Guilt

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 Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘Why are you asking me that, sir? As God is my witness, he will never prosper. Don’t mention this to anyone, by the way. It is a secret between you and me. The problem is that he is too clever for his own good. When you have too much of a good thing, you can overreach yourself. That is his case, I believe. My master has misused his great gifts. It is a cause of grief to me, I can assure you. God help him. That is all I can say.’ ‘Never mind that,’ Harry replied. ‘Tell me more about this work of his. Since you know all about him, you must also know his secrets. I assume that he is shrewd as well as wily. So tell me everything. Where do you both live?’ ‘We dwell beyond the walls of a town, in an area full of cellars and blind alleys. It is the haunt of thieves and robbers who must conceal themselves. It is a place for those who dare not show their face by day. That is where we live.’ ‘Tell me another thing,’ our Host asked him. ‘Why is your face so discoloured?’ ‘God has not favoured it, I admit. I am so used to blowing into the fire that the flames have changed my colour, I suppose. I am not one to preen myself in front of a mirror. I get on with my work, and try my hand at alchemy. But we are always making mistakes. We miscalculate the amount of heat, for example. We can never get to the end of the experiment, and fail somewhere along the way. But that’s no problem. There are plenty of gullible people who will give us a pound of gold - or ten pounds, or twelve pounds - on the understanding that we will be able to double the amount. I know that this may be a false promise, but we still have faith in the technique. We still have hope. The trouble is that the science is so difficult to master. Although we have sworn the contrary to our customers - our patrons, I should say - we never get it quite right. I would not be at all surprised if we became beggars.’ While this young Yeoman was talking, his master came close and listened carefully to everything he said. This Canon, dressed in black, was wary and distrustful of others. Cato has taught us that the guilty man always believes that he is the object of suspicion. That is why the master drew so close to the servant. He wanted to hear everything. Then he interrupted the boy. ‘Shut your mouth,’ he said. ‘Don’t say another word. Otherwise, you will regret it. How dare you slander me in the company of these strangers, and blab all my secrets?’ ‘Carry on, young man,’ Harry Bailey said. ‘Don’t pay any attention to him or his threats.’ ‘Don’t worry,’ the boy replied, ‘I don’t intend to.’

• From City of Night (1963)

  But there were others to feed that quickly starved craving. In theater balconies; the act sometimes executed in the last rows, or along the dark stairways.... In movie heads—while someone watched out for an intruder; body fusing with mouth hurriedly—momentarily stifling that sense of crushing aloneness that the world manifests each desperate moment of the day—and which only the liberation of Orgasm seemed then to be able to vanquish, if only momentarily.... Behind the statue in Bryant park; figures silhouetted uncaringly in the unstoppable moments.... Still, for me, there were those days of returning to what had once constituted periods of relative calmness, in my earlier years, when—to Escape!—I would read greedily.... Now, at that library on Fifth Avenue, I would try often to shut my ears to the echoes of that world roaring outside, immediately beyond these very walls. Again, I would read for hours. And this would be a part of the recurring pattern, when impulsively I would get a job, leave the streets, return to those books to which I had fled as a child. But because there would always be, too, that boiling excitement to be in that world which had brought me here—and, equally, the powerful childhood obsession with guilt which threatened at times to smother me—emotionally I was constantly on a seesaw. And I began to sense that this journey away from a remote childhood window was a kind of rebellion against an innocence which nothing in the world justified. In the library one night as I sit in the reading room surrounded by serene-masked people like relics from a distant world, a handsome youngman said hello to me. He sat at the same table. Noticing that he kept smiling and looking at me—at the same time that I felt his leg sliding against mine—I left Sharply, I resented that youngman. His gesture had an implied attraction within the world of mutually interested men. While I could easily hang out with other youngmen hustling the same streets (although, since Pete, I seldom did for more than a few minutes, preferring to be alone), with them there was a knowledge—verbally proclaimed—that we were hunting scores, not each other. With this youngman just now, there had been the indication that he felt he could attract me to him as clearly as he had been attracted to me.... The youngman followed me outside. As I cut across Bryant Park, I heard his steps quicken to approach me. “I’d—like to meet you,” he said, the last words hurried as if he had rehearsed the sentence in order to be able to speak it. “Im going to go eat now,” I said, avoiding even looking at him. “All right if I sit with you and just talk?” he asked me. He was masculine in appearance, in actions. He could not have been over 20. But already there was a steady, revealing gaze in his eyes.

• From City of Night (1963)

  When I told Pete about Flip (leaving out that she was actually a dragqueen), she too sounded like a nympho to him. “I gotta meet that chick,” he told me—and later, I took him to her apartment. “We’ll all three make it together,” he said enthusiastically, “it’s Sexier that way.” And although he kept insisting as we stood outside Flip’s door that I should stay, I said I had something else to do. “Just ring the bell,” I told him. “She wont even ask who you are. She’ll just let you in.” I waited on the steps until I saw him ring the bell. The door opened. I heard Flip squeal: “Ooo, you are a zoll!” That night I expected perversely to see an indignant Pete. But when I saw him, he said: “Man!—what a great Lay that chick is!”... I felt very smug—and very surprised. 4 Then, one day—in the midst of that cold bitter winter, when the snow cut across the streets like an icy knife and the wind shrieked like something from Hell—one day, the memory of my Mother—accentuated by the long painfully written three-times-a-week letters without punctuation asking when I would be Back, asking me to promise not to get into trouble—that memory seized me with a racking violence—and I decided to put down Times Square again—a pattern of guilt which would recur periodically. I got a job, with a Foundation dedicated to Spreading The Greatness of The American Way of Life. And I kept away from The Streets. At night I would stay home or go to the movies—but not on 42nd Street or The Others. But—again—that job lasted only briefly, and impulsively, I quit. The cold air outside struck me like my lost freedom, regained. That very night I was back on Times Square. “Where you been, spote?” Pete said. “I thought you got busted or something, I looked around for you. Dont split like that again, hear?” For the first time since I had known him, we shook hands. After that, I saw him more and more often. Sometimes—having scored—we would meet afterwards and sit in the automat at 42nd and Park Avenue (this appealed to him as Classier). He told me he was staying in the room which the black-dressed Al rented to keep his motorcycle clothes in. “He dont dig anyone staying there,” Pete told me, “but I finally conned him into letting me.” Yet, although I saw Pete at least once a day now, there was still the urgency, on both our parts, to split abruptly—to get away from each other. Occasionally, we would go see “Mom.” And the initial embarrassment I had felt was completely gone: It was always the same scene, the man never touched either of us, he merely sat staring. Once he even took a picture of us at the table.

• From City of Night (1963)

  Waking up wherever that may be, invariably I’ll feel a sudden apprehension, because now I will have to face the Mirror, which will stare at me lividly—and I’ll look for Someone; but I wont see whom I want to see, but see, instead, in that morning hour (the hour of waking, whether afternoon or night) a strange accusing face:... Myself. With knowing eyes that somehow dont belong: a face violent in its Knowingness, if only so to me. Scrutinizing that stranger’s face, of Myself in the Mirror, I hear the voice of the man Im with, saving: “Dont stare so hard; youre still a boy”—as if understanding from the searching looks that Im hunting Someone, urgently—that someone unfound in the dim past, in the parks, the moviebalconies, the bars, the streets, the sexrooms; that someone perhaps lost or evaded somewhere in the labyrinthine memories leading back to a serene window.... But despite that man’s words, of course I know—and the face knows—that I am no longer a “boy.” I appear Young, yes—but, inside, it’s as if miles of years have stretched since I left that window in El Paso. Turning away from the Mirror, I feel stabbingly guilty. But guilty of what? Perhaps my guilt is a wayward apology for living in a world for which I dont feel responsible. I walk out of that room, and the sun claws savagely at my eyes. It means a day has gone by. But what good is a day going by so easily when, suddenly, there is the devouring sun and another day, another empty stretch of time before you can hide again?—another day standing before me at attention like a private waiting to be told what to do, sir.... It’s better to wake up nights so you dont have to screw your eyes up and your Dark self adjusting to the sun. Reluctantly I join the hordes of other nightpeople, stark in the reality of Morning, their features as if erased by the sun from the bloodless faces, more stark in juxtaposition with the sleepfed faces of the others, the morningpeople: the many, infinitely many, varieties of “tourists.” And in that sun, it will begin again, trying to fill the nothing with something— with anything! —which this time is God Damn It this: Sonny said: “See, you go and tell him—over there, see (and, man, I seen his wallet and that score is loaded!)—and tell him Sandy-Vee wants to see him, and when he comes outside, you come with him and shove him toward the stairs and me and my buddy’ll grab his ass, and if he dont come across nice, we’ll take it and break the bread in three.” His childface looks pervertedly demonic—like a fallen angel’s—as he whispers the plotted violence—his look reflected by the darkhaired youngman beside him who, that other violent afternoon, had taken Sonny with me to Sylvia’s boarded-up bar.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  I drove to Woodell’s house and asked for the check. I knew the Woodells weren’t well off. I knew that, with their son’s medical bills, they were scuffling more than I. This five thousand dollars was their life savings. I knew that. But I was wrong. His parents had a little bit more, and they asked if I needed that, too. And I said yes. And they gave me their last three thousand dollars, draining their savings down to zero. How I wished I could put that check in my desk drawer and not cash it. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. On my way out the door I stopped. I asked them: “Why are you doing this?” “Because,” Woodell’s mother said, “if you can’t trust the company your son is working for, then who can you trust?” PENNY WAS CONTINUING to find creative ways of stretching her twenty-five-dollar grocery allowance, which meant fifty kinds of beef Stroganoff, which meant my weight ballooned. By the middle of 1970 I was around 190, an all-time high. One morning, getting dressed for work, I put on one of my baggier suits and it wasn’t

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Although I lived a blameless life as a monk, I felt that I was a sinner with an uneasy conscience before God. I also could not believe that I had pleased him with my works. … I was a good monk, and kept my order so strictly that if ever a monk could get to heaven by monastic discipline, I was that monk. All my companions in the monastery would confirm this. … And yet my conscience did not give me certainty, but I always doubted and said, “You didn’t do that right. You weren’t contrite enough. You left that out of your confession.”25 In the past, the monastic life had encouraged a spirituality that was essentially communal. Monks had listened to the scriptures together during the liturgy. Lectio divina had been a ruminative, unanxious, and even enjoyable method of appropriating the truths of religion. But the new emphasis on the individual made Luther so obsessed with his own spiritual performance that he had become mired in the ego that he was supposed to transcend. None of the medieval rites and practices could touch what he called the tristitia (“sorrow”) that filled him with an acute terror of death and a conviction of abject impotence.26 In addition, he had expressed the yearning for absolute certainty that would also characterize religion in the modern period. Luther found salvation in the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Human beings could not save themselves by performing meritorious deeds and rituals; if we had faith, Christ would clothe us in his own righteousness. Our good deeds were, therefore, the result rather than the cause of God’s favor. This was not an original idea; it was already a perfectly respectable Catholic position.27 But while he was studying Paul’s letter to the Romans, it broke upon Luther with the overwhelming power of a new revelation when he came across the words: “The just man lives by faith.”28 They “made me feel as though I had been born again, and as though I had entered through the open gates of paradise itself,” he would recall later.29 The precise conclusion that Luther drew from this one sentence would probably have surprised Paul, but it spoke to the unconscious needs of a generation that found traditional practices empty and unproductive.30

• From Ulysses (Kindle edition — verify full work) (1922)

  Abandoning Eddie Jr., despite the physical and psychological effects, affords her the opportunity to attend college and play a participatory role in the movement, and thereby liberate her community via sociopolitical activism. As literary scholar Thadious Davis insightfully notes, Meridian "divests herself of immediate blood relations," including her child and parents, "in order to align herself completely with the larger racial and social generations of blacks."29 Despite her painful private experiences, she "is born anew into a pluralistic cultural self, a `we' that is and must be self-less and without ordinary prerequisites for personal identity."" Moreover, "[i]n order to engage in the intense political struggles of the movement Meridian has to forget the events of her personal past," including her divestment of her child, "that once kept her from the larger historical context of her life."31 Thus, "the power of public commitment" overshadows, if not overwhelms, "the demands of private ties," as literary scholar Melissa Walker posits.32 While I concur with both Davis and Walker, I would also suggest that it is precisely because Meridian redefines her self in relation to the communal, vis-a-vis participating in sociopolitical activism and uplift, that she "reconciles" her sense of guilt and avoids, unlike other transgressive characters, the communal ramifications that transgressions against motherhood, female sexuality, and strictures for women would otherwise elicit. As such, while she challenges sociocommunal demands and circumscriptions of women where sexuality and motherhood are concerned, her participation in the movement is not seen as deviant. Rather, her activism, a form of racial/ communal and sociopolitical work, serves as expiation for her racialized/gendered/sexualized transgression. For it is precisely her activism and commitment to liberatory politics that enable her to transgress circumscriptions for women, yet, concomitantly, serve a vital role within varied communities. In fact, Walker deliberately employs this narrative strategycharacterizing and historicizing Meridian within the context of the movement-to negotiate, as well as problematize, notions regarding black women's individuality, community, and belonging. To this end, her transgressions against motherhood, especially her thoughts of infanticide, are invariably and strategically accompanied by moments of sociopolitical consciousness on her part within the text. Her initial fantasies of murdering Eddie Jr., for instance, are interrupted by a voter registration demonstration led by young activists that she sees on the evening news: Now she sat listlessly, staring at the TV. [...] There was to be a voter registration drive (she wondered what that was) that would begin [...]. Local blacks, volunteers, were needed. [. Black people were never shown in the newsunless of course they had shot their mothers or raped their bosses' grandparent-and a black person or persons giving a news conference was unheard of. But, [... it] kept her mind somewhere else while she made her hands play with the baby. (72)

• From City of Night (1963)

  There was little he condemned, little he didnt accept—even to being rousted by the cops.... Once, weeks before, sitting with him at Hooper’s coffee-and-donuts after two in the morning, we had been picked up at random from the other faces there by two cops. Chuck had remained lackadaisically cool, almost Philosophical. He told me: “Shoot, unless they really want you for something, we will be back here in jes a few minutes. On weekends, man, this late, they got too many in the joint already.... But we are gonna take a little trip to the glasshouse,” he predicted—and he was right—the glasshouse being where they interrogate you, fingerprint you without booking you: an illegal L.A. cop-tactic to scare you from hanging around... (I remember: As we were being taken to be fingerprinted, along with five others out of Hooper’s—one of the night typists at the station, a pretty roundfaced girl, said to the one next to her: “Thats a cute bunch they got there.” And Chuck called to her: “What time you get off, honey?” She answered saucily: “When do you get out?” —just as the cop, Meanly, stormed back to squelch the Romance....) Along the walks in the park, the hunters and watchers slowly thickened. I noticed three malehustlers standing a few feet from us. I can hear snatches of their conversation: “—I rolled him for a C, man—...” “Man, I didnt even let im touch me an I scored 20 bills...” The preaching has increased. The angelsisters are marching solemnly to Their Corner—led by the sinister deacon old man.... A man is now standing inches before the howling Negro woman, and as she bumps, he puts his hands behind his neck and thrusts his pelvis lewdly at her, shouting: “Go!”—while she continued howling: “Lawd! Don lure me wid da Debil! Lawd! Ah done seed Yuh in all Yuh Glory! Lawd!” as if playing hide-and-seek with God.... A tattered gray old man, drunk, passes by, mumbling: “Goddamn! God-Jesus-damn!”... Chuck is staring at all this. He shakes his head. I wait curiously for whatever comment hes about to make. What he said was: “Man, dig those birds.” Before us, two pigeons were cooing romantically at each other. “Now ain they something? They make it with each other in Broad Daylight, an nobody busts them for indecent exposure.... What happened to that guy?” he said abruptly—and always he would speak out whatever had formed in his mind, as if expecting that others were following his thinking identically. One moment he could be consumed almost childishly with glee—and like a child dazzled by sights of spinning ferris wheels and rollercoasters, the next moment he could shift his interest easily to something else. “Which guy?” “Oh, you know, man—the score you was with that time—the one that wanted pod so bad.”

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  I identified with the born loser in each Buttface, and vice versa, and I knew that together we could become winners. I still didn’t know exactly what winning meant, other than not losing, but we seemed to be getting closer to a defining moment when that question would be settled, or at least more sharply defined. Maybe going public would be that moment. Maybe going public would finally ensure that Nike would live on. If I had any doubts about Blue Ribbon’s management team in 1976, they were mainly about me. Was I doing right by the Buttfaces, giving them so little guidance? When they did well I’d shrug and deliver my highest praise: Not bad. When they erred I’d yell for a minute or two, then shake it off. None of the Buttfaces felt the least threatened by me—was that a good thing? Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results. It was the right tack for Patton and his GIs. But did that make it right for a bunch of Buttfaces? I worried. Maybe I should be more hands-on. Maybe we should be more structured. But then I’d think: Whatever I’m doing, it must be working, because mutinies are few. In fact, ever since Bork, no one had thrown a genuine tantrum, about anything, not even what they were paid, which is unheard of in any company, big or small. The Buttfaces knew I wasn’t paying myself much, and they trusted that I was paying them what I could. Clearly the Buttfaces liked the culture I’d created. I trusted them, wholly, and didn’t look over their shoulders, and that bred a powerful two-way loyalty. My management style wouldn’t have worked for people who wanted to be guided, every step, but this group found it liberating, empowering. I let them be, let them do, let them make their own mistakes, because that’s how I’d always liked people to treat me. At the end of a Buttface weekend, consumed with these and other thoughts, I’d drive back to Portland in a trance. Halfway there I’d come out of the trance and start thinking about Penny and the boys. The Buttfaces were like family, but every minute I spent with them was at the cost of my other family, my real family. The guilt was palpable. Often I’d walk into my house and Matthew and Travis would meet me at the door. “Where have you been?” they’d ask. “Daddy was with his friends,” I’d say, picking them up. They’d stare, confused. “But Mommy told us you were working.”

• From City of Night (1963)

  Part of Pete’s technique as a hustler was to tell the men he’d been with that he knew other youngmen like himself, and if they wanted, he would fix them up. Like a social secretary, he kept mental dates when he’d meet certain people. If he still didnt have someone for the score, they would walk around Times Square until the man spotted someone he wanted. Pete would make the introductions—as he had that night with me and the black-dressed Al—and would get a few bucks for it... There was one problem, Pete explained: As the score got to know more and more people, he’d dispense with Pete’s services. Occasionally, we sat in the automat, talking for a long time, Bragging, exaggerating last night’s Big Score. Soon it would turn bitter cold, he warned me (and, already, the wind raked the streets savagely), and the hustling would become more difficult; the competition on the streets keener. “You can shack up with someone permanent, though,” he told me, looking at me curiously as if he were trying to find out something about me; “but me,” he added hurriedly, “I dont dig that scene—I guess Im too Restless.” He made it, instead, from place to place, week to week, night to night. Or, he told me, he’d stay in one of the all-night movies. Sometimes he would rent a room off Seventh Avenue where they knew him. “And if you aint got a pad any time, spote,” he said, “you can pad there too.” Then he changed the subject quickly. “I dig feeling Free all the time,” he said suddenly, stretching his arms. And I could understand those feelings. Alone, I, too, felt that Enormous freedom. Yet... there was always a persistent sensation of guilt: a strong compulsion to spend immediately whatever money I had scored. I still lived in that building on 34th Street, its mirrored lobby a ghost of its former elegance.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  And be safe!” I call #6, feeling the need to confess, wanting to give him one last chance to say he can’t have me sleeping with another man, but he doesn’t answer. CHAPTER 44Lost CondomsI still find it challenging to put my own needs up there with my kids’ needs, but I know it’s the only way forward. I have to take care of myself properly if I am to take care of them the way I want to, which means not just managing their basic care but showing by example how to live a life with joy, serenity, kindness and compassion. If I do not give myself opportunities to feel happy or at peace or filled up as a woman, how will I be a mother who can share these qualities with her children? I am consumed with feelings of guilt, terrified that if I let myself thrive in my life outside of motherhood I am sacrificing my children. Friends and books keep telling me I must grab the oxygen mask first for myself and second for the kids, but it sounds like validation for selfish behavior. On a rational level, I know that I am equating being a good mother with being a martyr, but on an emotional level, I am having a hard time letting go of this vestige of my previous life. I’ve been having sex with various men for months now, but the thought of having sex while on a family trip suggests that I am fully establishing myself as an independent human being outside of my relationship with my children. Sleeping with Blaze is a fantasy, yes, but it’s also proof that I have given myself full permission to have a private life. I have proven in so many ways to myself over the past year that I am strong, resilient, adventurous, curious, passionate and open, but it turns out I have one last thing to prove to myself, that I can be a mother and a fulfilled woman and that the two are not mutually exclusive. Sandy, sticky and freckled from the sun by early evening, I luxuriate in a long shower, scrubbing myself clean with the coconut-scented bath products the resort has provided. I shimmy into my favorite dress, the bright orange Indian-print halter I wore on one of my dates with #4, knowing this is the easiest access piece of clothing I own. I tuck a condom into my small straw clutch purse and then the four of us head out to dinner. Michael snaps a picture of me, Georgia and Hudson sitting on the back of a tuk tuk, bouncing along the narrow road to the beach restaurant. Georgia is squished in the middle, one hand on my leg and the other on Hudson’s, and his hand is wrapped over hers.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  Consequently the two had developed a chippy, deeply sarcastic rapport. For instance. Woodell wheeled into my office one day and said, “This is depressing. Jeff complains constantly about inventory, expense reimbursements, lack of communications. He says he’s working his butt off while we’re lolling around. He doesn’t listen to any reason, including that our sales are doubling every year.” Woodell told me he wanted to take a different approach to Johnson. By all means, I said. Have at it. So he wrote Johnson a long letter “admitting” that we’d all been colluding against him, trying to make him unhappy. He wrote, “I’m sure you realize we don’t work quite as hard out here as you do; with only three hours in the working day it is hard to get everything done. Still, I make time to place you in all sorts of embarrassing situations with customers and the business community. Whenever you need money desperately to pay bills, I send only a tiny fraction of what you need so that you’ll have to deal with bill collectors and lawsuits. I take the destruction of your reputation as a personal compliment.” And so on. Johnson answered back: “Finally someone out there understands me.” What I was getting ready to propose wasn’t going to help. I approached Johnson first. I chose my moment carefully—a trip we made to Japan, to visit Nippon Rubber and discuss the Pre Montreal. Over dinner I laid it all out for him. We were in a ferocious battle, a siege. Day by day, we were doing everything we could to keep the troops fed and the enemy at bay. For the sake of victory, for the sake of survival, everything else needed to be sacrificed, subordinated. “And so, at this crucial moment in the evolution of Blue Ribbon, in the rollout of Nike... I’m sorry, but, well... you two dummies need to switch cities.” He groaned. Of course. It was Santa Monica all over again. But slowly, agonizingly, he came around. As did Woodell. Around the close of 1972 each man handed his house keys to the other, and now in early 1973 they switched places. Talk about team players. It was an enormous sacrifice, and I was deeply grateful. But in keeping with my personality, and Blue Ribbon tradition, I expressed no gratitude. I spoke not a word of thanks or praise. In fact, in several office memos I referred to the switch as “Operation Dummy Reversal.” IN THE LATE spring of 1973 I met with our recent investors, the debenture holders, for a second time. The first time they’d loved me. How could they not? Sales were booming, celebrity athletes were promoting our shoes. Sure, we’d lost Onitsuka, and we were facing a legal fight down the road, but we were on the right track. This time, however, it was my duty to inform the investors that, one year after launching Nike, for the first time in Blue Ribbon history... we’d lost money.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  It was around this time, as Nike rolled out its first children’s shoes, Wally Waffle and Robbie Road Racer, that Matthew announced he would never wear Nikes so long as he lived. His way of expressing anger about my absences, as well as other frustrations. Penny tried to make him understand that Daddy wasn’t absent by choice. Daddy was trying to build something. Daddy was trying to ensure that he and Travis would one day be able to attend college. I didn’t even bother to explain. I told myself it didn’t matter what I said. Matthew never understood, and Travis always understood—they seemed born with these unvarying default positions. Matthew seemed to harbor some innate resentment toward me, while Travis seemed congenitally devoted. What difference would a few more words make? What difference would a few more hours make? My fatherhood style, my management style. I was forever questioning, Is it good—or merely good enough? Time and again I’d vow to change. Time and again I’d tell myself: I will spend more time with the boys. Time and again I’d keep that promise—for a while. Then I’d fall back to my former routine, the only way I knew. Not hands-off. But not hands-on. This might have been the one problem I couldn’t solve by brainstorming with my fellow Buttfaces. Vastly trickier than how to get midsoles from Point A to Point B was the question of Son A and Son B, how to keep them happy, while keeping Son C, Nike, afloat. 1977His name was M. Frank Rudy, he was a former aerospace engineer, and he was a true original. One look at him told you he was a nutty professor, though it wasn’t until years later that I learned the full extent of his nuttiness. (He kept a meticulous diary of his sex life and bowel movements.) He had a business partner, Bob Bogert, another brainiac, and they had a Crazy Idea, and together they were going to pitch us—that’s the sum total of what I knew that morning in March 1977 as we settled around the conference table. I wasn’t even sure how these guys reached us, or how they’d arranged this meeting. “Okay, fellas,” I said, “what’ve you got?” It was a beautiful day, I remember. The light outside the room was a buttery pale yellow, and the sky was blue for the first time in months, so I was distracted, a little spring feverish, as Rudy leaned his weight on the edge of the conference table and smiled. “Mr. Knight, we’ve come up with a way to inject… air… into a running shoe.” I frowned and dropped my pencil. “Why?” I said. “For greater cushioning,” he said. “For greater support. For the ride of a lifetime.” I stared. “You’re kidding me, right?” I’d heard a lot of silliness from a lot of different people in the shoe business, but this. Oh. Brother.

• From Ulysses (Kindle edition — verify full work) (1922)

  In her allusion to slavery, Meridian also problematizes universal notions regarding motherhood that in her case are further complicated by race and the historical dynamics and nexus between black women and motherhood. Given (enslaved) black women's restricted/denied access to and "ownership" of their children-who, like adult slaves, were commodified and sold as chattel-motherhood within a black racialized context embodies a complex set of meanings beyond the universal. Since motherhood, as a concept and institution, "is of central importance in [...] the philosophy of African and Afro-American peoples," it is interconnected with "the historical process within which these peoples have been engaged, a process that is an intertwining of tradition, enslavement, and the struggle for their peoples' freedom."27 Black motherhood and "the black mother" emblematize, then, something both real and mystical that has historically been revered and idealized. Notwithstanding the historical significance undergirding black motherhood, Meridian, contrary to this "tradition," chooses both freely and deliberately to give her son away rather than kill either him or herself. Having internalized ideologies concerning black motherhood, Meridian is still both unwilling and unable to serve the role of mother she has been socialized to embrace and fulfill. Unlike her "maternal" ancestors, who had equated the opportunity to keep their children with "freedom," Meridian views slavery and motherhood, specifically raising an unexpected and/ or unwanted child, as comparable institutions. In giving away her son, a highly contestatory act, Meridian simultaneously and paradoxically upholds yet diverges from "ideal" black motherhood. That is, she exercises her right as a mother to protect her baby-"believing she had saved [his] life" (91)-by giving him away; yet, conversely, she dissociates herself from the tradition, actual and mythical, by abandoning her child-even if she does so to accept a scholarship to college."

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  If I had any doubts about Blue Ribbon’s management team in 1976, they were mainly about me. Was I doing right by the Buttfaces, giving them so little guidance? When they did well I’d shrug and deliver my highest praise: Not bad. When they erred I’d yell for a minute or two, then shake it off. None of the Buttfaces felt the least threatened by me—was that a good thing? Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results. It was the right tack for Patton and his GIs. But did that make it right for a bunch of Buttfaces? I worried. Maybe I should be more hands-on. Maybe we should be more structured. But then I’d think: Whatever I’m doing, it must be working, because mutinies are few. In fact, ever since Bork, no one had thrown a genuine tantrum, about anything, not even what they were paid, which is unheard of in any company, big or small. The Buttfaces knew I wasn’t paying myself much, and they trusted that I was paying them what I could. Clearly the Buttfaces liked the culture I’d created. I trusted them, wholly, and didn’t look over their shoulders, and that bred a powerful two-way loyalty. My management style wouldn’t have worked for people who wanted to be guided, every step, but this group found it liberating, empowering. I let them be, let them do, let them make their own mistakes, because that’s how I’d always liked people to treat me. At the end of a Buttface weekend, consumed with these and other thoughts, I’d drive back to Portland in a trance. Halfway there I’d come out of the trance and start thinking about Penny and the boys. The Buttfaces were like family, but every minute I spent with them was at the cost of my other family, my real family. The guilt was palpable. Often I’d walk into my house and Matthew and Travis would meet me at the door. “Where have you been?” they’d ask. “Daddy was with his friends,” I’d say, picking them up. They’d stare, confused. “But Mommy told us you were working.” It was around this time, as Nike rolled out its first children’s shoes, Wally Waffle and Robbie Road Racer, that Matthew announced he would never wear Nikes so long as he lived. His way of expressing anger about my absences, as well as other frustrations. Penny tried to make him understand that Daddy wasn’t absent by choice. Daddy was trying to build something. Daddy was trying to ensure that he and Travis would one day be able to attend college. I didn’t even bother to explain. I told myself it didn’t matter what I said. Matthew never understood, and Travis always understood—they seemed born with these unvarying default positions. Matthew seemed to harbor some innate resentment toward me, while Travis seemed congenitally devoted. What difference would a few more words make?

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  "And when I had crossed the river, I came to a plain; and falling upon my knees, I began to pray unto the Lord and to confess my sins. And while I was praying, the heaven opened, and I beheld the woman that I loved saluting me from heaven, and saying: ’Hail, Hermas!’ And when I beheld her, I said unto her: ’Lady, what doest thou here?’ But she answered and said: ’I was taken up, in order that I might bring to light thy sins before the Lord.’ And I said unto her: ’Hast thou become my accuser?’ ’No,’ said she; ’but hear the words that I shall say unto thee. God who dwells in heaven, and who made the things that are out of that which is not, and multiplied and increased them on account of his holy church, is angry with thee because thou hast sinned against me.’ I answered and said unto her: ’Have I sinned against thee? In what way? Did I ever say unto thee an unseemly word? Did I not always consider thee as a lady? Did I not always respect thee as a sister? Why doest thou utter against me, O Lady, these wicked and foul lies?’ But she smiled and said unto me: ’The desire of wickedness has entered into thy heart. Does it not seem to thee an evil thing for a just man, if an evil desire enters into his heart? Yea, it is a sin, and a great one (said she). For the just man devises just things, and by devising just things is his glory established in the heavens, and he finds the Lord merciful unto him in all his ways; but those who desire evil things in their hearts, bring upon themselves death and captivity, especially they who set their affection upon this world, and who glory in their wealth, and lay not hold of the good things to come. The souls of those that have no hope, but have cast themselves and their lives away, shall greatly regret it. But do thou pray unto God, and thy sins shall be healed, and those of thy whole house and of all the saints.’ 2. "After she had spoken these words, the heavens were closed, and I remained trembling all over and was sorely troubled. And I said within myself: ’If this sin be set down against me, how can I be saved? or how can I propitiate God for the multitude of my sins? or with what words shall I ask the Lord to have mercy upon me?’

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  He delivered himself of a long, rambling, semi-internal monologue, saying that the Santa Monica store practically ran itself, so he could train his replacement in one day, and he’d already set up a store in a remote location once, so he could do it again, fast, and we needed it done fast, with the shoes on the water and back-to-school orders about to roll in, and then he looked off and asked the walls or the shoes or the Great Spirit why he shouldn’t just shut up and do it, do whatever I asked, and be down-on-his-knees grateful for the damn opportunity, when anyone could see that he was—he searched for the exact words—“a talentless fuck.” I might have said something like, “Oh no you’re not. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” I might have. But I didn’t. I kept my mouth shut and waited. And waited. “Okay,” he said, at last, “I’ll go.” “Great. That’s great. Terrific. Thank you.” “But where?” “Where what?” “Do you want me to go?” “Ah. Yes. Well. Anywhere on the East Coast with a port. Just don’t go to Portland, Maine.” “Why?” “A company based in two different Portlands? That’ll confuse the heck out of the Japanese.” We hashed it out some more and finally decided New York and Boston were the most logical places. Especially Boston. “It’s where most of our orders are coming from,” one of us said. “Okay,” he said. “Boston, here I come.” Then I handed him a bunch of travel brochures for Boston, playing up the fall foliage angle. A little heavy-handed, but I was desperate. He asked how I happened to have these brochures on me, and I told him I knew he’d make the right decision. He laughed. The forgiveness Johnson showed me, the overall good nature he demonstrated, filled me with gratitude, and a new fondness for the man. And perhaps a deeper loyalty. I regretted my treatment of him. All those unanswered letters. There are team players, I thought, and then there are team players, and then there’s Johnson. AND THEN HE threatened to quit. Via letter, of course. “I think I have been responsible for what success we have had so far,” he wrote. “And any success that will be coming in for the next two years at least.” Therefore, he gave me a two-part ultimatum. 1. Make him a full partner in Blue Ribbon. 2. Raise his salary to six hundred dollars a month, plus a third of all profits beyond the first six thousand pairs of shoes sold. Or else, he said, good-bye. I phoned Bowerman and told him that Full-time Employee Number One was staging a mutiny. Bowerman listened quietly, considered all the angles, weighed the pros and cons, then rendered his verdict. “Fuck him.”

• From Educated (2018)

  Shawn was tossing and turning like a child with a fever. I sat with him for an hour. A few times his eyes opened, but if he was conscious, he didn’t recognize me. When I came the next day, he was awake. I walked into the room and he blinked and looked at Mother, as if to check that she was seeing me, too. “You came,” he said. “I didn’t think you would.” He took my hand and then fell asleep. I stared at his face, at the bandages wrapped around his forehead and over his ears, and was bled of my bitterness. Then I understood why I hadn’t come sooner. I’d been afraid of how I would feel, afraid that if he died, I might be glad. I’m sure the doctors wanted to keep him in the hospital, but we didn’t have insurance, and the bill was already so large that Shawn would be making payments a decade later. The moment he was stable enough to travel, we took him home. He lived on the sofa in the front room for two months. He was physically weak—it was all he had in him to make it to the bathroom and back. He’d lost his hearing completely in one ear and had trouble hearing with the other, so he often turned his head when people spoke to him, orienting his better ear toward them, rather than his eyes. Except for this strange movement and the bandages from the surgery, he looked normal, no swelling, no bruises. According to the doctors, this was because the damage was very serious: a lack of external injuries meant the damage was all internal. It took some time for me to realize that although Shawn looked the same, he wasn’t. He seemed lucid, but if you listened carefully his stories didn’t make sense. They weren’t really stories at all, just one tangent after another. I felt guilty that I hadn’t visited him immediately in the hospital, so to make it up to him I quit my job and tended him day and night. When he wanted water, I fetched it; if he was hungry, I cooked. Sadie started coming around, and Shawn welcomed her. I looked forward to her visits because they gave me time to study. Mother thought it was important that I stay with Shawn, so no one interrupted me. For the first time in my life I had long stretches in which to learn—without having to scrap, or strain tinctures, or check inventory for Randy. I examined Tyler’s notes, read and reread his careful explanations. After a few weeks of this, by magic or miracle, the concepts took hold. I retook the practice test. The advanced algebra was still indecipherable—it came from a world beyond my ability to perceive—but the trigonometry had become intelligible, messages written in a language I could understand, from a world of logic and order that only existed in black ink and on white paper.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  Six months previously I would never have done this. Things were different now. Onitsuka had already broken the spirit of our deal, and my spirit, so I pulled the cap off my pen and signed the contract. I signed the heck out of that Canada contract. Then I went out for Mexican food. Now about that logo. My new soccer-qua-football shoe would need something to set it apart from the stripes of Adidas and Onitsuka. I recalled that young artist I’d met at Portland State. What was her name? Oh, yes, Carolyn Davidson. She’d been in the office a number of times, doing brochures and ad slicks. When I got back to Oregon I invited her to the office again and told her we needed a logo. “What kind?” she asked. “I don’t know,” I said. “That gives me a lot to go on,” she said. “Something that evokes a sense of motion,” I said. “Motion,” she said, dubious. She looked confused. Of course she did, I was babbling. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted. I wasn’t an artist. I showed her the soccer-football shoe and said, unhelpfully: This. We need something for this. She said she’d give it a try. Motion, she mumbled, leaving my office. Motion. Two weeks later she came back with a portfolio of rough sketches. They were all variations on a single theme, and the theme seemed to be… fat lightning bolts? Chubby check marks? Morbidly obese squiggles? Her designs did evoke motion, of a kind, but also motion sickness. None spoke to me. I singled out a few that held out some promise and asked her to work with those. Days later—or was it weeks?—Carolyn returned and spread a second series of sketches across the conference table. She also hung a few on the wall. She’d done several dozen more variations on the original theme, but with a freer hand. These were better. Closer. Woodell and I and a few others looked them over. I remember Johnson being there, too, though why he’d come out from Wellesley, I can’t recall. Gradually we inched toward a consensus. We liked… this one… slightly more than the others. It looks like a wing, one of us said. It looks like a whoosh of air, another said. It looks like something a runner might leave in his or her wake. We all agreed it looked new, fresh, and yet somehow—ancient. Timeless. For her many hours of work, we gave Carolyn our deepest thanks and a check for thirty-five dollars, then sent her on her way. After she left we continued to sit and stare at this one logo, which we’d sort of selected, and sort of settled on by default. “Something eye-catching about it,” Johnson said. Woodell agreed. I frowned, scratched my cheek. “You guys like it more than I do,” I said. “But we’re out of time. It’ll have to do.” “You don’t like it?” Woodell said.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  If I really want to get sleazy, I’ll have an innocent pubescent girl unexpectedly run into us on her way out of an examining room. She’s so overwhelmed and excited by what she sees that she lingers to watch. Soon she unbuttons her blouse and presses one of her small, firm breasts into my face, begging me to devour it. The fantasy culminates with us making it everywhere in the office. Then, totally wasted, the receptionist hands me a card with my next appointment date. The fact that fantasy has the potential to release us from all social, moral, and pragmatic constraints is among its most useful features. But exactly how the imagination lets us revel in the unacceptable is complicated, if not rather mysterious. On the one hand, we vigorously disregard the taboos we violate during fantasy, pushing them out of our minds, declaring them irrelevant. If, however, we totally lose sight of what we’re violating, the fantasy’s entire reason for being suddenly crumbles. It seems as though we must forget and remember at the same time—quite an elaborate juggling act, to say the least. It’s particularly difficult for those who genuinely believe in the very taboos they wish to flaunt. In Judy’s favorite fantasy, she struggles with her attitudes toward prostitution, something she’s quite passionate about in two very different ways: Ever since I was about fifteen I’ve fantasized about being a prostitute. I was always supposed to be “good,” but prostitutes claim the right to be blatantly sexual. As a hooker, I relish my seductive walk, whorish clothes, and dirty talk. I imagine a man slowing down for a look at me. If I like what I see, I ask if he’s in the mood for action. Sometimes I’m a streetwalker and we do it in his car or a fleabag hotel. Other times I’m a sophisticated call girl catering to rich businessmen. But I’m always in control, totally sexual, and I don’t give a damn about what anyone thinks. Judy goes on to explain her evolving feelings toward her hooker fantasies: As a kid I felt concerned about my fascination with whores. Maybe I really wanted to be one—a horrifying thought. Recently I became involved with others in my community to drive the street hookers out of our neighborhood. I feel very strongly about this issue especially since a couple of kids found used condoms and needles in the park. More than once I went home from one of these meetings and masturbated in the bathtub (my favorite spot). And what did I fantasize about? Prostitutes, of course! I felt like a terrible hypocrite. But then I realized that my thoughts are my own business and totally unrelated to the real world. I still feel a certain uneasiness about my fantasies, but I think I like it.