Fear

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Greatest Controversies of Early Christian History (2013)

  130 Lecture 20: Was Christianity an Illegal Religion? o Recall the story of Thecla in the last lecture, who abandoned her fi ancé to follow the apostle Paul. This story is not a historical report, but it’s entirely plausible; it made sense to Christian readers because they knew that such things happened.  Another major unit in the Roman world was the town or the city. Christians typically refused to participate in town and city festivals in honor of the gods. They were, in that sense, highly disruptive of society; more than that, they were seen as dangerous.  Christians were known to meet secretly, before dawn or after dark. They called one another brother and sister, and they greeted one another by kissing. They were known to eat the fl esh and drink the blood of the Son of God. These secret societies seemed dangerous because the behavior of their members was completely inappropriate. Charges of incest and cannibalism against Christians might seem unbelievable to us today, but they were widely believed in the Roman Empire. o The tutor of Marcus Aurelius, a man named Fronto, is quoted as leveling such charges in a book by a Christian author, Minucius Felix. The pagan Fronto says, “Indiscriminately they call each other brother and sister and thus turn even ordinary fornication into incest by the intervention of these hallowed names.” o Fronto goes on to describe how the Christians provoke a dog to put out the torch that lights their meetings, allowing the “brothers and sisters” to engage in sex. Even more horrifying, Fronto indicates that Christians engaged in infanticide and cannibalism. Such accusations resulted in persecutions. Grassroots Persecution  Early on in the history of the church, persecutions were not organized by the Roman administration itself; instead, they took place at the grassroots level. We see this fi rst in the New Testament, initially among Jews and, later, among pagans.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  Y’all go on and let her up.” The men tried to pull her to her feet but she buckled at the knees. Red grabbed her under one arm and Dockery held the other. Brother Terrell put his hand on her forehead. Her body stiffened.“Neeee neee naaaah lo si me lay lo. We speak in tongues, too, Brother Terrell.” As the girl spoke, small red marks appeared on her face and arms, a field of ripe strawberries.“Blood of Jesus. Blood of Jesus. Blood of Jesus. ”Brother Terrell dropped his hand from Doreen’s head and faced the congregation. “I need every one of you to keep your eyes closed and your hearts and minds on the Lord. Don’t let fear get a hold of you and don’t open your eyes, or next thing you know, the demon will be in you.”Laverne closed her eyes and covered Gary’s eyes with her hand. I squeezed my eyes shut, but they wouldn’t stay closed. Brother Terrell put his hands on the girl’s head. His face turned red and purple, just like when he was mad at one of us kids.“You foul spirit of death! Come out of this girl. In the name of Je-sus. Depart! I command you. Go!” His voice sounded stronger than it had in weeks.“Hallelujah. Stay with me, people. Keep your eyes closed. Doreen, can you hear me?”“I hear you. I hear you, Brother Terrell.” Doreen sounded like a normal girl and she smiled, a soft, pretty girl smile. Brother Terrell’s shoulders relaxed. Dockery and Red let go of her arms. She reached out to Brother Terrell as if to hug him, then spat in his face. A murmur of protest came from the crowd. Several men stepped toward Doreen, but Brother Terrell waved them away. He took his white handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face. Dockery backed the girl away from Brother Terrell, but she sidestepped him and charged the preacher headfirst. Brother Cotton stepped between them and took a blow in the stomach. He doubled over, hands clutching his sides.Doreen laughed. “What will you give me if I leave this girl, preacher?”“That’s enough!” Brother Terrell walked toward Doreen with his right hand outstretched. “I’ll not bargain with you, Satan.”“You will, Brother Terrell. You will.”“Keep your heads bowed and your eyes closed. Stretch your hands in this direction and believe with me, pray with me. I need every ounce of faith I can get tonight.”I was so frightened my teeth chattered, but my eyes would not stay closed. Arms and hands all over the auditorium beamed all the belief that could be summoned toward Brother Terrell and Doreen. Lips moved in incessant prayer, voices layered and formed a dense chorus.The voice that was not the voice of the girl rose above it all: “What will you give me if I leave Doreen?”The din quieted. We waited for Brother Terrell to answer, but all we heard was silence, a sure sign that something strange was going on.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  ing after our second night in the attic, a tank rolling by our front lawn? A green army tank, all alone in the long shadows of morning, its enormous treads clanking against the asphalt. An armor-plated military vehicle encountering no greater obstacle than a lost roller skate. The tank rolled past the affluent homes, the gables and turrets, the porte cocheres. It stopped briefly at the stop sign. The gun turret looked both ways, like a driver's ed student, and then the tank went on its way. What had happened: late Monday night, President Johnson, fi- nally giving in to Governor Romney's request, had ordered in federal troops. General John L. Throckmorton set up the headquarters of the 101st Airborne at Southeastern High, where my parents had gone to school. Though the fiercest rioting was on the West Side, General Throckmorton chose to deploy his paratroopers on the East Side, calling this decision "an operational convenience." By early Tuesday morning the paratroopers were moving in to quell the dis- turbance. No one else was awake to see the tank rumble by. My grandpar- ents were dozing in bed. Tessie and Chapter Eleven were curled on air mattresses on the floor. Even the parakeets were quiet. I remem- ber looking at my brother's face peeking out of his sleeping bag. On the flannel lining, hunters shot at ducks. This masculine background served only to emphasize Chapter Eleven's lack of heroic qualities. Who was going to come to my father's aid? Who could my father rely on? Chapter Eleven with his Coke-bottle glasses? Lefty with his 242 chalkboard and sixty-plus years? What I did next had no connection, I believe, with my chromosomal status. It did not result from the high-testosterone plasma levels in my blood. I did what any loving, loyal daughter would have done who had been raised on a diet of Hercules movies. In that instant, I decided to find my father, to save him, if necessary, or at least to tell him to come home.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  biosynthesis and peripheral action of testosterone, in utero, neona- tally, and at puberty. In other words, I operate in society as a man. I use the men's room. Never the urinals, always the stalls. In the men's locker room at my gym I even shower, albeit discreedy. I possess all the secondary sex characteristics of a normal man except one: my in- ability to synthesize dihydrotestosterone has made me immune to baldness. I've lived more than half my life as a male, and by now everything comes naturally. When Calliope surfaces, she does so like a childhood speech impediment. Suddenly there she is again, doing a hair flip, or checking her nails. It's a little like being possessed. Callie 41 rises up inside me, wearing my skin like a loose robe. She sticks her little hands into the baggy sleeves of my arms. She inserts her chimp's feet through the trousers of my legs. On the sidewalk I'll feel her girl- ish walk take over, and the movement brings back a kind of emotion, a desolate and gossipy sympathy for the girls I see coming home from school. This continues for a few more steps. Calliope's hair tick- les the back of my throat. I feel her press tentatively on my chest- that old nervous habit of hers— to see if anything is happening there. The sick fluid of adolescent despair that runs through her veins over- flows again into mine. But then, just as suddenly, she is leaving, shrinking and melting away inside me, and when I turn to see my reflection in a window there's this: a forty-one-year-old man with longish, wavy hair, a thin mustache, and a goatee. A kind of modern Musketeer. But that's enough about me for now. I have to pick up where ex- plosions interrupted me yesterday. After all, neither Cal nor Calliope could have come into existence without what happened next. "I told you!" Desdemona cried at the top of her lungs. "I told you all this good luck would be bad! This is how they liberate us? Only the Greeks could be so stupid!" By the morning after the waltz, you see, Desdemona's forebod- ings had been borne out. The Megah Idea had come to an end. The Turks had captured Afyon. The Greek Army, beaten, was fleeing to- ward the sea. In retreat, it was setting fire to everything in its path. Desdemona and Lefty, in dawn's light, stood on the mountainside and surveyed the devastation. Black smoke rose for miles across the valley. Every village, every field, every tree was aflame. "We can't stay here," Lefty said. "The Turks will want revenge." "Since when did they need a reason?" "We'll go to America. We can live with Sourmelina." "It won't be nice in America," Desdemona insisted, shaking her head. "You shouldn't believe Lina's letters. She exaggerates."

• From Story of the Eye (1928)

  And all at once, something incredible happened, a strange swish of water, followed by a trickle and a stream from under the wardrobe door: poor Marcelle was pissing in her wardrobe while masturbating. But the explosion of totally drunken guffaws that ensued rapidly degenerated into a debauche of tumbling bodies, lofty legs and arses, wet skirts and come. Guffaws emerged like foolish and involuntary hiccups but scarcely managed to interrupt a brutal onslaught on cunts and cocks. And yet soon we could hear Marcelle dismally sobbing alone, louder and louder, in the makeshift pissoir that was now her prison. Half an hour later, when I was less drunk, it dawned on me that I ought to let Marcelle out of her wardrobe: the unhappy girl, naked now, was in a dreadful state. She was trembling and shivering feverishly. Upon seeing me, she displayed a sickly but violent terror. After all, I was pale, smeared with blood, my clothes askew. Behind me, in unspeakable disorder, brazenly stripped bodies were sprawled about. During the orgy, splinters of glass had left deep bleeding cuts in two of us. A young girl was throwing up, and all of us had exploded in such wild fits of laughter at some point or other that we had wet our clothes, an armchair, or the floor. The resulting stench of blood, sperm, urine, and vomit made me almost recoil in horror, but the inhuman shriek from Marcelle’s throat was far more terrifying. I must say, however, that Simone was sleeping tranquilly by now, her belly up, her hand still on her pussy, her pacified face almost smiling. Marcelle, staggering wildly across the room with shrieks and snarls, looked at me again. She flinched back as though I were a hideous ghost in a nightmare, and she collapsed in a jeremiad of howls that grew more and more inhuman. Astonishingly, this litany brought me to my senses. People were running up, it was inevitable. But I never for an instant dreamt of fleeing or lessening the scandal. On the contrary, I resolutely strode to the door and flung it open. What a spectacle, what joy! One can readily picture the cries of dismay, the desperate shrieks, the exaggerated threats of the parents entering the room! Criminal court, prison, the guillotine were evoked with fiery yells and spasmodic curses. Our friends themselves began howling and sobbing in a delirium of tearful screams; they sounded as if they had been set afire as live torches. Simone exulted with me.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  Smoke poured from the barn and formed a tall black column against the Georgia sky. Brother Terrell was bound to see it wherever he was.Randall spoke for all of us. “Lord, I wished we’d burnt to death in the fire. Or at least been hurt.”Pam nodded. “That way he’d have to feel sorry for us.”Brother Terrell had never whipped me, but I had seen him slap after Randall with a belt. I was more terrified by the redness of his neck and the way he pinched his tongue into a hard little point between his teeth than I was of the belt. When my mother wanted my attention fast, she called out, “Don’t make me call Brother Terrell.” While none of us, kids or adults, wanted to get caught on the wrong side of Brother Terrell’s temper, it was equally true that none of us wanted to disappoint him. There was something about him, something powerful and at the same time fragile, that made us strive to please him. We wanted to be judged worthy, to be close to him, to bask in the blessing of those perfect white teeth, to be chosen by the chosen one. Every man, woman, and child worked hard to gain his approval. When we fell out of favor, it was as if we had been banished from all that we loved most. He was, as we say in the South, tenderhearted, with a soft spot for drunks, losers, animals, women, and kids. But that bucolic place often lay on the other side of treacherous terrain, not unlike the territory in which Pam, Randall, and I now found ourselves.Randall pointed toward the field that lay beyond the house and barn. A sliver, no bigger than a speck really, white on top, black on bottom, emerged from the tree line on the other side of the field and moved toward us.“Get ready. Here he comes.”I blinked and the speck moved faster. When Brother Terrell drew even with the barn, he stopped, looked toward the flames, and then at the house. He was close enough now that I could see the Bible he carried under one arm. Randall considered taking off, but Pam grabbed his shirt.“Randall, you’ll make it worse for all of us.”He tried to twist away, but by that time his daddy had reached our mothers. As they talked to him, he looked over at us, then back at the barn. Two of the farmer-firemen wandered over to where they stood. The five adults turned to look at us. Randall looked over at Pam.“What on earth are we gonna say?”“We’re telling him the truth, Randall.”“How much?”Brother Terrell walked toward us slowly, sliding his belt out of his belt loops, his neck growing redder with every step. We scattered across the yard, screaming. Without saying a word, he caught Randall by the arm and began to swing his belt. Pam and I stood by the cottonwood and watched.

• From Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life (2005)

  100 Lecture 19: George Orwell, 1984 George Orwell, 1984 Lecture 19 It is an essential doctrine of the party that “he who controls the present controls the past, and he who controls the past, controls the future.” If you have power, then you can rewrite history. G eorge Orwell’s 1984 continues our discussion of the themes of duty and responsibility and how we live our lives with a sense of honor and a sense of conscience that require us to speak out about what we know to be our duty and to do what is honorable. In Julius Caesar, honor is seen as a mask that enables people to pursue their own ambitions, motivated by jealousy and envy. George Orwell’s 1984 is a fi ctional work of frightening reality that describes a world similar to the one that Solzhenitsyn later discussed in The Gulag Archipelago. It raises the question of whether honor, duty, and responsibility are possible in our own day for the individual who fi nds himself under the control of the modern totalitarian state. Prometheus and Brutus show us individuals who can make a stand against evil. In his novel 1984, George Orwell raises the pertinent and disturbing question of whether any individual can resist the modern power of the state. The Oceania of Big Brother is the embodiment of the idea that the individual exists to serve the state. Indeed, the individual has no meaning. The state or the party controls all aspects of human existence, all thought, all language, all action. In a brilliantly engaging and disturbing fashion, Orwell illuminates the logical consequences of a series of books that have made history: Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, Georg Wilhelm Friedich Hegel’s Philosophy of History, Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, and Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. All of these subordinate the individual to anonymous social and economic forces. Orwell puts the human face of evil to these doctrines of totalitarianism. His central character, Winston Smith, demonstrates the absolute helplessness of the individual in the face of the modern state. George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Blair, who was born in 1903 and educated at Eton. Orwell served brie fl y in the police force in Burma, part of the British colonial civil service. This experience left him with a

• From Middlesex (2002)

  dent in charge of salad bars." They drove to the Hercules downtown. It was busy when they ar- rived. Milton greeted the manager, Gus Zaras. "Yahsou." Gus looked up and, a second late, began to smile broadly. "Hey there, Milt. How you doing?" "Fine, fine. I brought the future boss down to see the place." He indicated Chapter Eleven. "Welcome to the family dynasty," Gus joked, spreading his arms. He laughed too loudly. Seeming to realize this, he stopped. There was an awkward silence. Then Gus asked, "So, Milt, what5 !! it be?" "Two with everything. And what do we got that's vegetarian?" "We got bean soup." "Okay. Get my kid here a bowl of bean soup." "You got it." Milton and Chapter Eleven chose stools and waited to be served. After another long silence, Milton said, "You know how many of these places your old man owns right now?" 474 "How many?" said Chapter Eleven. "Sixty-six. Got eight in Florida." That was as far as the hard sell went. Milton ate his Hercules hot dogs in silence. He knew perfectiy well why Gus was acting so over- friendly. It was because he was thinking what everyone thinks when a girl disappears. He was thinking the worst. There were moments when Milton did, too. He didn't admit it to anyone. He didn't admit it to himself. But whenever Tessie spoke about the umbilical cord, when she claimed that she could still feel me out there somewhere, Milton found himself wanting to believe her. One Sunday as Tessie left for church, Milton handed her a large bill. "Light a candle for Gallic Get a bunch." He shrugged. "Couldn't hurt." But after she was gone he shook his head. "What's the matter with me? Lighting candles! Christ!" He was furious at himself for giving in to such superstition. He vowed again that he would find me; he would get me back. Somehow or other. A chance would come his way, and when it did, Milton Stephanides wouldn't miss it. The Dead came to Berkeley. Matt and the other kids trooped off to the concert. I was given the job to look after the camp. It is midnight in the mimosa grove. I awaken, hearing noises. Lights are moving through the bushes. Voices are murmuring. The leaves over my head turn white and I can see the scaffolding of branches. Light speckles the ground, my body, my face. In the next second a flashlight comes blazing through the opening in my lair. The men are on me at once. One shines his flashlight in my face as the other jumps onto my chest, pinning my arms. "Rise and shine," says the one with die flashlight. It is two homeless guys from the dunes opposite. While the one sits on top of me, the other begins searching the camp.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  Academic to me then, the sad fate of the creature. Asterius, through no fault of his own, born a monster. The poisoned fruit of betrayal, a thing of shame hidden away; I don't understand any of that at eight. I'm just rooting for Theseus . . . ... as my grandmother, in 1923, prepares to meet the creature hidden in her womb. Holding her belly, she sits in the backseat of the taxi, while Lina, up front, tells the driver to hurry. Desdemona breathes in and out, like a runner pacing herself, and Lina says, "I'm not even mad at you for waking me up. I was going to the hospital in the morning anyway. They're letting me take the baby home." But Desdemona isn't listening. She opens her prepacked suitcase, feeling among nightgown and slippers for her worry beads. Amber like con- gealed honey, cracked by heat, they've gotten her through massacres, a refugee march, and a burning city, and she clicks them as the taxi rattles over the dark streets, trying to outrace her contractions . . . ... as Zizmo races the Packard over the ice. The speedometer nee- dle rises. The engine thunders. Tire chains rooster-tail snow. The 123 Packard hurtles into the darkness, skidding on patches, fishtailing. "Did you two have it all planned?" he shouts. "Have Lina marry an American citizen so she could sponsor you?" "What are you talking about?" my grandfather tries to reason. "When you and Lina got married, I didn't even know I was coming to America. Please slow down." "Was that the plan? Find a husband and then move into his house!" The never-failing conceit of Minotaur movies. The monster al- ways approaches from the direction you least expect. Likewise, out on Lake St. Clair, my grandfather has been looking out for the Purple Gang, when in reality the monster is right next to him, at the wheel of the car. In the wind from the open door, Zizmo's frizzy hair streams back like a mane. His head is lowered, his nostrils flared. His eyes shine with fury. "Who is it!" "Jimmy! Turn around! The ice! You're not looking at the ice." "I won't stop unless you tell me." "There's nothing to tell. Lina's a good girl. A good wife to you. I swear!" But the Packard hurtles on. My grandfather flattens himself against his seat. "What about the baby, Jimmy? Think about your daughter." "Who says it's mine?" "Of course it's yours." "I never should have married that girl."

• From Middlesex (2002)

  When we came out again, the sky was completely dark. Before leaving, Scheer opened the hatch of the Nova to get Franklin out. The old dog could no longer walk, and Scheer had to lift: him bodily out of the car. "Let's go, Franks," Scheer said, gruffly affectionate, and with a lit cigarette between his teeth, angled up in a patrician manner not unlike that of Franklin Roosevelt himself, in Gucci loafers and side-vented, gold-hued tweed jacket, his strong polo player's legs braced under the weight, he carried the aged beast into the weeds. Before going back to the highway, he stopped at a convenience store to get more beer. 456 We drove for another hour or so. Scheer consumed many beers; I worked my way through one or two. I was not at all sober and feel- ing sleepy. I leaned against my door, blearily looking out. A long white car came alongside us. The driver looked at me, smiling, but I was already falling asleep. Sometime later, Scheer shook me awake. "I'm too wrecked to drive. I'm pulling over." I said nothing to this. "I'm going to find a motel. I'll get you a room, too. On me." I didn't object. Soon I saw hazy motel lights. Scheer left the car and returned with my room key. He led me to my room, carrying my suitcase, and opened the door for me. I went to the bed and col- lapsed. My head was spinning. I managed to pull down the bedspread and get at the pillows. "You gonna sleep in your clothes?" Scheer asked as if amused. I felt his hand on my back, rubbing it. "You shouldn't sleep in your clothes," he said. He started to undress me, but I roused myself. "Just let me sleep," I said. Scheer bent closer. In a thick voice he said, "Your parents kick you out, Cal? Is that it?" He sounded suddenly very drunk, as if all the day's and night's drinking had finally hit him. "I'm going to sleep," I said. "Come on," whispered Scheer. "Let me take care of you." I curled up protectively, keeping my eyes closed. Scheer nuzzled me, but when I didn't respond, he stopped. I heard him open the door and then close it behind him. When I awoke again, it was early in the morning. Light was com- ing in the windows. And Scheer was right next to me. He was hug- ging me clumsily, his eyes squeezed shut. "Just wanna sleep here," he said, slurring. "Just wanna sleep." My shirt had been unbuttoned. Scheer was wearing only his underwear. The television was on, and there were empty beers on it. Scheer clutched me, pressing his face into mine, making sounds. I tolerated this, feeling obliged for some reason. But when his drunken attentions became more avid, more targeted, I pushed him off me. He didn't protest. He crumpled into a ball and quickly passed out.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  Quiet, too, except for the sigh of bodies in motion and the shuffling of feet on the ground. A woman a few rows ahead of us licked her lips constantly. A few men and women caught one another’s eyes and raised their brows, as if to ask, “What now?” Everyone looked ready to leave, if only they didn’t have to pass through those white robes. Several of the devils stood behind and to the side of where we sat. I cut my eyes toward them, and noticed for the first time the pant legs and shoes, regular men’s shoes, beneath the hems of their robes.Up on the platform, Brother Terrell tried again to regain his audience. “Let’s focus our attention on the Lord. A time is coming in this country when God’s people will worship without fear. Amen?”A dry cough and the whimper of a child were his only answers.He tried again. “I said there is coming a time when the powers of this world will fade away and God’s kingdom will last forever. The lion and the lamb will lay down together. Amen?”Not a single amen floated up.“Don’t lay down and die on me tonight. I said there is coming a time when the devil will be defeated once and for all! Now, can I get a real amen?”A lone voice called out of the silence. “CERTAINLY!”The shout came from the other side of the tent. Brother Terrell put his hand to his eyes and peered through the spotlights.“Well, that’s not an amen, but bless God, I’ll take it. When the devil wins one battle you got to believe there will be another battle, one you can win with God’s help. Amen?”“CERTAINLY!”Brother Terrell paced the platform and his words picked up speed as he moved. “You got to fast and pray until you’ve put on the whole armor of God. Then you got to go back out and win the next battle. Because there will be a next one and a next one until righteousness triumphs over evil, hallelujah.”He took out his handkerchief and mopped the sweat off his brow.“Ain’t that right?”“CERTAINLY!”Brother Terrell started to laugh.“Well, Certainly, whoever you are, come on up here. I want to get a good look at a man who ain’t afraid to speak up when the devil is looking him in the face.”A small man stood up on the left side of the tent and walked toward Brother Terrell. He wore a plaid sports jacket, dark pants, and a white shirt, all of which were at least two sizes too big. His short gray hair stuck up like pinfeathers. Brother Terrell left the platform and met him in front of the prayer ramp with his hand outstretched. He grabbed the little man around the shoulders and began to drag him back and forth in front of the audience. Certainly’s jacket flapped around him as they walked.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  The Zebra Room I remember as a kid: it was full of artificial flow- ers, yellow tulips, red roses, dwarf trees bearing wax apples. Plastic daisies sprouted from teapots; daffodils erupted from ceramic cows. Photos of Artie Shaw and Bing Crosby adorned the wall, next to hand-painted signs that said enjoy a nice lime rickey! and OUR FRENCH TOAST IS THE TOAST OF THE TOWN! There were photos of Milton putting a finishing-touch cherry on a milk shake or kissing someone's baby like the mayor. There were photo- graphs of actual mayors, Miriani and Cavanaugh. The great right fielder Al Kaline, who stopped in on his way to practice at Tiger Sta- dium, had autographed his own head shot: "To my pal Milt, great eggs!" When a Greek Orthodox church in Flint burned down, Mil- ton drove up and salvaged one of the surviving stained glass win- dows. He hung it on the wall over the booths. Athena olive oil tins 202 lined the front window next to a bust of Donizetti. Everything was hodgepodge: grandmotherly lamps stood next to El Greco reproduc- tions; bull's horns hung from the neck of an Aphrodite statuette. Above the coffeemaker an assortment of figurines marched along the shelf: Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, Mickey Mouse, Zeus, and Felix the Cat. My grandfather, trying to be of help, drove off one day and re- turned with a stack of fifty plates. "I already ordered plates," said Milton. "From a restaurant supply place. They're only charging us 10 percent down." "You don't want these?" Lefty looked disappointed. "Okay. I'll take them back." "Hey, Pop," his son called after him. "Why don't you take the day off? I can handle things here." "You don't need help?" "Go home. Have Ma make you lunch." Lefty did as he was told. But as he drove down West Grand Boulevard, feeling unneeded, he passed Rubsamen Medical Supply— a store with dirty windows and a neon sign that blinked even in the day— and felt the stirrings of old temptation. The following Monday, Milton opened the new diner. He opened it at six in the morning, with a newly hired staff of two, Eleni Pa- panikolas, in a waitress uniform purchased at her own expense, and her husband, Jimmy, as short-order cook. "Remember, Eleni, you mostiy work for tips," Milton pep-talked. "So smile." "At who?" asked Eleni. For despite the red carnations in bud vases gracing each booth, despite the zebra-striped menus, matchbooks, and napkins, the Zebra Room itself was empty. "Smart- ass," Milton said, grinning. Eleni's ribbing didn't bother him. He'd worked it all out. He'd found a need and filled it.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  And don’t wake up the other kids.”“But I’m scared of the dark.”“If you’ve been good, there’s no reason to be scared.” She popped me lightly on the bottom. “Now, go on!”She turned to pull out the couch and click it into a bed for her and Gary. I walked down the hall wondering how good I had been lately. Laverne startled me as she brushed past. Not good enough. I turned the handle on the bedroom door and stepped into the darkened bedroom I shared with Pam and Randall. My eyes found the window, then darted away from it. I didn’t want to see a demon peering in at me. Blood of Jesus. Blood of Jesus. Forgive me for peeking tonight. I felt my way over to the end of the bed, peeled off my church clothes, and left them in a pile on the floor. With my hands held out in front, I fumbled over the chest of drawers and counted down one, two, three to the third drawer, found what felt like my nightgown, and pulled it over my head and shoulders. Something in the corner caught my eye. What is that? I backed up until I hit the end of the bed and scrambled up between the Terrell kids. Randall sprawled along the outside edge of the bed. I threw his arm across his chest. He didn’t stir. Pam was hunched into a tight little ball with her face toward the wall, her arms wrapped tight around her abdomen, knees drawn in close, a cocoon of grief. I lay on my back and shut my eyes. Whatever I had seen a moment before, I did not want to see again.My thoughts shifted to Brother Terrell. It wasn’t until that night that I considered the possibility that he might really die. I imagined the tent packed with thousands of people, the platform empty. I waited for a wave of sadness to roll over me, and was shocked to find relief instead. No more feeling guilty each time I ate a Hershey’s bar. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. If he died, what would happen to all those souls who had not heard the gospel? Would they burn in hell? Babies too? I thought how much it hurt when I burned my finger. I made myself imagine my body burning like that forever.I thought about how Brother Terrell always had a gift for me and Gary each time he gave Pam and Randall a present. He didn’t have to do that. He wasn’t our daddy. I thought how good it felt when he patted my head and asked how I was doing, how I always wanted to say something funny to make him laugh, but never could. Everyone seemed more alive when he was around. Please, God. Let everything go back to normal, please. A selfish prayer when so many souls were at stake. Why was it so hard to be good?

• From Middlesex (2002)

  house and closes the shutters. But the blaze penetrates the room, lighting it up in stripes: Toukhie's panicked eyes; Anita's forehead, wrapped with a silver ribbon like Clara Bow's in Photoplay; Rose's bare neck; Stepan's and Karekin's dark, downcast heads. By firelight Dr. Philobosian reads for the fifth time that night . is respectfully recommended ... to the esteem, confidence, and . " '. protection . . .' You hear that? ^Protection . . .'" Across the street Mrs. Bidzikian sings the climactic three notes of 55 the "Queen of the Night" aria from The Magic Flute. The music sounds so strange amid the other noises— of doors crashing in, peo- ple screaming, girls crying out— that they all look up. Mrs. Bidzikian repeats the B flat, D, and F two more times, as though practicing the aria, and then her voice hits a note none of them has ever heard be- fore, and they realize that Mrs. Bidzikian hasn't been singing an aria at all. "Rose, get my bag." "Nishan, no," his wife objects. "If they see you come out, they'll know we're hiding." "No one will see." The flames first registered to Desdemona as lights on the ships' hulls. Orange brushstrokes flickered above the waterline of the U.S.S. Litchfield and the French steamer Pierre Loti. Then the water bright- ened, as though a school of phosphorescent fish had entered the har- bor. Lefty's head rested on her shoulder. She checked to see if he was asleep. "Lefty. Lefty?" When he didn't respond, she kissed the top of his head. Then the sirens went off. She sees not one fire but many. There are twenty orange dots on the hill above. And they have an unnatural persistence, these fires. As soon as the fire department puts out one blaze, another erupts some- where else. They start in hay carts and trash bins; they follow kero- sene trails down the center of streets; they turn corners; they enter bashed-in doorways. One fire penetrates Berberian's bakery, making quick work of the bread racks and pastry carts. It burns through to the living quarters and climbs the front staircase where, halfway up, it meets Charles Berberian himself, who tries to smother it with a blan- ket. But the fire dodges him and races up into the house. From there it sweeps across an Oriental rug, marches out to the back porch, leaps nimbly up onto a laundry line, and tightrope-walks across to the house behind. It climbs in the window and pauses, as if shocked by its good fortune: because everything in this house is just made to burn, too— the damask sofa with its long fringe, the mahogany end tables and chintz lampshades. The heat pulls down wallpaper in sheets; and this is happening not only in this apartment but in ten or fifteen others, then twenty or twenty-five, each house setting fire to 56

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  He spoke in tongues: “Lama bahia ma so may oh me la bahandala.” He acted as if the hosts of heaven had paid us a visit instead of a bunch of men wrapped in bedsheets. When he passed our section, Betty Ann, Pam, Gary, and I joined him. My mother left the organ and marched with us. Oh, Lord, we wanted to be in that number, but mostly we didn’t want Brother Terrell to march alone.The crowd did not respond. Whether from fear of the Klan returning to the tent or of waking later that night to the sound of breaking glass and a cross burning, they remained in their seats. Brother Terrell would not give up.When the Klan is dead and gone When the Ku Klux Klan is gone Oh, Lord, we want to be in that number . . .Maybe people began to feel sorry for Brother Terrell or maybe they realized there was something to dancing like a madman in the face of fear and adversity. On about the second or third turn around the tent, a few folks from each section joined us. We were fifty, then one hundred, five hundred, a thousand, maybe more. Sometimes we tripped over a tentpole or a rope, but we picked ourselves up and marched on. Betty Ann spotted Randall leaning against a curtain pole and grabbed him by the ear. She pulled him into line and pushed him along in front of her round, swaying stomach. We marched until our legs grew heavy. We smiled until our faces hurt. We sang until our voices overwhelmed the dread inside us. Finally, Brother Terrell, my mother, and other members of the team made their way back to the platform and the rest of us drifted back to our seats. Mama took her seat at the Hammond and began to play a slow, soft hymn. From the platform, Brother Terrell urged people not to let fear keep them away.“Don’t be afraid to come back. We’ll be here three times a day tomorrow and every day for the next few weeks. Now hug your neighbor around the neck and tell ’em you’ll see ’em here tomorrow.”Once the crowd cleared, Brother Terrell gathered the evangelistic team together behind the platform and asked everyone to stay and pray for a few hours. “We haven’t seen the end of this. I feel like they’ll be back, and we need to make sure we have what it takes to stand firm.”The four of us kids fell asleep on a pallet of quilts in front of the altar and were awakened by yelling. Randall jumped up. Pam and I moved slower. Unsure for a moment whether I was dreaming or awake, I watched a group of adults across the tent pull into a tight little circle, scatter apart, then collide one against the other, hard, harder, in a fierce, weird dance. Randall called, “Daddy.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  Less than a month later, four young black girls were killed in a Sunday-school bombing in Birmingham.“In church , they killed them in church,” Rita said. Two other people were killed in the riots that followed. The stations replayed scenes filmed just a few months earlier of Bull Connor turning fire hoses and dogs—dogs— on black kids. I worried about my mother and all the people who traveled with the tent, but the hatred and violence we saw on TV was much closer at hand. [image "003" file=Image00002.jpg] Queenie and Rita lay stretched out on the couch, one head at either end, illuminated by the chalky light of the late-night TV test pattern. Gary and I were wrapped in a tangle of quilts and pillows on the floor. A scrape along the outside of the house caused Queenie’s and Rita’s heads to pop up like toast from the ends of the couch. Another scrape and a light tapping at the side window sent them screaming from the living room into the hall closet. I scrambled close behind and pushed my way into the closet with them. The door slammed with my brother on the other side. I kicked and yelled until they opened the door and pulled Gary in. The four of us stood there jammed in the closet until someone said they had to pee and absolutely could not hold it. Then we all herded into the bathroom, locked the door, and slept on the floor with folded towels for pillows.Queenie and Rita laughed the next morning as we walked around the outside of the house and searched for the source of the noise.“Probably a branch,” they said, and laughed some more. They stopped laughing when they saw the broken bushes by the windows on the side of the house. Someone had climbed through that bush to look in the window. Little looks flitted between Queenie and Rita. Why someone would stand outside in the dark and tap on our window they would not say. The noises returned the next night, and every night after that. Sometimes we heard scraping, sometimes tapping. Sometimes voices moved in the dark outside our house. One morning we woke to find NIGGER printed in big black letters on our sidewalk. I knew from the looks on Queenie’s and Rita’s faces; it was not a good word. We scrubbed and scrubbed, but the shadow of the letters remained. We hung sheets and blankets over our windows and began to sleep during the day. We sat up all night, watching the sign-off circles on the television and waiting for the noises. If we nodded off, Gary yelled and sent us stumbling through the dark into the closet. We stood there, flesh pressed against oily flesh, breathing in the musty scent of sweat tinged with fear.“What happened?”“Gary yelled.”“Why?”“I don’t know.

• From Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life (2005)

  98 Lecture 18: Shakespeare, Julius Caesar the side of Pompey and against Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 B.C. Caesar spared the life of Brutus, as well as that of Cassius, and they each held the offi ce of praetor. Rather than loving Caesar for his clemency, these men secretly hate him. They believe that Caesar had dishonored them by saving their lives. Hearing cheering from the crowd, Brutus says he fears that the people “would make Caesar king.” Brutus also says that he loves “the name of honour” more than he fears death. Cassius appears jealous of Caesar and makes honor the theme of a speech to Brutus in an effort to enlist Brutus in a conspiracy to assassinate Caesar. Portia, the wife of Brutus, often reminds Brutus that her father, Marcus Porcius Cato, committed suicide rather than give up honor and liberty. After further thought and encouragement, Brutus becomes the head of a conspiracy of 63 senators, who came together because of their con fi dence in Brutus. Brutus is the one man that the people will accept as having participated in the conspiracy only out of a sense of duty. A soothsayer has told Caesar to beware the Ides of March. Caesar, however, is arrogant, convinced that he is too great to be brought down. He does not trust thin, dangerous, thinking men, like Cassius. When some senators ask Caesar to accompany them to the Senate on the Ides of March, Caesar is at fi rst not willing to leave his house. He has promised his wife, Calpurnia, that he would stay home because she dreamed that he would be struck down. The senators tell Caesar that he will be offered the crown, and he eagerly accompanies them. Caesar is struck down by the conspirators. The people are not prepared for freedom and liberty. The conspirators come up with a new plan. They turn to Marc Antony and agree to a reconciliation. They decide that Marc Antony will celebrate Caesar in a funeral oration. In the forum, Brutus justi fi es the action of the conspirators by saying that he loved Caesar but loved duty and honor more. Marc Antony gives a powerful oration, in which he manipulates the crowd. He turns Brutus’s concept of honor around, for can any conspiracy can be honorable? The people turn against the conspirators, who are forced to fl ee from Rome.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  . But before I go on with Desdemona's story, I want to update you on developments with Julie Kikuchi. With regard to the main point: there have been no developments. On our last day in Pomerania, we got very cozy, Julie and I. Pomerania belonged to East Germany. The seaside villas of Herringsdorf had been allowed to fall apart for fifty years. Now, after reunification, there is a real estate boom. Being Americans, Julie and I could not fail but be alert to this. As we strolled the wide boardwalk, holding hands, we speculated about buying this or that old, crumbling villa and fixing it up. "We could get used to the nudists," Julie said. "We could get a Pomeranian," I said. I don't know what came over us. That "we." We were prodigal in its usage, we were reckless with its implications. Artists have good instincts for real es- tate. And Herringsdorf energized Julie. We inquired about a few co- ops, a new thing here. We toured two or three mansions. It was all very marital. Under the influence of that old, aristocratic, nineteenth- century summer resort, Julie and I were acting old-fashioned, too. We discussed setting up house without even having slept together. But of course we never mentioned love or marriage. Only down payments. But on the way back to Berlin a familiar fear descended on me. Humming over the road, I began to look ahead. I thought of the next step and what would be required of me. The preparations, the explanations, the very real possibility of shock, horror, withdrawal, rebuff. The usual reactions. "What's the matter?" Julie asked me. "Nothing." "You seem quiet." "Just tired." In Berlin, I dropped her off. My hug was cold, peremptory. I haven't called her since. She left a message on my machine. I didn't respond. And now she has stopped calling, too. So it's all over with Julie. Over before it began. And instead of sharing a future with someone, I am back again witii the past, with Desdemona who wanted no future at all . . . I brought her dinner, sometimes lunch. I carried trays along the por- tico of brown metal posts. Above was the sun deck, underutilized, 272

• From Story of the Eye (1928)

  In the meantime, I had let Sir Edmund undress me, so that I could pounce stark naked on the crouching body of the girl; my entire cock vanished at one lunge into the hairy crevice, and I fucked her hard while Sir Edmund played with the eye, rolling it, in between the contortions of our bodies, on the skin of our bellies and breasts. For an instant, the eye was trapped between our navels. “Put it up my arse, Sir Edmund,” Simone shouted. And Sir Edmund delicately glided the eye between her buttocks. But finally, Simone left me, grabbed the beautiful eyeball from the hands of the tall Englishman, and with a staid and regular pressure from her hands, she slid it into her slobbery flesh, in the midst of the fur. And then she promptly drew me over, clutching my neck between her arms and smashing her lips on mine so forcefully that I came without touching her and my come shot all over her fur. Now I stood up and, while Simone lay on her side, I drew her thighs apart, and found myself facing something I imagine I had been waiting for in the same way that a guillotine waits for a neck to slice. I even felt as if my eyes were bulging from my head, erectile with horror; in Simone’s hairy vagina, I saw the wan blue eye of Marcelle , gazing at me through tears of urine. Streaks of come in the steaming hair helped give that dreamy vision a disastrous sadness. I held the thighs open while Simone was convulsed by the urinary spasm, and the burning urine streamed out from under the eye down to the thighs below…. Two hours later, Sir Edmund and I were sporting false black beards, and Simone was bedizened in a huge, ridiculous black hat with yellow flowers and a long cloth dress like a noble girl from the provinces. In this get-up, we rented a car and left Seville. Huge valises allowed us to change our personalities at every leg of the journey in order to outwit the police investigation.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  The heat precedes the fire. Figs heaped along the quay, not loaded in time, begin to bake, bubbling and oozing juice. The sweetness mixes with the smell of smoke. Desdemona and Lefty stand as close to the water as possible, along with everyone else. There is no escape. Turk- ish soldiers remain at the barricades. People pray, raise their arms, pleading to ships in the harbor. Searchlights sweep across the water, lighting up people swimming, drowning. "We're going to die, Lefty." "No we're not. We're going to get out of here." But Lefty doesn't believe this. As he looks up at the flames, he is certain, too, that they are going to die. And this certainty inspires him to say something he would never have said otherwise, something he would never even have thought. "We're going to get out of here. And then you're go- ing to marry me." "We should never have left. We should have stayed in Bithynios." As the fire approaches, the doors of the French consulate open. A marine garrison forms two lines stretching across the quay to the harbor. The Tricolor descends. From the consulate's doors people emerge, men in cream-colored suits and women in straw hats, walk- ing arm in arm to a waiting launch. Over the Marines' crossed rifles, Lefty sees fresh powder on the women's faces, lit cigars in the men's mouths. One woman holds a small poodle under her arm. Another woman trips, breaking her heel, and is consoled by her husband. Af- ter the launch has motored away, an official turns to the crowd. "French citizens only will be evacuated. We will begin processing visas immediately." When they hear knocking, they jump. Stepan goes to the window and looks down. "It must be Father." "Go. Let him in! Quick!" Toukhie says. Karekin vaults down the stairs two at a time. At the door he stops, collects himself, and quietly unbolts the door. At first, when he pulls it open, he sees nothing. Then there's a soft hiss, followed by a rip- 58 ping noise. The noise sounds as though it has nothing to do with him until suddenly a shirt button pops off and clatters against the door. Karekin looks down as all at once his mouth fills with a warm fluid. He feels himself being lifted off his feet, the sensation bringing back to him childhood memories of being whisked into the air by his father, and he says, "Dad, my button," before he is lifted high enough to make out the steel bayonet puncturing his sternum. The fire's re- flection leads along the gun barrel, over the sight and hammer, to the soldier's ecstatic face. The fire bore down on the crowd at the quay. The roof of the Amer- ican consulate caught. Flames climbed the movie theater, scorching die marquee. The crowd inched back from the heat. But Lefty, sens- ing his opportunity, was undeterred. "Nobody will know," he said. "Who's to know? There's nobody