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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 Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  Whenever the kids in the street saw me they’d yell, “Indoda yomlungu!” “The white man!” Some of them would run away. Others would call out to their parents to come look. Others would run up and try to touch me to see if I was real. It was pandemonium. What I didn’t understand at the time was that the other kids genuinely had no clue what a white person was. Black kids in the township didn’t leave the township. Few people had televisions. They’d seen the white police roll through, but they’d never dealt with a white person face-to-face, ever. I’d go to funerals and I’d walk in and the bereaved would look up and see me and they’d stop crying. They’d start whispering. Then they’d wave and say, “Oh!” like they were more shocked by me walking in than by the death of their loved ones. I think people felt like the dead person was more important because a white person had come to the funeral. After a funeral, the mourners all go to the house of the surviving family to eat. A hundred people might show up, and you’ve got to feed them. Usually you get a cow and slaughter it and your neighbors come over and help you cook. Neighbors and acquaintances eat outside in the yard and in the street, and the family eats indoors. Every funeral I ever went to, I ate indoors. It didn’t matter if we knew the deceased or not. The family would see me and invite me in. “Awunakuvumela umntana womlungu ame ngaphandle. Yiza naye apha ngaphakathi,” they’d say. “You can’t let the white child stand outside. Bring him in here.” As a kid I understood that people were different colors, but in my head white and black and brown were like types of chocolate. Dad was the white chocolate, mom was the dark chocolate, and I was the milk chocolate. But we were all just chocolate. I didn’t know any of it had anything to do with “race.” I didn’t know what race was. My mother never referred to my dad as white or to me as mixed. So when the other kids in Soweto called me “white,” even though I was light brown, I just thought they had their colors mixed up, like they hadn’t learned them properly. “Ah, yes, my friend. You’ve confused aqua with turquoise. I can see how you made that mistake. You’re not the first.”

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  317Lecture 32—Liberation Theologies in Latin America õIn any case, Hoover wrote down what happened on this unusual night. At the call to prayer, he expected one person to pray, and then another, in an orderly Methodist fashion. But instead, he wrote “all with a single voice began praying in a loud voice,” and the noise grew louder and louder. People sang spontaneously, fell on the f loor, and had visions. õJust as in the United States, early Pentecostal revivals in Latin America broke down traditional rules about “respectable” worship, or women preaching. And just like in the United States, almost as soon as the revival began, so did schisms. Pentecostals broke away from Methodist churches, and then broke away again from one another. õEarly Pentecostal missionaries, both the foreigners and new local converts, did what savvy religious entrepreneurs do: They adjusted to meet the demands of the local market, and they took risks to meet potential converts where they were. For example, when a yellow fever epidemic hit the area, they didn’t stay inside in quarantine; they went out and evangelized sick people in their homes. Today, almost half of Latin American Protestants are Pentecostal. GRASSROOTS CATHOLIC REVIVAL õThe Protestant revival coincided with a long period of turmoil within the Latin American Catholic Church. By the 1960s, Latin American catholic leaders were having serious debates about the causes of poverty in their communities and the way church institutions were sometimes complicit in unjust economic arrangements that hurt the poor and made them more receptive to Protestant missionaries. õThese concerns came to the fore in 1968, when the bishops of Latin America met for a big conference in Colombia. Pope Paul VI came to open the conference in Bogota—the first time a pope had ever visited Latin America. Many Catholics wanted him to say something bold about the oppression of Catholics under many Latin American regimes. 318The History of Christianity II õBut the pope showed up in a military helicopter, which was a bad sign. In his speech, he called on the church to defend the dignity of the poor, and he denounced the exploitation of peasants—although he warned Catholics not to trust any activists who claimed that violent revolution was the path to justice. In the end, he didn’t go quite as far in condemning powerful businessmen and politicians as many progressives would have liked. õWhen the pope left, the conference moved to Medellin, and the bishops echoed the pope’s warning against radical politics that could tempt people to violence. But in context, their statements were pretty radical: They criticized big business, called for workers to organize, and called for agrarian reform to make it possible for peasants to actually earn a decent living on the land.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  Franklin appeared with his hair in his eyes and his pores flowering magnanimously. “You came!” They groped for each other’s hands and darted at each other’s cheeks with a lot of “mm!” sounds. “Where’s your girlfriend?” “Oh, she had a family obligation.” They stood close, Connie quickly scanning the back of the room while Franklin’s eyes wandered over her head. “Yo, Dave, I’ve gotta talk to you before you leave! Connie, the hooch is over there, there’s some cake and stuff in the kitchen. And don’t disappear! There’s somebody I want to introduce you to.” He squeezed her shoulder and moved away, and she penetrated more deeply into the crowd, heading for the discordant light-reflective arrangement of bottles and tumbling towers of paper cups. As she approached the table and reached for the slim neck of a vodka bottle, a woman turned around and she stood facing Alice. The neat proportions of surprise, warmth and compassion in the resulting declaration —“Connie!”—suggested that Alice had been prepared for this. She made a tentative half move with her upper body that looked like the first stage of a hug; Connie half moved in response and then stopped, so Alice stopped and they paused to look at each other, slowly recovering their distance. Connie wondered if Alice was inspecting her crow’s-feet. “So, how’ve you been?” she asked. “How’s your painting?” “Good! I mean, I’m much more productive than I was when I knew you. I don’t spend half as much time tearing my hair out.” “Do you still have the feelings of resentment you had about Roger’s success?” Alice’s eyes slid sideways toward her with a short burst of expression that was like the gliding movement of a bird; this was a reference to their old discussions about Roger’s commercial success and Alice’s bitter jealousy. “Yes, I do, but I’ve dealt with it. I’m not such a bitch about it. My own productivity has made it easier.” They stood linked by a delicate membrane of remembered intimacy. “I hear your writing is going well.” “Yeah, it is.” Connie listed the year’s accomplishments, becoming for an annoying moment the girl from out of town who was trying to impress imperious Alice. The conversation was not what she had planned; they were talking like acquaintances at a party, perhaps because they were. “The magazine was fun at first,” she finished. “But I’m not so happy there now. I don’t have the influence that I thought I would. And it pays nothing.” “Still, it’s a good spot, right? To make connections?” “Yeah.” They stood looking in slightly different directions as the connective tissue began to dissolve in an anomaly of music and party chatter. Connie glanced sideways at Alice’s face; there were tiny lines and a faint dryness that made her skin look frail, but the bone structure and demeanor still had the imposing, impenetrable look of a fashion model staring down a lifetime of cameras. “How’s your mother?” asked Connie.

• From Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults (1988)

  Within a couple of hours, she and another woman got into a station wagon and drove off. We followed them to a supermarket, in a nearby shopping mall. After they went inside, I coached the Johnsons on what to say and do. The plan was to try to wait until Nancy was by herself, if possible. At that point, they were to walk right up to her and give her a big hug and immediately invite her to lunch. They would also tell her that they needed to discuss some very urgent family business—and nothing more. We counted on Nancy being totally surprised. Since she hadn’t told her family about the group, it would be more difficult for her to resist their insistent invitation to go out to eat. They would be affectionate and friendly, but firm. Neil would make sure that the other woman would not interfere with their departure. I watched from a short distance away. Nancy put up no resistance at all. She seemed really happy to see her family, yet very shocked and confused. When Nancy said, “Let me go tell Claire,” Neil volunteered to do that, and walked toward the store. “I think she’s in the produce department,” Nancy called out to him. “Don’t worry,” Neil said as he looked back. His parents were already walking toward the car, arm in arm with Nancy. Neil waited inside the store for a minute and then came running out. “She said fine,” Neil told her as he got into the car. I took a cab back to the hotel and waited in the second room we had taken next door, until the family was ready for me. Meanwhile, I reported what had happened to Alexis, the former Tribes member. We didn’t have to wait long. As instructed, the Johnsons waited until they were settled in their room before telling Nancy that they had flown out because they were concerned about the group she was involved with. At first Nancy denied any involvement. Then Mr. Johnson produced her letter to Leslie. As Bill told me later, her face turned beet red and she started to cry. “Why did you lie to us?” Bill asked sternly. “That’s not like you, honey,” Mrs. Johnson added. More tears from Nancy. “We’re here because we love you and we’re worried about you,” Neil said, wiping his own tears away. “Why don’t you tell us all about it?” Bill asked. “Start from the beginning.” Nancy recounted what had happened. At first she seemed her normal self, but after a few minutes her personality changed. Her face took on a faraway expression, and she started quoting from the Bible and her leader. Lorna asked Nancy if, deep down in her heart, she loved them and trusted them. She thought for a moment and said, “Yes.” “Will you stay with us for the next three days, and not talk to Claire or see anyone from the group during that time?” Lorna asked.

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

  CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. (non occ.) Every thing that Jesus did claimed admiration from all men for a peculiar and divine light reflected upon each of His works, according to the Psalms, honour and majesty wilt thou lay upon him. (Ps. 21:5.) Although all indeed marvelled at those things which He did, He however addresses what follows, not to all, but to His disciples; as it is said, But while they wondered every one, &c. He had shewn His glory on the mount to His disciples, and after this delivered a man from an evil spirit, but it was necessary for Him to undergo His passion for our salvation. Now His disciples might have been perplexed, saying, “Have we then been deceived in that we thought him to be God?” That they might know then what was to happen to Him, He bids them lay up in their minds as a certain deposit the mystery of His passion, saying, Let these sayings sink down in your hearts. By the word your, He distinguishes them from others. For the multitude were not to know that He was about to suffer, but were rather to be assured that the dead would rise again, destroying death, lest they should be offended. TITUS BOSTRENSIS. While all thus were wondering at the miracles, He foretels His passion. For miracles do not save, but the cross conveys the benefit. Hence he adds, For the Son of man shall he delivered into the hands of men. ORIGEN. (in Matt. tom. 13.) But it is not clearly expressed by whom He is to be delivered, for one says, that He is to be delivered up by Judas, another by the devil; but Paul says, that God the Father delivered Him up for us all; (Rom. 8:32.) but Judas, as he delivered Him up for money, did it traitorously, the Father for His mercies’ sake. THEOPHYLACT. Now our Lord in condescension to their infirmities and governing them with a kind of economy, did not permit them to understand what was said of the cross; as it follows, But they understood not. BEDE. This ignorance of the disciples proceeds not so much from slowness of understanding as from affection, for since they were yet carnal and ignorant of the mystery of the cross, they could not believe that He whom they thought to be really God would suffer death. And because they were often accustomed to hear Him speak by figure, they thought that He meant figuratively something else, by what He said of His betrayal.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  It sent a shiver down his spine and made his mouth twitch. Before he could change his mind, he had crossed to the window and pulled it open, wide enough to clamber out onto the steel mesh platform. The air was a wonderful shock, gripping him in a dark, oily embrace that somehow, instead of sobering him up, spurred him on. He climbed gingerly down the staircase, flinching at the cold metal teeth digging into the soles of his bare feet, and came to a halt outside her window. There. She was sitting at the table, her chin on her hand, face turned toward him, eyes closed as she nodded along with the music. John lifted his hand to knock. For a split-second, he paused, looking at the little detail he could see in the dim light of the interior. Half a dozen candles burned on a plate at her elbow, their gold flames casting soft little shadows on her face. She wore a loose kimono-type garment, something that shone a little and fell from her shoulders. She looked like a painting, he thought. He shook his head. Waited for the pause in the song, the one he knew cut in after the middle eight. But instead of rapping on the glass, he found himself slamming it with his open hand, hard. Jane jerked fully awake. The dark shape at the window flung itself onto her consciousness like a slap in the face. Instinctively, she reached for the empty plate beside her, scrabbling through dry crumbs before her fingers closed over the handle of the fork. She raised it in front of herself like an undersized trident. Where was her phone? She had to get up and find it, but her eyes were fixed on the figure that hovered outside—a black shadow against the nearly black sky. He knocked on the window. Jane frowned. If he wanted to break in and rape, rob and kill her, why was he knocking? She peered into the gloom. Was he wearing pajamas? The figure shifted as she looked at him, and she saw him wave a kind of salute. Her neighbor? Yes, as she moved closer to the window, letting the hand holding the fork drop to her side, she thought there was something familiar about the shape of the man out there. The hair, normally brushed soft and falling over his face, stuck up wildly in all directions. But the broad, slightly stooped shoulders were his. And yes, as the candlelight fell on his scowling face, she recognized that resentful expression. She took the last few steps confidently and pulled up the sash as though she often received visitors via the window.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  Charles called her to the phone, and she felt a thrill of duty. What had happened to Lily now? She took her drink and cigarettes and left the gentle darkness, padding down the hall and through the swing door into the kitchen. The light was bright and there was a peaceful smell of old food. She shooed Charles, who was eating a dish of lime sherbet at the counter, and sat on the high red stool under the phone, her elbows on her knees. “What is it, honey?” Lily had just been released from a mental hospital. “All she does is lie around like a lump, eating butter sandwiches and drinking tea like a fiend. I don’t think she can go back to school here, now that she’s been expelled. We’ve already tried sending her away to school and that didn’t work either. I don’t know what to do.” Magdalen was somewhere in Canada. Camille was away at college. Charles and Daniel were always outside playing. “Why doesn’t Lily come and go to school here?” she said. “I’m fresh out of girls, you know. Send her on out.” She went back into the den forty minutes later. Jarold was hunched forward on the couch with the exasperated expression that he always had when he was watching liberals on TV. He was so intent on Cool Hand Luke that he didn’t ask about the telephone call. She cuddled against him silently. She meant to tell him about Lily after the movie was over, but she didn’t. She planned to tell him for several days. Then she realized she was putting it off because she knew he would say no. So she decided not to tell him anything. All week, she fantasized about Lily, and what it would be like to have her there. A week later, she picked Lily up at the airport. As she stood shielding her eyes to scan the passengers climbing from the plane, she realized that she had been vaguely expecting Lily to look like Magdalen. She felt a slight shock when she noticed the small, pale, brown-haired girl. Even as Virginia adjusted her expectation, she was surprised by Lily’s appearance. She had not imagined such a serious face. As Lily came toward her among the passengers, Virginia felt an odd sense of aloneness about the girl. Her gray eyes were wide and penetrating, but seemed veiled, as if she wanted to look out without you looking in. Her mouth and jaw were stiff and rather pained. Virginia was curious and taken aback.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  170The History of Christianity II ORIGINS õThe Mormon organization is formally known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the LDS Church. As the name indicates, Mormons consider themselves to be Christians, but some other Christians and scholars argue that Mormonism is not a kind of Christianity, but a brand new religion. õThe Mormon faith emerged from the spiritual hothouse of the 19 th century: the Second Great Awakening. Its founder, Joseph Smith Jr., was born in 1805 in Vermont to a poor farming family. They moved all over but ended up living in Palmyra, NY, in the heart of a region hot with the f lames of religious revival. õJoseph’s parents were interested in dreams and folk magic. They were always searching for a religion that felt right but were not finding it. Joseph Smith Jr. carried on this tradition. In the spring of 1820, when he was 14, Smith went into the woods where he could be alone, and there he had a vision. He saw a pillar of light, and God and Jesus spoke to him, mourning the state of the world and religious disagreement. õSmith didn’t immediately tell his family about his vision. He did tell a Methodist minister, who was aghast and told him there was no such thing as visions. In 1823, when he was 17, he went to his room and prayed that God would forgive his sins. Suddenly his room was filled with a bright light, and beside his bed stood an angel dressed in a white robe. This was the angel Moroni, who told Smith that God had “a work” for him to do. 171Lecture 18—The Mormons: A True American Faith õMoroni led him to uncover a book of golden plates buried in a hill near his home. Deposited with the plates were two stones fastened to a breastplate, called Urim and Thummim, described as “two smooth three cornered diamonds set in glass, and the glasses were set in silver bows.” Imagine them as a pair spectacles fastened to a knight’s chest armour. These served as seer stones that God had prepared to aid Joseph in his translation of the book. 172The History of Christianity II õMoroni didn’t actually allow Smith to remove the plates, and made him keep coming back to the same spot once a year every year for more teaching. Finally, four years later, he was allowed to borrow them.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  She’d told me to tell her when it started burning. She should have told me to tell her when it started tingling, because by the time it was actually burning it had already taken off several layers of my scalp. I was well past tingling when I started to freak out. “It’s burning! It’s burning!” She rushed me over to the sink and started to rinse the relaxer out. What I didn’t know is that the chemical doesn’t really start to burn until it’s being rinsed out. I felt like someone was pouring liquid fire onto my head. When she was done I had patches of acid burns all over my scalp. I was the only man in the salon; it was all women. It was a window into what women experience to look good on a regular basis. Why would they ever do this?, I thought. This is horrible. But it worked. My hair was completely straight. The woman combed it back, and I looked like a pimp, a pimp named Slickback. Bongani then dragged me back to the first salon, and the woman agreed to cornrow my hair. She worked slowly. It took six hours. Finally she said, “Okay, you can look in the mirror.” She turned me around in the chair and I looked in the mirror and…I had never seen myself like that before. It was like the makeover scenes in my American movies, where they take the dorky guy or girl, fix the hair and change the clothes, and the ugly duckling becomes the swan. I’d been so convinced I’d never get a date that I never tried to look nice for a girl, so I didn’t know that I could. The hair was good. My skin wasn’t perfect, but it was getting better; the pustules had receded into regular pimples. I looked…not bad. I went home, and my mom squealed when I walked in the door. “Ooooooh! They turned my baby boy into a pretty little girl! I’ve got a little girl! You’re so pretty!” “Mom! C’mon. Stop it.” “Is this the way you’re telling me that you’re gay?” “What? No. Why would you say that?” “You know it’s okay if you are.” “No, Mom. I’m not gay.” Everyone in my family loved it. They all thought it looked great. My mom did tease the shit out of me, though. “It’s very well done,” she said, “but it is way too pretty. You do look like a girl.” — The big night finally came. Tom came over to help me get ready. The hair, the clothes, everything came together perfectly. Once I was set, we went to Abel to get the keys to the BMW, and that was the moment the whole night started to go wrong.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  For twenty years, typos, missing copy and other small mistakes have marted the novel and have made me stop and say out loud when I was reading from the book in public: “That was a mistake!” This new edition has allowed me to fix those errors. As my eyesight destabilized and I became so sick I couldn’t re-read the novel, Minnie Bruce and proof- reader Becca Shaw Glaser went through the book, found questions and brought those to me. I made all decisions about errors that were found in the original. I have always approached editing and copy- editing and reviston—my own work and that of others—with great respect for the original text. I brought that same ethic to this new edition of Stone Butch Blues. If it wasn’t broken, I didn’t fix it. ’m not of the school of filmmaker George Lucas who went back to Star Wars and changed who shot who first. The poet/writer who most meaningfully sums up for me the guiding ethics of revision is Audte Lorde, who said a revision should make the work “more of what it needs to be in order to do the emotional work it was intended to do.” Stone Butch Blues 335 AUTHOR AFTERWORD: EXCERPTS STONE BUTCH BLUES 10th Anniversary Edition 2003 ON THIS, THE 10™ ANNIVERSARY of the publication of Stone Butch Blues, Vve just finished reading the novel for the first ttme. Does that sound odd to you? I wrote this narrative from the inside, awash in its depths, towed by its currents. By the time I held the blues in my hands the inked words seemed like faint animal tracks on a smooth landscape, a cold trail I couldn’t follow. Now, a decade later, I am surprised. Astonished 336 = Leslie Feinberg to be reintroduced to characters that I birthed, who like anyone’s grown children developed fictional lives of their own, independent from mine. I discover a journey not identical to my life’s path, and yet blazed with the intimate familiarity of my own lived experience. I locate theory—the way it is ltved— in motion and in interconnection. Not hard to understand; hard to live. And I feel the heat of the inextinguishable fire of resistance to oppression. Like my own life, this novel defies easy classification. If you found Stone Butch Blues in a bookstore or library, what category was it in? Lesbian fiction? Gender studies? Like the germinal novel The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe/John Hall, this book is a lesbian novel and a transgender novel—making “trans” genre a verb, as well as an adjective. “Ts it fiction?” I am frequently asked. Is it true? Is it real? Oh, it’s real all right. So real it bleeds. And yet it is a remembrance: Never underestimate the power of fiction to tell the truth.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  At one point we took a break to go get a snack. I set the magnifying glass and the matches on the mattress and we left. When we came back a few minutes later we found the shed had one of those doors that self-locks from the inside. We couldn’t get back in without going to get his mother, so we decided to run around and play in the yard. After a while I noticed smoke coming out of the cracks in the window frame. I ran over and looked inside. A small fire was burning in the middle of the straw mattress where we’d left the matches and the magnifying glass. We ran and called the maid. She came, but she didn’t know what to do. The door was locked, and before we could figure out how to get into the shed the whole thing caught—the mattress, the ladders, the paint, the turpentine, everything. The flames moved quickly. Soon the roof was on fire, and from there the blaze spread to the main house, and the whole thing burned and burned and burned. Smoke was billowing into the sky. A neighbor had called the fire brigade, and the sirens were on their way. Me and this kid and the maid, we ran out to the road and watched as the firemen tried to put it out, but by the time they did, it was too late. There was nothing left but a charred brick-and-mortar shell, roof gone, and gutted from the inside. The white family came home and stood on the street, staring at the ruins of their house. They asked the maid what happened and she asked her son and the kid totally snitched. “Trevor had matches,” he said. The family said nothing to me. I don’t think they knew what to say. They were completely dumbfounded. They didn’t call the police, didn’t threaten to sue. What were they going to do, arrest a seven-year-old for arson? And we were so poor you couldn’t actually sue us for anything. Plus they had insurance, so that was the end of it. They kicked Abel out of the garage, which I thought was hilarious because the garage, which was freestanding, was the only piece of the property left unscathed. I saw no reason for Abel to have to leave, but they made him. We packed up his stuff, put it into our car, and drove home to Eden Park; Abel basically lived with us from then on. He and my mom got into a huge fight. “Your son has burned down my life!” But there was no punishment for me that day. My mom was too much in shock. There’s naughty, and then there’s burning down a white person’s house. She didn’t know what to do.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  FUFI A month after we moved to Eden Park, my mother brought home two cats. Black cats. Beautiful creatures. Some woman from her work had a litter of kittens she was trying to get rid of, and my mom ended up with two. I was excited because I’d never had a pet before. My mom was excited because she loves animals. She didn’t believe in any nonsense about cats. It was just another way in which she was a rebel, refusing to conform to ideas about what black people did and didn’t do. In a black neighborhood, you wouldn’t dare own a cat, especially a black cat. That would be like wearing a sign that said, “Hello, I am a witch.” That would be suicide. Since we’d moved to a colored neighborhood, my mom thought the cats would be okay. Once they were grown we let them out during the day to roam the neighborhood. Then we came home one evening and found the cats strung up by their tails from our front gate, gutted and skinned and bleeding out, their heads chopped off. On our front wall someone had written in Afrikaans, “Heks”—“Witch.” Colored people, apparently, were no more progressive than black people on the issue of cats. I wasn’t exactly devastated about the cats. I don’t think we’d had them long enough for me to get attached; I don’t even remember their names. And cats are dicks for the most part. As much as I tried they never felt like real pets. They never showed me affection nor did they accept any of mine. Had the cats made more of an effort, I might have felt like I had lost something. But even as a kid, looking at these dead, mutilated animals, I was like, “Well, there you have it. Maybe if they’d been nicer, they could have avoided this.” After the cats were killed, we took a break from pets for a while. Then we got dogs. Dogs are cool. Almost every black family I knew had a dog. No matter how poor you were, you had a dog. White people treat dogs like children or members of the family. Black people’s dogs are more for protection, a poor-man’s alarm system. You buy a dog and you keep it out in the yard. Black people name dogs by their traits. If it has stripes, you call it Tiger. If it’s vicious, you call it Danger. If it has spots, you call it Spotty. Given the finite number of traits a dog can have, pretty much everyone’s dogs have the same names; people just recycle them. We’d never had dogs in Soweto. Then one day some lady at my mom’s work offered us two puppies. They weren’t planned puppies.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  Then we’d sit on the corner and eat. While we ate, we’d be picking up orders from the minibus drivers as they went past. After that we’d go back to Bongani’s garage, listen to music, lift weights, make the CDs. Around ten or eleven, the drivers would start coming back from their morning routes. We’d take the CDs and head out to the corner for them to pick up their stuff. Then we’d just be on the corner, hanging out, meeting characters, seeing who came by, seeing where the day was going to take us. A guy needs this. A guy’s selling that. You never knew what it was going to be. There was always a big rush of business at lunch. We’d be all over Alexandra, hitting different shops and corners, making deals with everyone. We’d get free rides from the minibus drivers because we’d hop in with them and use it as an opportunity to talk about what music they needed, but secretly we were riding with the guy for free. “Hey, we want to collect orders. We’ll talk to you while you drive. What do you need? What music are you looking for? Do you need the new Maxwell? Okay, we got the new Maxwell. Okay, we’ll talk to you later. We’ll jump out here.” Then we’d hop on another ride going wherever we were going next. After lunch, business would die down, and that’s when we’d get our lunch, usually the cheapest thing we could afford, like a smiley with some maize meal. A smiley is a goat’s head. They’re boiled and covered with chili pepper. We call them smileys because when you’re done eating all the meat off it, the goat looks like it’s smiling at you from the plate. The cheeks and the tongue are quite delicious, but the eyes are disgusting. They pop in your mouth. You put the eyeball into your mouth and you bite it, and it’s just a ball of pus that pops. It has no crunch. It has no chew. It has no flavor that is appetizing in any way.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  No, he couldn’t be one of those. She waited patiently as he checked in, and before he turned away from front desk, she’d stepped into his path, her skirt standard uniform, her blouse sheer to show off the embroidered bustier under the black silk. “Now there’s a sight for sore eyes.” He looked as though he meant his words as he took Joanna’s arm, gripping it in friendly possession as he kissed first her check and then her lips, a warm but chaste kiss. “And here I am—just for you,” Joanna returned the kiss. “I’ve learned over my years in Guest Services that the best way to find out what a customer wants is to ask directly.” She pressed tight against Thomas, unconcerned about the desk clerk who mechanically finished processing Tom’s reservation. “What do you want, sir?” she whispered against his ear. She absorbed the stiffness of his body. The awkward words would come any second, the no’s and stumbled, polite dismissals, the adjustment of the distance between them. Maybe he’d say he really liked her as a friend and that sex would ruin things. Maybe he’d confess to being married/engaged/seeing someone, or—she grinned against his shoulder— he’d tell her regretfully that he was gay. The rejection would come, but it would be all right. She’d taken the chance. He pulled her closer, and she imagined his comfortable business mind melting and mixing into goo as her pussy pressed against his thigh, and...his cock stiffened. “I want you,” he whispered against her ear. She blinked, her bones suddenly marble, her skin the thinnest sheet of breath that burst into hot sensation where his fingers held her against him. That was a yes—he’d said yes. That wasn’t supposed to happen! Could she unbury the condoms in less than 2.6 seconds, and what the hell did this mean in the grand scheme of her... scheme? “Come with me,” she breathed against his chin. She’d take him to her office, manage a moderately graceful excavation of the condoms, and then they’d fuck on her desk. All she had to do was toss the two copier paper boxes filled with her personal mementos to the floor and they’d have a wide plane to play upon. Maybe he’d bend her over the edge, fuck her mercilessly from behind. What if he slapped her ass? Her pussy creamed. “No,” he exhaled, the quiet tone reaching the tenor of a growl. “I want my bed turned down. Personally.” She nodded, a bob of her head she doubted anyone would have seen. That was her job. Guest Services.

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

  CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. xlii.) After his former answers He here again refutes them in another manner. This He does not in order to do away their charges against Himself, but desiring to amend them, saying, Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt. As much as to say, None of you has said that it is an evil thing for a man to be delivered from dæmons. But because they did not speak evil of the works, but said that it was the Devil that wrought them, He shews that this charge is contrary to the common sense of things, and human conceptions. And to invent such charges can only proceed from unbounded impudence. JEROME. Thus He holds them in a syllogism which the Greeks call ‘Aphycton,’ the unavoidable; which shuts in the person questioned on both sides, and presses him with either horn. If, He saith, the Devil be evil, he cannot do good works; so that if the works you see be good, it follows that the Devil was not the agent thereof. For it cannot be that good should come of evil, or evil of good. CHRYSOSTOM. For the discerning of a tree is done by its fruits, not the fruits by the tree. A tree is known by its fruits. For though the tree is the cause of the fruit, yet the fruit is the evidence of the tree. But ye do the very contrary, having no fault to allege against the works, ye pass a sentence of evil against the tree, saying that I have a dæmon.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  Léonie's sub-conscious performances having been illustrated to a caller, by a 'pied de nez ' executed with her left hand in the course of conversation, when, a year later, she meets him again, up goes the same hand to her nose again, without Léonie's normal self suspecting the fact. All these facts, taken together, form unquestionably the beginning of an inquiry which is destined to throw a new light into the very abysses of our nature. It is for that reason that I have cited them at such length in this early chapter of the book. They prove one thing conclusively, namely, that we must never take a person's testimony, however sincere, that he has felt nothing, as proof positive that no feeling has been there . It may have been there as part of the consciousness of a 'secondary personage,' of whose experiences the primary one whom we are consulting can naturally give no account. In hypnotic subjects (as we shall see in a later chapter) just as it is the easiest thing in the world to paralyze a movement or member by simple suggestion, so it is easy to produce what is called a systematized anæsthesia by word of command. A systematized anæsthesia means an insensibility, not to any one element of things, but to some one concrete thing or class of things. The subject is made blind or deaf to a certain person in the room and to no one else, and thereupon denies that that person is present, or has spoken, etc. M. P. Janet's Lucie, blind to some of the numbered cards in her lap (p. 140 above), is a case in point. Now when the object is simple, like a red wafer or a black cross, the subject, although he denies that he sees it when he looks straight at it, nevertheless gets a 'negative after-image' of it when he looks away again, showing that the optical impression of it has been received. Moreover reflection shows that such a subject must distinguish the object from others like it in order to be blind to it . Make him blind to one person in the room, set all the persons in a row, and tell him to count them. He will count all but that one. But how can he tell which one not to count without recognizing who he is? In like manner, make a stroke on paper or blackboard, and tell him it is not there, and he will see nothing but the clean paper or board. Next (he not looking) surround the original stroke with other strokes exactly like it, and ask him what he sees. He will point out one by one all the new strokes, and omit the original one every time, no matter how numerous the new strokes may be, or in what order they are arranged.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  I still live inside my head. To this day you can leave me alone for hours and I’m perfectly happy entertaining myself. I have to remember to be with people. — Obviously, I was not the only child born to black and white parents during apartheid. Traveling around the world today, I meet other mixed South Africans all the time. Our stories start off identically. We’re around the same age. Their parents met at some underground party in Hillbrow or Cape Town. They lived in an illegal flat. The difference is that in virtually every other case they left. The white parent smuggled them out through Lesotho or Botswana, and they grew up in exile, in England or Germany or Switzerland, because being a mixed family under apartheid was just that unbearable. Once Mandela was elected we could finally live freely. Exiles started to return. I met my first one when I was around seventeen. He told me his story, and I was like, “Wait, what? You mean we could have left? That was an option?” Imagine being thrown out of an airplane. You hit the ground and break all your bones, you go to the hospital and you heal and you move on and finally put the whole thing behind you —and then one day somebody tells you about parachutes. That’s how I felt. I couldn’t understand why we’d stayed. I went straight home and asked my mom. “Why? Why didn’t we just leave? Why didn’t we go to Switzerland?” “Because I am not Swiss,” she said, as stubborn as ever. “This is my country. Why should I leave?” South Africa is a mix of the old and the new, the ancient and the modern, and South African Christianity is a perfect example of this. We adopted the religion of our colonizers, but most people held on to the old ancestral ways, too, just in case. In South Africa, faith in the Holy Trinity exists quite comfortably alongside belief in witchcraft, in casting spells and putting curses on one’s enemies. I come from a country where people are more likely to visit sangomas—shamans, traditional healers, pejoratively known as witch doctors—than they are to visit doctors of Western medicine. I come from a country where people have been arrested and tried for witchcraft—in a court of law. I’m not talking about the 1700s. I’m talking about five years ago. I remember a man being on trial for striking another person with lightning. That happens a lot in the homelands. There are no tall buildings, few tall trees, nothing between you and the sky, so people get hit by lightning all the time. And when someone gets killed by lightning, everyone knows it’s because somebody used Mother Nature to take out a hit. So if you had a beef with the guy who got killed, someone will accuse you of murder and the police will come knocking. “Mr.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I called Edwin’s house. Wee sorry, I listened to the recording in shock, but the number you dialed has been disconnected. I rang her sister’s house. In a quavering voice Edwin’s sister said, “She shot herself—weeks ago.” I put the receiver down gently, trying not to disturb Ed’s memory. “Edwin, Ed,” I whispered as though she was asleep in my arms and I could wake het. I went back to the bedroom and lost consciousness. When I woke, I hoped Edwin’s death was just a dream. I called my foreman. “Where the hell you been, boy?” he shouted. “T’ve been sick. Real sick.” “Can you get a doctor’s note?” I stopped and thought for a moment. “No,” I said. Stone Butch Blues 191 “You're fired,” he growled and hung up. I slept on and off for several days. A nagging pain woke me up, but it was emotional, not a result of the surgery. I changed my bandages in the bathroom. Just two surgical lines crossed my chest. Together with the stitches they looked like railroad tracks. After a little more than a week it looked like it was healing pretty well. I pulled on a clean white T-shirt. Something propelled me into the kitchen to get a beer. As I snapped off the cap I located the source of the pain: Edwin’s suicide. It couldn’t be true that Ed no longer existed in the world. How could she be gone? Hadn’t I known she was seething inside? I remembered she said she’d marked a page in the book she gave me that summed up what she was struggling with. I tore through the books on my shelf, but I couldn’t find the slim volume she’d given me. I finally discovered it in an unpacked box in my hall closet and sat down on the floor to leaf through the book. She’d matked the page in blue ink: It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others ... Avo souls, two thoughts, tyvo unreconciled strivings; hyo warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. 192 Leslie Feinberg I looked at the inscription, the way she’d dotted the 7in her name with an inky heart. Pain roared through my body like a fire whipped by the wind. “Ed,” I cried out loud. “Please come back. Give me another chance to understand. I'll be a better friend if you'll just come back.” Silence. One beer followed another; I got pretty drunk. And then I broke down and cried for the loss of Edwin and for all the tears ’'d suppressed since I’d lost Theresa.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Feeling death at her heels and writing at a fast pace while in the hospital, she finished the novel, which she now called Wise Blood , inspired by all of the transfusions she had undergone. The novel concerned a young man, Hazel Motes, determined to spread the gospel of atheism to a new scientific age. He thinks he has “wise blood,” with no need for any kind of spiritual guidance. The novel chronicles his descent into murder and madness and was published in 1952. After months of hospitalization and having sufficiently recovered at home, Flannery returned to Connecticut for a visit with the Fitzgeralds, hoping that in the near future she could perhaps resume her old life at their country home. One day, as she and Sally were taking a drive in the country, Flannery mentioned her rheumatoid arthritis, and Sally decided to finally tell her the truth that her overprotective mother, in league with the doctors, had kept from her. “Flannery, you don’t have arthritis, you have lupus.” Flannery began to tremble. After a few moments of silence, she replied, “Well, that’s not good news. But I can’t thank you enough for telling me. . . . I thought I had lupus, and I thought I was going crazy. I’d a lot rather be sick than crazy.” Despite her calm reaction, the news stunned her. This was like a second bullet in her side, the original sensation returning with double the impact. Now she knew for sure that she had inherited the disease from her father. Suddenly she had to confront the reality that perhaps she did not have long to live, considering how quickly her father had gone downhill. It was now clear to her that there would be no plans or hopes for living anywhere else but Milledgeville. She cut short the trip to Connecticut and returned home, feeling depressed and confused. Her mother was now the manager of her family’s farm, called Andalusia, just outside Milledgeville. Flannery would have to spend the rest of her life on this farm with her mother, who would take care of her. The doctors seemed to think she could live a normal length of life thanks to this new miracle drug, but Flannery did not share their confidence, experiencing firsthand the many adverse side effects and wondering how long her body could endure them. She loved her mother, but they were very different. The mother was the chatty type, obsessed with status and appearances. In her first weeks back, Flannery felt a sense of panic. She had always been willful, like her father.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  help her, planning to send Isabel to Paris to live with a “man” who would act as the father—the man in this case being a woman known as Miss Dods, a notorious lesbian who loved to dress as a man and could easily pass for one. Mary delighted in furthering this plot, but before accompanying Isabel to Paris, one afternoon she received the shock of her life: Isabel confided to her in complete detail the stories that Jane had been telling her for months about Mary—that Shelley had never really loved his wife; that he had admired her but had had no feelings for her; that she was not the woman he had needed or wanted; that Jane was in fact the great love of his life. Jane had even hinted to Isabel that Mary had made him so unhappy that he had secretly wanted to die the day he left on his fatal sailing venture, and that Mary was somehow responsible for his death. Mary could hardly believe this, but Isabel had no reason to make up such a story. And as she thought about it more deeply, suddenly things began to make sense—the sudden coldness of Hogg, Leigh Hunt, and others who must have heard these stories; the looks Jane occasionally threw at Mary when she was the center of attention in a group; that look on her face when she threw Mary out of her house; the vehemence with which she wanted Mary to stay away from London and give up her child, which meant giving up their inheritance. All these years she had been not a friend but a competitor, and now it seemed clear that it was not Mary’s husband who had pursued Jane but Jane who had actively seduced him with her poses, her coquettish looks, her guitar, her put-on soft manner. She was false to the core. It was, after the death of Mary’s husband, the harshest blow of all. Not only did Jane believe these monstrous stories, but she had made others believe them. Mary knew how well her husband had loved her over so many years, and after so many shared experiences. To spread the story that she had somehow caused his death was beyond hurtful; it was like a knife being plunged into an old wound. She wrote in her journal: “My friend has proved false & treacherous. Have I not been a fool?” After several months of brooding over this, Mary finally confronted her. Jane burst into tears, creating a scene. She wanted to know who had spread this awful story of her betrayal, which she denied. She accused Mary of being cold and unaffectionate. But for Mary, it was as if she had finally woken up from a dream. She could now see the fake outrage, the phony love, the way Jane confused matters with her drama. There was no going back. Over the ensuing years Mary would not cut off ties with Jane, but