Shame

Passages

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

Page 181 of 267 · 20 per page

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  His one job, it’s to strut around, let the little kids take pictures with him. They’d shout like he was this big hero. Not so hard, right? But then one day he felt sick, so he took off his head to throw up, and this one kid who noticed, he lost his shit. See, the kid believed my cousin was the cartoon. From the kid’s angle, Mickey had ripped off his own head. Like that, my cousin lost his job. Why? Because he busted the illusion. His boss told him, Idiot, you should have thrown up in your costume. Will, at times, I look at you, I can tell you’re not faking it right. I want you to act like this place is a magic kingdom. Do you get what I’m saying? I said I did. He picked up his gold pen again. The first diners traipsed in, a trio of women collapsing rain-slick umbrellas. The host assigned them to my section. Writing down drink orders, I considered Paul’s speech. He wasn’t criticizing my table-waiting abilities. Otherwise, I wouldn’t still have this job, let alone the night shift. But I should try acting more like him, I thought. Slap backs as he did, dispersing jokes, high spirits. It’s often all people want, urging a change: be like me, shaped in this image. – Guests blew in from the street, wind-spun, gasping for alcohol. They ate, paid, and left, fast, letting the tables go. It worked to my benefit, but I didn’t understand people who finished, then rushed out. If I’d paid to eat at a restaurant like Michelangelo’s, I’d dawdle. I’d sip a tall limoncello, let waiters refill the glass. I was about to drop a five-top’s check when the pinstriped man in my section’s last open table stopped me. His wife had questions about the veal chop. Of course, I said. The kitchen had run low on the dish, a point I emphasized. If he wished to have it, I should put in the order as soon as possible. Instead, he elicited details about the preparation while his wife flipped through the wine list, silk dress pleats glinting. I’d have liked to watch how light played on the gas-blue of the dress. The left dress strap pulled taut across the dip of the woman’s collarbone like a bridge traversing a ravine, and one could imagine following its arched, liquid line, sliding a hand back, down until the first swell of buttocks—but I had a job to do. I kept my attention on the man as I answered his questions. If I say I want it rare, is that something your chef will give me? he asked. Yes, sir, he— I can’t eat veal that isn’t rare. You’ll hear it bleat. With that, he smiled.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  Julian was living in Manhattan. I could have gone to him, except that, like Will, he’d objected to the plan of staying in Noxhurst. I predict anguish, he’d said. Phoebe, you’re a capable girl, but I’m afraid being alone isn’t a skill. It’s a disposition. I didn’t want to prove him right; still, one night, I had to call him. Julian, help, I said. In minutes, I’d packed a small bag, hopped in a taxi, and claimed an aisle seat in the air-conditioned train to New York. With a short walk, I exited the station. I hailed a second cab, which sped downtown. It dropped me in front of his building. Up the last flight of stairs, then I fell in Julian’s arms. Give me that bag, he said. I’ve made big plans. He didn’t say, I told you so. We walked to a bistro, and piled into a red banquette. Julian’s friends traipsed in, including his boyfriend. Hahn’s a poet, Julian had explained. He bartends on the side. Phoebe, I’m afraid to jinx it, but—I haven’t felt like this in so long. I made sure to sit next to Hahn. He kept quiet, so I asked questions; I joked, I teased, until I had him laughing. Since Julian loved this Hahn, I would, too. Bills paid, we rode taxis to a karaoke place, then crowded into a private room. I have bonbons, Julian said. He distributed round pills, blithe with the pleasure of giving. I flicked a switch, to see what would happen. Disco-ball lights, jewel ovals, slid along the walls. Hahn and I duetted, hitting each note. I high-fived him, and I downed soju. People sang, while I kicked up a dance. Time flared. I sat with Hahn again, his arm tight at my waist. I leaned into the hold, liking his strength, then I felt his hand shift, warm, inside the shirt. He’d slipped, I thought. But his hand pushed up. He gripped breast flesh, and pinched it. Everyone was singing. I stood; I went to Julian, who hadn’t noticed. He touched his lips to the side of my head. I should tell him, I thought. But in that small box of a private room, I’d insisted on dancing. No one had joined me as I performed. Will often recalled the night I’d met him, how I’d looked, hands raised. Phoebe, I could have watched all night, he said. It’s just that I love to dance, I said, with a shrug. I’d known full well what I was doing, though. I’d felt his attention pull taut, alert, like a long puppet string. I tugged it; his eyes moved, helpless. In the spotlight I’d compelled, Will’s wide-eyed stare, I came back to life. I hadn’t tried to flirt with Hahn, but I had. He’d believed I wanted him to touch me; then, when he put his hand into my shirt, I hadn’t protested. Instead, I’d let Julian’s boyfriend admire me.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  Kid, what’s the rush? I don’t mean to push you— Sure, you do, he said. —but I need the cash. Since you said that I, I’ve waited tables two months, so I was hoping . . . He dropped his pen on the pulpit top. Tell me something, he said. Do I look like I give a fuck what you need? No. He nodded. On the third upswing, he raised his head. Do I care what you need, or what I need? What you need, Paul. I’ll ask you something, he said. Why do people sit down at a restaurant like this, make a night of it? It’s not the food. If all they want is to eat, they can drive half a mile to the closest shop, buy a big, filling roast fucking chicken for six bucks. It’s not this crowd. Who spends to line up at the trough with a pile of strangers to get fed in unison like pigs? No. They’re wild about a first-rate place like this because it’s selling an illusion. He paused, expecting a response. It’s an illusion, I recited. That’s it, he said. Illusions, kiddo—but of what? The illusion of love, I said. I’d overheard him giving this catechism to waiters before. He clapped my back. Bingo. To be fed well is also to feel loved. But like with all illusions, you’ve got to be consistent. This cousin of mine, he worked in Disneyland, and he dressed up like one of those animals, Mickey, Ducky, I forget. His one job, it’s to strut around, let the little kids take pictures with him. They’d shout like he was this big hero. Not so hard, right? But then one day he felt sick, so he took off his head to throw up, and this one kid who noticed, he lost his shit. See, the kid believed my cousin was the cartoon. From the kid’s angle, Mickey had ripped off his own head. Like that, my cousin lost his job. Why? Because he busted the illusion. His boss told him, Idiot, you should have thrown up in your costume. Will, at times, I look at you, I can tell you’re not faking it right. I want you to act like this place is a magic kingdom. Do you get what I’m saying? I said I did. He picked up his gold pen again. The first diners traipsed in, a trio of women collapsing rain-slick umbrellas. The host assigned them to my section. Writing down drink orders, I considered Paul’s speech. He wasn’t criticizing my table-waiting abilities. Otherwise, I wouldn’t still have this job, let alone the night shift. But I should try acting more like him, I thought. Slap backs as he did, dispersing jokes, high spirits. It’s often all people want, urging a change: be like me, shaped in this image. –

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  She’d brought an opened bottle of champagne, which she tipped into the nearest cup. Froth dribbled onto the torn gold label. That’s for you, she said, unzipping salt-stained boots. She kissed me, tongue flickering in my mouth. With a laugh, she broke free. I was talking in a big circle of people, she said. But then, I thought, What the hell am I doing? I want to be with Will. She listed, taking a half-spin. I helped Phoebe lie down. I forgot to be careful. She asked what I was up to, and I said, I’m celebrating. I’ve settled the problem with the restaurant: I found a solution Paul can live with— What restaurant? Who’s Paul? Even then, I still could have fixed the mistake. But in the low-wattage lamplight, Phoebe’s face was shining. It floated like a reflection, detached, the pale, thin shape I knew as I did my own. I’m tired of lying, I said. I explained about Paul. I waited tables at a place called Michelangelo’s. Each time I claimed to be in a library carrel, I’d had to go to the restaurant. I didn’t have a carrel. I studied at home. She’d known about my mother’s illness, the pills; I’d told Phoebe my father left us while I was on a mission trip to Beijing, but now I outlined what had followed. The financial problems. Debt; going bankrupt. Double-shift nights. The profound shame of owing money in a small town. I talked about Carmenita. The first minutes on campus, when I saw the sunlit lawn unrolled. I’ve wanted to tell you, I said. I didn’t know how to explain. I’d have told you the truth from the start if I’d known I, sometimes I thought you guessed, but you— No, you don’t— —too considerate, or— Will, don’t fucking pretend I was in on this. That’s not what I’m saying. The fact that you lied to me for months instead of telling me where you’re from—

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  She was still in the half-zipped dress, but she’d also thrown a coat on her shoulders, with fawn cashmere so thick and soft that, at parties, I used to be able to reach into a pile of coats and find hers by touch. Its lush cloth wings dangled down. I wish I could explain how helpful he’s been, she said. I feel light again. Will, I’m jubilant. I’m glad to be alive. If I could just have you with me, as well— You haven’t enjoyed living, I said. But you know what I mean. It’s the peace that passeth understanding. Phoebe’s smile flared, the old outsize grin. It belonged to someone I’d known. Last fall, caught in a flash storm, we were rushing through Noxhurst when Phoebe’s shoe strap broke. I picked her up, but the hold slipped. She laughed, or I did. Legs flailed, fish-bright. The beige raincoat bunched, slid; wet hairs, like blown seaweed, filled my mouth. She writhed, but I held on. I’d carried Phoebe home. She’d left the bedroom door open. It had to be on purpose: she wished me to learn what he’d done. She joined her hands on the table. I pulled one loose, and I kissed the inside of Phoebe’s wrist. The pulse flitted, urgent with life. When I licked the trapped blue of a vein, she shivered. I kissed an eyelid. She lifted open lips, at first, to meet mine. We slid down, the planks cold, but then she stopped responding, mouth rigid. Beneath the kitchen lights, Phoebe’s face was a mask of gold. It hid the living girl. If I could crack it apart—she pushed herself up, sitting cross-legged, and I saw the logical solution, so simple I wanted to laugh. I told Phoebe we should get married. You’re joking, she said. No. I watched as she realized I was serious. I think, she said, Will, I— Phoebe— I’m late for Julian, and you’ve had a few drinks—we’ll talk about this in the morning, when you’ll— Since I didn’t want to let Phoebe refuse, I pushed my mouth on hers again. The shift dress had come loose. Bra-strap nicks, like the lines dividing a doll’s joints, indented Phoebe’s skin. It’s possible she struggled awhile before I noticed she wasn’t, as I thought, excited, but I’d waited a long time. If I pretended I didn’t understand, I could postpone letting go. The fitted bottom half of Phoebe’s dress had twisted at waist-level. With my body pressing hers down, I could easily move the panties aside, unzip my jeans. Stop, she said; I slipped inside. She went still. I finished, then I went to the bathroom. I locked myself in. –

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  Beneath the kitchen lights, Phoebe’s face was a mask of gold. It hid the living girl. If I could crack it apart—she pushed herself up, sitting cross-legged, and I saw the logical solution, so simple I wanted to laugh. I told Phoebe we should get married. You’re joking, she said. No. I watched as she realized I was serious. I think, she said, Will, I— Phoebe— I’m late for Julian, and you’ve had a few drinks—we’ll talk about this in the morning, when you’ll— Since I didn’t want to let Phoebe refuse, I pushed my mouth on hers again. The shift dress had come loose. Bra-strap nicks, like the lines dividing a doll’s joints, indented Phoebe’s skin. It’s possible she struggled awhile before I noticed she wasn’t, as I thought, excited, but I’d waited a long time. If I pretended I didn’t understand, I could postpone letting go. The fitted bottom half of Phoebe’s dress had twisted at waist-level. With my body pressing hers down, I could easily move the panties aside, unzip my jeans. Stop, she said; I slipped inside. She went still. I finished, then I went to the bathroom. I locked myself in. – I woke the next morning on the bathroom mat. She’d left the apartment. I went outside, too. I walked until it was night; I called her, leaving messages, apologies I couldn’t finish. What you crying about, pal, a man said, panhandling. Take this soda bottle, drink it all up like Lou Reed, baby. He rattled his plastic cup, and laughed. I knew where she’d be. In three nights, she called back to tell me she’d return home Sunday, at noon, but just to finish moving out. Jejah had a room available. It shouldn’t take long, she said. I’m asking you to stay out of the apartment until I’m done. I don’t want to see you. She hung up. I went out for a walk again. Rain fell, melting winter’s ice. Sidewalks broke, heaved, oozing months-old grit. In this newly liquid world, other natural laws might also prove flexible. Time, I’d learned, was believed to be less sequential than it felt. It could spiral; it frilled. It might well halt. Then, it was the next morning. Night followed, but I still had time. Rivulets sluiced into the gutters, sailing trash, and then it was the Sabbath, almost noon. I waited until past midnight, sitting at the bar at Exhibit, before I returned to the apartment. When I stepped inside, I could tell she’d gone. She’d left the furniture, but bookshelf spaces gaped open. In the closet, stripped hangers clattered. She hadn’t taken the peacock silk wrap I liked, a gift from Julian. It could be a sign: a daedal thread, the implied promise of return. I’d had too much to drink.

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  She woke him roughly, just to see his expression. She called his name. His eyes opened immediately into regret and panic. Still sleepy, rubbing and scratching, he threw himself into a sitting position. His feet dangled over the edge of the bed. —Oh, boy.... Oh. What are we gonna do? Wendy laughed. She was gathering up her clothes and, including the soiled garter belt from Mike’s closet, carefully concealing it from Sandy, pushing it down into her ski pants, as she drew her turtleneck over her head again. —We have to get back into my room, he said. You have to get out somehow. —Huh? —Don’t talk so loud, Sandy whispered. —I’m not, and besides, you’re being a prude, you know? Who cares? Sandy was out of the bed now, looking for evidence of something on the sheets, though there were no stains, looking anyway, the way an alcoholic will go through a metal detector convinced that he probably picked up a handgun somehow. Sandy looked for the abject beginnings of his own sexuality drip- drying there, or for the popped cherry which, according to school-yard sex studies, must have accompanied Wendy’s night in his bed. Then he folded back the blankets, organized the bedspread. Everyone’s bed-making style was their own, Wendy knew, as personal as their fingerprints or their heartbeat. Sandy wasn’t doing anything more than forestalling his moment of coming clean. His neat but imperfect hospital corners would never fool his mom. The way Wendy saw it, in this enclosed space, in this first flush of morning, they were secure—young lovers like avid readers gazing at the frontispiece of a dusty, inherited volume—refracting the movements of the outside world, of Canaan Parish and beyond. Eventually the door would swing wide. But for now they could just ride the love train. So Wendy stopped, and removed her turtleneck again, cradling it in the pile of outer garments she held at her waist. She felt the frigid air on her nipples, those small, pink announcements of her sex, and she headed for the door. —Clock’s stopped, Sandy was saying behind her. She was ravished, and what difference did it make? She was changed. What was the loudest noise a girl could make? What did buildings look like when they collapsed? Did the Pentagon actually levitate? She opened the door and loped without regret across the threshold of the guest room and into Sandy’s room, where G. I. Joe’s execution was still being played out. She began to lift her voice in song, to mumble lyrics from the Led Zeppelin songbook and other head music. Hawkwind. The ringwraiths rode in black! Her mother’s appearance at this point was swift, stunning, and unpredictable. Wendy cried out, in fact, at the sight of her mother, disarranged, wearing last night’s clothes. Standing in the hall.

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  Girls’ ideas and attitudes about sex are shaped by family, media, friends, and their own experience. Holly had followed the contemporary rules of female sexual respectability, done everything she believed was “right,” and she was betrayed. She responded by giving up on love and commitment. She wanted to be “not feeling-less, exactly, but not in a relationship.” Besides, she was busy: doing her schoolwork, pledging her sorority, going to parties. She still planned to reserve intercourse for a committed partner, whenever that might happen. “I felt like”—she stopped and corrected herself. “I still feel like it means something, that you’re intimately connected and really like this person and you’re showing affection.” Since she didn’t have a boyfriend, Holly invited a male buddy from her dorm to her sorority’s winter date party in February. They arrived already loaded—she’d had six shots at pregames. After the party, she went back to his room thinking they would make out, but she was still awfully drunk. So when he said she was beautiful and that he’d like to have sex with her, she thought, “Why not?” A few minutes later, she felt as if she’d snapped out of a trance. “I thought, ‘Holy shit! I’m having sex and I’m not supposed to be doing this unless I’m in a relationship.’” Holly panicked, telling the boy she needed to stop. He urged her to stay, but she jumped out of bed and threw on her dress. Still barefoot, holding her shoes, she flung open the door of his room to find a group of young men standing directly outside, listening in. She ran to a friend’s room and cried. “I was so upset with myself that I’d had sex outside of a relationship,” Holly said. “Which I eventually got over. Now I don’t care so much about that. I just care that I know the guy. But back then, in my head, I was a skank. I was one of those skanks who just has sex with people. I was a bad person.” Everyone’s Slutty Friend A picture of a kitten hung on one wall of Megan Massoud’s room. Above her pillow was a poster from Pulp Fiction, the one in which Uma Thurman lies stomach-down on a bed, her stiletto-shod feet crossed at the ankles, a cigarette dangling from the fingers of one hand, a pistol flung casually near the other. Megan’s desk was littered with half-drunk bottles of Coke Zero, open boxes of cookies, and several shot glasses. I picked my way through piles of clothes heaped on the floor, cleared a chair of some laundry, and sat down, resting my feet on a polka-dotted hassock.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  25.WILLWe followed him as he pushed a path into the waiting crowd. The protest hadn’t started yet, but wind rippled plastic-sheathed signs. Sunlit fetuses swung up, down, while flags flicked like striped tongues. John Leal halted; he spun, abrupt, and doubled back. I thought he’d tell us we’d taken a wrong turn. Instead, he butted his face up to mine, so close I felt his breath. Will, he said. Oh, Will. He’d learned, he said, that I was full of questions. So, I was confused about his time in the gulag—which, all right, it had been a bewildering time for him, as well. Given I hadn’t lived through it, how much more so for me. But why hadn’t I brought my questions to him? It grieved him that I could still be this prideful. Think, he said, of John the Baptist telling us he couldn’t touch the latchet of his Lord’s shoes. I still hadn’t learned how to be a disciple. It was high time I did. If, that is, I had it in me. I should kneel, he said. He handed me a thin rag; he told me to wipe the others’ shoes, then his feet. I cleaned each muddied shoe. Melted ice soaked cold into my jeans. I held his foot, working the rag through his toes. Flecks of tissue gleamed, like nacre, in the cracked skin. I was trying to think. His time in the gulag, he’d said. It was what I’d asked Phoebe. The question about Mina, but we’d been walking home. We’d left John Leal at his house. If he hadn’t, how’d he— I glanced at Phoebe, but she looked down. She’d turned red. Phoebe didn’t blush often. If she did, the cause tended to be physical. She’d had too much alcohol, or it was hot. Phoebe hadn’t been drinking, though. It was a cold morning. Each breath showed white. I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but she still couldn’t look at me. She’d gone to him with what I’d said. – It was past the time the march should have begun, and people were losing patience. I’ll give it five minutes, then I’m calling it quits, a man said. Placards leaned against a building wall. I saw John Leal talking to people I didn’t recognize. With a nod, he stepped on an upended crate. His mouth moved. In that hubbub, I couldn’t pick out his words. Phoebe apologized again, tearful. It’s all right, I said, but she had more she wanted to explain. It’s fine, I said. Hoping she’d calm down, I kissed Phoebe’s head. I was intent on listening to John Leal’s speech: I was curious what his effect would be with this large an audience, if they’d respond as we did. He lifted his head, pitching his voice.

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  Sydney gazed down at the chipped black polish on her nails and began flipping one of her silver rings from finger to finger and back again. “I can’t,” she said after a moment. “My whole life is an attempt to figure out what, in the core of myself, I actually like versus what I want to hear from other people, or wanting to look a certain way to get attention. And part of me feels cheated out of my own well-being because of that.” Girls do push back against the constraints of “hot,” the contradictory message that it is mandatory yet also the justification for their harassment or assault. A spontaneous movement of “Slutwalks” exploded in 2011, after a Toronto policeman suggested that college women who wanted to avoid sexual assault shouldn’t dress so provocatively. Infuriated, young women across the globe, many in fishnets and garters, hit the streets bearing signs reading such things as “My Dress Is Not a Yes!” and “My Ass Is Not an Excuse for Assault!” At the other end of the spectrum, Generation Y made news both by growing out their armpit hair and rejecting the torture device commonly known as thong underwear (some in favor of “granny pants” with “Feminist” stamped across the rump), proving they could be sexy without pandering to “hot.” On a more personal level, one of the young women I met, an art student, told me that, tired of the “costume” that girls were expected to don at college parties, she was opting for a different one, showing up dressed as a sparkly unicorn. “I feel liberated,” she told me. “It’s still kind of body-conscious, and there is a lot of makeup involved, but I’m also fully covered. And I’m one-of-a-kind.” Hot or Not: Social Media and the New “Body Product” Girls did not always organize their thinking about themselves around the physical. Before World War I, self-improvement meant being less self-involved, less vain: helping others, focusing on schoolwork, becoming better read, and cultivating empathy. Author Joan Jacobs Brumberg highlighted this change in her book The Body Project by comparing the New Year’s resolutions of girls at the end of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: “Resolved,” wrote a girl in 1892, “to think before speaking. To work seriously. To be self-restrained in conversations and actions. Not to let my thoughts wander. To be dignified. Interest myself more in others.” And one hundred years later: “I will try to make myself better in any way I possibly can. . . . I will lose weight, get new lenses, already got new haircut, good makeup, new clothes and accessories.”

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  The boy lived several blocks off-campus, and claimed his car had broken down. So Holly, still dressed in the party clothes and high heels that had made her feel “proud of her body” the night before, made her way back to her sorority house alone. The so-called walk of shame is another aspect of hookup culture that calls out only young women’s behavior, since boys often wear the same clothing at parties that they’d wear during the day. Sometimes girls borrow something from a sexual partner (though they may never have occasion to return it), but as Megan told me, “Everyone knows when you’re in ‘shacker clothes’ and they’ll heckle you when you cross campus, like, ‘Ohhh! How was your night last night?’” Again, such harassment is typically leveled only at girls. Holly spent the rest of the day in sweat pants, crying and watching TV while her roommate hugged her. That was just two weeks before we met. “I’m not going to let it ruin my life,” she told me, her voice stalwart. “It’s not something that defines me. It was just something that happened, and I can’t get that drunk again.” While getting blackout drunk is never a good idea, and it seemed only natural for Holly to want to regain some sense of control, it troubled me that she placed all the blame on herself, on her drinking, rather than on the boy who took advantage of it. “I’d like to say he didn’t know how drunk I was,” she said. “But I don’t know. My friend who is in an organization that fights rape on campus said that by definition I couldn’t consent, so I was raped. And I almost . . .” she paused. “Not that I wish rape upon myself, but I hope I wasn’t sitting there saying, ‘Yeah, I want to have sex!’ Because that would go against everything that I’ve said about not having sex with a random person.” She shook her head and sighed. “I guess I’m fortunate that I don’t remember.”

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  The loss restituted, a vital hurt made whole. But I’d been a kid when I tried to attain the same result; then, because I had to, I’d grown up. John Leal tapped my head. I surfaced, listing close to him. I caught my reflection in his pupils, but he fixed the blindfold back in place. – It didn’t seem like much of an initiation: a routine alcoholic hazing, I thought, at first. It wasn’t unlike what I’d done to join Phi Epsilon. Even the baptism had its parallel. In Gibb fountain, along with the other pledges, I’d stripped down to bright pink fishnet tights. I hula-hooped while shouting the college anthem in pig Latin. In hindsight, though, the Jejah initiation draws a dividing line. The meetings lengthened; activities changed. With John Leal’s urging, we whirled in circles until we fell. To spin us out of the head, he said, and into a waiting Lord. He assigned tasks to stipulated hours, psalm-based chants we had to recite. While my time with Jejah predated John Leal’s best-known penalties, I did spend a long evening in the Litton Street backyard digging a hole, then filling it back in. Since I was the newest initiate, I had the most to do. I was prideful, he said. I required breaking down. In the morning, I ran a prescribed five miles along the Hudson. I’d have liked to swim with Phoebe instead, but he kept the tasks separate. I followed his assignments, even in private. I intended, I thought, to avoid being found out. Since I was inauthentic, a fraud, I had to put on a good act to prove otherwise. With Phoebe, too, I hid what I was thinking. It wasn’t all lies, though. In giving my first confession, for instance, I tried to be truthful. I was asked to confront my failings: to cultivate openness before Jejah, he said, so before God. Sitting in the middle of the circle, I told them I hadn’t wanted to lose my faith. I’d proselytized to anyone who’d listen. I went house to house, selling Christ: a fanatic, and proud of it. I told them about the Beijing mission trip, then the shock of my father’s betrayal. I’d tried to help the parent I still had, but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. I’d knelt in the bedroom, asking one last time for a sign. Thin curtains fluttered, gauze-white, and I waited until I couldn’t, then I got up. It became hard to live at home. The walls were thin. In bed, I heard my mother’s frenzied petitions to God, asking Him to heal me. I thought of my father’s lot, atheist in a household bent on bringing him to Christ. It didn’t excuse what he’d done, but I could touch the edges of his solitude. Like him, I fled. I came here. I realized I had to lie— Oh, had to lie, John Leal said, impatient. I believed I had to lie, I said.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  I kept thinking I’d go to one last meeting, then quit. I went again. He noticed I fidgeted, and he advised I exercise, as they did. It’ll be good for you, he said. He sounded playful, but when I laughed, he didn’t. Unechoed, I heard an idiot, laughing at nothing. I stopped. He asked which kind of exercise I liked best. I told him I used to swim; he drew up a schedule. Before the piano, I’d loved being in the pool. I used to frolic with half-nereid L.A. friends: I showed off high flip dives, and I played Marco Polo until I lost my voice, but this wasn’t fun. He set goals. I kept a log. One dull lap blurred into the next, tired leg muscles singing. Push through, he urged. Each night, I thrashed across the school’s Olympic-sized pool. I watched myself, the blurred Phoebe ghost, glide along striped tiles. In time, I noticed more habits changing. I was drinking less, I realized. If I craved gin, I sipped tonic. I hadn’t known it, but I longed for discipline. It was part of the life I’d lost with the piano: a schedule, rigid expectations. With the six-plus hours I practiced each night, I’d had rules to bind me in place. They’d held me up. – I started playing the piano again, in Jejah, at John Leal’s request. I’d thought I couldn’t, but in a short while, as with the ongoing swims, I didn’t mind. Plinked single-octave hymns, simple chords that resolved, like finished stories, with each line: this wasn’t the music I’d failed. If I played well, or didn’t, I felt no pleasure. I didn’t have to be afraid. – So, I’d changed. It was possible. I often thought about what John Leal liked saying, that if we could believe all people existed in their minds as much as we did in our own, the rest followed. To love, he said, is but to imagine well. I pulled out this thought; I held it up, in private, turning it in the light as though I’d find in its prism gleam the Phoebe I could still become. – The next time my father called, I picked up, for once. I said hello. He asked how I was doing. We talked a bit. I tried imagining what he’d felt: this indulged first son, servant-coddled, chaebol hidalgo, used to getting what he wanted. Then, upheaval. Humiliation. Left behind in Seoul, trailing his wife and newborn child to L.A. He had to beg a month, alone in a hotel, before she’d let him live with us. His English was book- learned, ill-suited to fast-talking L.A. If he wished to buy cigarettes, the shop clerk asked him what he’d said. He had to point, like a child. The small Korean house church across town might have been a haven, the one place where he felt valued, whole.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She was gazing at him and he turned away quickly: ‘Darling, I’m busy, you must leave me,’ he faltered . ‘Thank you,’ she said very quietly and simply, ‘I felt that I had to ask you about Martin—’ 3 After she had gone he sat on alone, and the lie was still bitter to his spirit as he sat there, and he covered his face for the shame that was in him—but because of the love that was in him he wept. CHAPTER 23 1 A ngela did not return in a week, she had decided to remain another fortnight in Scotland. She was staying now with the Peacocks, it seemed, and would not get back until after her birthday. Stephen looked at the beautiful ring as it gleamed in its little white velvet box, and her disappointment and chagrin were childish. But Violet Antrim, who had also been staying with the Peacocks, had arrived home full of importance. She walked in on Stephen one afternoon to announce her engagement to young Alec Peacock. She was so much engaged and so haughty about it that Stephen, whose nerves were already on edge, was very soon literally itching to slap her. Violet was now able to look down on Stephen from the height of her newly gained knowledge of men—knowing Alec she felt that she knew the whole species. ‘It’s a terrible pity you dress as you do, my dear,’ she remarked, with the manner of sixty, ‘a young girl’s so much more attractive when she’s soft-don’t you think you could soften your clothes just a little? I mean, you do want to get married, don’t you! No woman’s complete until she’s married. After all, no woman can really stand alone, she always needs a man to protect her.’ Stephen said: ‘I’m all right—getting on nicely, thank you!’ ‘Oh, no, but you can’t be!’ Violet insisted. ‘I was talking to Alec and Roger about you, and Roger was saying it’s an awful mistake for women to get false ideas into their heads. He thinks you’ve got rather a bee in your bonnet; he told Alec that you’d be quite a womanly woman if you’d only stop trying to ape what you’re not.’ Presently she said, staring rather hard: ‘That Mrs. Crossby—do you really like her? Of course I know you’re friends and all that—But why are you friends? You’ve got nothing in common. She’s what Roger calls a thorough man’s woman. I think myself she’s a bit of a climber. Do you want to be used as a scaling ladder for storming the fortifications of the county? The Peacocks have known old Crossby for years, he’s a wonderful shot for an ironmonger, but they don’t care for her very much I believe—Alec says she’s man-mad, whatever that means, anyhow she seems desperately keen about Roger.’ Stephen said: ‘I’d rather we didn’t discuss Mrs. Crossby, because, you see, she’s my friend.’

• From Understanding the Old Testament (2019)

  l e Ct Ure 3 | What g od i ntended for a dam and e ve 17 Final Verses of Genesis 2 Verse 23 goes on: “Then the man said, ‘This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. This one shall be called woman, for from man. She was taken.’” This reveals a pun in Hebrew. The word for man is Ish and the word for woman is Isha, which also is how you would pronounce “her man.” Verse 24 continues: “Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, so that they become one flesh.” The image here is of monogamy, even though polygamy was legal in ancient Israel. Regardless, the author of Genesis 2 holds that monogamy is the default relationship. The small problem in this verse is that in ancient Israel, men didn’t leave their fathers and mothers. A woman left her father and mother and moved in with a man and his parents. It is possible that the leaving here is psychological rather than residential. Next, the reader comes to verse 25: “But the two of them were naked, the man and his wife, yet they felt no shame.” To a certain extent, this is not meant to sound as ominous as it does, because nakedness in Israelite culture always meant shame. Every time nakedness is used in the Old Testament, it is symbolic of poverty. If the characters are naked, the audience would assume they were ashamed unless told otherwise. Despite their lack of shame, the lurking threat that there is one tree they shouldn’t eat, that they might die, and that perhaps they ought to be ashamed underscores a philosophic argument: The nature of the universe as it has been described in Genesis 2 is meant in the Israelite mind as what ought to be, not what really is. This is interesting, because in no other ancient Near Eastern creation myth was humanity once living in a different state than now. Every other creation myth explains how the world came to be, and that it is as intended. Genesis 2 is saying the way things are now is not the way God would really have wanted it to be, and it’s our fault that it’s not. Understanding the o ld testament 18 Questions to Consider Y If the human was created to work in the Garden of Eden, how is this any different from ancient Near Eastern creation myths, where the purpose of humanity is to farm for and feed the gods? Y Is woman being made from man in itself suggesting a subordinate creature, regardless of whether he names her or not? Suggested Reading Blenkinsopp, Un-creation, and Re-creation . LaCoque, The Trial of Innocence.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  Since I had Julian as a guide, I started meeting the Edwards students admitted into this pinnacle of learning with the single purpose, from what I could see, of having fun. To flaunt the privilege. In thrift-store ballgowns, they splashed through off-limits fountains. Champagne foamed like gold dissolving. Open up, like a good girl, Julian said, a white pill glinting in his palm. I tipped back my head. The pills split time. I flopped on the wet lawn to cool down. Light spilled from open doors. Drunks lurched, spun. Silhouettes flared into detail, then fizzled out again. I woke late, head muddled. Lunch lasted hours. I piled up invitations. I switched roles with Julian, taking him places. He followed along, gleeful. Don’t forget, though, he said. I’ve called dibs on you. Hands off, I tell them. She’s all mine. – Oh, but I wasn’t. Before Will, I had, for instance, the squash recruit who liked sucking toes. The poet who kept a ball pit in his suite’s living room. Girl bait, he said. The jazz flautist. Phil, who pissed in the hall closet because, late at night, he believed it to be a bathroom stall, and Tim, who lined his room with emptied wine bottles, like trophies. But no, I don’t mean to be glib. I got in the habit, with friends, Julian, of turning one-night flings into stories. The truth is, I wince if I think of that first month at Edwards. I recall it in pieces: ill-lit body parts, spit-glossed penises. Pinched nipples. Elbows and bad aim. They’d wheeze, then mild pain. Is that all right? they’d ask. I lied, to be kind. I drank a lot. In bars, I left full drinks unattended. Then, I gulped them down. If I failed to be careful, she might notice. She’d have to come back. One night, I put on the shortest dress I owned, and then I sat on a low wall on the edge of campus, legs dangling. Red lights spotted the intersection. I watched the crowd pass, thinking, Pick me up, until someone did. He didn’t have protection. It’s fine, I said. Go ahead. Downtown, in a split-level dive called Levi’s, I fell into conversation with Greg, a local, a high-school dropout in his thirties. I’d first met him because he sold Julian drugs. I went home with Greg, then I let him tie me to his bed. He fucked me through a hole he razored open in my tights. I shared a bottle of gin with him; I felt light-headed, ill, until I woke in a hospital bed. I was brought in throwing up, a nurse explained. No, I’d come in an ambulance. I had a little too much alcohol, but I’d be all right. The hospital had given me fluids. Hush, doll, she said. You’ll be fine.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  And from man, from every man’s brother [that is, anyone who murders] I will require the life of man. [Ex 21:28 , 29 ] 6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood [unlawfully], By man (judicial government) shall his blood be shed, For in the image of God He made man. [Rom 13:4 ] 7 “As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.” 8 Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, 9 “Now behold, I am establishing My covenant (binding agreement, solemn promise) with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that is with you—the birds, the livestock, and the wild animals of the earth along with you, of everything that comes out of the ark—every living creature of the earth. 11 “I will establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the water of a flood, nor shall there ever again be a flood to destroy and ruin the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the token (visible symbol, memorial) of the [solemn] covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations; 13 I set My rainbow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. 14 “It shall come about, when I bring clouds over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the clouds, 15 and I will [compassionately] remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again will the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 “When the rainbow is in the clouds and I look at it, I will [solemnly] remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 And God said to Noah, “This [rainbow] is the sign of the covenant (solemn pledge, binding agreement) which I have established between Me and all living things on the earth.” 18 The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth. Ham would become the father of Canaan. 19 These are the three sons of Noah, and from these [men] the whole earth was populated and scattered with inhabitants. 20 And Noah began to farm and cultivate the ground and he planted a vineyard. 21 He drank some of the wine and became drunk, and he was uncovered and lay exposed inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw [by accident] the nakedness of his father, and [to his father’s shame] told his two brothers outside. 23 So Shem and Japheth took a robe and put it on both their shoulders, and walked backwards and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away so that they did not see their father’s nakedness.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  20 Then the king commanded Hilkiah, Ahikam the son of Shaphan, Abdon the son of Micah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah a servant of the king, saying, 21 “Go, inquire of the LORD for me and for those who are left in Israel and in Judah in regard to the words of the book which has been found; for great is the wrath of the LORD which has been poured out on us because our fathers have not kept and obeyed the word of the LORD , to act in accordance with everything that is written in this book.” Huldah, the Prophetess, Speaks 22 So Hilkiah and those whom the king had told went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tokhath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe (now she lived in Jerusalem, in the Second Quarter); and they spoke to her about this. 23 And she answered them, “Thus says the LORD , the God of Israel: ‘Tell the man who sent you to me, 24 thus says the LORD : “Behold, I am bringing evil on this place and on its inhabitants, all the curses that are written in the book which they have read in the presence of the king of Judah. 25 “Because they have abandoned (rejected) Me and have burned incense to other gods, in order to provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands, a My wrath will be poured out on this place and it will not be extinguished.” ’ 26 “But you shall say the following to King Josiah of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD : ‘Thus says the LORD God of Israel, concerning the words which you have heard, 27 “Because your heart was gentle and penitent and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and its inhabitants, and humbled yourself before Me, and tore your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you,” declares the LORD . 28 “Behold, I will gather you to your fathers [in death], and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the evil which I am going to bring on this place and on its inhabitants.” ’ ” So they brought back word to the king. 29 Then the king sent word and gathered all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. 30 And the king went up to the house of the LORD with all the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests, the Levites, and all the people, from the greatest to the least; and he read aloud so they could hear all the words of the Book of the Covenant which was found in the house of the LORD .

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But to return to my story, from which a just indignation hath carried me somewhat farther astray than I purposed,--I say that the aforesaid Guglielmo was honoured by all the gentlemen of Genoa and gladly seen of them, and having sojourned some days in the city and hearing many tales of Messer Ermino's avarice and sordidness, he desired to see him. Messer Ermino having already heard how worthy a man was this Guglielmo Borsiere and having yet, all miser as he was, some tincture of gentle breeding, received him with very amicable words and blithe aspect and entered with him into many and various discourses. Devising thus, he carried him, together with other Genoese who were in his company, into a fine new house of his which he had lately built and after having shown it all to him, said, 'Pray, Messer Guglielmo, you who have seen and heard many things, can you tell me of something that was never yet seen, which I may have depictured in the saloon of this my house?' Guglielmo, hearing this his preposterous question, answered, 'Sir, I doubt me I cannot undertake to tell you of aught that was never yet seen, except it were sneezings or the like; but, an it like you, I will tell you of somewhat which me thinketh you never yet beheld.' Quoth Messer Ermino, not looking for such an answer as he got, 'I pray you tell me what it is.' Whereto Guglielmo promptly replied, 'Cause Liberality to be here depictured.' When Messer Ermino heard this speech, there took him incontinent such a shame that it availed in a manner to change his disposition altogether to the contrary of that which it had been and he said, 'Messer Guglielmo, I will have it here depictured after such a fashion that neither you nor any other shall ever again have cause to tell me that I have never seen nor known it.' And from that time forth (such was the virtue of Guglielmo's words) he was the most liberal and the most courteous gentleman of his day in Genoa and he who most hospitably entreated both strangers and citizens." THE NINTH STORY [Day the First] THE KING OF CYPRUS, TOUCHED TO THE QUICK BY A GASCON LADY, FROM A MEAN-SPIRITED PRINCE BECOMETH A MAN OF WORTH AND VALIANCE The Queen's last commandment rested with Elisa, who, without awaiting it, began all blithely, "Young ladies, it hath often chanced that what all manner reproofs and many pains[68] bestowed upon a man have not availed to bring about in him hath been effected by a word more often spoken at hazard than of purpose aforethought. This is very well shown in the story related by Lauretta and I, in my turn, purpose to prove to you the same thing by means of another and a very short one; for that, since good things may still serve, they should be received with a mind attent, whoever be the sayer thereof.

• From Understanding the Old Testament (2019)

  leCtUre 3 | What god intended for adam and eve 17 Final Verses of Genesis 2 Verse 23 goes on: “Then the man said, ‘This one at last is bone of my bones and f lesh of my f lesh. This one shall be called woman, for from man. She was taken.’” This reveals a pun in Hebrew. The word for man is Ish and the word for woman is Isha, which also is how you would pronounce “her ma n.” Verse 24 continues: “Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, so that they become one f lesh.” The image here is of monogamy, even though polygamy was legal in ancient Israel. Regardless, the author of Genesis 2 holds that monogamy is the default relationship. The small problem in this verse is that in ancient Israel, men didn’t leave their fathers and mothers. A woman left her father and mother and moved in with a man and his parents. It is possible that the leaving here is psychological rather than residential. Next, the reader comes to verse 25: “But the two of them were naked, the man and his wife, yet they felt no shame.” To a certain extent, this is not meant to sound as ominous as it does, because nakedness in Israelite culture always meant shame. Every time nakedness is used in the Old Testament, it is symbolic of poverty. If the characters are naked, the audience would assume they were ashamed unless told otherwise. Despite their lack of shame, the lurking threat that there is one tree they shouldn’t eat, that they might die, and that perhaps they ought to be ashamed underscores a philosophic argument: The nature of the universe as it has been described in Genesis 2 is meant in the Israelite mind as what ought to be, not what really is. This is interesting, because in no other ancient Near Eastern creation myth was humanity once living in a different state than now. Every other creation myth explains how the world came to be, and that it is as intended. Genesis 2 is saying the way things are now is not the way God would really have wanted it to be, and it’s our fault that it’s not. Understanding the old testament 18 Questions to Consider YIf the human was created to work in the Garden of Eden, how is this any different from ancient Near Eastern creation myths, where the purpose of humanity is to farm for and feed the gods? YIs woman being made from man in itself suggesting a subordinate creature, regardless of whether he names her or not? Suggested Reading Blenkinsopp, Un-creation, and Re-creation. LaCoque, The Trial of Innocence.