twelfth revolution, the sky went crazy with color. He pulled into Sunset Park and stopped in the shadow of a picnic shelter. After a time he got out, walked down to the beach, and waded into the lake without undressing. The water felt warm against his skin. He put his head under. He opened his lips, very slightly, for the taste, then he stood up and folded his arms and watched the fireworks. For a small town, he decided, it was a pretty good show. Notes "Speaking of Courage" was written in 1975 at the suggestion of Norman Bowker, who three years later hanged himself in the locker room of a YMCA in his hometown in central Iowa. In the spring of 1975, near the time of Saigon's final collapse, I received a long, disjointed letter in which Bowker described the problem of finding a meaningful use for his life after the war. He had worked briefly as an automotive parts salesman, a janitor, a car wash attendant, and a short-order cook at the local A&W fast-food franchise. None of these jobs, he said, had lasted more than ten weeks. He lived with his parents, who supported him, and who treated him with kindness and obvious love. At one point he had enrolled in the junior college in his hometown, but the course work, he said, seemed too abstract, too distant, with nothing real or tangible at stake, certainly not the stakes of a war. He dropped out after eight months. He spent his mornings in bed. In the afternoons he played pickup basketball at the Y, and then at night he drove around town in his father's car, mostly alone, or with a six-pack of beer, cruising. "The thing is," he wrote, "there's no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean. It's almost like I got killed over in Nam ... Hard to describe. That night when Kiowa got wasted, I sort of sank down into the sewage with him ... Feels like I'm still in deep shit." The letter covered seventeen handwritten pages, its tone jumping from self-pity to anger to irony to guilt to a kind of feigned indifference. He didn't know what to feel. In the middle of the letter, for example, he reproached himself for complaining too much: God, this is starting to sound like some jerkoff vet crying in his beer. Sorry about that. I'm no basket case—not even any bad dreams. And I don't feel like anybody mistreats me or anything, except sometimes people act too nice, too polite, like they're afraid they might ask the wrong question ... But I shouldn't bitch. One thing I hate

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  Mitchell Sanders made a sound in his throat. He hoisted up the rucksack, slipped into the harness, and pulled the straps tight. "All right, but this much for sure. The man knew it was raining. He knew about the river. One plus one. Add it up, you get exactly what happened." Sanders glared at the river. "Move it," he said. "Kiowa's waiting on us." Slowly then, bending against the rain, Azar and Norman Bowker and Mitchell Sanders began wading again through the deep waters, their eyes down, circling out from where they had found the rucksack. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross stood fifty meters away. He had finished writing the letter in his head, explaining things to Kiowa's father, and now he folded his arms and watched his platoon crisscrossing the wide field. In a funny way, it reminded him of the municipal golf course in his hometown in New Jersey. A lost ball, he thought. Tired players searching through the rough, sweeping back and forth in long systematic patterns. He wished he were there right now. On the sixth hole. Looking out across the water hazard that fronted the small flat green, a seven iron in his hand, calculating wind and distance, wondering if he should reach instead for an eight. A tough decision, but all you could ever lose was a ball. You did not lose a player. And you never had to wade out into the hazard and spend the day searching through the slime. Jimmy Cross did not want the responsibility of leading these men. He had never wanted it. In his sophomore year at Mount Sebastian College he had signed up for the Reserve Officer Training Corps without much thought. An automatic thing: because his friends had joined, and because it was worth a few credits, and because it seemed preferable to letting the draft take him. He was unprepared. Twenty-four years old and his heart wasn't in it. Military matters meant nothing to him. He did not care one way or the other about the war, and he had no desire to command, and even after all these months in the bush, all the days and nights, even then he did not know enough to keep his men out of a shit field. What he should've done, he told himself, was follow his first impulse. In the late afternoon yesterday, when they reached the night coordinates, he

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  kid decked out for his first prom, looking spiffy in a white tux and a black bow tie, his hair cut short and flat, his shoes freshly polished. My whole life seemed to spill out into the river, swirling away from me, everything I had ever been or ever wanted to be. I couldn't get my breath; I couldn't stay afloat; I couldn't tell which way to swim. A hallucination, I suppose, but it was as real as anything I would ever feel. I saw my parents calling to me from the far shoreline. I saw my brother and sister, all the townsfolk, the mayor and the entire Chamber of Commerce and all my old teachers and girlfriends and high school buddies. Like some outlandish sporting event: everybody screaming from the sidelines, rooting me on—a loud stadium roar. Hotdogs and popcorn—stadium smells, stadium heat. A squad of cheerleaders did cartwheels along the banks of the Rainy River; they had megaphones and pompoms and smooth brown thighs. The crowd swayed left and right. A marching band played fight songs. All my aunts and uncles were there, and Abraham Lincoln, and Saint George, and a nine-year-old girl named Linda who had died of a brain tumor back in fifth grade, and several members of the United States Senate, and a blind poet scribbling notes, and LBJ, and Huck Finn, and Abbie Hoffman, and all the dead soldiers back from the grave, and the many thousands who were later to die —villagers with terrible burns, little kids without arms or legs—yes, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were there, and a couple of popes, and a first lieutenant named Jimmy Cross, and the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War, and Jane Fonda dressed up as Barbarella, and an old man sprawled beside a pigpen, and my grandfather, and Gary Cooper, and a kind-faced woman carrying an umbrella and a copy of Plato's Republic, and a million ferocious citizens waving flags of all shapes and colors—people in hard hats, people in headbands—they were all whooping and chanting and urging me toward one shore or the other. I saw faces from my distant past and distant future. My wife was there. My unborn daughter waved at me, and my two sons hopped up and down, and a drill sergeant named Blyton sneered and shot up a finger and shook his head. There was a choir in bright purple robes. There was a cabbie from the Bronx. There was a slim young man I would one day kill with a hand grenade along a red clay trail outside the village of My Khe. The little aluminum boat rocked softly beneath me. There was the wind and the sky. I tried to will myself overboard. I gripped the edge of the boat and leaned forward and thought, Now. I did try. It just wasn't possible.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  The field was boiling. The shells made deep slushy craters, opening up all those years of waste, centuries worth, and the smell came bubbling out of the earth. Two rounds hit close by. Then a third, even closer, and immediately, off to his left, he heard somebody screaming. It was Kiowa— he knew that. The sound was ragged and clotted up, but even so he knew the voice. A strange gargling noise. Rolling sideways, he crawled toward the screaming in the dark. The rain was hard and steady. Along the perimeter there were quick bursts of gunfire. Another round hit nearby, spraying up shit and water, and for a few moments he ducked down beneath the mud. He heard the valves in his heart. He heard the quick, feathering action of the hinges. Extraordinary, he thought. As he came up, a pair of red flares puffed open, a soft blurry glow, and in the glow he saw Kiowa's wide- open eyes settling down into the scum. All he could do was watch. He heard himself moan. Then he moved again, crabbing forward, but when he got there Kiowa was almost completely under. There was a knee. There was an arm and a gold wrist-watch and part of a boot. He could not describe what happened next, not ever, but he would've tried anyway. He would've spoken carefully so as to make it real for anyone who would listen. There were bubbles where Kiowa's head should've been. The left hand was curled open; the fingers were filthy; the wristwatch gave off a green phosphorescent shine as it slipped beneath the thick waters. He would've talked about this, and how he grabbed Kiowa by the boot and tried to pull him out. He pulled hard but Kiowa was gone, and then suddenly he felt himself going, too. The shit was in his nose and eyes. There were flares and mortar rounds, and the stink was everywhere—it was inside him, in his lungs—and he could no longer tolerate it. Not here, he thought. Not like this. He released Kiowa's boot and watched it slide away. Slowly, working his way up, he hoisted himself out of the deep mud, and then he lay still and tasted the shit in his mouth and closed his eyes and listened to the rain and explosions and bubbling sounds. He was alone. He had lost his weapon but it didn't matter. All he wanted was a bath. Nothing else. A hot soapy bath. Circling the lake, Norman Bowker remembered how his friend Kiowa had disappeared under the waste and water. "I didn't flip out," he would've said. "I was cool. If things had gone right, if it hadn't been for that smell, I could've won the Silver Star."

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  sister, who would not write back, but for now it was a question of pain. He shot off the tail. He shot away chunks of meat below the ribs. All around us there was the smell of smoke and filth and deep greenery, and the evening was humid and very hot. Rat went to automatic. He shot randomly, almost casually, quick little spurts in the belly and butt. Then he reloaded, squatted down, and shot it in the left front knee. Again the animal fell hard and tried to get up, but this time it couldn't quite make it. It wobbled and went down sideways. Rat shot it in the nose. He bent forward and whispered something, as if talking to a pet, then he shot it in the throat. All the while the baby buffalo was silent, or almost silent, just a light bubbling sound where the nose had been. It lay very still. Nothing moved except the eyes, which were enormous, the pupils shiny black and dumb. Rat Kiley was crying. He tried to say something, but then cradled his rifle and went off by himself. The rest of us stood in a ragged circle around the baby buffalo. For a time no one spoke. We had witnessed something essential, something brand-new and profound, a piece of the world so startling there was not yet a name for it. Somebody kicked the baby buffalo. It was still alive, though just barely, just in the eyes. "Amazing," Dave Jensen said. "My whole life, I never seen anything like it." "Never?" "Not hardly. Not once." Kiowa and Mitchell Sanders picked up the baby buffalo. They hauled it across the open square, hoisted it up, and dumped it in the village well. Afterward, we sat waiting for Rat to get himself together. "Amazing," Dave Jensen kept saying. "A new wrinkle. I never seen it before." Mitchell Sanders took out his yo-yo. "Well, that's Nam," he said. "Garden of Evil. Over here, man, every sin's real fresh and original." How do you generalize? War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  scrambler radio, which weighed 30 pounds with its battery. They shared the weight of memory. They took up what others could no longer bear. Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak. They carried infections. They carried chess sets, basketballs, Vietnamese-English dictionaries, insignia of rank, Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts, plastic cards imprinted with the Code of Conduct. They carried diseases, among them malaria and dysentery. They carried lice and ringworm and leeches and paddy algae and various rots and molds. They carried the land itself—Vietnam, the place, the soil—a powdery orange-red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces. They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity. They moved like mules. By daylight they took sniper fire, at night they were mortared, but it was not battle, it was just the endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost. They marched for the sake of the march. They plodded along slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking, all blood and bone, simple grunts, soldiering with their legs, toiling up the hills and down into the paddies and across the rivers and up again and down, just humping, one step and then the next and then another, but no volition, no will, because it was automatic, it was anatomy, and the war was entirely a matter of posture and carriage, the hump was everything, a kind of inertia, a kind of emptiness, a dullness of desire and intellect and conscience and hope and human sensibility. Their principles were in their feet. Their calculations were biological. They had no sense of strategy or mission. They searched the villages without knowing what to look for, not caring, kicking over jars of rice, frisking children and old men, blowing tunnels, sometimes setting fires and sometimes not, then forming up and moving on to the next village, then other villages, where it would always be the same. They carried their own lives. The pressures were enormous. In the heat of early afternoon, they would remove their helmets and flak jackets, walking bare, which was dangerous but which helped ease the strain. They would often discard things along the route of march. Purely for comfort, they would throw away rations, blow their Claymores and grenades, no matter, because by nightfall the resupply choppers would arrive with more of the same, then a day or two later still more, fresh watermelons and crates of ammunition and sunglasses and woolen sweaters —the resources were stunning—sparklers for the Fourth of July, colored eggs for Easter—it was the great American war chest—the fruits of science,

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  σὈκωρέω, to watch figs, Poll. 7. 143 :—otKwpés, dv, (ὥρα) watching Jigs, Id. 7. 140, 143, Phot.; but in Schol. Ar. Pl. 874, Ξε συκοφάντης. σύκωσις [Ὁ]. 7, an ulcer resembling a fig ripe to bursting, with pro- jecting edges, esp. on the eyelids, Foés. Oecon. Hipp. ; cf. σῦκον 11. σῦὕκωτός, 7, Ov, fed on figs, ἧπαρ ove. the liver of an animal so fatted, Lat. jecur ficatum, Oribas., cf. Salmas. Solin. 743 F. II. made of figs, συκωτά, τά, Galen. otha, τά, v. sub σύλη. ovA-Gywyéw, (σῦλον) to carry off as booty, lead captive, τινα Heliod. το. 35, Ep. Col. 2. 8. II. to rob, despoil, τὸν οἶκον Aristaen. 2. 22. ctAaywyta, 7, robbery, Epiphan. 56 D. otAdw, impf. contr. even in Ep. ἐσύλα, σύλα Il. 6. 28., 4. 116, Ion. 3 impf. σύλασκε Hes. Sc. 480:—Pass., fut. συληθήσομαι Aesch. Pr. 761, and συλήσομαι in same sense, Paus. 4. 7, 10. (From σῦλον, σύλη, v. sub σκύλον.) To strip off, esp. to strip off the arms of a slain enemy, Hom. (only in Il.), Pind., etc. Construction : 1. in full, c. acc. pers. et rei, ἕο strip off from another, strip him of his arms, (cf. σκυ- λεύω), μή μιν ᾽Αχαιοὶ τεύχεα συλήσωσι 1]. 15. 428., 16. 500; ἔπειτα δὲ καὶ τὰ (sc. ἔναρα) .. νεκροὺς ἂμ πεδίον συλήσετε 6. 71; συλᾶς με κασίγνητον Eur, 1. Τ᾿. 157; σ. τὴν θεὸν τοὺς στεφάνους Dem. 616. το :--- Pass., c. acc. rei, to be stript, robbed, deprived of a thing, σκῆπτρα συλη- θήσεται Aesch. Pr. 761; ταῦτ᾽ (sc. τὰ τόξα) ἐσυλήθην ἔγώ Soph. Ph. 413; λέκτρα συλᾶσθαι Bia Eur. 1. A. 1275; συληθεὶς τὰς βοῦς Isocr. 119 D; σεσυλήμεθα τὰ ἡμέτερα ὑπὸ τούτων Dem. 9321. 21. Ὁ: Οὐ ἀοὸ. pels: only, ἕο strip, strip of his arms, ἢ τινα συλήσων νεκύων Il. 10. 343, 387: to strip bare, pillage, plunder, τὰ ἱρά, τοὺς θεούς, etc., Hdt. 6. 101, Plat., etc.; θεῶν βρέτη Aesch. Pers. 810; νεκρόν Plat. Rep. 469 Ὁ :—Pass., συλᾶσθαι βαρβάρων ὕπο Eur. Hel. 600. 3. c. acc. rei only, 70 strip off, ὄφρα τάχιστα τεύχεα συλήσειε Il. 4. 466, etc. ; often with additions, ἀπ᾽ duov τεύχε᾽ ἐσύλα 6. 28, etc.; τὰ μὲν ἔντε᾽ ἀπὸ χροὸς... συλήσας 13. 640 :—then, b. to take off or out, ἐσύλα τόξον took out the bow [from its case], Il. 4.105; σύλα πῶμα φαρέτρης took the lid off the quiver, Ib. 116; with a notion of violence or suddenness, o. κρᾶτα Medoicas Pind. P. 12. 28. 6. to carry off, τοὺς πολεμίους οὐ συλήσειν αὐτά (sc. τὰ χρήματα) will not seize them as booty, Hdt. 5.36, οἵ. ο.ττό; σ. θεῶν γέρα Aesch. Pr. 83, cf. Soph. O. C. 922, Ph. 1363; συλ. τῷ λόγῳ τὰ τῶν προγόνων ἔργα Dem. 442. 7:—Pass. to be carried off as spoil, σεσυλημένον ἄγαλμα Hat. 6. 118; to be taken away, Eur. Hipp. 799; metaph., συλᾶται ὕπνος ἀπὸ yAepapwy Bacchyl, 13. 10. 4. after Hom., c. acc. pers. et gen.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  δράω, subj. δρῶ, δρᾷς, δρᾷ, opt. δρῷμι, Ep. δρώοιμι Od. 15. 317, no- where else in Hom. (cf. ὑποδρήσσω)ν : impf. ἔδρων : fut. δράσω: aor. 1 ἔδρᾶσα, Ion. ἔδρησα Theogn. 954: pf. δέδρᾶκα :—Pass., aor. 1 ἐδράσθην, δρασθείς Thuc. 3. 38., 6.53: pf. δέδρᾶμαι, never δέδρασμαι; for in Thuc. 3. 54 δεδραμένων must be restored from Mss.: (Curt. compares Lith. darau, facio). To do, be doing, accomplish, fulfil, Lat. agere, often in Att. Prose and Poetry, esp. to do some great thing, good or bad, cf. Lat. facinus, (acc. to Arist. Poét. 3, δρᾶν was the equiv. Dor. verb for Att. πράττειν), αἶψά κεν ed δρώοιμι μετὰ σφίσιν, ὅττι θέλοιεν Od. 15. 317 (where the Schol. interprets it διακονοίην, δουλεύοιμι, I would serve .. , cf. δρηστής) :—then, as opp. to πάσχω, often in Trag., εὖ δρῶ- σαν, εὖ πάσχουσαν Aesch. Eun. 868; ἄξια δράσας ἄξια πάσχων Id. Ag. 1527; κακῶς δράσαντες οὐκ ἐλάσσονα πάσχουσι Id. Pers. 813; of one in extreme perplexity, τί πάθω : τί δὲ δρῶ ; Id. Theb. 1057, cf. Cho. 899; δρῶν ἀντιπάσχω χρηστά Soph. Ph. 584; proverb., “δράσαντι made’ τριγέρων μῦθος τάδε φωνεῖ Aesch. Cho. 313 (ubi v. Blomf.) ; δράσαντι yap τοι καὶ παθεῖν ὀφείλεται Id. Fr. 267, cf. Soph. Ο. T. 1272 (v. sub pew) ; also, πεπονθότα .. μᾶλλον ἢ δεδρακότα things of suffering rather than of doing, Id. O. C. 267, best explained by Shakspere’s ‘ more sinned against than sinning ;’ (the acts being represented as if they were the man himself) ;—6 δρῶν the doer, whoever he be, Aesch. Ag. 1359, Soph., etc.; ὁ δράσας, the doer, the culprit, Plat. Legg. 878 B, cf. Soph. Tr. 1108; ὁ δεδρακώς Id. O. T. 246 :—c. dupl. acc., of ἔργ᾽ 6 παῖς μ᾽ ἔδρασεν Id. Ph. 946, cf. O. C. 854, etc.; also with an Adv., εὖ, κακῶς δρᾶν τινα to do one a good or ill turn, Theogn. 108, Soph. Aj. 1154; also, δρᾶν τι εἴς τινα Soph. O.C. 976; τί τινι O. T. 1402 :--- πάντα δρᾶν to try every way, Valck. Hipp. 284; τὸ δρῶν the doing of the thing, Soph. O.C. 1604, cf. Herm. Tr. 195; τὰ δρώμενα what is doing or being done, O. C. 1644; τί δράσω ; to express helplessness or despair, Aj. 999, 920, etc.; for οἶσθ᾽ οὖν ὃ δρᾶσον ; ν. *etdw fin. II. ὁ δρῶν, qui sacra facit, Ο. 1. 214. 24. 11. 2. as Medic. 387 δράω, δρῶ (B), =dpaw, E. M. 287. 7, A. B. 549. δρεπάνη [a], ἡ, (δρέπων) a sickle, reaping-hook, ἥμων ὀξείας δρεπάνας ἐν χερσὶν ἔχοντες 1]. 18. 551: a pruning-hook, ἐτρύγων .. δρεπάνας ἐν x: ἐχ. Hes. Sc. 292 :—rare in Prose, Plut. Cleom. 26.—Cf. δρέπανον. δρεπανηΐς, ἴδος, 7, poét. for foreg., Nic. ap. Steph. B. 5. v. Ζάγκλη. δρεπᾶνη-φόρος, ov, bearing a scythe or hook, ἅρμα δ. a scythed cat, Lat. currus falcatus, Xen. An. 1. 7, 10, etc. δρεπάνιον, τό, Dim. of δρέπανον, Seleuc. ap. Ath. 155 E.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  a few moments and then vomited again; another time, in the middle of the afternoon, I began sweating and couldn't shut it off. I went through whole days feeling dizzy with sorrow. I couldn't sleep; I couldn't lie still. At night I'd toss around in bed, half awake, half dreaming, imagining how I'd sneak down to the beach and quietly push one of the old man's boats out into the river and start paddling my way toward Canada. There were times when I thought I'd gone off the psychic edge. I couldn't tell up from down, I was just falling, and late in the night I'd lie there watching bizarre pictures spin through my head. Getting chased by the Border Patrol—helicopters and searchlights and barking dogs—I'd be crashing through the woods, I'd be down on my hands and knees—people shouting out my name—the law closing in on all sides—my hometown draft board and the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It all seemed crazy and impossible. Twenty-one years old, an ordinary kid with all the ordinary dreams and ambitions, and all I wanted was to live the life I was born to—a mainstream life—I loved baseball and hamburgers and cherry Cokes—and now I was off on the margins of exile, leaving my country forever, and it seemed so grotesque and terrible and sad. I'm not sure how I made it through those six days. Most of it I can't remember. On two or three afternoons, to pass some time, I helped Elroy get the place ready for winter, sweeping down the cabins and hauling in the boats, little chores that kept my body moving. The days were cool and bright. The nights were very dark. One morning the old man showed me how to split and stack firewood, and for several hours we just worked in silence out behind his house. At one point, I remember, Elroy put down his maul and looked at me for a long time, his lips drawn as if framing a difficult question, but then he shook his head and went back to work. The man's self-control was amazing. He never pried. He never put me in a position that required lies or denials. To an extent, I suppose, his reticence was typical of that part of Minnesota, where privacy still held value, and even if I'd been walking around with some horrible deformity—four arms and three heads—I'm sure the old man would've talked about everything except those extra arms and heads. Simple politeness was part of it. But even more than that, I think, the man understood that words were insufficient. The problem had gone beyond discussion. During that long summer I'd been over and over the various arguments, all the pros and cons,

• From Shunned (2018)

  Did it make sense to at least consider returning to Portland? I’d fallen into a vapid existence, working, sleeping, eating, struggling to retain some warmth, some aliveness, through a dark and frigid season. What was the point of such an existence? If I didn’t say yes to these offers, or at least entertain them, they might stop coming, and then where would I be? Stuck. Stuck in traffic, stuck in life, a pitiful divorced woman with uncertain professional prospects and no community. Maybe Mom was right: the world was a cold, hard place, and I’d set myself up to get knocked around. “You reap what you sow.” “Pride comes before a crash.” “Satan is a cruel master—he’ll cheat you out of life.” Just then, emanating from the car speakers came the gentle sound of a single acoustic guitar, playing a tune I’d not heard for a while but recognized immediately. It was delicate in tone, each note standing on its own, with a pacing that slowed me down, capturing my attention. I turned up the volume as Bonnie Raitt sang the plaintive tale of “Nobody’s Girl,” her voice nuanced with a wistful melancholy, She’s fragile like a string of pearls, she’s nobody’s girl. I burst into tears. Yes, that is what I am. Fragile. Alone. Nobody’s girl. I didn’t belong anywhere—not in the Chicago banking world, where I couldn’t seem to make a sale, but not in Portland, either; not at the Kingdom Hall; not with my family; not with Steve; not with Ross. The lyrics seared my chest like a branding iron. All this internal waffling, this confusion, this feeling deeply and utterly lost. What have I done with my life? Where do I belong? The lament in the lyrics weaved around the raw, simple sounds of the guitar. I was getting very heated and had to unbutton my jacket and crack the windows for air. Was I a fool to think I could have freedom and spiritual fulfillment at the same time? Was that possible for anyone? I cried so hard I got the hiccups. I was perilously close to being completely unstrung, barely holding it together. The final, lilting refrain repeated over and over until it faded out. Later that week, Lory called to say hello and found me at home, cooking dinner, surrounded by boiling pots of water, colander at the ready, fish wrapped in foil, fresh vegetables waiting to be cleaned and chopped. I’d been so down in the dumps, I’d eaten nothing but takeout food for several days. I’d finally had enough and had sought refuge in my own kitchen. It was a warm way to fill an evening, doing something I enjoyed. Just pulling it all together lifted my spirits, a tangible accomplishment.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil. Listen to Rat Kiley. Cooze, he says. He does not say bitch. He certainly does not say woman, or girl. He says cooze. Then he spits and stares. He's nineteen years old—it's too much for him—so he looks at you with those big sad gentle killer eyes and says cooze, because his friend is dead, and because it's so incredibly sad and true: she never wrote back. You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth; if you don't care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty. Listen to Rat: "Jesus Christ, man, I write this beautiful fuckin’ letter, I slave over it, and what happens? The dumb cooze never writes back." The dead guy's name was Curt Lemon. What happened was, we crossed a muddy river and marched west into the mountains, and on the third day we took a break along a trail junction in deep jungle. Right away, Lemon and Rat Kiley started goofing. They didn't understand about the spookiness. They were kids; they just didn't know. A nature hike, they thought, not even a war, so they went off into the shade of some giant trees—quadruple canopy, no sunlight at all—and they were giggling and calling each other yellow mother and playing a silly game they'd invented. The game involved smoke grenades, which were harmless unless you did stupid things, and what they did was pull out the pin and stand a few feet apart and play catch under the shade of those huge trees. Whoever chickened out was a yellow mother. And if nobody chickened out, the grenade would make a light popping sound and they'd be covered with smoke and they'd laugh and dance around and then do it again. It's all exactly true.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  walked out of the plant and drove home. It was midmorning, I remember, and the house was empty. Down in my chest there was still that leaking sensation, something very warm and precious spilling out, and I was covered with blood and hog-stink, and for a long while I just concentrated on holding myself together. I remember taking a hot shower. I remember packing a suitcase and carrying it out to the kitchen, standing very still for a few minutes, looking carefully at the familiar objects all around me. The old chrome toaster, the telephone, the pink and white Formica on the kitchen counters. The room was full of bright sunshine. Everything sparkled. My house, I thought. My life. I'm not sure how long I stood there, but later I scribbled out a short note to my parents. What it said, exactly, I don't recall now. Something vague. Taking off, will call, love Tim. I drove north. It's a blur now, as it was then, and all I remember is velocity and the feel of a steering wheel in my hands. I was riding on adrenaline. A giddy feeling, in a way, except there was the dreamy edge of impossibility to it— like running a dead-end maze—no way out—it couldn't come to a happy conclusion and yet I was doing it anyway because it was all I could think of to do. It was pure flight, fast and mindless. I had no plan. Just hit the border at high speed and crash through and keep on running. Near dusk I passed through Bemidji, then turned northeast toward International Falls. I spent the night in the car behind a closed-down gas station a half mile from the border. In the morning, after gassing up, I headed straight west along the Rainy River, which separates Minnesota from Canada, and which for me separated one life from another. The land was mostly wilderness. Here and there I passed a motel or bait shop, but otherwise the country unfolded in great sweeps of pine and birch and sumac. Though it was still August, the air already had the smell of October, football season, piles of yellow-red leaves, everything crisp and clean. I remember a huge blue sky. Off to my right was the Rainy River, wide as a lake in places, and beyond the Rainy River was Canada.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  As he looked back on his life the year before he died, and wrote a brief autobiography as the preface to his collected Latin works, Luther remembered how important his encounter with the text of Romans had been. “Up till then it was not the cold blood about the heart,” he wrote, referring to his emotional state of melancholy, “but a single word in chapter 1[:17], ‘In it the righteousness of God is revealed,’ that had stood in my way. For I hated that word ‘righteousness of God,’ which…I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding the formal or active righteousness, as they called it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner.” Luther had tried to be a perfect monk, yet “I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience….I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners.” 35 Yet the manuscript commentary on this passage in his lectures from 1515–16 cited Augustine and stated much more soberly that “the righteousness of God is the cause of salvation…the righteousness by which we are made righteous by God. This happens through faith in the Gospel.” It would probably not have been obvious at the time, not even to Luther, that this was anything other than orthodox Augustinianism. 36 The implications of this intellectual breakthrough did not become evident at once, but gradually emerged over the next years, as Luther lectured on the Psalms, Hebrews, and Galatians, and engaged closely with the biblical text; indeed, as we shall see, he dated it much later, to 1519. 37 Intellectual work clearly suited him. Alongside studying theology he had taught from the outset, and now the experience of lecturing, together with his doctorate, may have conferred a sense of authority. His first proper work, however, a translation into German and exposition of the seven Penitential Psalms, did not appear until 1517. 38 As Luther explained, his translation drew on the old Latin Vulgate of Jerome but he corrected it by referring to the Hebrew edition of the humanist Johannes Reuchlin, the leading Hebraist of the time. The proud author wrote to Lang that, even if it pleased no one else, it did please him. This work was not, so he wrote to Scheurl in Nuremberg, intended for an academic audience: It was not even aimed at highly educated Nurembergers but at “rough Saxons.” Luther was certainly wrong about this, for the price of the book, and its polished literacy, might have made it just about accessible to the Wittenberg elite, but hardly to most Saxons. 39 On the face of it, it was surprising that Luther so rapidly became a central figure in the new university. He was neither senior in age, nor of higher social class, and before 1517 he had published virtually nothing.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  "Anyway," Rat said, "the days aren't so bad, but at night the pictures get to be a bitch. I start seeing my own body. Chunks of myself. My own heart, my own kidneys. It's like —I don't know—tt's like staring into this huge black crystal ball. One of these nights I'll be lying dead out there in the dark and nobody'll find me except the bugs—I can see it—I can see the goddamn bugs chewing tunnels through me—I can see the mongooses munching on my bones. I swear, it's too much. I can't keep seeing myself dead." Mitchell Sanders nodded. He didn't know what to say. For a time they sat watching the shadows come, then Rat shook his head. He said he'd done his best. He'd tried to be a decent medic. Win some and lose some, he said, but he'd tried hard. Briefly then, rambling a little, he talked about a few of the guys who were gone now, Curt Lemon and Kiowa and Ted Lavender, and how crazy it was that people who were so incredibly alive could get so incredibly dead. Then he almost laughed. "This whole war," he said. "You know what it is? Just one big banquet. Meat, man. You and me. Everybody. Meat for the bugs." The next morning he shot himself. He took off his boots and socks, laid out his medical kit, doped himself up, and put a round through his foot. Nobody blamed him, Sanders said. Before the chopper came, there was time for goodbyes. Lieutenant Cross went over and said he'd vouch that it was an accident. Henry Dobbins and Azar gave him a stack of comic books for hospital reading. Everybody stood in a little circle, feeling bad about it, trying to cheer him up with bullshit about the great night life in Japan. The Lives of the Dead But this too is true: stories can save us. I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, and even still, right here, I keep dreaming Linda alive. And Ted Lavender, too, and Kiowa, and Curt Lemon, and a slim young man I killed, and an old man sprawled beside a pigpen, and several others whose bodies I once lifted and dumped into a truck. They're all dead. But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  As a new mother, I used to cup my son’s downy head with wild tenderness and marvel at his heavy slump in my arms, and for the few moments his china-blue eyes fixed on mine before they closed, it was as if the sky had been boiled down and rendered into that small gaze. Those first months, I fed him from myself. And doing so felt like the first true and good act I’d managed in my whole slipshod life. Then I started drinking every day and stopped breastfeeding, and tonight, while holding the bottle to his working mouth, I averted my eyes for fear he’d see the gutshot animal I’m morphing into, which mirrors the mother I fled to keep from becoming, the one who shoved me off—Don’t hug me, you’re making me hot her tagline. Problem five, the husband: Should he come home early after work and grad school, should he round the corner and peer in with an expectant grin, I’ll shoo him away. Sex of the calf-roping variety still takes place, but otherwise, I’d felt so alone with my son that first year when night after sleepless night I’d gotten up while the husband slept like a hog in his wallow with a white-noise machine to mask the loud misery I gave off—now we connect at no point. Now nights, I sit downstairs on the porch and stare into the black hole of the garage, which, in my childhood cosmology, was where my oil-worker daddy sat in the truck and drank himself to death. After he staggered into the house to pass out—first bumping against the sides of the hall like a train conductor—I’d go out to the garage and stand with my back to the wall, waiting for the headlights of my mother’s vehicle to come swerving up the dead-end street we lived on. Through sheer force of will, I’d draw her drunk ass home alive. Daddy was steady and stayed. Mother was an artist and left. Those two opposing colossi tore a rip in my chest I can’t seem to stitch shut. The garage faces me like an empty pit, and I sit on the house’s threshold facing it till the edges of the square hole go blurry. If I were a real poet, I’d be composing a sonnet about the fairy mist in yon oak. Instead, I stare at my finger with dwindling success, for behind it, the view is getting wavery, and in an attempt to adjust, to regain my bearings, I tip my face up slightly into summer rain, which move makes the world take an unprecedented lurch. My head pitches back like a Pez dispenser. The postage-stamp backyard whips from view. I am leaning the top of my head against the door when I spot for the zillionth time—Problem Six?—the burnt-out lightbulb I fail every day to change, the cartoon idea I every night fail to get.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  καταδᾶπᾶἄνάω, 20 squander, lavish, τὴν οὐσίαν Arist. Pol. 5. 12 18; τὸ στρωμάτων βάρος κ. εἰς τὰ ἐπιτήδεια Xen. Cyr. 6. 2, 30:— Pass., [τὰ χρήματα] καταδεδαπάνητό σφι Hdt. 5. 34:—Med. to be pr odig gal, Pyrrho ap. Ath. 410 E. II. to consume entirely, of an army, “Xen: An. 2. 2, 11; λιμὸς «. τινα Sotad. ap. Stob. 528. 21:—Pass., καταδαπανᾶσθαι xaxia, αἰκισμοῖς, etc., Lxx (Sap. 5. 14), Eccl. καταδἄπάνη, 7, expense, waste, Alex. Aphr. Probl. 2. 75. καταδαπανητικός, 77, dV, prodigal, cited from E. M. καταδάπτω, fut. -δαψω, to rend in pieces, devour, μή με ἔα .. κύνας καταδάψαι ᾿Αχαιῶν 1]. 22. 3393 κύνες τε καὶ οἰωνοὶ κατέδαψαν Od. 3. 259: metaph., καταδάπτεται ἦτορ, like δαίεται ἦτορ, 16. 92. καταδαρδάπτω, lengthd. for foreg., Hesych., Eccl. καταδαρθάνω, aor. κατέδαρθον, by poét. metath. κατέδρᾶθον, Hom. ; also aor. 2 pass. κατεδάρθην, 3 pl. κατέδαρθεν Ap. Rh. 2. 1227,—a tense mostly used by late writers, (for in Od. 5.471 Bekk. gives καταδράθω (act.) for —dpa0@ (pass.), and in Ar. Pl. 300 Pors. restored καταδαρ- θόντα for -δαρθέντα). To fall asleep, (v. infr.), mostly used in aor. to be asleep, sleep, ἐν θάμνοισι κατέδραθον Od. 7. 285, cf. 23.18; τὼ δ᾽ ἐς δέμνια βάντε κατέδραθον 8. 296; καδδραθέτην, for κατεδραθέτην, 15.494; εἰ δέ Kev... καταδράθω Οά. 5. 471; ἔασον... καταδαρθεῖν τί με Ar. Nub. 38; κατέδαρθεν εὐδαίμων Ar. Fr. 445 Δ, cf. Hipp. 1151 E, Xen. Ages. 9, 3:—in pres. to be just falling asleep, opp. to ἀνεγείρεσθαι (to be just waking), Plat. Phaedo 71 Ὁ, 72 B; pf. καταδεδαρθηκώς having fallen asleep, Id. Symp. 219 C. 2. simply 20 pass the night, κατέδαρθον ἐν Θησείῳ ἐν ὅπλοις Thue. 6. 61. καταδατέομαι, fut. -δάσομαι: Med.:—to divide among themselves, tear and devour, κατὰ πάντα δάσονται Il. 22. 354.—Pass., ὑπ᾿ ἰχθύων κατα- δασθῆναι (Cobet κατεδεσθῆναι) Luc. Demon. 35; καταδέδασται Hesych. with the interprr. καταβέβρωται, καταμεμέρισται. II. τὰν yay κατεδασσάμεθα divided it anew, Tab. Heracl. in C. 1. 5775. 28: cf. προσδατέομαι. καταδεδίττομαι, Dep. to Srighten exceedingly, to scare, Cyrill. καταδεής, ἔς, (καταδέω) wanting or failing in, lacking of, τινος Hdt. 2.121, 2: absol., of persons, poor, needy, Dem.141.1; #. τάφος a sorry, shabby burial, Plat. Legg. 719 E. 2. mostly in meee κατα- δεέστερος, weaker, inferior, Isocr. 16 B, 294 B, Dem., etc.; καταδε- ἐστερός τινος τῷ τάχει, πρὸς τὸ φρονεῖν Isocr. 27 D, 86 A. TE. Adv. -δεῶς, mostly i in Comp. καταδεέστερον. Isocr.gg A, 130 A, 240C, etc.; also, καταδεεστέρως ἔχειν περί τι to be very ill off in a thing, Dem. 1182. fin. καταδεής, és, (καταδείδων) very timid, Poll. 3. 136. καταδεῖ, impers. there is wanting, v. sub καταδέω. καταδείδω, only used in aor, -δεῖσαι, and (in Phalar. infr. cit.) fut. τδείσειν :—to fear greatly, τι Ar. Pax 759, Andoc. 29. 5, Thuc. 2. 93; περί τινος Philo 2. 102; μή .., Ib. 590. II. to put into great fear, scare, Phalar. Ep. 84.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  metaph., δολοποιὸς ἀν., i.e. the stratagem of Nessus, Soph. Tr. 822 ; βρόχων πλεκταῖς ἀνάγκαις Xenarch. Βουτ. 1. b. any con- straint or force, forcible treatment, application of mechanical force, τῶν ἀναγκῶν τινὰ προσφέρειν Hipp. Fract. 763, cf. Art. 813, 834. 4. in Poets for bodily pain, anguish, suffering, distress, κατ᾽ ἀνάγκην ἕρπειν painfully, Soph. Ph. 206; ὑπ᾽ ἀνάγκης βοᾶν Ib. 215; ὠδίνων ἀνάγκαι Eur. Bacch. 89, etc. IT. like Lat. necessitudo, the tie of blood, relationship, kindred, Andoc. 32. 14, Lys. 894. 20. (Prob. from the same Root as ἄγχω, ango, angustus, etc., Germ. eng; v. sub aykos.) ἀναγκό-δακρυς, v, shedding forced tears, Aesch. Fr. 407. dvayko-Qérnats, ews, 7, compulsion, coined by Oenom. ap. Eus. P. E. 260 (Ὁ, as a parody on νομοθέτησις. ἀναγκό-σῖτος, ov, eating perforce, i.e. getting what one can, epith. of parasites, Crates Incert. 6, Nicostr. Incert. 6. ἀναγκοτροφέω, (τρέφω) to eat perforce: to eat by regimen, not after one’s own appetite, like the athletes, Epict. Enchir. 29. 2. ἀναγκοφᾶἄγέω, --ἀναγκοτροφέω, Arr. Epict. 3. 15, 3: metaph., ἀν. τὰ πράγματα Theopomp. Hist. 301. ἀναγκοφαγία, 7, compulsory eating, the strict prescribed diet of athletes, Arist. Pol. 8. 4, 9. ἀναγκοφορέω, (φέρων to bear on compulsion, Dion. H. το. 16. ἀνάγκῦὕλος, ov, without thong (ἀγκύλη), of a javelin, Diod. 3. 8. ἀναγλῦκαίνω, to sweeten : Pass., to become sweet, Theophr. C. P. 3. 22, 3. ἀνάγλυπτος, ov, -- ἀνάγλυφος, Plin. H. N. 33. 49. avayAton, ἡ, work in low relief, Strabo 806. avayAtdos, ov, wrought in low relief, embossed, Byz.: τὸ avayA.= ἀναγλυφή, Clem. Al. 237. ἀναγνάμπτω, fut. Yw, to bend back, αἰχμὴ ἀνεγνάμφθη the spear-point was bent back, 1]. 3. 348., 7. 259, etc. 2. to undo, loose, δεσμὸν μὲν ἀνέγναμψαν θεοὶ αὐτοί Od. 14. 348. ἀναγνεία, ἡ, (ἁγνεύω) abominable wickedness, LXX (2 Macc. 4. 13). ἀνάγνιστοϑ, ον, unpurified, unexpiated, Orph. Arg. 1229. dvayvos, ov, impure, unclean, unholy, defiled, Aesch. Ag. 220, Cho. 986, Soph., etc.; ἄν. καὶ μιαρός Antiphot16.11. Adv. —vws, Poll. 1.32, Or. Sib. ἀνάγνωμα, v. sub ἀνάγνωσμα. avayvwpilw, to recognise, Plat. Polit. 258 A, Parm. 127 A, al. :—Med., Apollod. 3. 5, 5. 2. in a tragedy, to recognise or come to the know- ledge of a person, so as to produce a dénouement, Arist. Poét. 14, 13 sq., 17, 6:—in 16 it seems to have a causal sense, to make a person known. II. to recover knowledge possessed in a former state, Id, An. Pr. 2. 21, 7, cf. Plat. Meno 81 Θὲ ἀναγνώρισις, ews, 7, recognition, Plat. Theaet. 193 C. 2. in a tragedy, recognition, as leading to the dénouement (cf. foreg. 2), Arist. Poét. 11, 4., 16, I, etc. ;—in 26, 11, ἀναγνώσει was restored by Tyrwhitt. ἀναγνώρισμα, aros, τό, --ἴοτερ., Pseudo-Hipp. 300. 30. ἀναγνωρισμός, ὅ, --ἀναγνώρισις, Arist. Poét. 10, 2, Heliod. 7. 7, etc. ἀναγνωριστικός, 7), dv, contributing to recognition, Schol. Luc. Laps. 5. ἀναγνωσείω, Desiderat. of ἀναγιγνώσκω, to wish to read, Gloss.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  (Here, I mistrust my memory, which holds no long talk between us of the type I’d have insisted on if our roles were reversed.) He and Dev come every afternoon to eat dinner with me in a private room. I cry before they arrive, then weep when they stride out. I cry for Mother to come. She’s about to head off on a spiritual retreat in Mexico counseling other alcoholics. Ponder the likelihood of that one— Mother as sober guru. Landing here is final proof I can’t outrun her, but neither can I get her to spring into action for me. Our phone call is brief. I’m in the hospital, I say. I wanted to kill myself. That’s terrible, honey. Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself? No, I was gonna use carbon monoxide, but I never did anything. Why’d you pick that? She sounds curious, like somebody idly shopping for suicide attempts as she might a ball gown. You don’t make a mess. You leave a very livid corpse. That’s just awful. Does Warren have Dev? Yeah. I get to see him every afternoon. Warren seems like he wants to really work on things, but we’ve been living like strangers for so long. Y’all should work things out. I know, Mother, I know. Since I was sixteen, you’ve wanted to pawn me off in matrimony to somebody. I just want you to be taken care of.... This marriage hasn’t exactly brought comfort and succor, otherwise I might not have planned to cash in my chips. He’s just so sweet with Dev. I don’t suppose you want to come up and help out a few weeks. (Actually, Warren had said it’d be awkward, the two of them in the house alone. Despite that and despite a marrow-deep certainty that she’d never come, I want her to want to.) She says, I just can’t, honey. You know I’ve had this trip to Mexico planned for a while. After she hangs up, I cry because part of me still wants to drag her behind my car. But the other part still wants to crawl into her lap. On the phone, Lecia tells me to snap out of it. That’s a Republican thing to say, I say, sniveling. She’s a fixer, and her inability to fix my mood makes her crazy. Or afraid, or both. I’m serious, she says. Tell me what you’re so miserable about. Do you want me to come up there and kick somebody’s ass? What? I feel like I’ve turned into Mother, I tell her. This draws an actual guffaw from her. You are crazy, she says. You’re nothing at all like Mother. I’m here in the Mental Marriott, like her. Well, you pay your taxes, for one, she says. You never shot at anybody... Wanted to, I say. Who doesn’t, she says. Then she adds, Also, unlike Mother, you have a job. Several jobs, if you count writing a book and raising a kid. Your second book!