Relief

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 Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  So think I (quoth another) for the outragious poyson of madness hath killed him, but being thus in divers opinions of a poore Ass, they looked through a crevis, and espied me standing still, sober and quiet in the middle of the chamber; then they opened the doores, and came towards me, to prove whether I were gentle or no. Amongst whom there was one, which in my opinion, was sent from Heaven to save my life, that willed the other to set a bason of faire water before me, and thereby they would know whether I were mad or no, for if I did drinke without feare as I accustomed to do, it was a signe that I was whole, and in mine Assie wits, where contrary if I did flie and abhorre the tast of the water, it was evident proofe of my madness, which thing he said that he had read in ancient and credible books, whereupon they tooke a bason of cleere water, and presented it before me: but I as soone as I perceived the wholesome water of my life, ran incontinently, thrusting my head into the bason, drank as though I had beene greatly athirst; then they stroked me with their hands, and bowed mine eares, and tooke me by the halter, to prove my patience, but I taking each thing in good part, disproved their mad presumption, by my meeke and gentle behaviour: when I was thus delivered from this double danger, the next day I was laded againe with the goddesse Siria, and other trumpery, and was brought into the way with Trumpets and Cymbals to beg in the villages which we passed by according to our custome. And after that we had gone through a few towns and Castles, we fortuned to come to a certaine village, which was builded (as the inhabitants there affirme) upon the foundation of a famous ancient Citie. And after that we had turned into the next Inne, we heard of a prettie jest committed in the towne there, which I would that you should know likewise.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  When Myers walked into the visitation area, I was surprised at how old he seemed. His hair was almost completely gray, which made him seem frail and vulnerable. He was also shorter with a much smaller body frame than I was expecting. His testimony had caused so much anguish for Walter and his family that I had created a larger-than-life image of him. He walked toward us but stopped short when he saw Michael and nervously blurted out, “Who is he? You didn’t tell me you were bringing anybody with you.” Myers had a thick Southern accent. Up close, his scars made him appear more sympathetic than menacing or villainous. “This is Michael O’Connor. He’s a lawyer in my office working with me on this case. Michael is just helping me investigate this case.” “Well, people told me I could trust you. I don’t know anything about him.” “I promise, he’s fine.” I glanced over at Michael, who was trying his best to look trustworthy, before turning back to Myers. “Please have a seat.” He looked at Michael skeptically and then slowly sat down. My plan was to try to ease him into the conversation by letting him know that we just wanted the truth. But before I could say anything, Myers blurted out a full recantation of his trial testimony. “I lied. Everything I said at McMillian’s trial was a lie. I’ve lost a lot of sleep and have been in a lot of pain over this. I can’t be quiet any longer.” “The testimony you gave at trial against Walter McMillian was a lie?” I asked cautiously. My heart was pounding, but I tried to stay as steady as I could. I was afraid that if I seemed too eager or too surprised—too anything—he might retreat. “It was all a lie. What I’m going to tell you is going to blow your mind, Mr. Stevenson.” He held his stare on me dramatically before turning to Michael. “You, too, Jimmy Connors.” It didn’t take many conversations with Ralph before it became clear that he had difficulty remembering names. “Mr. Myers, you know I’m going to want you to not only tell me the truth but also tell the court the truth. Are you willing to do that?” I was nervous to push so quickly, but I needed to be clear. I didn’t want a private performance. “That’s why I called you.” He sounded surprised that there could be any question about his intentions. “I’ve been in a group therapy class here. You’re supposed to be real honest. We been talking about honesty for nearly three months. Last week people were talking about all the bad shit that happened to them when they were kids and all the bad things they done.” Myers was picking up steam as he spoke. “I finally told the group, ‘Well, I can top all you sons ’a bitches, I done put a damn man on death row by lying in damn court.’ ”

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  While I devised these things, I brake the halter wherewith I was tyed and ran away with all my force, howbeit I could not escape the kitish eyes of the old woman, for shee ran after me, and with more audacity then becommeth her kind age, caught me by the halter and thought to pull me home: but I not forgetting the cruell purpose of the theeves, was mooved with small pity, for I kicked her with my hinder heeles to the ground and had welnigh slaine her, who (although shee was throwne and hurled downe) yet shee held still the halter, and would not let me goe; then shee cryed with a loud voyce and called for succour, but she little prevayled, because there was no person that heard her, save onely the captive gentlewoman, who hearing the voice of the old woman, came out to see what the matter was, and perceiving her hanging at the halter, tooke a good courage and wrested it out of her hand, and (entreating me with gentle words) got upon my backe. Then I began to runne, and shee gently kicked mee forward, whereof I was nothing displeased, for I had as great a desire to escape as shee: insomuch that I seemed to scowre away like a horse. And when the Gentlewoman did speake, I would answere her with my neighing, and oftentimes (under colour to rub my backe) I would sweetly kisse her tender feet. Then shee fetching a sigh from the bottome of her heart, lifted up her eyes to the heavens, saying: O soveraigne Gods, deliver mee if it be your pleasure, from these present dangers: and thou cruell fortune cease thy wrath, let the sorrow suffice thee which I have already sustained. And thou little Asse, that art the occasion of my safety and liberty, if thou canst once render me safe and sound to my parents, and to him that so greatly desireth to have me to his wife, thou shalt see what thankes I will give: with what honour I will reward thee, and how I will use thee. First, I will bravely dresse the haires of thy forehead, and then will I finely combe thy maine, I will tye up thy rugged tayle trimly, I will decke thee round about with golden trappes, in such sort that thou shalt glitter like the starres of the skie, I will bring thee daily in my apron the kirnels of nuts, and will pamper thee up with delicates; I will set store by thee, as by one that is the preserver of my life: Finally, thou shalt lack no manner of thing. Moreover amongst thy glorious fare, thy great ease, and the blisse of thy life, thou shalt not be destitute of dignity, for thou shalt be chronicled perpetually in memory of my present fortune, and the providence divine.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  II. On the second head it is to be noted, that there are seven medicines which heal men of these fevers. (1) A devoted hearing of God: “He sent His Word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions,” Ps. 107:20. “For it was neither herb nor mollifying plaster that healed them, but Thy Word, O Lord, which healeth all things,” Wisd. 16:12. (2) In contrition for sin: “For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me,” Ps. 51:3. (3) A devoted calling upon God: “O Lord, my God, I cried unto Thee, and Thou hast healed me,” Ps. 30:2. (4) The infusion of faith: “And He said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace,” S. Luke 7:50. (5) The showing of compassion: “When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him: and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily,” Isai. 58:7, 8. (6) The desertion of sin: “In returning and rest shall ye be saved,” Isai. 30:15. (7) Perfect contrition of heart: “Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.… truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel,” Jer. 3:22, 23. This is the “seventh hour,” in which the fever leaves the sinner altogether. But all these means avail nothing, unless they take their efficacy from that sacred medicine which heals all our diseases—i.e., the Passion of Christ our God, “Who His own Self bare our sins in His own Body on the tree, by Whose stripes ye were healed,” 1 S. Pet. 2:24. HOMILY XLIII THE INNOCENT TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.—(FROM THE EPISTLE)“That ye may be sincere and without offence, till the day of Christ.”—Philip. 1:10. THE Apostle in this Epistle exhorts us to three things. Firstly, to the avoiding of sin: “That ye may be sincere.” Secondly, to all love: “Filled with the fruits of righteousness.” Thirdly, to the possession of a right intention: “With the glory and praise of God.” I. On the first head it is to be noted, that three commands are given. (1) That we should seek after purity of mind: “That ye may be sincere.” “Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God,” S. Matt. 5:3. (2) That we should avoid doing injury to our neighbours: “Without offence: giving no offence in anything,” 2 Cor. 6:3. (3) That we should persevere in both courses: “Till the day of Christ,” i.e., till after death; when the day of man is ended the day of Christ begins. “He that endureth to the end shall be saved,” St. Matt. 10:22. The Gloss. treats of this under the word “sincere;” without the works of corruption, either towards ourselves or our neighbours, and to persevere in this course till the day of Christ.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  I showed Gavin the phone, on the bedside table. The curtains were closed, as always, but I had put on the overhead light, and as the duvet was thrown into a heap at the foot of the bed, the rumpled green sheets and pillows showed their shamingly stained and fucked-over countenance; Gavin remained standing as he phoned. I wandered back into the hall, where Rupert was standing, an expression of the utmost apprehension on his face. ‘Isn’t that boy …’ he mouthed, his eyebrows raised and then biting his lower lip, which I laid my finger across in a gesture of silence. The bed came down to within an inch or two of the floor. He must be behind the curtains. ‘Thanks, Will,’ said Gavin as he emerged, with a slightly amazed look. ‘Everything OK?’ I enquired, with extreme casualness. ‘We’ll be off now, young feller.’ I saw them to the door of the flat. ‘Thanks, Will,’ said Gavin again. ‘See you soon. You must come round or something …’ He laid a hand fraternally on my shoulder. ‘Bye, Roops,’ I said, expecting my normal kiss but getting instead a handshake, which, nevertheless, I recognised as a sign of greater intimacy. Farce is always more entertaining to watch than to enact, and I was relieved to hear the house door slam and a car start. I turned back to the bedroom, crossing to the window as I said, ‘It’s all right, they’ve gone.’ But when I tweaked open the curtains, it was my own face, with a silly hide-and-seek smirk on it, that I saw reflected in the window. ‘Funny,’ I said aloud. There was a rustle behind me, and I swung round to see the flung-back duvet heave, lurch upwards, and after a further convulsion, bring forth Arthur. He had been curled up there like a young stowaway, his flexible body folded so as to be almost imperceptible. He hammed up his recovery rather, flustered at the alarm, boastful of his ingenuity. ‘Man, you didn’t know where I bloody was!’ He fell back giggling, then clutched his head, still leaden from his hangover. I sat by him on the bed and drummed my fingers on his belly. ‘I’m surprised you let him in,’ I said, ‘after all the never going out.’ ‘He just kept ringing the bell, man. I stuck me head out the lav window, and there was this little nipper. He must a rung the bell ten times, fifteen times. So I thought, no ’arm in a little kid. So I went down. Very sure of ’imself, he was, come up ’ere, asked me who I was and that. Just a friend of Will’s, I said.’ He looked up into my eyes. ‘Anyway you come back after a bit.’ ‘How’s your face feeling?’ I asked. ‘James says he’ll come tomorrow and take the stitches out—just the ends, apparently, and the rest all dissolves.’ ‘Not too bad.’

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

  PAULA STRODE INTO my office, sat down, shrugged her heavy backpack to the floor, and grinned. At age thirty-three, she looked fitter and healthier than she did at our last meeting ten years ago in Seattle when she was borderline anorexic, pale, chain-smoking, and ignoring the salad she had ordered for lunch. She also looked considerably older, with weathered skin and deep lines in her forehead. “Do you remember our last visit?” I asked, wondering if she was aware of how much she had changed. Paula startled me by throwing back her head and laughing in a throaty, smoker’s voice. “I don’t remember it at all, zip, nada. You should erase everything and anything I said back then because I was probably high on cocaine. I’ve been in recovery for two years now and things that were numbed out are starting to come back … but that time in my life is still a total blur.” I looked more closely at Paula. She still retained vestiges of the tough street kid she had been—a tenseness in her jaw and squared-off shoulders that could carry any burden you’d care to toss at her—but she was softer now, less cocky, somehow less strident. Her backpack was filled with college textbooks, her green eyes were bright and direct, and she was plainly eager and able to tell her story. Even as she began to talk, I could feel a sigh of relief somewhere inside me. Paula was one of those children who, after her parents divorced, literally and unceasingly had to raise herself. Watching her grow up from afar, there were times that I despaired for her well-being, wondering if she had any chance of ever attaining a normal adult life. There is no comparison for this situation within intact families. We heard about families in which the father lost his job, the mother fell chronically ill, or a fire destroyed all the family’s possessions. But none of these sudden losses or setbacks within intact families matched what happened to little Paula, whose whole world collapsed in less than one month’s time. The closest comparable experience for children in intact families is the sudden death of a beloved parent. Fortunately, unlike divorce, death of a young parent is uncommon in this country.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  We finished the presentation of our evidence and, to our surprise, the State put on no rebuttal case. I didn’t know what they could have presented to rebut our evidence, but I’d assumed they would present something. The judge seemed surprised, too. He paused and then said he wanted the parties to submit written briefs arguing what ruling he should make. We had hoped for this, and I was relieved that the court would give us time to explain the significance of all the evidence in writing and assist him in preparing his order, an order I hoped would set Walter free. At the end of three days of intense litigation, the judge adjourned the proceedings in the late afternoon. Michael and I had been in a rush the final morning of the hearing and hadn’t checked out of our hotel before leaving for the courthouse. We said our farewells to the family in the courtroom and went back to the hotel, feeling exhausted but satisfied. — Bay Minette, where the hearing took place, is about thirty minutes from the beautiful beaches on the Gulf of Mexico. We had started a tradition of bringing our staff down to the beach each September, and we’d all fallen in love with the clear warm waters of the Gulf. The white sand and pleasantly underdeveloped beachfront were spectacular and soothing. The view was slightly spoiled by the massive offshore oil rigs you could see in the distance, but if you could make yourself forget about them, you’d think you were in paradise. Dolphins loved this part of the Gulf and could be spotted in the early mornings, playfully making their way through the water. I’d often thought we should move our office to right there on the beach. It was Michael’s idea to hit the beach before heading back to Montgomery. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but the day was warm and the coast was so close, I couldn’t resist. We jumped in the car, trailing the last hours of sunlight to the beautiful shores near Fort Morgan, Alabama. As soon as we got there, Michael changed from his suit to swim trunks and went sprinting into the ocean. I was too tired to race into the sea, so I put on some shorts and sat down at the water’s edge. It would soon be dusk, but the heat persisted. My head was full of everything that had transpired in court: I was replaying what witnesses had said and worrying about whether things had gone exactly right. I was trawling through every detail in my mind, every possible misstep, until I caught myself. It was over; there was no point in making myself crazy by overthinking it now. I decided to dive into the ocean and, for a moment at least, forget it all. Recently, stranded at the airport with nothing else to read, I had read an article about shark attacks.

• From The Folding Star (1994)

  Sibylle peered around, assessing the imprudence of this decision. "Okay," she said, with an upward flick of the eyebrows. Patrick had sauntered hunkily to the lit console of the juke-box, and we all watched as he thumbed in a coin and deliberated over the corny menu of titles. I couldn't think of anything to say, I didn't dare look at Luc. Then a button was pressed and after several seconds a distantly famular intro came at us from all sides. It was one of those rhetorical songs you heard in a late-night minicab, "I want to be where love is", drunk yourself, and the requests read out—Darren, don't keep breaking my heart . . . I need you but I need time—as you accelerate through the glittering streets. Luc kissed Sibylle on both cheeks. "Be good," she said, "sois sage." And Patrick rolled up with a grin and barged him and kissed him on the mouth. I thought, Ah, you do that, do you? —or was it just young sportsmen's faggoty closeness, their high butch pained regard for each other and themselves? It wasn't the treatment I was going to get—I gave a little absolving wave, but he grabbed my hand in mid-air and shook it: it was a bit like jiving. "We'd better leave them to it," said Sibylle. Patrick turned at the door and grinned again; I wondered if I was the subject of some broad joke—but then if I was, Luc must be too. all that mattered was that he wanted to stay for a quarter-hour more, even if only to grouse about his troubles away from his smothering critical friends. It had been a terrible time. I had watched myself trying different gambits, donnish to start with, pursuing the matter of the 1850 Prelude, then holding forth about Milton, Schubert, F. R. Leavis etc etc and clearly being the greatest bore on earth; then I smoked a cigarette (which they hated) and swore a lot (which seemed to displease them too); then gave them maximum charm, which they resented as a puzzling form of satire. At one point I was even nodding about to a song on the juke-box, but Sibylle stilled me with a glance. I was young and lively and clever, I told myself as I blundered like some awful Ronald Strong figure from rebuff to tacit rebuff. And then Luc wanted to stay. There was a lovely sense of cleared space, of spreading calm, like sunlight out to sea, in the gold and copper cabin of the bar, as we drew two stools closer and settled ourselves knee to knee and the song wailed grandly on and then faded out. "Oh dear, Edward, I'm sorry about that. But I'm very glad you were there!"

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  As we hugged and nosed around each other, he would push me to arm’s length and look me in the eye while he repeated something I had said. Odd words seemed to amuse or offend him, and he gave urchin imitations of my speech. ‘Arse-hale,’ he would drawl. ‘Get orf my arse-hale.’ Or if we were nattering in the kitchen as I woozily knocked up some supper, he would interrupt what I was saying and dance about shouting ‘No, no, no—listen, no—“cunt-stabulareh,” ’ and double up with laughter. Sometimes I laughed graciously too, and did even posher imitations of his mimicry, knowing no one was listening. Sometimes I caught him and gave him what he was asking for. So, the last couple of days, I had been closer with the booze, and it was all the nicer to have him loosened up but not cantering out of control. We had never been better together. Even so, the relief of being in the water again was intense; when he had made a phone call in the morning and said he’d go away for a day something inside me asserted ‘That’s right.’ I lent him a shirt, perhaps I gave it to him—pink silk, it suited his blackness as much as it did my fairness—kissed him chastely, told him to come back when he wanted, and, when he had gone, went round opening windows (it was a coldish spring day). I put clean linen on the bed, and could hardly wait for night-time and getting in there for a good sleep all by myself. I kept stretching out my arms and legs, like one of those queeny Sons of the Morning in a Blake engraving. After a while I took this further, and slammed through a set of pull-ups, press-ups and sit-ups—and then ached for the pool. So self-enclosed had my life been for the preceding week—broken only by five-minute trips to the local shop for cereals, tins and papers—that I looked on the public crowding the Underground platform with the apprehension and surprise that people feel on leaving hospital. I came up dripping and panting from the pool to the changing-room. As I pushed open the swing door with its steamed-up little window designed, like those in restaurants, to prevent hurrying people from knocking each other flat, I heard the hiss of the crowded showers, and felt the warm, dense atmosphere of the place in my throat and on my skin. I sauntered along between the two files of hot jets whose spray danced up off the black tiles, shifting or suddenly cutting off as the men, naked or in their trunks, edged about, soaped a foot raised against the wall, gave their stomachs resounding smacks, or turned, as the doors to the outside world thwacked open, to see what beauty had arrived.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  Oh, the relief as the seconds pounded by … and nothing happened. There was a scare as the door of a flat nearer the lift opened and a man in overalls came out without even looking in my direction. A scraping noise, a girl’s voice saying, ‘No, Wednesday,’ and the slam of a door, must have come from within another flat—it was hard to be sure. I turned on my heel, but being so far in I knew I must ring again to be sensible and certain. Perhaps Mr Hope, sleeping out his jobless afternoon, would be disturbed, and come vacantly to the door. A minute later I burnt off my adrenalin leaping down the stairs—which were bleakly concrete, like the long exit stairways at the back of cinemas. There was a smell of urine, and lines down the walls drawn by running hands. At the turn of each flight ‘NF’ had been scrawled, with a pendant saying ‘Kill All Niggers’ or ‘Wogs Out’. I thought with yearning of the Hopes, whom I did not know, forced to contain their anger, contempt and hurt in such a world. It would be best to see Arthur on common ground—in a bar or club or out in the open air which I now re-entered gratefully. In view of the horror of the case it had been rather reckless to go to his home, and I was glad I had got away with it. Ideally, I suppose, I wanted to help, to give money to the friend or consolation to the grieving mother: though I was always hoping, expecting even, to see him, there was an assumption dully gaining ground in my mind that he was dead. In the charmless passage between the buildings there were at least the skinheads to look forward to. I had once spent a weekend with a skinhead I picked up at a dance-hall in Camden Town; he called himself Dash, though that was not among the qualities of that ugly, passionate boy. I preferred to see it as a polite euphemism for one of the stronger words that were always hypnotically on his lips. They were a challenge, skinheads, and made me feel shifty as they stood about the streets and shopping precincts, magnetising the attention they aimed to repel. Cretinously simplified to booted feet, bum and bullet head, they had some, if not all, of the things one was looking for. I came by easily, and shot a glance at the big one I had noticed before. He was leaning against the wall, by the entrance to one of the rubbish bays, his ankles crossed, and looking straight at me. ‘Got the time,’ he said neutrally, hardly as a question. I virtually stopped, referred to my old gold watch. ‘It’s 4.15,’ I said.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  Alastair just nodded back, saying nothing, staring entranced at Bill, breathing in keenly through his nostrils. When the bell rang, Bill popped the gumshield back into his mouth, swelling and spreading the pink lips into a fierce sneer. Then, as the referee bobbed backwards to the ropes, they were off again. The second round was unspectacular at first; the St Albans boy was by no means unattractive, I decided, if of a rather slow-witted, suspicious expression—and he managed to place a couple of good body-shots under Alastair’s guard, shots that were rare in this kind of fight. Then Alastair sent through a vicious jab to the black boy’s face, where we heard not only the muffled smack of the glove but beneath it a strange, squinching little sound, as of the yielding of soft, adolescent bone and gristle. As the boy fell back Alastair followed up, before anyone could stop him, with a second blow of punitive accuracy. Cutting the air between them with his arm, the referee held Alastair off, gestured him away, and as he did so caught up his left glove in his hand. Across its blancoed surface, smeared by the impact of the second blow, was the bright trace of blood. Bill turned to me with a look of relief. ‘He’s done it,’ he said. ‘They’ll have to stop it now. Yes, he’s done it.’ The shouts in the hall were modified with a sympathy easily accorded to the loser, and Alastair, himself looking rather stunned, cheated somehow by his own victory, jogged about in the ring, punching the air, which was all that was left for him, and showing he had hardly noticed, he needed a fight. After brief deliberations between the ref and the officious, serious judges (this was their life, after all) the unanimous decision was announced. Then Alastair relaxed, hugged and patted his opponent with a careless fondness, and did his lively round of thanks and handshakes. I was moved by the propriety of this. Bill of course went off with his champion, and after I’d watched the opening of the next fight, which didn’t promise to go so well for Limehouse, I wondered what the hell I was doing and sloped off too through the audience and out by the swinging blue doors. Through another door on the right I heard the familiar fizz of showers and felt the familiar need to see what was going on in them.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  I instantly pictured James, as he had described himself, kneeling over corpses on long train journeys, as a doctor honour-bound to attempt to resuscitate them, long after hope was gone. I also fleetingly saw the Arab boy, wandering off under the budding trees, and thought that if I’d never succumbed to this fantasy, I wouldn’t be in this fix now. Still, I thought I knew what to do, partly from involuntary recall of life-saving classes by the swimming-pool at school, and I immediately knelt beside the old man, and punched him hard in the chest. The three other men stood by, undergoing an ashamed transition from loiterers to well-wishers in a few seconds. ‘He didn’t hang about, he knew the old bill’d do for him, soon as look at him,’ said one of them, in reference, apparently, to their companion who had fled. ‘Shouldn’t you loosen his collar?’ said another man, apologetic and well spoken. I tugged at the knot of the tie, and with some difficulty undid the stiff top button. ‘He mustn’t swallow his tongue,’ explained the same man, as I repeated my chest punchings. I turned to the head, and carefully lowered it, though it was heavy and slipped within its thin, silvery hair. ‘Check the mouth for obstructions,’ I heard the man say—and, as it were, echoing from the tiled walls, the voice of the instructor at school. I remembered how in these exercises we were only allowed to exhale alongside the supposed casualty’s head, rather than apply our lips to his, and the alternate relief and disappointment this occasioned, according to who one’s partner was. ‘I’ll go for an ambulance,’ said the man who had not yet spoken, but waited a while more before doing so. ‘Yeah, he’ll get an ambulance,’ the first man commented after he had left. He was well up on the other people’s behaviour. The patient had no false teeth and his tongue seemed to be in the right place. Stooping down, so that his inert shoulder pressed against my knee, I gripped his nose with two fingers and, inhaling deeply, sealed my lips over his. I saw with a turn of the head his chest swell, and as he expired the air his colour undoubtedly changed. I realised I had not checked in the first place that his heart had stopped beating, and had ignorantly acted on a hunch that had turned out to be correct. I breathed into his mouth again—a strange sensation, intimate and yet symbolic, tasting his lips in an impersonal and disinterested way. Then I massaged his chest, with deep, almost offensive pressure, one hand on top of the other; and already he had come back to life.

• From Born on the Fourth of July (1976)

  It was one of the most moving antiwar demonstrations there had been. I would have given anything to have been there with them. I read about it sitting by the pool of the Santa Monica Bay Club, wearing a ridiculous Mickey Mouse shirt. Suddenly I knew my easy life could never be enough for me. The war had not ended. It was time for me to join forces with other vets. I went home and called a couple of people I knew. One of them told me there was going to be a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War that night in an apartment in L.A. I was still a bit unsure of myself but I couldn’t wait to get into my car and drive over. I remember how kind they were to me from the moment I arrived. When I got there, a bunch of vets were in front of the house waiting to carry me up the stairs in my chair. “Hi brother,” they said to me warmly. “Can we help you brother? Is there anything we can do?” All of a sudden everything seemed to change—the loneliness seemed to vanish. I was surrounded by friends. They were the new veterans, the new soldiers with floppy bush hats and jungle uniforms right here on the streets of America. I began to feel closer to them than I ever had to the people at the university and at the hospital and all the people who had welcomed me back to Massapequa. It had a lot to do with what we had all been through. We could talk and laugh once again. We could be honest about the war and ourselves. Before each meeting there was the thumb-and-fist handshake—it meant you cared about your brother. We were men who had gone to war. Each of us had his story to tell, his own nightmare. Each of us had been made cold by this thing. We wore ribbons and uniforms. We talked of death and atrocity to each other with unaccustomed gentleness. I remember being very nervous and anxious at that first meeting. I told them, Give me a speech, give me a place to show this wheelchair. I really wanted to get going immediately. The brothers told me to calm down and not to worry, there would be plenty of chances to speak, it was time to get the organization together. Afterward I went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee and one of the guys came up to me and gave me a big hug. He held me for a long time and when he let go there were tears streaming down his face. “I love you, brother,” he said, wiping his eyes. And then he said, “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry I did that.” “It’s okay,” I said. “I love you too. Now when’s my first speaking gig?” They told me to go to a rally in Pasadena the next day.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  The judge seemed surprised, too. He paused and then said he wanted the parties to submit written briefs arguing what ruling he should make. We had hoped for this, and I was relieved that the court would give us time to explain the significance of all the evidence in writing and assist him in preparing his order, an order I hoped would set Walter free. At the end of three days of intense litigation, the judge adjourned the proceedings in the late afternoon. Michael and I had been in a rush the final morning of the hearing and hadn’t checked out of our hotel before leaving for the courthouse. We said our farewells to the family in the courtroom and went back to the hotel, feeling exhausted but satisfied. — Bay Minette, where the hearing took place, is about thirty minutes from the beautiful beaches on the Gulf of Mexico. We had started a tradition of bringing our staff down to the beach each September, and we’d all fallen in love with the clear warm waters of the Gulf. The white sand and pleasantly underdeveloped beachfront were spectacular and soothing. The view was slightly spoiled by the massive offshore oil rigs you could see in the distance, but if you could make yourself forget about them, you’d think you were in paradise. Dolphins loved this part of the Gulf and could be spotted in the early mornings, playfully making their way through the water. I’d often thought we should move our office to right there on the beach. It was Michael’s idea to hit the beach before heading back to Montgomery. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but the day was warm and the coast was so close, I couldn’t resist. We jumped in the car, trailing the last hours of sunlight to the beautiful shores near Fort Morgan, Alabama. As soon as we got there, Michael changed from his suit to swim trunks and went sprinting into the ocean. I was too tired to race into the sea, so I put on some shorts and sat down at the water’s edge. It would soon be dusk, but the heat persisted. My head was full of everything that had transpired in court: I was replaying what witnesses had said and worrying about whether things had gone exactly right. I was trawling through every detail in my mind, every possible misstep, until I caught myself. It was over; there was no point in making myself crazy by overthinking it now.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  And Paris had done this for me: by leaving me com pletely alone. I lived in Paris for a long time without making a single French friend, and even longer before I saw the inside of a French home. This did not really upset me, either, for Henry James had been here before me and had had the gen erosity to clue me in. Furthermore, for a black boy who had grown up on Welfare and the chicken-shit goodwill of Anlcr ican liberals, this total indifference came as a great relief and, even, as a mark of respect. If I could make it, I could make it; so much the better. And if I couldn't, I couldn't-so much the worse. I didn't want any help, and the French certainly didn't give me any-they let me do it myself; and for that reason, even knowing what I know, and unromantic as I am, there will always be a kind of love story between myself and that odd, unpredictable collection of bourgeois chauvinists who call themselves la France. Or, in other words, my reasons for coming to France, and the comparative freedom of my lite in Paris, meant that my attitude toward France was very different fr om that of any Algerian. He, and his brothers, were, in fact, being murdered by my hosts. And Algeria, after all, is a part of Africa, and France, after all, is a part of Europe: that Europe which in vaded and raped the African continent and slaughtered those Africans whom they could not enslave-that Europe fr om which, in sober truth, Africa has yet to liberate herself The fact that I had never seen the Algerian casbah was of no more relevance before this unanswerable panorama than the fact that the Algerians had never seen Harlem. The Algerian and I were both, alike, victims of this history, and I was still a part of Africa, even though I had been carried out of it nearly four hundred years before. The question of my identity had never before been so cru cially allied with the reality-the doom-of the moral choice.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I laughed in relief. “How did she know I worked here?” “She saw you leaving the parking lot. She a friend of yours?” Bolt asked me. “Naw,” I distanced myself. “Just somebody I used to work with.” My own disloyalty sickened me. Bolt headed for the dock. “You coming to lunch?” I shook my head. “Tll be along, go ahead.” It was a telief to be alone. I wandered into the warehouse and sat down on a stack of skids to think about Bolt’s bombshell. Frankie was coming onto the day shift. It scared me to realize she might have exposed me. But apparently she didn’t. Frankie was sharp. She must have figured out the score right away. A feeling of excitement flooded me. Working with another butch! Maybe we could hang out sometimes. Maybe she knew where some of the old crowd was. Maybe she could introduce me to a femme. “Hey, young fella.” Scotty interrupted my thoughts. He was sitting on the floor, leaning up against the skids. Scotty unscrewed a bottle of Jack Daniels and offered it to me. “Thanks,” I said, taking a swig. Scotty tipped the bottle to his lips and swallowed three times. We sat in silence. “You married?” he asked me. I shook my head. He dropped his head to his chest. “My wife’s real sick.” He rubbed his eyes with his hands. His face brightened. “Did I ever show you a picture of my wifer” I shook my head. He pulled out a leather wallet, thin and smooth from wear. “Here she is. That’s my girl.” I laughed and whistled. ““That’s your” He smiled. “Yep. You think I was born this age? I was once a young fella just like you. Had my whole life ahead of me.” We both laughed. But when I looked at him again, his eyes were filled with tears. His voice sounded hoarse. “I wish I could go before she does. I know that sounds terrible. I mean, who would take cate of her, you know? But sometimes I don’t think I can stand letting go of her when the time comes.” His head dropped down again. I reached out and lay my hand gently on his back, ready to remove it quickly if my touch offended him. It didn’t. “You're young,” Scotty said, abruptly. “Don’t get stuck in a job like this.” I shrugged. “This job seems pretty good to me.” Stone Butch Blues 211 Scotty shook his head. “I mean a real job. I had twenty years in the Chevy plant. I got my UAW card, you want to see it? Twenty years of my life in a plant and they laid me off. Can you believe it?” “Chevy? Did you work with Bolt?” Scotty nodded. “Yeah. But he wasn’t there as long as I was. He worked at Harrison for a while. Got laid off there, too.” Bolt interested me. “Was he in the same union?”

• From Hillbilly Elegy (2016)

  Even the fight that went too far—when I thought Bob was about to hit me—was less about a brave kid who intervened and more about a spectator who got a little too close to the action. This thing that I hated had become a sort of drug. One day I came home from school to see Mamaw’s car in the driveway. It was an ominous sign, as she never made unannounced visits to our Preble County home. She made an exception on this day because Mom was in the hospital, the result of a failed suicide attempt. For all the things I saw happening in the world around me, my eleven-year-old eyes missed so much. In her work at Middletown Hospital, Mom had met and fallen in love with a local fireman and begun a years-long affair. That morning Bob had confronted her about the affair and demanded a divorce. Mom had sped off in her brand-new minivan and intentionally crashed it into a telephone pole. That’s what she said, at least. Mamaw had her own theory: that Mom had tried to detract attention from her cheating and financial problems. As Mamaw said, “Who tries to kill themselves by crashing a fucking car? If she wanted to kill herself, I’ve got plenty of guns.” Lindsay and I largely bought Mamaw’s view of things, and we felt relief more than anything—that Mom hadn’t really hurt herself, and that Mom’s attempted suicide would be the end of our Preble County experiment. She spent only a couple days in the hospital. Within a month, we moved back to Middletown, one block closer to Mamaw than we’d been before, with one less man in tow. Despite the return to a familiar home, Mom’s behavior grew increasingly erratic. She was more roommate than parent, and of the three of us—Mom, Lindsay, and me—Mom was the roommate most prone to hard living. I’d go to bed only to wake up around midnight, when Lindsay got home from doing whatever teenagers do. I’d wake up again at two or three in the morning, when Mom got home. She had new friends, most of them younger and without kids. And she cycled through boyfriends, switching partners every few months. It was so bad that my best friend at the time commented on her “flavors of the month.” I’d grown accustomed to a certain amount of instability, but it was of a familiar type: There would be fighting or running away from fights; when things got rocky, Mom would explode on us or even slap or pinch us. I didn’t like it—who would?—but this new behavior was just strange. Though Mom had been many things, she hadn’t been a partier. When we moved back to Middletown, that changed. With partying came alcohol, and with alcohol came alcohol abuse and even more bizarre behavior.

• From The Folding Star (1994)

  Chapter 5 I had arrived without knowing how on the street where the Orst Museum was, and sat down, suddenly exhausted, on a bench opposite. The quiet out here was subtly different from the quiet of the middle of town, the little brick squares where for a full quarter of an hour no car would pass and nothing alter beyond the pulling-to of a shutter, or a dog trotting along with an intermittent sense of purpose. Here the stillness was as deep, the grand brick houses equally steeped in silence and discretion, their windows silver-black above the stumpy limes. But you felt a freshness, the nearness of a larger sky, to which the line of windmills at the street's end blindly opened their arms. I watched a couple of tourists arrive at the Museum and recognized their mood of achievement, of having come out quite far, almost into the country. In the Museum's dark, polish-scented hall I paid my admission fee, and bought a booklet, vainly feeling that the girl student at the desk should know that at other times I came here free, with the director, long after she had gone home. I laid a claim to it, somehow, because of the unexpected understanding I believed existed between Paul Echevin and me. It would have been pleasant if he had suddenly come down the stairs and spotted me; but I slightly dreaded it too, in case the greeting was cool and the girl student more in his confidence than I was. She sat behind the modest display of postcards with the defiant air of an intelligent person wasting time for a good cause. What hours, weeks, of nothing must happen in this hall, as the autumn came on. As I turned away she picked up a fat paperback and continued to read. The first room was long and half-panelled, with the sparse furnishing of a house no longer a home—a pair of roped-off chairs, a writing-desk with a dozen dusty pigeon-holes, a tall Dutch vase in the big black aperture of the fireplace. Cream cotton blinds were pulled half-down at the front, whilst at the far end the windows gave on to a sunless open porch and one of the city's high-walled secret gardens. A handful of paintings by Orst—each preciously isolated—hung in gentle diagonals of light against a background of worn heroic tapestry. I walked round the room three or four times wondering if it was all a mistake, if I should leave at once, but I clung to it in the end, almost fearing to be out on the streets again, the lulled, senescent streets, when I was so pierced with relief and exhilaration and lust and a sense of failure. I sat on an absent guard's folding stool as if stumbling to my corner, slugged by the boy's beauty and too stunned to see the beating still to come.

• From The Best American Erotica 2001 (2001)

  pulled at her cunt. When I sensed she was finally about to come, I slid down and jabbed my tongue up into her slick hole as far as I could. She let out a guttural shriek and went off like a Roman candle. She was one of the women who insisted on giving me her phone number. The door opened, and someone came in and loosened my blindfold. I found myself looking up at Amira. “How’s the man of the hour?” she asked. “The gang wants to know how you’re holding up. Jennifer Chase wants me to tell you she’s going to have to reconsider her entire worldview because of this.” I smiled at her and sat up. “My face is sticky, my neck is stiff, and my tongue and jaw are exhausted. Other than that I’m great.” “I thought you might be working up a thirst,” she said, holding out a cup of beer. I took the cup gratefully and downed it in one long, deli cious gulp. “God, I needed that.” She chuckled, her teeth showing white against her dark skin. “Ready to get back to it?” “Actually, I think I’ve had enough.” “Aw, too bad. I guess I’m too late, then.” “I didn’t realize you were here as a customer,” I said, looking at her with new interest. Amira was one of those women who are all curves, and she looked too young to be in law school. Dark, arched eyebrows over liquid brown eyes, full red lips, a round face framed by thick wavy hair. Full breasts, round hips and thighs, but a surprisingly narrow waist. My cock, which had been up and down all night, began hardening again. She sat down next to me, and said, “Steve, I just wanted to say that you’ve got a lot of guts acting out your fantasy like this.” “You think so?”

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  I rang people up and there were parties from six till eight—which meant going on, and then some drunken supper and then, as often as not, the Shaft and acts in which the influence of the orders, the dome, the portico, could scarcely be discerned. After I left Cubitts I felt hilarious relief at being no longer a cross between a professor and an office-boy—someone whose presence was explained as much by his name as by his interest in the arts. At the same time there was a slight sad missing of the slipshod office routine, the explanation over the first foul coffee of just where I’d taken whom, and what he was like in every particular. It was the sort of world that made you a character, and would happily, stodgily keep you one for life. And there was the subject too—the orders, the dome, the portico, the straight lines and the curved, which spoke to me, and meant more to me than they do to some. I slipped away from Arthur next day and walked in the Park—it was perhaps the straight lines of its avenues that exerted some calming attraction over me. As a child, on visits to Marden, my grandfather’s house, days had been marked by walks along the great beech ride which ran unswervingly for miles over hilly country and gave out at a ha-ha and a high empty field. Away to the left you could make out in winter the chicken-coops and outside privies of a village that had once been part of the estate. Then we turned round, and came home, my sister and I, spoilt by my grandparents, feeling decidedly noble and aloof. It was not until years later that I came to understand how recent and synthetic this nobility was—the house itself bought up cheap after the war, half ruined by use as an officers’ training school, and then as a military hospital. Today was one of those April days, still and overcast, that felt pregnant with some immense idea, and suggested, as I roamed across from one perspective to another, that this was merely a doldrums, and would last only until something else was ready to happen. Perhaps it was simply summer, and the certainty of warmth, the world all out of doors, drinking in the open air.