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 Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  She was right. She wanted to get married, and if I wouldn’t, she needed to move on with her life. But that didn’t make a difference. I just wasn’t ready. And frankly, I was resentful about being put on the spot like that.” “What happened?” I was engrossed in the drama of their coming together. I knew the ending but the twists and turns were astonishing. How long would the testing of each other go on? How much could these young people stand? What kept them from tragically going their own separate ways? “I told her to give me another year and then we’d decide for sure. But Grace wouldn’t go for this anymore. She decided to take a job offer in L.A. and she moved south.” “And so you lost her?” “Almost. Within a week I knew we’d made a terrible mistake. I missed her more than I could stand. So I flew down, got on my knees, and begged her to marry me.” He smiled broadly. “And she accepted.” “Were you sure after all your waiting?” “To be honest, no. I was still hesitating. I was more certain than I’d ever been but I knew that I’d lose her if I kept this up. I wanted to be sure but finally understood that there are no guarantees in life. By then I was ready to take the risk. I thought to myself, ‘I’ve got to take a chance on love.’” These were Karen’s words exactly. Larry and Karen had to bring themselves to take a chance, whereas both wanted an ironclad guarantee. Who doesn’t? But these young people are terrified at the start. I shook my head. “What an ordeal for both of you.” Larry nodded his assent. Here was a courtship that had lasted seven years. First they establish a friendship and learn to trust each other. Within that friendship they tell each other about their past and their mutual trust deepens. Having passed that hurdle, they become lovers and live together. But they are still miles away from commitment. It’s only when Grace insists that Larry is able to overcome the last obstacles to his decision. Think how great his fear was for it to have taken seven years to make this decision, knowing how much he loved her. Think how much patience and love Grace had to give in letting Larry have the time he needed. How easy it would have been for one or both to quit in frustration—for Larry to give in to his fears and run or for Grace to turn elsewhere . Fear of Commitment in Children of Divorce T HE TWO CENTRAL tasks of adulthood are loving and working.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  I hadn’t had anything like it all summer, and gorged on it happily. But Gabriel’s own performance was becoming off-putting. Every few seconds he would make some coarse exhortation, some dumbly repeated catchphrase, and I came to realise with dismay that this trick too he had picked up from crudely dubbed American porn films. ‘Yeah,’ he would croon, ‘suck that dick. Yeah, take it all. Suck it, suck that big dick.’ I took a pause to say, ‘Um—Gabriel. Do you think you could leave out the annunciations?’ But it wasn’t the same for him without them, and I felt unbelievably stupid appearing to respond to them. ‘Okay,’ he said brightly, as I abandoned the job. ‘You like to fuck with me?’ ‘Of course.’ There was after all some charm in his childlike openness. ‘But in silence …’ ‘Wait a minute,’ he said and kicking off shoes and tugging off trousers and pants, ambled into the bathroom, his dick bouncing with a kind of mock-majesty before him. I slipped off my own shoes and jeans and lay playing with myself on the bed. Gabriel took his time getting ready and after a couple of minutes I called through to ask if he was all right. He came in almost at once, now completely naked except for his cock-ring, the pale gold wafer of his watch and—which I should somehow I suppose have expected—a black leather mask which completely covered his head. There were two neat little holes beneath the nostrils, and zipped slits for the eyes and mouth. He knelt on the bed beside me and was perhaps looking to me for approval or amusement—it was impossible to tell. Close to I could see only his large brown pupils and the whites of his eyes, blurred for a split second if he blinked, like the lens of a camera. It was hard and disturbing the way the eyes could not vary their expression isolated from the rest of the frowning or smiling face. I felt that childhood fear of rubber party masks, and of the idiot amiability of clowns who you knew, as they bent down to pinch your cheeks, were fearful old drunks. Gabriel held my head to look at me closely, and I unzipped his mouth and breathed in his hot breath and the expensive smell of leather. His body was supple though slightly gone to seed—but I liked it and bit it. There wasn’t much he could do in his mask, and when I had nosed around him for a while he hoiked me over and pushed my legs apart. I was anxious not to take all that raw, and had begun to complain, when I felt something cold and wet, like a dog’s nose, trailing up my thigh. I looked over my shoulder to find that from somewhere this madman had produced a gigantic pink dildo, slippery with Crisco. I heard him giggle tensely inside the mask. ‘Do you want to smell some poppers?’ he asked.

• From The Folding Star (1994)

  I panicked again under the huge sweep of sky that opened up. The city was suddenly behind us; I looked back, and above the warehouses and estates the cluster of extravagant towers rose into view again; they became the city; then they dwindled and were blurred in haze. We were leaving fast, the engine was shouting, the wind tore over the windshield and whipped the hair about on top of my head. I wanted to be back where we'd come from, late in bed or strolling out for a pre-pre-lunch beer. We overtook lorries and family cars with luggage on the roof, new from the ferry. Here was all the rest of the world, and my old world too, the Brits still cautious on the blind side of the road, looming ahead and then for a few seconds alongside, the roped tarpaulins jabbering loose, the drivers anxiously alert to the flashy blast of the jeep. But I was a Continental by now, and looked on them with pity and dismay as they fell behind. There was a certain brown obscurity in the sky ahead, like rain falling out to sea. Matt was wearing bottle-green dark glasses and frowned as he drove. A few miles later it lifted and dissolved; and the further we went the more radiant and old-masterly the air became, so that the whole mad, worrying escapade began already to feel out of time, steeped in a dream-ether of its own. When we crossed into France, and Matt turned off and pulled over in a country road to check the map, my goose-flesh smoothed and the October sun was almost hot on my forearms. We went on the last four miles more stealthily, my left hand tucked for childish comfort under Matt's thigh. Then we dropped to a wide view of current-silvered sea, with several big ships standing off; and a sharp turn of the road presented us all at once with a straggle of houses, a massive, squat church with a spire, and the sign—St Ernest-aux-Sablonnières. We dawdled along the street, me slunk down in my seat with one of Matt's baseball caps not disguising me much, dreading to be seen or for us even to be noticed, and the jeep farting uproariously at each touch on the accelerator. There was a grocer's, a bar, a novelty shop, a few old stone houses and at either end new brick ones with steel security blinds and unmade gardens just as the builders might have left them. Between them you saw the sea, and other houses lower down, and when we turned and came back we took a narrow lane to the left and emerged on a sand-blown track that I knew was where we had to be.

• From The Folding Star (1994)

  The plan that we have a trial night on the common came from my Uncle Wilfred, who had supervised innumerable camps for the de Souzay Trust and stressed the importance for both of us of knowing how to pitch and strike. It was a wildly exciting idea, clouded at first by the fear that he was going to come up and instruct us himself. But no. He would be sitting with my mother, as he did increasingly in my father's last months; she was the only woman-friend Wilfred had and the evenings, kindly meant, were a strain for both of them. "Your uncle's more of a man's man" was all my mother ever said about him. Cues for anecdotes about their shared childhood produced only grouchy vaguenesses; when she was fourteen he had gone to war and in a sense the rest of his life had taken place under military camouflage; all we saw was an impatient self-discipline and a sardonic tendency that never quite rose to humour and was especially disconcerting in these visits intended to comfort and distract. At the time I knew nothing of his constant sexual appetite, and it is possible she didn't either: like so many siblings they had nothing useful in common and their attempts at sharing things were marked by childish awkwardness and dogged cross-purposes. Wilfred checked the kit for us. "Done it a thousand times with the Susies," he said, peering shrewdly at Dawn, who was bending to unbuckle his rucksack and looking somewhat resentful of the old boy's drill. I thought he might be critical of The Pilgrim: he declared it ambiguously to be "a tight little tent". "Having a cook-up?" he said. I told him we were just taking scotch eggs and a bar of chocolate, which he clearly thought feeble to the point of effeminacy, but my mother snapped that there was nothing else. I ran upstairs to say goodbye to my father, who was lying on his bed fully clothed. I asked him how he was feeling and he said, "Not very good, old boy", which was the most he ever did say, and left me habitually at a loss how to answer him. On the turn of the stairs corning down I heard my mother saying hurriedly to Wilfred, ". . .a week or two, perhaps, they say, probably no more"—so that I went into shocked slow-motion, my hand to my mouth, and after ten seconds jogged down in a forced briskness of concealment.

• From Hillbilly Elegy (2016)

  One day when I was about twelve, Mom said something that I don’t remember now, but I recall running out the door without my shoes and going to Mamaw’s house. For two days, I refused to speak to or see my mother. Papaw, worried about the disintegrating relationship between his daughter and her son, begged me to see her. So I listened to the apology that I’d heard a million times before. Mom was always good at apologies. Maybe she had to be—if she didn’t say “sorry,” then Lindsay and I never would have spoken to her. But I think she really meant it. Deep down, she always felt guilty about the things that happened, and she probably even believed that—as promised—they’d “never happen again.” They always did, though. This time was no different. Mom was extra-apologetic because her sin was extra-bad. So her penance was extra-good: She promised to take me to the mall and buy me football cards. Football cards were my kryptonite, so I agreed to join her. It was probably the biggest mistake of my life. We got on the highway, and I said something that ignited her temper. So she sped up to what seemed like a hundred miles per hour and told me that she was going to crash the car and kill us both. I jumped into the backseat, thinking that if I could use two seat belts at once, I’d be more likely to survive the impact. This infuriated her more, so she pulled over to beat the shit out of me. When she did, I leaped out of the car and ran for my life. We were in a rural part of the state, and I ran through a large field of grass, the tall blades slapping my ankles as I sped away. I happened upon a small house with an aboveground pool. The owner—an overweight woman about the same age as Mom—was floating on her back, enjoying the nice June weather. “You have to call my mamaw!” I screamed. “Please help me. My mom is trying to kill me.” The woman clambered out of the pool as I looked around fearfully, terrified of any sign of my mother. We went inside, and I called Mamaw and repeated the woman’s address. “Please hurry up,” I told her. “Mom is going to find me.” Mom did find me. She must have seen where I ran from the highway. She banged on the door and demanded that I come out. I begged the owner not to open the door, so she locked the doors and promised Mom that her two dogs—each no bigger than a medium-sized house cat—would attack her if she tried to enter. Eventually Mom broke down the woman’s door and dragged me out as I screamed and clutched for anything—the screen door, the guardrails on the steps, the grass on the ground. The woman stood there and watched, and I hated her for doing nothing.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  The other one rocked his head about and punched at the air just in front of me several times. ‘Yeah! Fuckin’ nigger-fucker,’ he said, with an excited little laugh, then froze his features again. On his thin, hairless head he needed the biggest expressions if he was to make an effect, like actors in old silent films. He concentrated his malice in a frown, the lips slightly apart and firm. My fat interrogator rested his swastikaed hand on my shoulder. He might have been going to give me advice, and checked the passageway in both directions to make sure we were alone. No one appeared, and the sounds of the kids playing went on riotously and unconcerned not far off. Then he glanced up at his friend aloft: it was like a prearranged signal, though it couldn’t have been. The boy reached into the bin, fished out a bottle—brown glass, Cyprus sherry, some pensioner’s empty—and dropped it down to him. Gripping me more tightly, smiling more broadly, the big boy swung the bottle round and knocked off the foot of it on the wall. I bucked backwards to get free, to retreat down the serviceway, swinging my sports-bag ineptly round to buffet him. But his skinny mate rushed me, grabbing my jacket collar and shoving me forward into the enclosed space of the bin-yard, where we could not be seen. I lashed around with my right arm, catching him in the stomach with my elbow. He gasped, spat out ‘Cunt’—and as the leader held me from the other side, brought up his knee in the small of my back. I lurched forward, but my attacker had hold of my jacket, half ripping it off, and pinning my arms behind me in its sleeves. I was completely helpless and exposed. The leader passed the broken bottle-end backwards and forwards in front of my eyes and under my nose. ‘I don’t think we like you,’ was his reasonable summary. The two of them pushed me down till I was almost kneeling in subjection, my legs twisted under me. Very carelessly, as if getting into bed or dropping into water, the boy on the bin slid forward, fell for a fraction of a second and hurled me over backwards, my head smacking against the concrete floor, a tearing pain in my knees, and a sack of rubbish toppling after him and bouncing down on us, sodden paper and peelings bursting over the ground. It was actually happening. It was actually happening to me. I twisted my whole body sideways to throw him off, and he did tumble half over. The other two were standing over me. The skinny boy, as if slyly taking a tag in Winchester Football, kicked me sharply in the stomach.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  At times I would steel myself and look. It was just like now, keeping my eyes fixed there until the spirit-lamp of rationality guttered, my gaze flicked away in fear. James had said humorously that I wouldn’t like having my beauty spoiled, and though it could all be remedied I found my injured appearance unbearable. My vanity, which was so constitutional that it had virtually ceased to be vanity, was shown up for what it was; I bit Phil’s head off when he blandly suggested that I didn’t look too bad. For a while I became the sort of person that someone like me would never look at. After a few days I took a turn around the block with Phil. Accustomed to daily exercise, I now experienced an aching restlessness which mingled with the pain of my bruises and bones. I couldn’t make my limbs comfortable, and had to get out. It was a bright, blowy tea-time. Already people were coming home, the traffic was building up at the lights. The pavements were normal, the passers-by had preoccupied, harmless expressions. Yet to me it was a glaring world, treacherous with lurking alarm. A universal violence had been disclosed to me, and I saw it everywhere—in the sudden scatter across the pavement of some quite small boys, in the brief mocking notice of me taken by a couple of telephone engineers in a parked van, in the dark glasses and cigarette-browned fingers of a man—German? Dutch?—who stopped us to ask directions. I understood for the first time the vulnerability of the old, unfortified by good luck or inexperience. The air was full of screams—the screams of children’s games which no one mistakes for real screams as they blow on the wind from street to street. If there were real screams, I found myself wondering, would it be possible to tell the difference, would anyone detect the timbre of tragedy? Or could an atrocity take place whose sonority was indistinguishable from the make-believe of youngsters, their boredom and scares? I had never screamed in my life. Even when the three boys had laid into me I had uttered only formal little oaths, ‘Christ’, ‘God’ and ‘Oh no’. There was a lot of time to fill, but I hardly did anything useful. Mainly I closed the curtains and watched Wimbledon, alternately alerted by a breathtaking rally and soothed by the drowsy putterings of Dan Maskell, like some rich stew left bubbling all day long over a low flame. James brought me videos from the rental shop, as well—not the bath-house freak-shows he usually offered, but charming old films to make me feel better. On his day off—which was drizzly, the covers were on at the Centre Court—we sat and watched The Importance of Being Earnest together.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  God knows how I did it, but I somehow climbed up and dragged the book down. Then, my mother, as she herself puts it, "didn't hide it any more," and, indeed, fr om that moment, though in fear and trembling, began to let me go. I understood, as Bill had intended me to, something of revolution-understood, that is, something of the universal and inevitable human ferment which explodes into what is called a revolution. Revolution: the word had a solemn, dread ful ring: what was going on in Spain was a revolution. It was said that Roosevelt had saved America: fr om a revolution. Rev olution was the only hope of the American working class the proletariat, and world-wide revolution was the only hope of the world. I could understand (or, rather, accept) all this, as it were, negatively. I could not see where I fit in this for mulation, and I did not see where blacks fit. I don't think that I ever dared pose this question to Bill, partly because I hadn't yet really accepted, or understood, that I was black and also because I knew (and didn't want her to know, although, of course, she did) how much my father distrusted and disliked her. My father was certainly a proletarian, but I had been sent downtown often to pay his union dues, and I knew how much he hated these greasy, slimy men-also proletarian-whom he called, quite rightly, robbers. In the film, I was not overwhelmed by the guillotine. The guillotine had been very present for me in the novel because CHAPTER ONE I already wanted, and for very good reasons, to lop ofr heads. But: once begun, how to distinguish one head from another, and how, where, and for what reason, would the process stop? Beneath the resonance of the word, revolution, thundered the word, revenge. But: vengeance is mine, saith the Lord: a hard saying, the identity of the Lord becoming, with the passage of time, either a private agony or an abstract question. And, to put it as simply as it can be put, unless one can conceive of (and endure) an abstract life, there can be no abstract ques tions. A question is a threat, the door which slams shut, or swings open: on another threat. I was haunted, fix example, by Alexandre Manette's doc ument, in A Tale of Two Cities, describing the murder of a peasant boy-who, dying, speaks: I say, 1ve were so robbed, and hunted, and were made so poor, that our father told us it was a dreadful thing to bring a child into this world, and that what 1ve should most pray for was that our women might be barren and our miserable race die out! (I had never before, observes Dr. Manette, seen the sense of being oppressed, bursting forth like a fire.) Dickens has not seen it at all.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  As rescuers, most young women like Karen are used to giving priority to the needs of others. Indeed, they are usually not aware of their own needs or desires. Karen confessed that she had never in her life thought about what would make her happy. “That would be like asking for the moon,” she said. “I was always too worried about my family to ask for me.” As a result, these young women are often trapped into rescuing a troubled man. How can they reject a pitiful man who clings to them? The guilt would be unbearable. Others find troubled men more exciting. One young woman who had frequent contact with both parents during her growing up years explained: “I think I subconsciously pick men who are not going to work out. Men who are nice and considerate bore me. My latest is irresponsible. I don’t trust him. I’m sure he cheats. But he’s the one I want.” W HAT PROMPTS SO many children of divorce to rush into a cohabitation or early marriage with as much forethought as buying a new pair of shoes? 3 Answers lie in the ghosts that rise to haunt them as they enter adulthood. Men and women from divorced families live in fear that they will repeat their parents’ history, hardly daring to hope that they can do better. These fears, which were present but less commanding during adolescence, become overpowering in young adulthood, more so if one or both of their parents failed to achieve a lasting relationship after a first or second divorce. Dating and courtship raise their hopes of being loved sky-high—but also their fears of being hurt and rejected. Being alone raises memories of lonely years in the postdivorce family and feels like the abandonment they dread. They’re trapped between the wish for love and the fear of loss. This amalgam of fear and loneliness can lead to multiple affairs, hasty marriages, early divorce, and—if no take-home lessons are gleaned from it all—a second and third round of the same. Or they can stay trapped in bad relationships for many years. Here’s how it works: at the threshold of young adulthood, relationships move center stage. But for many that stage is barren of good memories for how an adult man and woman can live together in a loving relationship. This is the central impediment blocking the developmental journey for children of divorce. The psychological scaffolding that they need to construct a happy marriage has been badly damaged by the two people they depended on while growing up. Let’s look closely at the process of growing up. Children learn all kinds of lessons at their parents’ knees, from the time they are born to the time they leave home.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  Put succinctly, unlike other social ills such as poverty or community violence, where the interests of parents and children converge, divorce can benefit adults while being detrimental to the needs of children. Our moral vision and our family laws have been built on the assumption that members of a family, big and small, have the same interests. But divorce challenges this assumption straight on. We have been reluctant to face this dilemma in its full complexity. I will take up this issue of when and whether to divorce or stay together for the children’s sake in coming pages. I believe guidelines can be drawn from the life stories you are about to read. I also address whether new policies and practices by the courts and parents could better meet both the wishes of parents and the needs of children. Can we do things better is the core question of this work. Who This Book Is For T HIS BOOK IS written for those of you who grew up in divorced families and want to know why you feel and act the way you do. Each of you believes that your suffering was unique. You’ve struggled with inner conflicts and fears whose source you don’t comprehend. You’ve lived for years with fear of loss and the worry that if you’re happy, it’s only a prelude to disaster. You fear change because deep down you believe it can only be for the worse. You’ve been worried about one or both of your parents all your life, and leaving them has been a nightmare. Like most adult children of divorce, you’ve never confessed to anyone how terrified you are of conflict because the only way you know to handle it is to explode or run away. You’ve lain awake night after night struggling with anxiety about love and commitment. You know far too much about loneliness and too little about lasting friendship. But you were too uncomfortable to mention these feelings because you had no idea that you were part of a large and growing army of millions of young adults who were raised in divorced homes and who share your bewilderment and concerns. The feelings that confuse and trouble you have deep roots in your history. By seeing how your life has been different from that of people raised in good intact families, you will begin to understand these roots for the first time. Your fears may not vanish, but they can surely be muted. That’s my first purpose. This book is also written for those of you who are married to a child of divorce. Why is it that in dealing with your spouse you so often feel as if you’re walking on eggs?

• From The Best American Erotica 2001 (2001)

  Pali looked curiously at Gregg. He was as tall as Pali and as broad shouldered. While the Pastor was narrow, Gregg had thick thighs and a jutting, dimpled ass, perfectly round. While the Pastor was covered in invisible white hairs that tickled anyone he sat by, Gregg was a smooth slab of corn-fed farm boy. “They’re not related at all,” Pali decided. “Oh, flex that ass,” muttered the Pastor, watching his assis tant. “This reminds me of Fiji,” said Pali. “Why Fiji?” asked the Pastor. “I used to go swimming with the Catholic seminarians there—this was before I decided to study the teachings of Martin Luther,” said Pali. “Where’d you swim?” asked the Pastor. “At a waterfall near Suva. Once a Tongan woman from New Zealand joined us, she said she was a writer; we could see her breasts under her wet lavalava, and she said all sorts of suggestive things!” “Like what?” asked the Pastor. “I made hors d’oeuvres!” said Gregg, jumping up and run ning out of the sauna. “My son is nervous today,” said the Pastor. “You’d think it was the first time we’ve had a guest from overseas.” © The snow was ripping through the air outside. Pali stood in the master bedroom wearing a lavalava that the Pastor had given him. “I’ve bought one for each of us! They’re Polynesian pareos,” said the Pastor. “It looks Malaysian,” Pali said, noting the paisley patterns. “So it’s true they don’t wear anything underneath?” said the Pastor, rubbing his eyebrow, looking down at his tent. “Suits the climate,” said Pali. “I can’t seem to find any of my clothes right now.” “Probably in the laundry,” said the Pastor, “We always try to get the visitors’ effects immediately into the wash. Seminarians!” The Pastor tried pressing his hard-on against Pali’s hipbone. Pali felt only ava, faaaloalo, and alofa mo le toeaina: respect, reverence, and love for one’s elder. He found the Minnesota Lutheran clergyman’s home life exotic. He went down the stairs and into the carpeted living room. The Pastor, chasing after him, tucked the hem of his pareo into the waistband, his now shrinking but still swollen member tossing up and about. “Pali! Pali! I just want to chat!” shouted the Pastor as Pali dodged the oak furniture and scattered Pastor Knarffssen’s ex tensive collection of wooden craft items. Knocking over an elmwood rabbit, Pali raced through the kitchen and out onto the sundeck. The snow was now flying about in big wet flakes, hitting Pali’s black hair and smooth back. Like footballers in training, Pali and the Pastor ran high-stepping around the house through the deep, icy prairie grass.

• From Born on the Fourth of July (1976)

  What was going on here? he thought. What was happening? It wasn’t anything like he thought it would be. Why did they have to push them and shove them and kick them and scream and shout? But before he could even get his thoughts together, they put them in a long line and made them face a line of large wooden boxes. He saw that each box had a number painted on it. “I want you to take your clothes off,” the sergeant shouted. “I want you to take off everything that ever reminded you of being a civilian and put it in the box. Do you see that box in front of you and that number? I want everything!” he said. “Now do it, ladies! Quickly, now, quickly!” As soon as the sergeant had said it, all the young boys began tearing their clothing off, unbuckling their belts, pulling off their shirts, their pants, their shoes, their socks. Everything went. Everything. And as they took their last bits of clothing off, the short sergeant began racing back and forth along the line, screaming into the ears of the young boys, cursing them and jabbing his hands hard into their backs. He had a small medal around his neck. It was the one Mom had given him for Christmas. He had kept it on for years, all through high school, and even down in the basement wrestling practice, he had never taken it off. And now the short sergeant was pointing at it with his finger, laughing, then shouting for him to throw it in the box that had the number painted on the side. “Can I keep it?” he said. “Don’t talk back to me,” screamed the sergeant. “You fucking maggot. Don’t you ever talk back to me!” The sergeant grabbed the medal from his hand and threw it in the box. And now he found himself turning slowly to where the thunderous sound of the drill instructor’s voice came from, and he was moving now, stepping and marching, almost running, and then stepping again. He didn’t know what to do. They were screaming in his ears again, shouting, cursing. The short guy punched him again and again, and he felt his breath burst from his lungs, twisting and bending him over. “I’m trying,” he said. “Get in step!” screamed the sergeant. Stepping, marching, running. “Get in step, people! Come on, people! Let’s go, people!” He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to do it. He wanted to go home, then he didn’t. Then he wanted to, then he didn’t know what he wanted to do. They were driving him and pushing him and shoving him, screaming and bullying him through this whole crazy thing. He kept thinking over and over and over again that this day, this place, the screaming shouting voices in his ears, in all their ears, roaring like thunder were like angry hate! Oh get us out! Get us out!

• From Born on the Fourth of July (1976)

  God, help us! And they threw them into a barbershop that was more like a factory where there was hair flying all over the place, his hair, everyone’s hair, all the hair of the boys who had come to be marines that day. Men as angry and as cold as the sergeants shaved the hair off their heads until he could feel the warm soft wind that swept through the hangar on his head too. They had made them completely bald, and he looked around as he sat on the chair, and the guys who were cutting, the guys who were shaving all their hair off, weren’t even looking at the heads, but just cutting like guys shearing sheep. “Get the fuck up!” screamed the barber. “Next!” he shouted, and the next young boy jumped into the chair staring straight ahead. He found himself being swept along with all the young boys, now strange looking, naked like himself. Young bodies tense and twisted naked together, grasping on to each other, holding on like children. Where were they going? he thought. What were they becoming? Shoved and pushed by the drill instructors, they continued to move, from the barbershop where their heads had been shaved, through the long metal hallways of the hangar into the showers. “Wash all that scum off!” screamed the sergeant. “I want you maggots to wash all that civilian scum off your bodies forever!” And now he felt the soothing hot water streaming down his back and onto his legs. Oh, he could feel it splash hot against his bald head. It felt so good, so warm and different from their angry screams. And before he could begin to even feel comfortable, someone was shouting at him again and telling him to get out of the shower, back into the place where he had been before, in front of his box again. And he ran with the others, their bodies naked and dripping with water, all eighty shaved and washed clean and their clothing packed tightly to be mailed back home. And now they all stood rigid at attention, their hands at their sides, facing the boxes with the painted numbers. “Awright people, awright people!” said the sergeant. “We’re gonna issue you clothing.” There were marine privates walking past the boxes throwing in green belts and trousers, utility caps and long black socks. “Awright ladies!” screamed the sergeant. “We are going to begin today by learning how to dress. I want you to look down into your boxes and I want you to look for a pair of black socks. Do you see that pair of black socks, ladies?” “Yessir!” screamed the eighty boys. “Again!” shouted the sergeant. “Yessir!” screamed the young men. “Now I want you to grab that pair of black socks, when I tell you to,” he said, almost hesitating. “And when I tell you to grab them I want you to put them on.

• From Born on the Fourth of July (1976)

  There were boys on their knees—three, four, five, six—he couldn’t count them all, but they were on their knees with their sea bags still over their shoulders like Christs, and they were crawling, he saw them crawling! trying not to quit, trying to catch up with the rest. And he was thankful now he was still on his feet. Oh his legs ached and his chest felt like it was going to explode and his head was pounding now and his eyes were burning and he was getting closer and closer. Some men were cursing now, swearing and cursing like the drill instructors, cursing the heat, cursing the sweat. They began to shout and curse the shock, the shock of this day. They dragged themselves, exhausted, in single file into the squad bay. It was a long hallway painted green with double racks on each side making the place seem even tighter than it was. He found a rack at the end near the window that looked out into the swamps. He stood rigid at attention in front of his rack, dropping his sea bag at his side, staring straight ahead like they had told him, staring directly into the eyes of another young man. All of them now were coming in, their big boots banging against the wooden deck, cursing and sweating and dragging their sea bags up to their racks. “Get in there! Hurry up! Hurry up! Get in there!” screamed the sergeant who came running through the open door of the squad bay. “I want each one of you to get in front of a rack!” screamed the sergeant. “And now I want you to listen to me!” And he told them that this place, this squad bay, would be their home for the next three months. They would live here and sleep here and shower here and work here until they became marines. “It’s late!” screamed the short sergeant. “And I know how tired you ladies are tonight. Are you tired ladies?” screamed the sergeant. “Yessir!” shouted the men. “I can’t hear you!” screamed the sergeant. “Louder!” “Yessir!” the young men screamed again. “That’s more like it.” The sergeant repeated a long list of names including the president and vice president of the United States and everyone else right on down to the senior drill instructor himself, and after completing the list, he shouted to the men that every night from here on out they would repeat those names. And then he shouted, “Ready—Mount!” And they shouted back “Ready—Mount! Aye aye, sir!” And all eighty jumped into bed, still standing at attention, lying in their racks. “Awright! I want you to stand at attention all night! I think it’s good practice for you.” And as they lay in their racks at attention, one of the sergeants had a young black boy from Georgia sing the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallo-o-wed be Thy name,” he sang.

• From Born on the Fourth of July (1976)

  god bless the batallion commander god bless chesty puller god bless john wayne From the halls of Montezuma BY THE RIGHT FLANK! AWRIGHT WHEN I TELL YOU PEOPLE YOU GOT TWO FUCKIN MINUTES TO SHIT SHOWER AND SHAVE I MEAN EXACTLY THAT NOW GET DOWN SCUMBAGS! MAIL CALL! (eighty chests hitting the deck) i want the flag SECOND’S AS GOOD AS LAST LADIES! can’t you see, Father, the tests in spring shots GOTTA BE FIRST GOTTA BE FIRST! STARBOARD SIDE MAKE A HEAD CALL PORTSIDE MAKE A HEAD CALL oh hail Mary full of grace the Lord is motherfucking cocksuckers! oh Our Father KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! Who art in COMMIES CHINKS JAPS AND DINKS hallowed be IF YOU WANT TO BE MARINES . . . HAVE TO PAY THE PRICE PAY THE PRICE PAY THE PRICE If I die in a combat zone box me up and ship me home, Thy kingdom come private kovic sir two-oh-three-oh-two-six-one sir yessir no sir one two aye aye sir Thy will be done the private requests permission to speak to his senior drill instructor oh god oh jesus help me help me on earth as it is in heaven SCHOOL CIRCLES! aye aye sir as it is WHAT DO YOU WANT MAGGOT? READY—SEATS! aye aye sir DO IT! aye aye sir THIS IS YOUR RIFLE I WANT YOU TO SLEEP WITH IT GET UP GET DOWN GET UP GET DOWN DO YOU HEAR ME? DO YOU HEAR ME PEOPLE? (we are moving now) GET OUT OF THE PASSAGEWAY GIMME FIVE HUNDRED BENDS AND THRUSTS aye aye sir one two aye aye sir one two DON’T STOP PEOPLE KEEP RUNNING PEOPLE SCUM SCUM SWINE SWINE THERE WILL BE NO DROPOUTS TODAY THERE WILL BE NO QUITTERS IN MY MARINE CORPS! RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN! YOU BETTER BE DEAD IF YOU DROP OUT There is nothing finer QUICKLY! QUICKLY! and when i grow up i’m going to TEN!NINE!EIGHT!SEVEN!SIX!FIVE!FOUR!THREE!TWO!ONE! YOU’RE LATE! LATE LATE LATE LATE LATE LATE! (raising the flag) DON’T MOVE DON’T SIT DON’T STAND DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT! FORWARD—MARCH! o mary mother of jesus you gotta help me WE ARE THE BEST WE ARE THE BEST WE ARE THE BEST platoon one eighty-one is the best KILL THEM AT THREE HUNDRED FEET! DRESS RIGHT! AT THIRTY FEET! in the trenches on the benches in the butts o get me outta here god (cracking strings and pasting holes and making hits) i’m an expert mom i’m an expert! oh make this time this time i want to scream i want to scream oh no oh wait, hey i’m, wait, i’m just, wait i’m just going to scream scream scream scream scream scream scream scream scream GOTTA GRADUATE GOTTA GRADUATE! BY THE LEFT FLANK—MARCH! YOU’LL NEVER MAKE IT! BY THE RIGHT FLANK EIGHTY PLATOON ONE EIGHTY! platoon one eighty-one sir!

• From Born on the Fourth of July (1976)

  When he got off the radio, he told me the major had changed his mind. The scouts would now lead the attack into the village. I climbed on one of the Amtracs to talk to the men. They seemed very quiet. They had the same feeling I did that it was all about to come down, that this walk in the sand might be the last one for all of us. There was going to be some kind of crazy tactical maneuver where we were going to march west along the bank of the river and make a direct assault on the village after crossing the razorback, which was the biggest sand dune in the area. A group of us would dismount from one of the Amtracs and lead the primary assault and the other two Amtracs would sweep from north to south through the graveyard and attack from another flank. It all sounded so crazy and simple. I kept trying to get my thoughts together, trying to think how much I wanted to prove to myself that I was a brave man, a good marine. No matter what happened out there, I thought to myself, I could never retreat. I had to be courageous. Here was my chance to win a medal, here was my chance to fight against the real enemy, to make up for everything that had happened. This was it, he thought, everything he had been praying for, the whole thing up for grabs. * * * There were ten of them walking toward the village, and he felt the rosary beads in his top pocket and knew that the little black Bible they had given them all on the planes coming in was in his other pocket too. The other men were getting off the ’tracs in the graveyard. He could see the heat still coming up from the big engines and the men looked real small in the distance, like little toy soldiers jumping off tanks. He looked to the left and they were all there, it was a perfect line. He had trained the scouts well and everything looked good. There was a big pagoda up ahead and a long trench full of Popular Forces. There wasn’t any firing going on and he asked the commander of the Viet unit to help him in the assault that was about to take place. The Viet officer said they were staying put and none of them was even going to think about attacking the village. He was angry as he moved the scouts over the top of the long trench line. They’re a bunch of fucking cowards, he thought. “Look at them!” he shouted to the scouts. “They’re sitting out the war in that trench like a bunch of babies.” “Let’s go!” he said. And now they began to move into a wide and open area. They were ten men armed to the teeth, walking in a sweeping line toward the village.

• From The Folding Star (1994)

  "He couldn't swim," said Paul abstractedly, still pondering the images he must have seen so many times, as if there were more of these secrets in them if you only knew how to look. "He stood at the window in the late afternoon and watched her go out till he lost sight of her. She swam right out, as she often did—she was a strong swimmer. He never saw her come back. He sat in the room and sketched the window and the view, almost as a kind of reflex: he liked to be busy with his work all the time. He made this simple empty drawing—evening was coming on—he followed the hour and darkened it into his favourite twilight. Later he went down to the beach to look for her. I've always had a very clear idea of the scene, the dandyish young man in his owl's glasses, rambling back and forth on the sand in the thickening gloom, trying to make out faces, putting questions to strangers: that awful fear that makes you an idiot. At last he told the police, but it was dark by then, and there was nothing they could do; and besides, who knew which way she had gone? Perhaps further out a current would take her. They alerted the coastguards at Middelkerke and De Haan. She was quite a well-known figure, so the news travelled fast in other directions. Apparently they had registered at the hotel under false names, but Edgard forgot in the turmoil of the moment. He seems to have been briefly deranged by anxiety—he went out quite late to the Kursaal, believing that he would meet her there. Then he made a scene. He was still so young, remember, he was only thirty-four, and he thought he had lost his great love—well, he had. I must say he seems a touching figure to me—self-absorbed, of course, not particularly humorous, but slightly comic even so, and, you know, vulnerable." We were both resting our eyes on the framed photo above the bookshelves, which dated, I believe, from 1910, when he looked a good deal older than forty-five. His proud turn of the head, I realised, had put me a bit against him ever since I had seen it on my first visit here. But then who could ever tell what their next decade held? "When did they find her?" I asked. Paul carefully returned the prints to the drawer. "They didn't," he said.

• From The Folding Star (1994)

  The stair was not much wider than a person, and very steep and dark. I became hilarious, shouting snatches of poetry, which Edie took as a good sign until I was groping and gripping at her heels, the calves of her trousers. I longed to turn back, but wouldn't have dared go down by myself. Then voices were heard ahead of us, whirling footsteps, numbers shouted out, eighty-three, eighty-four, high-pitched taunts and boasts. What sounded like thirty, forty children were going to come past us. Before I saw them I pictured them as red and black apprentice devils, capering gleefully with their forks over rooftops, clouds. When they came there was just squeezing darkness, airless bombardment. I lost my grip on Edie, my outstretched hand grasped at cold black stone, children's knees, knapsacks; someone trod on my fingers; I clung to the notional central pillar, the inner tapering edge of the steps wasn't wide enough, I saw myself being dislodged by the heedless barging onrush of youngsters and dropping into a black funnel. "There, that wasn't too bad, was it?" said Edie as she hurried up the last few stairs into the sunlight. "Edie . . . Edie . . ." She turned and ducked my head like a baptism under the low lintel. A doorway for dwarfs, for god's sake . . . In front of me lay the rinsed expanse of the leads. I was unhappily aware of Edie springing across it and snorting in one view after another through the generous loopholes in the parapet. "It's glorious!" she shouted, jamming down her hat against a surprisingly tough little wind, undiscernible at ground level, sent to bother those who dared the heights. I thought if I could gain the central flagpole and hang on to it, I might be able to cope. I ran to it as if expecting sniper fire, my legs like rope. Clasping it behind me in both hands I stood and considered my position. It was hard to believe I wasn't play-acting, no one could be so silly about heights; yet my knees were fidgeting with fear and I couldn't breathe deeply for the black knot in my chest. "You must tell me what everything is," called Edie.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  I wasn’t ready and after about a year, I wanted out. I learned a lot from that experience. I learned that I wanted a woman who could think for herself and didn’t look to me to be everything for her. And I wanted someone a lot calmer. I didn’t want a playback of my dad’s life.” Gary had gotten himself deeply involved with a woman who was tempestuous like his mother. She was exactly the kind of person he promised himself he would avoid in relationships. Many of the adults we interviewed from intact families reported similar episodes. They had love affairs with partners who were exciting but bad news. Most got terrified and escaped by the skin of their teeth. Later they credited these near mistakes as rites of passage that were important to their maturation. They then used these experiences to help define what they wanted in their life partner, so by the time they were ready to marry they had in their mind’s eye a fairly realistic portrait of what they wanted and needed. Even more important, they had found out what they did not want no matter how exciting it was and when to turn away. The portrait in their heads was a composite of their perspective on their parents’ marriage, lessons from their own earlier experiences, and their lifelong hopes and yearnings. In the process of searching for love and sexual intimacy, they had learned a lot about themselves as well. It was a journey of self-discovery as well as discovery. But children of divorce, as we saw in Karen and others, did not undertake a similar search for the kind of person they wanted. They lacked the self-confidence to think of the choice as theirs. Although some had many relationships, these did not lead to a better understanding of themselves or of the kind of partner that would be a suitable choice. They were too beset by fears of loneliness and too needy to reject an unsuitable lover and move on. They didn’t dare. Nor did they enter marriage or cohabitation with a portrait in mind. Rather, their ideas of an ideal mate were sketchy or very modest, built largely on fears rather than forethought. Mostly they wanted someone nice and caring who would not betray them. Instead of actively choosing, they settled for whatever was there. They moved in with lovers who had serious problems and got stuck for years with only a dim awareness of what had gone wrong. This is a serious distinction between people raised in divorced or intact families, and Gary had led me right to it. Arguably, the most important step in marriage is the first step, choosing the right person or someone who comes close to being right for you.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  Karen’s parents had similar interchanges, but their fights were not used to keep the marriage going. Carol’s parents were different in that they fought for the erotic excitement generated while they drank martinis. Again, many people including professionals are often under the impression that quarreling reflects conflict or that it can be resolved rationally, if only the two people would come to the table. But in families like Carol’s, no table would work. For children, this kind of family is disastrous. First, they grow up fearing that they or a parent will be hurt. They are hypnotized by the continual portrayal of a man-woman relationship in which intimacy and pain are intertwined. And they internalize a lasting view of adult love as lacking in kindness, tenderness, friendship, gentleness, and a sense of morality. The template of intimacy that they carry to adulthood is uniting to hurt one another, albeit without inflicting serious injury. The passion is in the danger. In these families, the children hardly matter to their parents. Instead of existing as real people separate from the parents’ wishes or sudden whims, the children are shadowy figures who hover on the periphery of their parents’ lives like courtiers or slaves in the sultan’s palace waiting to be summoned. In Carol’s family the parents are themselves the children. They are astonishingly self-absorbed, acting out their own impulses while being completely unaware of their children’s suffering. They don’t understand or care that their immoral behavior will warp the developing conscience of their children and harm the children’s future relationships. It’s fashionable in some circles to claim that people who divorce are more selfish or, as the saying goes, more “narcissistic” than those who stay married. But it would be hard to think of any couple more self-centered than Carol’s parents and others in this group of very troubled intact marriages. TWELVE Growing Up Lonely P eople ask me all the time if there’s a best time to get a divorce. Isn’t it easier, they wonder, if the child is still very young and won’t have strong memories of the intact family? Or is it better to wait until children are nearly grown, with one foot out of the nest? Does the age of a child matter and should people contemplating divorce wait for a better time? The answer, of course, is “it depends” on a host of factors, including the quality of the marriage (is it violence or boredom that’s behind the decision) and the quality of the postdivorce family over the long haul. That said, it is clear from my work and others that in our divorce culture the youngest children tend to suffer the most. At an age when they need constant protection and loving nurturance, these young children have parents in turmoil.