Buddies For Life Quotes

People will walk in and walk out of your life, but the one whose footstep made a long lasting impression is the one you should never allow to walk out.

Naturally, Coach Hedge went ballistic; but Percy found it hard to take the satyr seriously since he was barely five feet tall. "Never in my life!" Coach bellowed, waving his bat and knocking over a plate of apples. "Against the rules! Irresponsible!" "Coach," Annabeth said, "it was an accident. We were talking, and we fell asleep." "Besides," Percy said, "you're starting to sound like Terminus." Hedge narrowed his eyes. "Is that an insult, Jackson? 'Cause I'll—I'll terminus you, buddy!

...you are defined by how you live your life, not whom you live it with, and certainly not by what you gave up to be with that person.

Breakups hurt like a motherf*#ker, but they are not the end of the world. The pain is temporary, and if handled properly, they can even be life-changing.

Life's biggest rewards come from the biggest challenges

You want to play house, you got to have a job. You want to play very nice house, very sweet house, then you got to have a job you don't like. Great. This is the way ninety-eight-point-nine per cent of the people work things out, so believe me, buddy, you've got nothing to apologize for.

It's an odd thing to think about, but try imagining that your breakup is a disease. If you were told that you had a serious yet curable disease, would you go get hammered on a regular basis? Eat two bags of Oreos? Chain-smoke, pop, pills, get stoned, or fuck around? NO YOU WOULDN'T. You would take great care of yourself and cut all the unhealthy things out of your life. Because you love yourself, and even if you don't right now, WE DO. So put the (insert vice here) and start moving on.

There comes a time when you're losing a fight that it just doesn't make sense to keep on fighting. It's not that you're being a quitter, it's just that you've got the sense to know when enough is enough.

So tonight I reach for my journal again. This is the first time I’ve done this since I came to Italy. What I write in my journal is that I am weak and full of fear. I explain that Depression and Loneliness have shown up, and I’m scared they will never leave. I say that I don’t want to take the drugs anymore, but I’m frightened I will have to. I am terrified that I will never really pull my life together. In response, somewhere from within me, rises a now-familiar presence, offering me all the certainties I have always wished another person would say to me when I was troubled. This is what I find myself writing on the page: I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long. I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it—I will love you through that, as well. If you don’t need the medication, I will love you, too. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and Braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me. Tonight, this strange interior gesture of friendship—the lending of a hand from me to myself when nobody else is around to offer solace—reminds me of something that happened to me once in New York City. I walked into an office building one afternoon in a hurry, dashed into the waiting elevator. As I rushed in, I caught an unexpected glance of myself in a security mirror’s reflection. In that moment, my brain did an odd thing—it fired off this split-second message: “Hey! You know her! That’s a friend of yours!” And I actually ran forward toward my own reflection with a smile, ready to welcome that girl whose name I had lost but whose face was so familiar. In a flash instant of course, I realized my mistake and laughed in embarrassment at my almost doglike confusion over how a mirror works. But for some reason that incident comes to mind again tonight during my sadness in Rome, and I find myself writing this comforting reminder at the bottom of the page. Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a FRIEND… I fell asleep holding my notebook pressed against my chest, open to this most recent assurance. In the morning when I wake up, I can still smell a faint trace of depression’s lingering smoke, but he himself is nowhere to be seen. Somewhere during the night, he got up and left. And his buddy loneliness beat it, too.

...that was Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things to Have a Funner LIfe and Make a Better Liar Out of Yourself Number 83...If a Adult Tells You Not to Worry, and You Weren't Worried Before, You Better Hurry Up and Start 'Cause You're Already Running Late.

My whole life I though I was the star of an overly earnest romance movie, and it turns out I was in a goddamned buddy comedy all along.

In retrospect, I'm embarrassed by how little effort on his part it took for me to come back or stay. I was so desperate for him to love me, to want me, to fight for me that I was literally grateful for any mere scrap of effort. I'd made so many excuses for his inability to treat me well that even the smallest gesture was amplified in my head. After years of this, I finally got my head out of my ass and realized that aside from feeling insecure and fragile about the state of my relationship all the time, we also wanted entirely different things out of life!

Don’t mistake me giving you space as me not being interested. It’s not every woman I let into my bed, much less into my life, and even more into Amos’s life. Before you, it’d been nobody. So just because I don’t know what your mouth tastes like yet doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to. But Sofie would tell you I’ve got a big, fragile heart, and I think I do, so I need you to know what you want for my sake too, Buddy. Does that make it clear?

There are all types of buddies, Agatha. Some are good for intellectual talk. Some are good drinking partners. Some are brothers.

By respect for life we become religious in a way that is elementary, profound and alive. Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them. In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. - Albert Schweitzer

Faith smothers your fear of the unknown. Faith allows you to take risks. Faith is the stuff of “leap and the net will appear.”     Faith is your best buddy when you’re scared shitless.

The Buggers have finally, finally learned that we humans value each and every individual human life... But they've learned this lesson just in time for it to be hopelessly wrong—for we humans do, when the cause is sufficient, spend our own lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to save our buddies in the foxhole. We rise out of the trenches and charge the entrenched enemy and die like maggots under a blowtorch. We strap bombs on our bodies and blow ourselves up in the midst of our enemies. We are, when the cause is sufficient, insane.

Just like when there's a time that a smart person knows enough is enough, there's a time when you know you've got to fight.

Being a hero to someone, even if it is a dog, is a feeling like no other. Though it can be frustrating, it can be the most rewarding thing to give someone a second chance at a happy life.

On the face of her phone Wileen programs a message to herself so that when the alarm clock rings the screen flashes: EVERY DAY IS ONE DAY LESS. EVERY DAY IS ONE DAY LESS. For some people happiness it's just a reduction in suffering. Jordan. Jordan tattoos the words FORGIVE ME in thick black letters down the inside of his arm so that when he looks at his wrist he will remember not to hate himself so much. What he keeps forgetting is that there is life after survival.

Sasha snorted. "I have never in my extremely long life seen anyone take so long to answer a question. It's like you went into your brain and got lost. you need a bread crumb, buddy?" He made a noise like he was calling his pet. "Here Lassie, here. Come back girl.

There was no sense to life, to the structure of things. D.H. Lawrence had known that. You needed love, but not the kind of love most people used and were used up by. Old D.H. had known something. His buddy Huxley was just an intellectual fidget, but what a marvelous one. Better than G.B. Shaw with that hard keel of a mind always scraping bottom, his labored wit finally only a task, a burden on himself, preventing him from really feeling anything, his brilliant speech finally a bore, scraping the mind and the sensibilities. It was good to read them all though. It made you realize that thoughts and words could be fascinating, if finally useless.

The alligators can get you at any age, Buddy. But the worst thing you can do is freeze.

It had occurred to Sean once - on a bender about ten years before with some buddies, Sean and a bloodstream full of bourbon turning philosophical - that maybe they HAD gotten in that car. All three of them. And what they now thought of as their life was just a dream state. That all three of them were, in reality, still eleven-year-old boys trapped in some cellar, imagining what they'd become if they ever escaped and grew up.

What?” – Sundown “I have never in my extremely long life seen anyone take so long to answer a question. It’s like you went into your mind and got lost. You need a bread crumb, buddy? Here, Lassie, here. Come back, girl.” – Sasha

Listen, I know there were days you wanted to die when the sky was so clear you’d stand obnoxious underneath it begging for stars to shoot you just so you could feel at home. I know about the ways you misplaced all the right words, stockpiled every important social cue you ever missed from the first time you learned you were wrong, waited to make it right once everyone stopped watching. I know you let them beat up your beauty in bed because redemption was still alive in you, howling relentless, gathering strength. Felt like ecstasy when they pounded it out of you in the hard dark. Those days of dead weather got all strung together and they spoke for you, wore you down to telling everyone here it was a good life so you could run back into the wails of your windfight. I know the parts of your past that haunt you the most are the days you weren’t being yourself, and I know that’s why most of your past haunts you. There were so many who found you out, and they were right. You were good. So un- numb.

I looked up at Lee when we stopped in front of Hector and informed him helpfully, “You might want to take your arm away. Blanca tells me Hector doesn’t like men touching me.” “Blanca told you that?” Lee asked, his smile (and arm) still firmly in place. “Yes. She’s known Hector, like, his whole life so I think she’s in the position to know.” Lee nodded, his smile somehow bigger like he was trying not to laugh then his eyes moved to Hector and he said, “I tried to stop it.” Hector looked at Lee then looked at me then he muttered, “Oh fuck.” “It was Ally’s idea,” Lee told Hector. “What was Ally’s idea?” Hector asked Lee. “It was not Ally’s idea!” I cried. “It wasn’t!” super-power-eared Ally yelled from the open back window of Lee’s Explorer. “It was Sadie’s idea. I just was offering moral support.” “Shut up, Ally!” Indy shouted out the open passenger side window. “I will not shut up! I’m not taking the fall for this one!” Ally shouted back. I turned to the car, dislodging Lee’s arm and lifted both my hands and pressed down. “No one’s going to take a fall. Everyone calm down. It’s all okay. It’s rock ‘n’ roll!” I screamed. “Righteous!” Ally screamed back. “Rock on, sister!” Indy screamed too. “It’s rock ‘n’ roll?” Lee asked, sounding as amused as he looked. “You all wanna quit screamin’ at three o’clock in the mornin’ in my fuckin’ neighborhood?” Hector suggested. Mm, well maybe we were being an eensy bit loud. “Time for beddie by,” I announced (sounding like Ralphie), got up on tiptoe, kissed Lee’s cheek (like Ralphie and Buddy would do to me), turned and gave Indy and Ally a double devil’s horns (like Ava taught me) and shouted, “Rock on!” They shouted back in unison, “Rock on!” “Christ,” Hector muttered.

It means that your birth, with all your particulars, is a wildly improbable event, and hence precious. You won the sweepstakes by being born at all. Think of all the wallflower sperm and egg cells. You made it, buddy. Whew! What a staggering wonder! What a thing to rejoice in! The lottery wasn't fixed! God didn't rig it! You won fair and square! What a miracle!

Loved me. How over the top and dramatic can one person get? I mean, hell. Lust at seventeen, sure. Sex buddies at eighteen, shit yeah. But love? Love doesn’t enter anyone’s life until you turn forty-two, add fifty pounds to your body, and start complaining about the younger generations. Once someone can put up with your forty-two-year-old annoying ass and nasty farts, you know that’s real love.

Who are we to say getting incested or abused or violated or any of those things can’t have their positive aspects in the long run? … You have to be careful of taking a knee-jerk attitude. Having a knee-jerk attitude to anything is a mistake, especially in the case of women, where it adds up to this very limited and condescending thing of saying they’re fragile, breakable things that can be destroyed easily. Everybody gets hurt and violated and broken sometimes. Why are women so special? Not that anybody ought to be raped or abused, nobody’s saying that, but that’s what is going on. What about afterwards? All I’m saying is there are certain cases where it can enlarge you or make you more of a complete human being, like Viktor Frankl. Think about the Holocaust. Was the Holocaust a good thing? No way. Does anybody think it was good that it happened? No, of course not. But did you read Viktor Frankl? Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning? It’s a great, great book, but it comes out of his experience. It’s about his experience in the human dark side. Now think about it, if there was no Holocaust, there’d be no Man’s Search for Meaning… . Think about it. Think about being degraded and brought within an inch of your life, for example. No one’s gonna say the sick bastards who did it shouldn’t be put in jail, but let’s put two things into perspective here. One is, afterwards she knows something about herself that she never knew before. What she knows is that the most totally terrible terrifying thing that she could ever have imagined happening to her has now happened, and she survived. She’s still here, and now she knows something. I mean she really, really knows. Look, totally terrible things happen… . Existence in life breaks people in all kinds of awful fucking ways all the time, trust me I know. I’ve been there. And this is the big difference, you and me here, cause this isn’t about politics or feminism or whatever, for you this is just ideas, you’ve never been there. I’m not saying nothing bad has ever happened to you, you’re not bad looking, I’m sure there’s been some sort of degradation or whatever come your way in life, but I’m talking Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning type violation and terror and suffering here. The real dark side. I can tell from just looking at you, you never. You wouldn’t even wear what you’re wearing, trust me. What if I told you it was my own sister that was raped? What if I told you a little story about a sixteen-year-old girl who went to the wrong party with the wrong guy and four of his buddies that ended up doing to her just about everything four guys could do to you in terms of violation? But if you could ask her if she could go into her head and forget it or like erase the tape of it happening in her memory, what do you think she’d say? Are you so sure what she’d say? What if she said that even after that totally negative as what happened was, at least now she understood it was possible. People can. Can see you as a thing. That people can see you as a thing, do you know what that means? Because if you really can see someone as a thing you can do anything to him. What would it be like to be able to be like that? You see, you think you can imagine it but you can’t. But she can. And now she knows something. I mean she really, really knows. This is what you wanted to hear, you wanted to hear about four drunk guys who knee-jerk you in the balls and make you bend over that you didn’t even know, that you never saw before, that you never did anything to, that don’t even know your name, they don’t even know your name to find out you have to choose to have a fucking name, you have no fucking idea, and what if I said that happened to ME? Would that make a difference?

In American religion, as in ancient Gnosticism, there is almost no sense of God’s difference from us—in other words, his majesty, sovereignty, self-existence, and holiness. God is my buddy, my inmost experience, or the power source for my living my best life now.

I love the life I live, I live the life I love.

She's an irritating, opinionated woman, a type Buddy can't stand. I don't think he could see her for what she is. A person, deprived, for life, of any understanding or taste for the main current of poetry that flows through things, all things.

from the Basement tapes Eric outdid Dylan with the apologies. To the untrained eye, he seemed sincere. The psychologists on the case found Eric less convincing. They saw a psychopath. Classic. He even pulled the stunt of self-diagnosing to dismiss it. "I wish I was a fucking sociopath so I didn't have any remorse," Eric said. "But I do." Watching that made Dr. Fuselier angry. Remorse meant a deep desire to correct a mistake. Eric hadn't done it yet. He excused his actions several times on the tapes. Fuselier was tough to rattle, but that got to him. "Those are the most worthless apologies I've ever heard in my life," he said. It got more ludicrous later, when Eric willed some of his stuff to two buddies, "if you guys live." "If you live?" Fuselier repeated. "They are going to go in there and quite possibly kill their friends. If they were the least bit sorry they would not do it!

But I didn’t risk my life to bring democracy to Iraq. I risked my life for my buddies, to protect my friends and fellow countrymen. I went to war for my country, not Iraq. My country sent me out there so that bullshit wouldn’t make its way back to our shores.

One of the most critical decisions made in life is choosing with whom to spend your time. For it is those close relationships that gradually mold our character until we become a reflection of the company we keep.

A bouquet of wonderful scents met my nose, and my heart leaped when I realized who I was smelling. 'Molly!' I heard someone call. I whipped my head around everywhere and there they were, the people I'd been smelling. Everyone I'd ever loved in my life, standing at the edge of the water, smiling and clapping. I saw Ethan and Hannah and Trent and CJ standing in front, along with Andi and Maya and Jakob and all the others. 'Bailey!' Ethan yelled waving. My names was Toby, and Buddy, and Molly and Max and Bailey and Ellie. I was a good dog, and this was my reward. Now I would get to be with the people I loved. I turned, whimpering with you, and swam toward those golden shores.

Those unexpected morality lessons provided by the trip had jolted me into some kind of action. It was time to jettison the past before the present jettisoned me. This was my first veiled attempt at recovery. Although perhaps I was just running away again. I returned to Glasgow, planning to say a final goodbye to Anne and get out of her life, but ended up drinking with buddies in the Chip Bar and never seeing her. I called her instead to say I was moving to London and told her she could have the house and everything else we owned, which wasn't much. I think she was as relieved as I was that I was leaving town for good.

This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed--run over, maimed, destroyed--but they continued to play anyhow. We really all were very happy for a while, sitting around not toiling but just bullshitting and playing, but it was for such a terrible brief time, and then the punishment was beyond belief: even when we could see it, we could not believe it. For example, while I was writing this I learned that the person on whom the character Jerry Fabin is based killed himself. My friend on whom I based the character Ernie Luckman died before I began the novel. For a while I myself was one of these children playing in the street; I was, like the rest of them, trying to play instead of being grown up, and I was punished. I am on the list below, which is a list of those to whom this novel is dedicated, and what became of each. Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgment. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error,a life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is "Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying," but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory. It is, then, only a speeding up, an intensifying, of the ordinary human existence. It is not different from your life-style, it is only faster. It all takes place in days or weeks or months instead of years. "Take the cash and let the credit go," as Villon said in 1460. But that is a mistake if the cash is a penny and the credit a whole lifetime. There is no moral in this novel; it is not bourgeois; it does not say they were wrong to play when they should have toiled;it just tells what the consequences were. In Greek drama they were beginning, as a society, to discover science, which means causal law. Here in this novel there is Nemesis: not fate, because any one of us could have chosen to stop playing in the street, but, as I narrate from the deepest part of my life and heart, a dreadful Nemesis for those who kept on playing. I myself,I am not a character in this novel; I am the novel. So, though, was our entire nation at this time. This novel is about more people than I knew personally. Some we all read about in the newspapers. It was, this sitting around with our buddies and bullshitting while making tape recordings, the bad decision of the decade, the sixties, both in and out of the establishment. And nature cracked down on us. We were forced to stop by things dreadful. If there was any "sin," it was that these people wanted to keep on having a good time forever, and were punished for that, but, as I say, I feel that, if so, the punishment was far too great, and I prefer to think of it only in a Greek or morally neutral way, as mere science, as deterministic impartial cause-and-effect. I loved them all. Here is the list, to whom I dedicate my love: To Gaylene deceased To Ray deceased To Francy permanent psychosis To Kathy permanent brain damage To Jim deceased To Val massive permanent brain damage To Nancy permanent psychosis To Joanne permanent brain damage To Maren deceased To Nick deceased To Terry deceased To Dennis deceased To Phil permanent pancreatic damage To Sue permanent vascular damage To Jerri permanent psychosis and vascular damage . . . and so forth. In Memoriam. These were comrades whom I had; there are no better. They remain in my mind, and the enemy will never be forgiven. The "enemy" was their mistake in playing. Let them all play again, in some other way, and let them be happy.

Buddy, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that women are always right. Never question it. It’s as sure as gravity. Women are always, always right.

My whole life I thought I was the star of an overly earnest romance movie, and it turns out I was in a goddamned buddy comedy all along.

A song on the radio can bring back the past with fierce (if mercifully transitory) immediacy: a first kiss, a good time with your buddies, or an unhappy life-passage.

(Once when Buddy Rich was on the road in Michigan, he suffered a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital. As he was wheeled in on the gurney, the nurse ran alongside and asked him if he had any allergies, and Buddy growled, “Yeah — country music.”)

She walked away without bothering to look further. She knew he’d be fine. Her specialty was subduing without causing any real damage. He’d lie there for a few minutes. He’d be sore, maybe bruised tomorrow. He’d brush the cobwebs off his imagination to invent a story for his buddies about how three seven-foot, three-hundred-pound male karate black belts attacked him in the park. But she would bet her life on the fact that he would never sneak up on another fragile-looking woman without remembering this night. And that was the point. That was what Gaia lived for.

What would describe it? What word in the English language would speak of youth and hope and freedom and desire, of sweet wanderlust and burning blood? What word describes the brotherhood of buddies, and the feeling that as long as the music plays, you are part of that tough, rambling breed who will inherit the earth?

Listen, the road to happiness is a long fucking road trip. You can't take The freeway. Back roads, buddy, that's all you got. Unpaved back roads And bad weather. Storms, baby. Don't expect to get there fast. And don't expect yourself or your car to arrive in mint condition.

I tried to imagine what it would be like if Constantin were my husband. It would mean getting up at seven and cooking him eggs and bacon and toast and coffee and dawdling about in my nightgown and curlers after he'd left for work to wash up the dirty plates and make the bed, and then when he came home after a lively, fascinating day he'd expect a big dinner, and I'd spend the evening washing up even more dirty plates till I fell into bed, utterly exhausted. This seemed a dreary and wasted life for a girl with fifteen years of straight A's, but I knew that's what marriage was like, because cook and clean and wash was just what Buddy Willard's mother did from morning till night, and she was the wife of a university professor and had been a private school teacher herself.

[excerpt] The usual I say. Essence. Spirit. Medicine. A taste. I say top shelf. Straight up. A shot. A sip. A nip. I say another round. I say brace yourself. Lift a few. Hoist a few. Work the elbow. Bottoms up. Belly up. Set ‘em up. What’ll it be. Name your poison. I say same again. I say all around. I say my good man. I say my drinking buddy. I say git that in ya. Then a quick one. Then a nightcap. Then throw one back. Then knock one down. Fast & furious I say. Could savage a drink I say. Chug. Chug-a-lug. Gulp. Sauce. Mother’s milk. Everclear. Moonshine. White lightning. Firewater. Hootch. Relief. Now you’re talking I say. Live a little I say. Drain it I say. Kill it I say. Feeling it I say. Wobbly. Breakfast of champions I say. I say candy is dandy but liquor is quicker. I say Houston, we have a drinking problem. I say the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems. I say god only knows what I’d be without you. I say thirsty. I say parched. I say wet my whistle. Dying of thirst. Lap it up. Hook me up. Watering hole. Knock a few back. Pound a few down. My office. Out with the boys I say. Unwind I say. Nurse one I say. Apply myself I say. Toasted. Glow. A cold one a tall one a frosty I say. One for the road I say. Two-fisted I say. Never trust a man who doesn’t drink I say. Drink any man under the table I say. Then a binge then a spree then a jag then a bout. Coming home on all fours. Could use a drink I say. A shot of confidence I say. Steady my nerves I say. Drown my sorrows. I say kill for a drink. I say keep ‘em comin’. I say a stiff one. Drink deep drink hard hit the bottle. Two sheets to the wind then. Knackered then. Under the influence then. Half in the bag then. Out of my skull I say. Liquored up. Rip-roaring. Slammed. Fucking jacked. The booze talking. The room spinning. Feeling no pain. Buzzed. Giddy. Silly. Impaired. Intoxicated. Stewed. Juiced. Plotzed. Inebriated. Laminated. Swimming. Elated. Exalted. Debauched. Rock on. Drunk on. Bring it on. Pissed. Then bleary. Then bloodshot. Glassy-eyed. Red-nosed. Dizzy then. Groggy. On a bender I say. On a spree. I say off the wagon. I say on a slip. I say the drink. I say the bottle. I say drinkie-poo. A drink a drunk a drunkard. Swill. Swig. Shitfaced. Fucked up. Stupefied. Incapacitated. Raging. Seeing double. Shitty. Take the edge off I say. That’s better I say. Loaded I say. Wasted. Off my ass. Befuddled. Reeling. Tanked. Punch-drunk. Mean drunk. Maintenance drunk. Sloppy drunk happy drunk weepy drunk blind drunk dead drunk. Serious drinker. Hard drinker. Lush. Drink like a fish. Boozer. Booze hound. Alkie. Sponge. Then muddled. Then woozy. Then clouded. What day is it? Do you know me? Have you seen me? When did I start? Did I ever stop? Slurring. Reeling. Staggering. Overserved they say. Drunk as a skunk they say. Falling down drunk. Crawling down drunk. Drunk & disorderly. I say high tolerance. I say high capacity. They say protective custody. Blitzed. Shattered. Zonked. Annihilated. Blotto. Smashed. Soaked. Screwed. Pickled. Bombed. Stiff. Frazzled. Blasted. Plastered. Hammered. Tore up. Ripped up. Destroyed. Whittled. Plowed. Overcome. Overtaken. Comatose. Dead to the world. The old K.O. The horrors I say. The heebie-jeebies I say. The beast I say. The dt’s. B’jesus & pink elephants. A mindbender. Hittin’ it kinda hard they say. Go easy they say. Last call they say. Quitting time they say. They say shut off. They say dry out. Pass out. Lights out. Blackout. The bottom. The walking wounded. Cross-eyed & painless. Gone to the world. Gone. Gonzo. Wrecked. Sleep it off. Wake up on the floor. End up in the gutter. Off the stuff. Dry. Dry heaves. Gag. White knuckle. Lightweight I say. Hair of the dog I say. Eye-opener I say. A drop I say. A slug. A taste. A swallow. Down the hatch I say. I wouldn’t say no I say. I say whatever he’s having. I say next one’s on me. I say bottoms up. Put it on my tab. I say one more. I say same again

I’ve watched it time and time again—a woman always slots into a man’s life better than he slots into hers. She will be the one who spends the most time at his flat, she will be the one who makes friends with all his friends and their girlfriends. She will be the one who sends his mother a bunch of flowers on her birthday. Women don’t like this rigmarole any more than men do, but they’re better at it—they just get on with it. This means that when a woman my age falls in love with a man, the list of priorities goes from this: Family Friends To this: Family Boyfriend Boyfriend’s family Boyfriend’s friends Girlfriends of the boyfriend’s friends Friends Which means, on average, you go from seeing your friend every weekend to once every six weekends. She becomes a baton and you’re the one at the very end of the track. You get your go for, say, your birthday or a brunch, then you have to pass her back round to the boyfriend to start the long, boring rotation again. These gaps in each other’s lives slowly but surely form a gap in the middle of your friendship. The love is still there, but the familiarity is not. Before you know it, you’re not living life together anymore. You’re living life separately with respective boyfriends then meeting up for dinner every six weekends to tell each other what living is like. I now understand why our mums cleaned the house before their best friend came round and asked them “What’s the news, then?” in a jolly, stilted way. I get how that happens. So don’t tell me when you move in with your boyfriend that nothing will change. There will be no road trip. The cycle works when it comes to holidays as well—I’ll get my buddy back for every sixth summer, unless she has a baby in which case I’ll get my road trip in eighteen years’ time. It never stops happening. Everything will change.

Buddy, that’s life. You always work to balance the scales. You don’t wanna owe someone something, even it it’s only in your head that you owe ‘em and they don’t give a shit. It’ll fuck with you. So you give back to balance the scales.

We can speak of trauma when that system fails: when you beg for your life, but the assailant ignores your pleas; when you are a terrified child lying in bed, hearing your mother scream as her boyfriend beats her up; when you see your buddy trapped under a piece of metal that you’re not strong enough to lift; when you want to push away the priest who is abusing you, but you’re afraid you’ll be punished. Immobilization is at the root of most traumas. When that occurs the DVC is likely to take over: Your heart slows down, your breathing becomes shallow, and, zombielike, you lose touch with yourself and your surroundings. You dissociate, faint and collapse.

While observing some people with their dogs, it is often a question of who is training whom. It is not uncommon to see an owner with their arms extended, holding on for dear life, while their dog runs wild. Unfortunately, I was becoming one of those owners.

I don't have to write to South West buddy. In an hour South West gonna come looking for me!

What's the matter with you, buddy? Where are your brains? If you've had a freakish education, at least use it, use it. You can say the Jesus Prayer from now till doomsday, but if you don't realize that the only thing that counts in the religious life is detachment, I don't see how you'll ever even move an inch. Detachment, buddy, and only detachment. Desirelessness.

I go to all the appointments. All the meetings. I sit with the team of inclusion teachers, occupational therapists, doctors, social workers, remedial teachers, and the cab driver that gets him from appointment to appointment, and I push for everything that can be done for my autistic boy. But I will never have a plan that will fix him. Noah is not something to be fixed. And our life will never be normal. And people always say, oh well what’s normal, there’s no such thing really, and I say — sure there is…there’s a spectrum… and there’s lots and lots of possibilities within that spectrum, and trust me buddy, ducks on the moon ain’t one of them….but …. In this abnormal life, I get to live with a pirate, and a bird fancier, and an ogre, and a hedgehog, and many many superheroes, and aliens and monsters — and an angel. I get to go to infinity and beyond.

He reaches for a few strands of my hair, twining them around his finger. “You busy later?” “I was supposed to go to a meet-and-greet in Fairport with Mom, but I told her I needed to study for SATs.” “She believed this? It’s summer, Sam.” “Nan’s got me signed up for this crazy prep simulation. And . . . I might have told Mom when she was a little distracted.” “But not intentionally, of course.” “Of course not,” I say. “So if I were to come see you after eight, you’d be studying.” “Absolutely. But I might want a . . . study buddy. Because I might be grappling with some really tough problems.” “Grappling, huh?” “Tussling with,” I say. “Wrestling. Handling.” “Gotcha. Sounds like I should bring protective gear to study with you.” Jase grins at me. “You’re pretty tough. You’ll be fine.

You can say the Jesus Prayer from now till doomsday, but if you don't realize that the only thing that counts in the religious life is detachment, I don't see how you ever move an inch. Detachment, buddy, and only detachment. Desirelessness. 'Cessations from all hankerings.' It's this business of desiring, if you want to know the goddam truth, that makes an actor in the first place. Why're you making me tell you things you already know? Somewhere along the line - in one damn incarnation or another, if you like - you not only had a hankering to be an actor or an actress but to be a good one. You're stuck with it now. You can't just walk out on the results of your own hankerings. Cause and effect, buddy, cause and effect. The only thing you can do now, the only religious thing you can do, is act. Act for God, if you want to - be God's actress, if you want to. What could be prettier?

I felt Mr Willard had deserted me. I thought he must have planned it all along, but Buddy said No, his father simply couldn't stand the sight of sickness and especially his own son's sickness, because he thought all sickness was sickness of the will. Mr Willard had never been sick a day in his life.

I’ll talk to him any way I want to. Sure, you could try roughing me up, but you might want to stop and think about that, because you won’t always be in that uniform, and you won’t always have your buddies around, and this island—well, it’s an island. If you don’t know it as well as we do, and you don’t know the places to avoid, such as the beaches the pleurodons like, let’s just say a man with enemies could find life a little tricky here.” He stared the man down. “Are you threatening me, Grover?” “Not a threat. Just a warning. This planet is a wild, untamed place. It can be harsh and cruel when you least expect it.

During the South Vietnam war, grunts when out in the boonie lived closer to the enemy than anyone else in an area of operations, and being in almost continuous fighting a grunt could only cling to his buddies and they to him for psychological comfort. Arising from that reliance was a very special comradeship termed “the brotherhood”. In essence, “the brotherhood” served as a vital coping mechanism for the fighting grunt.

Am I just a game to you? The quiet crazy girl that you want to challenge yourself with? See if you can destroy my life so you can hang my card on your collection? Well get in line, buddy, because you're not the first.

While his relaxed, good-natured voice doled out his life for us to live a rollicking past full of kid fun and drinking buddies and loving women and barroom battles over meager honors-for all of us to dream ourselves into.

I'm tired of being on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. Tired of not ever having me a buddy to be with, or tell me where we're coming from or going to, or why. Mostly I'm tired of people being ugly to each other.

You do that, buddy, and get back to me,” Jonathon joked. I eyed the vampire and coven member. The love of my life and my friend. Could Jonathon and Isaac become friends? The idea was almost laughable. Almost. “Oh, so we have pet names now do we,” Isaac looked thoughtful for a moment, “If I’m buddy I think I’ll call you buttercup.

He would think about this a lot later, and the best he could explain it was, his own life no longer mattered. All that did matter were his buddies, his brothers, that they not get hurt, that they not get killed. These men around him, some of whom he had only known for months, were more important to him than life itself. It was like when Telscher ran out on the road to pull Joyce back in. Carlson understood that now, and it was heroic, but it also wasn’t heroic. At a certain level he knew Telscher had made no choice, just as he was not choosing to be unafraid. It had just happened to him, like he had passed through some barrier. He had to keep fighting, because the other guys needed him.

FRIEND Only when you have walked with me through the valley of hardship... When you have fought beside me against an evil foe... When you have cried with me through a painful heartache... When you have laughed with me at life joyous moments... When you have held my hand in silent sorrow at my loss... When you have trusted me in spite of your doubts,,, When you have believed in me when I lacked confidence to believe in my self... When you have defended my honor against lying tongues... When you have prayed for me when I was temped to go wrong... When you have stood with me as others walked away... Then and only then can you call me friend. For then you truly know ME. Then you will have paid the price of sisterhood/brotherhood. Then you will have forged a bond that will transcend time and live beyond life. Then you will truly be called a FRIEND who sticks closer than a brother... © 2013 From the book Meditations From my Garden by Stella Payton

She's an irritating, opinionated woman- a type Buddy can't stand. I don't think he could see her for what she is. A person deprived, for life, of any understanding or taste for the main current of poetry that flows through things, all things. She might as well be dead, and she goes on living, stopping off at the delicatessen, seeing her analyst, consuming a novel every night, putting on her girdle, plotting for Muriel's health and prosperity. I love her. I find her unimaginably brave.

The red indicator light just came on. I'm looking at the run-time error report. It's like a mathematically precise way of saying, This is not how you do this, man. Meaning life, I suppose. It's computer for Hey, buddy, you are massively bungling this up. I know it. I know it better than anyone. I don't need silicon wafers with a slightly neurotic interface to tell me that.

For the first time, it occurred to me that our mother had birthed for each of us a buddy for life; that even with all the baggage and boundaries that come tangled with adulthood, we would simply always be defenseless children to each other. Delivering

Do what?” Buddy sounded flip. His eyes darted down to the wad of cash. “You got what you wanted.” She shook her head. She had never wanted this. She had wanted to feel safe. To feel protected. To have someone interested in her life, her thoughts, her dreams.

I'm a serious sort of fella. But don't tell me your pal up in the sky exists, and mine does not. Then, my middle finger gets offended! For, my buddy up there nowhere, Mr. NOT, too insists without proof, that he is. Same as your god. Is Mr. NOT nuts? If he is, are you not?

He stands and he lifts me up by my shoulders, and he hugs me tight. “I'm sorry, dude.” Zay-Rod joins our little huddle. It is, sex included, the most intimate moment of my life. They hold me tight, and I just close my eyes and breathe, thinking how glad I am they're my buddies, and wondering why I was ever afraid to tell them

Army was boring, unfeeling, and chicken, and hated it. They found combat to be ugliness, destruction, and death, and hated it. Anything was better than the blood and carnage, the grime and filth, the impossible demands made on the body—anything, that is, except letting down their buddies. They also found in combat the closest brotherhood they ever knew. They found selflessness. They found they could love the other guy in their foxhole more than themselves. They found that in war, men who loved life would give their lives for them.

They both just wish they would’ve known a little sooner about this life that every loss doesn’t have to cost so much, doesn’t have to hit so heavy, doesn’t have to get so dirty.

She didn’t owe me anything, we weren’t together, we were simply bed buddies. For the first time in my life, I hated that. I wanted more. I wanted the right to call her mine.

Be the kind of a friend you would like to be with.

My buddy’s just being an ass. It’s his life’s work.” “Everyone needs a purpose.

You can't just barge through life hurting people's feelings whenever you feel like it.

CHOOSE WISELY' Birth wasn't your choice, and neither shall death be. But the way you live your life is your choice, buddy.

This is Mama Likes a Spankin’, come back good, buddies.” I look at Ronin. He shakes his head. “You don’t want to know,” he says. “Go ahead, Red Cheeks,” Ford replies.

They will tape mousetraps on light switches and wrap a giant dildo in tin foil, making it resemble a gun and then sneaking it into their buddy’s airport carry-on bag.

All I know is, you only make a once-in-a-lifetime buddy, once in a lifetime.

I read one book all the way through—just one! And this is what I get for it? The cover should come with a sticker: Warning: Do not read unless you hate dogs!

But that’s the way life is; felicity and expiation play together in the narrow lanes of life like bosom friends, inseparable. You find one, and the other is always around the corner.

Goo, quit being nosey and give me a second, please.” There was a hum and then, “Can I have a hug too?” Dallas’s arms flexed and I swore I heard him laugh lightly before one of them dropped from around me as he took a step back. “Have at her, buddy.” It was then I finally glanced down at Louie to find he’d moved to stand beside my hip. The kid blinked and edged closer between us. “No, you too,” he said so effortlessly it made me want to cry. “Sandwich.” Just like that, Dallas crouched and scooped Louie up. One of those little arms went around my neck, and I would bet my life the other was around Dallas’s. The only other thing I knew for sure was that an arm too brawny to belong to a five-year-old wrapped low around my back. The side of my head went to a shoulder and one half of my chest was crushed against a much harder one. “This is nice,” Louie muttered somewhere close to my ear. I couldn’t help it. I laughed, and what I was sure was the hand connected to the arm around my back, stretched wide and covered part of my belly, the tips of long fingers touching my belly button. I sucked in a breath. “Can we do this more?” Lou continued on.

I tried to imagine what it would be like if Constantin were my husband. It would mean getting up at seven and cooking him eggs and bacon and toast and coffee and dawdling about in my nightgown and curlers after he’d left for work to wash up the dirty plates and make the bed, and then when he came home after a lively, fascinating day he’d expect a big dinner, and I’d spend the evening washing up even more dirty plates till I fell into bed, utterly exhausted. This seemed a dreary and wasted life for a girl with fifteen years of straight A’s, but I knew that’s what marriage was like, because cook and clean and wash was just what Buddy Willard’s mother did from morning till night, and she was the wife of a university professor and had been a private school teacher herself. Once when I visited Buddy I found Mrs Willard braiding a rug out of strips of wool from Mr Willard’s old suits. She’d spent weeks on that rug, and I had admired the tweedy browns and greens and blues patterning the braid, but after Mrs Willard was through, instead of hanging the rug on the wall the way I would have done, she put it down in place of her kitchen mat, and in a few days it was soiled and dull and indistinguishable from any mat you could buy for under a dollar in the Five and Ten. And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs Willard’s kitchen mat.

They asked me to tell you what it was like to be twenty and pregnant in 1950 and when you tell your boyfriend you’re pregnant, he tells you about a friend of his in the army whose girl told him she was pregnant, so he got all his buddies to come and say, “We all fucked her, so who knows who the father is?” And he laughs at the good joke…. What was it like, if you were planning to go to graduate school and get a degree and earn a living so you could support yourself and do the work you loved—what it was like to be a senior at Radcliffe and pregnant and if you bore this child, this child which the law demanded you bear and would then call “unlawful,” “illegitimate,” this child whose father denied it … What was it like? […] It’s like this: if I had dropped out of college, thrown away my education, depended on my parents … if I had done all that, which is what the anti-abortion people want me to have done, I would have borne a child for them, … the authorities, the theorists, the fundamentalists; I would have born a child for them, their child. But I would not have born my own first child, or second child, or third child. My children. The life of that fetus would have prevented, would have aborted, three other fetuses … the three wanted children, the three I had with my husband—whom, if I had not aborted the unwanted one, I would never have met … I would have been an “unwed mother” of a three-year-old in California, without work, with half an education, living off her parents…. But it is the children I have to come back to, my children Elisabeth, Caroline, Theodore, my joy, my pride, my loves. If I had not broken the law and aborted that life nobody wanted, they would have been aborted by a cruel, bigoted, and senseless law. They would never have been born. This thought I cannot bear. What was it like, in the Dark Ages when abortion was a crime, for the girl whose dad couldn’t borrow cash, as my dad could? What was it like for the girl who couldn’t even tell her dad, because he would go crazy with shame and rage? Who couldn’t tell her mother? Who had to go alone to that filthy room and put herself body and soul into the hands of a professional criminal? – because that is what every doctor who did an abortion was, whether he was an extortionist or an idealist. You know what it was like for her. You know and I know; that is why we are here. We are not going back to the Dark Ages. We are not going to let anybody in this country have that kind of power over any girl or woman. There are great powers, outside the government and in it, trying to legislate the return of darkness. We are not great powers. But we are the light. Nobody can put us out. May all of you shine very bright and steady, today and always.

That he would destroy my career, my life if he found out that you," Manny looked at me the way I looked at messy kitchens, "were treated badly in any way. Looks like your buddy is sweet on you, missy.

But that meaningful respect needs to come from doing pro-social things that make life better in some way for others. It should not derive from out-drinking their buddies or doing some stupid shit better than them.

Difficult as it might be for civilians to believe, a battle-hardened SEAL valued his life less than the lives of his buddies, less even than his honor, which was the only attitude to have if you wanted to win a war.

But it still hurt anyway. You know a guy a long time, and I mean really know him, you don’t get used to the idea that he’s dead just overnight. Johnny was something more than a buddy to all of us. I guess he had listened to more beefs and more problems from more people than any of us. A guy that’ll really listen to you, listen and care about what you’re saying, is something rare. And I couldn’t forget him telling me that he hadn’t done enough, hadn’t been out of our neighborhood all his life—and then it was too late. I took a deep breath and opened the book. A slip of paper fell out on the floor and I picked it up. Ponyboy, I asked the nurse to give you this book so you could finish it. It was Johnny’s handwriting. I went on reading, almost hearing Johnny’s quiet voice. The doctor came in a while ago but I knew anyway. I keep getting tireder and tireder. Listen, I don’t mind dying now. It’s worth it. It’s worth saving those kids. Their lives are worth more than mine, they have more to live for. Some of their parents came by to thank me and I know it was worth it. Tell Dally it’s worth it. I’m just going to miss you guys. I’ve been thinking about it, and that poem, that guy that wrote it, he meant you’re gold when you’re a kid, like green. When you’re a kid everything’s new, dawn. It’s just when you get used to everything that it’s day. Like the way you dig sunsets, Pony. That’s gold. Keep that way, it’s a good way to be. I want you to tell Dally to look at one. He’ll probably think you’re crazy, but ask for me. I don’t think he’s ever really seen a sunset. And don’t be so bugged over being a greaser. You still have a lot of time to make yourself be what you want. There’s still lots of good in the world. Tell Dally. I don’t think he knows. Your buddy, Johnny.

John G. turns on him, hands on hips, hair caked with snow. 'Hey, buddy, let me tell you something. Drugs are the only thing I got. I am a drug addict. That's all I've ever been and that's all I'll ever be. Even if I'm not putting a needle in my arm or pipe in my mouth right this second, the thought is still in my mind.' He taps the side of his head. 'And if I decide I'm gonna get high to deal with the pressures in my life, there's not a fuckin' thing you can do about it.

Taking the time to write my way back Home, through any given space that might slip between me and Happiness, is my life’s work. And for a moody guy like me, there is much work to be done. But be a little leery of people like me in my current state.

a couple of our buddies from Le Pavilion had opened restaurants in the Catskills around Shan-daken and Hunter Mountain and spoke highly of the area, so Jean-Claude and I, along with a few other friends, rented a place there to use as a weekend retreat.

You? Really now, Mr. McGee. You are spectacularly huge, and a tan that deep is almost vulgar, and you have a kind of leathery fading boyish charm, but this is not and never was a game for dilettantes, for jolly boys, for the favor-for-an-old-buddy routine. No gray-eyed wonder with a big white grin can solve anything or retrieve anything by blundering around in my life. Thanks for the gesture. But this isn’t television. I don’t need a big brother. So why don’t you just go on back to your fun and games?

The pair sat relaxed and stared toward U.S. 1 at nothing in particular. Coleman rested his joint on the edge of the window and popped a beer. “This is the life.” “You said it, buddy.” Serge uncapped a bottle of water. “Florida, a full tank of gas, and no appointments.

a stunning glimpse of Buddy, at a later date by innumerable years, quite bereft of my dubious, loving company, writing about this very party on a very large, jet-black, very moving, gorgeous typewriter. He is smoking a cigarette, occasionally clasping his hands and placing them on the top of his head in a thoughtful, exhausted manner. His hair is gray; he is older than you are now, Les! The veins in his hands are slightly prominent in the glimpse, so I have not mentioned the matter to him at all, partially considering his youthful prejudice against veins showing in poor adults’ hands. So it goes. You would think this particular glimpse would pierce the casual witness’s heart to the quick, disabling him utterly, so that he could not bring himself to discuss the glimpse in the least with his beloved, broadminded family. This is not exactly the case; it mostly makes me take an exceedingly deep breath as a simple, brisk measure against getting dizzy. It is his room that pierces me more than anything else. It is all his youthful dreams realized to the full! It has one of those beautiful windows in the ceiling that he has always, to my absolute knowledge, fervently admired from a splendid reader’s distance! All round about him, in addition, are exquisite shelves to hold his books, equipment, tablets, sharp pencils, ebony, costly typewriter, and other stirring, personal effects. Oh, my God, he will be overjoyed when he sees that room, mark my words! It is one of the most smiling, comforting glimpses of my entire life and quite possibly with the least strings attached. In a reckless manner of speaking, I would far from object if that were practically the last glimpse of my life.

And romance is just the place for creating mythic figures doing mythic things. Like carving 'civilzation' out of the wilderness. Like showing us what a hero looks life, a real, American, sprung-from-the soil, lethal-weapon-with-leggings, bona fide hero. And for a guy who never marries, he has a lot of offspring. Shane. The Virginian. The Ringo Kid. The Man with No Name. Just think how many actors would have had no careers without Natty Bumppo. Gary Cooper. John Wayne. Alan Ladd. Tom Mix. Clint Eastwood. Silent. Laconic. More committed to their horse or buddy than to a lady. Professional. Deadly. In his Studies in Classic American Literature, D.H. Lawrence waxes prolix on Natty's most salient feature: he's a killer. And so are his offspring. This heros can talk, stiltedly to be sure, but he prefers silence. He appreciates female beauty but is way more committed to his canoe or his business partner (his business being death and war) or, most disturbingly, his long rifle, Killdeer. Dr. Freud, your three-o'clock is here. Like those later avatars, he is a wilderness god, part backwoods sage, part cold-blooded killer, part unwilling Prince Charming, part jack-of-all-trades, but all man. Here's how his creator describes him: 'a philosopher of the wilderness, simple-minded, faithful, utterly without fear, yet prudent.' A great character, no doubt, but hardly a person. A paragon. An archetype. A miracle. But a potentially real person--not so much.

It might be nice to be pure and then to marry a pure man, but what if he suddenly confessed he wasn't pure after we were married, the way Buddy Willard had? I couldn't stand the idea of a woman having to have a single pure life and a man being able to have a double life, one pure and one not.

Jesus Christ is not a cosmic errand boy. I mean no disrespect or irreverence in so saying, but I do intend to convey the idea that while he loves us deeply and dearly, Christ the Lord is not perched on the edge of heaven, anxiously anticipating our next wish. When we speak of God being good to us, we generally mean that he is kind to us. In the words of the inimitable C. S. Lewis, "What would really satisfy us would be a god who said of anything we happened to like doing, 'What does it matter so long as they are contented?' We want, in fact, not so much a father in heaven as a grandfather in heaven--a senile benevolence who as they say, 'liked to see young people enjoying themselves,' and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, 'a good time was had by all.'" You know and I know that our Lord is much, much more than that. One writer observed: "When we so emphasize Christ's benefits that he becomes nothing more than what his significance is 'for me' we are in danger. . . . Evangelism that says 'come on, it's good for you'; discipleship that concentrates on the benefits package; sermons that 'use' Jesus as the means to a better life or marriage or job or attitude--these all turn Jesus into an expression of that nice god who always meets my spiritual needs. And this is why I am increasingly hesitant to speak of Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. As Ken Woodward put it in a 1994 essay, 'Now I think we all need to be converted--over and over again, but having a personal Savior has always struck me as, well, elitist, like having a personal tailor. I'm satisfied to have the same Lord and Savior as everyone else.' Jesus is not a personal Savior who only seeks to meet my needs. He is the risen, crucified Lord of all creation who seeks to guide me back into the truth." . . . His infinity does not preclude either his immediacy or his intimacy. One man stated that "I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly Father nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a benign teddy bear that there is no aberrant behavior or desire of mine that he will not condone." . . . Christ is not "my buddy." There is a natural tendency, and it is a dangerous one, to seek to bring Jesus down to our level in an effort to draw closer to him. This is a problem among people both in and outside the LDS faith. Of course we should seek with all our hearts to draw near to him. Of course we should strive to set aside all barriers that would prevent us from closer fellowship with him. And of course we should pray and labor and serve in an effort to close the gap between what we are and what we should be. But drawing close to the Lord is serious business; we nudge our way into intimacy at the peril of our souls. . . . Another gospel irony is that the way to get close to the Lord is not by attempting in any way to shrink the distance between us, to emphasize more of his humanity than his divinity, or to speak to him or of him in casual, colloquial language. . . . Those who have come to know the Lord best--the prophets or covenant spokesmen--are also those who speak of him in reverent tones, who, like Isaiah, find themselves crying out, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5). Coming into the presence of the Almighty is no light thing; we feel to respond soberly to God's command to Moses: "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground" (Exodus 3:5). Elder Bruce R. McConkie explained, "Those who truly love the Lord and who worship the Father in the name of the Son by the power of the Spirit, according to the approved patterns, maintain a reverential barrier between themselves and all the members of the Godhead.

You think you know what a man is? You have no idea what a man is. You think you know what a daughter is? You have no idea what a daughter is. You think you know what this country is? You have no idea what this country is. You have a false image of everything. All you know is what a fucking glove is. This country is frightening. Of course she was raped. What kind of company do you think she was keeping? Of course out there she was going to get raped. This isn't Old Rimrock, old buddy - she's out there, old buddy, in the USA. She enters that world, that loopy world out there, with whats going on out there - what do you expect? A kid from Rimrock, NJ, of course she didn't know how to behave out there, of course the shit hits the fan. What could she know? She's like a wild child out there in the world. She can't get enough of it - she's still acting up. A room off McCarter Highway. And why not? Who wouldn't? You prepare her for life milking the cows? For what kind of life? Unnatural, all artificial, all of it. Those assumptions you live with. You're still in your olf man's dream-world, Seymour, still up there with Lou Levov in glove heaven. A household tyrannized by gloves, bludgeoned by gloves, the only thing in life - ladies' gloves! Does he still tell the one about the woman who sells the gloves washing her hands in a sink between each color? Oh where oh where is that outmoded America, that decorous America where a woman had twenty-five pairs of gloves? Your kid blows your norms to kingdom come, Seymour, and you still think you know what life is?" Life is just a short period of time in which we are alive. Meredith Levov, 1964. "You wanted Ms. America? Well, you've got her, with a vengeance - she's your daughter! You wanted to be a real American jock, a real American marine, a real American hotshot with a beautiful Gentile babe on your arm? You longed to belong like everybody else to the United States of America? Well, you do now, big boy, thanks to your daughter. The reality of this place is right up in your kisser now. With the help of your daughter you're as deep in the sit as a man can get, the real American crazy shit. America amok! America amuck! Goddamn it, Seymour, goddamn you, if you were a father who loved his daughter," thunders Jerry into the phone - and the hell with the convalescent patients waiting in the corridor for him to check out their new valves and new arteries, to tell how grateful they are to him for their new lease on life, Jerry shouts away, shouts all he wants if it's shouting he wants to do, and the hell with the rules of hte hospital. He is one of the surgeons who shouts; if you disagree with him he shouts, if you cross him he shouts, if you just stand there and do nothing he shouts. He does not do what hospitals tell him to do or fathers expect him to do or wives want him to do, he does what he wants to do, does as he pleases, tells people just who and what he is every minute of the day so that nothing about him is a secret, not his opinions, his frustrations, his urges, neither his appetite nor his hatred. In the sphere of the will, he is unequivocating, uncompromising; he is king. He does not spend time regretting what he has or has not done or justifying to others how loathsome he can be. The message is simple: You will take me as I come - there is no choice. He cannot endure swallowing anything. He just lets loose. And these are two brothers, the same parents' sons, one for whom the aggression's been bred out, the other for whom the aggression's been bred in. "If you were a father who loved your daughter," Jerry shouts at the Swede, "you would never have left her in that room! You would have never let her out of your sight!

MacKaye never told anyone to get off the stage. Sometimes this encouraged a rapid and irreversible descent into chaos, but usually it just meant a steady stream of stage divers and kids who just wanted a few seconds of attention while they did some silly dance for their buddies. Anarchy, it seemed, could work.

The average grunt when not out in “the shit” the boonie thought about all the “Ball Games”, the battles, he had fought, all the narrow escapes from death, of buddies who had fallen one by one and wondered just how long his luck would hold. It came from knowing that a grunt could not fight in many “Ball Games” before he became a casualty. The general thinking was that if a grunt fought in say six without being hit he would not last another six, for there was a feeling that, sooner or later, death caught up with you but it was not what actually happened. There was a near-truism that if a grunt remained in the shit for a long time without a break he was almost certain to become a casualty, but casualty and death are not synonymous. A more realistic calculation was between three to six people wounded for one “kool aid”, killed in action. Nevertheless, it sure was unsettling to think that the best to hope for was receiving a wound.

This seemed a dreary and wasted life for a girl with fifteen years of straight A's, but I knew that's what marriage was like, because cook and clean and wash was just what Buddy Willard's mother did from morning till night, and she was the wife of a university professor and had been a private school teacher herself.

Nick and I, we sometimes laugh, laugh out loud, at the horrible things women make their husbands do to prove their love. The pointless tasks, the myriad sacrifices, the endless small surrenders. We call these men the dancing monkeys. Nick will come home, sweaty and salty and beer-loose from a day at the ballpark,and I’ll curl up in his lap, ask him about the game, ask him if his friend Jack had a good time, and he’ll say, ‘Oh, he came down with a case of the dancing monkeys – poor Jennifer was having a “real stressful week” and really needed him at home.’ Or his buddy at work, who can’t go out for drinks because his girlfriend really needs him to stop by some bistro where she is having dinner with a friend from out of town. So they can finally meet. And so she can show how obedient her monkey is: He comes when I call, and look how well groomed! Wear this, don’t wear that. Do this chore now and do this chore when you get a chance and by that I mean now. And definitely, definitely, give up the things you love for me, so I will have proof that you love me best. It’s the female pissing contest – as we swan around our book clubs and our cocktail hours, there are few things women love more than being able to detail the sacrifices our men make for us. A call-and-response, the response being: ‘Ohhh, that’s so sweet.’ I am happy not to be in that club. I don’t partake, I don’t get off on emotional coercion, on forcing Nick to play some happy-hubby role – the shrugging, cheerful, dutiful taking out the trash, honey! role. Every wife’s dream man, the counterpoint to every man’s fantasy of the sweet, hot, laid-back woman who loves sex and a stiff drink. I like to think I am confident and secure and mature enough to know Nick loves me without him constantly proving it. I don’t need pathetic dancing-monkey scenarios to repeat to my friends, I am content with letting him be himself. I don’t know why women find that so hard.

Gator, go wake that woman of yours. I need some answers. We need her to run the computers for us.” “Tonight, Boss?” Gator complained. “I had other ideas.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “We all did. Hop to it.” “What about Sam?” Tucker asked. “His woman is the one who got us into this.” “I’m wounded.” Sam clutched his abdomen dramatically and staggered with quick, long strides so that he made it to the doorway in three quick steps. Jonas coughed, sounding suspiciously like he’d muttered “bullshit” under his breath. Kyle threw a peanut at him and Jeff surfed across the table in his bare socks to try to catch him before he bolted. “He’s in love, boys, let him go. He’ll probably just get laughed at,” Tucker said. “Do you really think Azami’s brothers are going to allow her to hook up with Sam? She’s fine and he’s . . . well . . . klutzy.” “That hurt,” Sam said, turning back. “Did you get a good look at those boys? I thought Japanese men were supposed to be on the short side, but Daiki was tall and all muscle. His brother moves like a fucking fighter,” Tucker added. “They might just decide to give you a good beating for having the audacity to even think you could date their sister, let alone marry her.” “Fat help you are,” Sam accused. “I could use a little confidence here.” Kyle snorted. “You don’t have a chance, buddy.” “Goin’ to meet your maker,” Gator added solemnly. Jeff crossed himself as he hung five toes off the edge of the table. “Sorry, old son, you don’t have a prayer. You’re about to meet up with a couple of hungry sharks.” “Have you ever actually used a sword before?” Kadan asked, all innocent. Jonas drew his knife and began to sharpen it. “Funny thing about blade men, they always like to go for the throat.” He grinned up at Sam. “Just a little tip. Keep your chin down.” “You’re all a big help,” Sam said and stepped out into the hall. This was the biggest moment of his life. If they turned him down, he was lost.

So rather than spending time wondering why I don’t hear audible voices, I just try to listen harder with my heart, and I’ve realized a couple of things that seem kind of obvious now. God doesn’t talk to me in an audible voice because God isn’t a human being; He’s God. That makes sense to me, because human beings are limited and God isn’t limited at all. He can communicate to us in any way He wants to anytime He wants to. Through flowers, other people, an uncomfortable sense, a feeling of joy, goose bumps, a newfound talent, or an appreciation we acquire over time. It doesn’t need to be a big mystical thing like my surfer buddies made it out to be.

It might be nice to be pure and then to marry a pure man, but what if he suddenly confessed he wasn’t pure after we were married, the way Buddy Willard had? I couldn’t stand the idea of a woman having to have a single pure life and a man being able to have a double life, one pure and one not.                 Finally I decided that if it was so difficult to find a redblooded intelligent man who was still pure by the time he was twenty-one I might as well forget about staying pure myself and marry somebody who wasn’t pure either. Then when he started to make my life miserable I could make his miserable as well.                 When I was nineteen, pureness was the great issue.

Each moment we take some decisions & these small small decisions decides our future which will one day become our present. We r ourselves responsible for our present & future. Now u will say that situations of our life r not in our hand. This is true but buddy situations only help us in shaping our attitude towards life. They never decides our future.

In real life, the monsters are the ones abducting and killing children or flying hijacked airplanes into skyscrapers or looting our treasury and sending our kids off to fight a bullshit war just so they can line their own pockets and the pockets of their corporate buddies or eradicating our Bill of Rights in the name of national security. Those are the real monsters.

When I was little, I didn’t understand that you could change a few sounds in a name or a phrase and have it mean something entirely different. When I told teachers my name was Benna and they said, “Donna who?” I would say, “Donna Gilbert.” I thought close was good enough, that sloppiness was generally built into the language. I thought Bing Crosby and Bill Crosby were the same person. That Buddy Holly and Billie Holiday were the same person. That Leon Trotsky and Leo Tolstoy were the same person. It was a shock for me quite late in life to discover that Jean Cocteau and Jacques Cousteau were not even related. Meaning, if it existed at all, was unstable and could not survive the slightest reshuffling of letters. One gust of wind and Santa became Satan. A slip of the pen and pears turned into pearls. A little interior decorating and the world became her twold, an ungrammatical and unkind assessment of an aging aunt in a singles bar. Add a d to poor, you got droop. It was that way in biology, too. Add a chromosome, get a criminal. Subtract one, get an idiot or a chipmunk. That was the way with things.

Jesus set an example for us by making time for His friends (John 15:15). He had three best friends, 12 good friends, and 70 friends. Dr. J. Nick Pitts points out, “The smaller the number, the greater the intimacy. Buddies can bless you, but best friends shape you (Proverbs 27:17). You give time to your friends, but they give you life—an invaluable return on investment.”32

Man!” I said. “That sounds ... that sounds ...” What would describe it? What word in the English language would speak of youth and hope and freedom and desire, of sweet wanderlust and burning blood? What word describes the brotherhood of buddies, and the feeling that as long as the music plays, you are part of that tough, rambling breed who will inherit the earth? “Cool,” Davy Ray supplied.

Perhaps you are repulsed by me. Well, perhaps you are the one with the problem, not I. Perhaps you are the repulsive one. Perhaps you have never cared enough about anything in your life to weep at its loss. If that is the case, it is I who pity you. You will go through your brutish existence experiencing the small pleasures of taking things that are not yours, going places you are not welcome, sticking your elbow into the legally purchased space of another. Then you will die. Congratulations: That is your life. I hope you are happy with it. I hope you don’t regret, on your deathbed, that you never felt love, or joy, or loss. Yes, loss. There is a profound sweet melancholy in the experience of loss. It is the most delectable and pungent spice on the spice rack of life. Too bad you won’t taste it, buddy. I guess it doesn’t go with burgers and beer.

Taylor, you are like a brother to me. You brought your father into my life, shared your little sister, gave me an extra mom. You helped me set that shed on fire and discover my true calling. You’re my climbing soul mate, my wingman and co-conspirator, and the best buddy a guy could have. I’ve watched you and Lexi from the beginning and know better than anyone else that the two of you were always meant to be. To Lexi and Austin!

I came to love the way Morrie lit up when I entered the room. He did this for many people, I know, but it was his special talent to make each visitor feel that the smile was unique. “Ahhhh, it’s my buddy,” he would say when he saw me, in that foggy, high-pitched voice. And it didn’t stop with the greeting. When Morrie was with you, he was really with you. He looked you straight in the eye, and he listened as if you were the only person in the world. How much better would people get along if their first encounter each day were like this—instead of a grumble from a waitress or a bus driver or a boss? “I believe in being fully present,” Morrie said. “That means you should be with the person you’re with. When I’m talking to you now, Mitch, I try to keep focused only on what is going on between us. I am not thinking about something we said last week. I am not thinking of what’s coming up this Friday. I am not thinking about doing another Koppel show, or about what medications I’m taking. “I am talking to you. I am thinking about you.” I remembered how he used to teach this idea in the Group Process class back at Brandeis. I had scoffed back then, thinking this was hardly a lesson plan for a university course. Learning to pay attention? How important could that be? I now know it is more important than almost everything they taught us in college.

Where’s my little buddy?” Mamaw’s voice was quiet and sounded funny, but the smile she gave me made me feel warm. Giggling at my mamaw, I rushed to the side of the bed. “I’m here! I came home early from school to see you!” Mamaw lifted her finger and tapped the end of my nose. “That’s my girl!” I smiled real big in response. “I just wanted you to visit a little while. I always feel better when the light of my life sits beside me and talks to me some.

When people dream something as a child, it doesn’t always come true. But my childhood dream of what kind of man I would marry and spend the rest of my life with did come true. I always knew my husband would be tall, dark, and handsome, but he also had to have a rugged look, as if he’d just walked out of the wilderness. He had to love the outdoors and be able to survive there if needed. I also wanted him to be able to take command of any situation when needed. I wanted him to be a leader but with a sense of humor, too. I wanted him to work and make a living. I wanted him to be a man’s man, but with gentleness and love for me and his children, and be ready to defend us at all times. More than anything else, I wanted to feel loved and protected. What I didn’t know when I found the man who filled my dreams was that I had found a diamond in the rough. It would take a lifetime to perfect that diamond on the long journey of life. Phil and I have had many good years, some hard years, a few sad years, and a lot of struggling years to get where we are now. God put us in each other’s paths. It has always been a wonderful ride for me. I have a husband who is my best buddy and friend, my lover, my Christian brother, my champion, and the person who will always be there through thick and thin. There is no greater love than your love for God, but right under that is your love for your husband, your partner in life. One of the greatest tragedies I see is people not putting every effort into the foundation of their marriage. My grandmother told me that it’s one man and one woman for life and that your marriage is worth fighting for. We had a few hard and bumpy years, but prayer, patience, and some suffering and hope-plus remembering an old lady’s words-were what got me through the difficult times. We have given it our all for our marriage and family, and my dreams did come true. Phil is and will always be my hero!

Most days what I felt was this: the minute you put a first name and a last name together, you've got a pair of tusks coming right at you (i.e., Watch out, buddy). but on days when I didn't disapprove of everything on principle--days when the whole cologned, cuff-shooting ruck of my co-workers didn't repulse me from the moment they disembarked from the sixth-floor elevator and began squidging their way along the carpeted track that led to the office--my thinking stabbed more along these lines: a name belittles that which is named. Give a person a name and he'll sink right into it, right into the hollows and the dips of the letters that spelled out the whole insultingly reductive contraption, so that you have to pull him up and dance him out of it, take his attendance, and fuck some life into him if you expect to get any work out of him. Multiply him by twenty-two and you will have some idea of what the office was like, except that a good third of my colleagues were female.

You have no idea what a real leader is. A leader has to project confidence. Fight for what she believes in. But never stop questioning, wondering how to be better. You take in everything... and make your call. You thought isolating me would make me weaker? Buddy, you don't know me too well. All my life I've had to rely on myself, trust my instincts and convictions when others doubted me, and be prepared to back them up. You didn't hurt me with what you did. You gave me what I needed to win.

It's about changing the way I think. Which sounds so simple, but whether I like to admit it or not, anxiety has become my best friend. It's a crutch that helps me hobble through life. It's the brassy bitch at school that I don't like, but being her BFF makes me popular. Or the school bully that I don't really want to be around, but being his friend means I don't get beat up. I don't know how to be safe without it. We're buddies. It's like they say: keep your friends close, your enemies closer.

TECHNIQUE #25 THE NUTSHELL RÉSUMÉ Just as job-seeking top managers roll a different written rèsumè off their printers for each position they're applying for, let a different true story about your professional life roll off your tongue for each listener. Before responding to "What do you do?" ask yourself, "What possible interest could this person have in my answer? Could he refer business to me? Buy from me? Hire me? Marry my sister? Become my buddy?" Wherever you go, pack a nutshell about your own life to work into your communications bag of tricks.

I dream in tunnel vision, I think. I remember in tunnel vision, I think. The question remains, when my tunnel vision goes, as it will very soon, what will I remember seeing? How will I remember? All I can do is write it down and keep writing. How else can I hold this picture, this life, or this face together? The view from here is of a boy with a softball, ready to let it go. His is an ironic gift from the past, as if the young me is aiming at the old, saying, "Here, buddy, let me help you with that." I wanted to let the ball fly at my lens, whatever was left of it.

Marissa,” he mumbled, taking her hand. “Don’t want to see you drink so much.” Wait, not really what he’d been going for. “Ah . . . don’t want you to see me drink so much . . . want.” Whatever. God . . . he was so confused. V smiled a little, but it was the kind of falsey number doctors gave to patients who were about to throw up. “He’s going to need something with sugar in it. Rhage, you got a lollipop on you?” Butch looked over as a wicked handsome blond guy knelt down. “I know you,” Butch said. “Hey . . . buddy.” “Hey, my man.” Rhage reached into the pocket of his fleece and pulled out a Tootsie Pop. After ripping the wrapper off, he put the thing into Butch’s mouth. Butch groaned. Goddamn, that was the best thing he’d ever tasted in his whole life. Grape. Sweet. Ahhhh . . . “Is he seizing again?” Marissa asked. “I think he likes it,” Rhage murmured. “That right, cop?” Butch nodded and nearly lost the lollipop, so Rhage took control of the stick, holding it in place. Man, they were so good to him. Marissa stroking his hair and holding his hand. V’s palm a warm weight on his leg. Rhage making sure the Toosie Pop stayed where it needed to be—

You remember when I said how I was gonna explain about life, buddy? Well the thing about life is, it gets weird. People are always talking ya about truth. Everybody always knows what the truth is, like it was toilet paper or somethin', and they got a supply in the closet. But what you learn, as you get older, is there ain't no truth. All there is is bullshit, pardon my vulgarity here. Layers of it. One layer of bullshit on top of another. And what you do in life like when you get older is, you pick the layer of bullshit that you prefer and that's your bullshit, so to speak.

Ella?” Cinder asked when things got quiet. “Are you there?” He sounded hesitant. “Welcome to my life,” I said with a sigh of defeat. “Sorry about that.” “It’s okay.” It was definitely not okay. I was so humiliated. It was a miracle I wasn’t crying. I think that was only because I was still in so much shock. “Look, thanks for giving me your phone number, but maybe this is a bad time.” My dad scrambled to his feet, waving his hands at me. “No! You don’t have to end your call. We’ll give you some privacy.” He glanced at both Jennifer and Juliette. “Won’t we, ladies?” His blatant desperation for me to talk to someone—even a stranger from the Internet—was as embarrassing as Anastasia’s outburst. Even worse, Jennifer was just as bad. “Of course! You go ahead and talk to your boyfriend, Ella,” she squealed. “We can keep an eye on you from the kitchen. I have to get dinner started anyway.” While I was busy dying from her use of the word boyfriend, she hopped off the elliptical. She hurried to catch up to my dad, seeming more than happy to finish her workout early. As they started up the steps, they both turned back to Juliette, who had sprawled out on the couch instead of getting up. “I was here first,” Juliette said in response to their expectant looks. “There’s no way I’m going anywhere near the upstairs with Ana in the mood she’s in, and I really don’t care about Ella’s love life. Besides, she’s not supposed to be alone, anyway. What if she tries to throw herself off the balcony or something?” Was there anyone in the world that didn’t feel the need to humiliate me? I glared at Juliette, and she just waved a pair of earbuds at me and shoved them in her ears. “I’ll turn the volume up.” My dad and Jennifer both gave me such hopeful looks that I couldn’t argue anymore. I rolled my eyes and made my way over to the armchair my father had been lounging in. Once Dad and Jennifer were gone, I glanced over at the couch. Juliette was already doing what she did best—ignoring me. She was bobbing her head along with her music as she read out of a textbook. I doubted she could hear me, but I spoke softly anyway, just in case. “Cinder? Are you still there?” “I didn’t realize upping our relationship to phone buddies would come with a boyfriend title. Does that mean if we ever meet in person, we’ll have to get married?” Surprised, I burst into laughter. Juliette glanced at me with one raised eyebrow, but went back to her textbook without saying anything.

BOB DIAMOND: "Being from earth as you are and using as little of your brain as you do, your life has pretty much been devoted to dealing with fear. DAN MILLER: "It has?" BOB DIAMOND: "Everybody on earth deals with fear. That's what little brains do." BOB DIAMOND: "Did you ever have friends whose stomach hurt?" DAN MILLER: "Every one of them." BOB DIAMOND: "It's fear. Fear is like a giant fog. It sits on your brain and blocks everything. Real feeling, true happiness, real joy, they can't get through that fog. But you lift it and buddy you're in for the ride of your life." (From the movie 'Defending Your Life')

I married him—despite all the very good reasons that no one should ever partner up for a third time—because early on, he reminded me of the best father figure of my life, my ninth-grade English teacher. When that man died, his friends (eighty-year-old poker buddies, pals from his teaching days, devoted former students of all ages and types) wept. He was old, fat, diabetic, and often brusque. Women desired him and my children loved him and most men liked his company a great deal. He was loyal, imperious, needy, charming, bighearted, and just about the most selfish, lovable, and foolishly fearless person I had ever known. And then I met Brian and found another.

It is not necessary or advantageous to give your opinion about everything to everyone. It is not your job to be a form of cheap entertainment for those around you. This is a trap that is very easy to fall into and is the downfall of many people. While it is certainly okay to chat with your buddies or other people about meaningless things in order to be affable, you should be careful of your conversation even on such relaxed occasions. It is all too easy to get carried away with your conversation and express opinions which can be offensive and used against you at a later time. Be genial and social, but at the same time be aware and thoughtful concerning your private beliefs.

Scott still stares at Sid, then turns to Alice and hands her the Scotch. “We’re going to go see Joanie today,” he says. Alice grins. “And Chachi?” she asks. Sid bursts out laughing and Scott turns back to him, then places a hand on his shoulder, which makes me fear for his life. “You be quiet, son,” Scott says. “I could kill you with this hand. This hand has been places.” I shake my head and look at both Sid and Alex. Scott lifts his hand off Sid’s shoulder and turns again to his wife. “No, Alice. Our Joanie. Our daughter. We’re going to give her anything she wants.” He glares at me. “Think about what she would want, Alice. We’re going to get it for her and bring it to her. Bring it right to her bed.” “Joanie and Chachi,” Alice chants. “Joanie and Chachi!” “Shut up, Alice!” Scott yells. Alice looks at Scott as though he just said “Cheese.” She clasps her hands together and smiles, staying in the pose for a few seconds. He looks at her face and squints. “Sorry, old gal,” he says. “You go ahead and say whatever you want.” “It was funny,” Sid says. “All I was doing was laughing. She has a good sense of humor. That’s all. Maybe she knows she’s being funny. I think she does.” “I’m going to hit you,” Scott says. His arms hang alongside him, the muscles flexed, veins big like milk-shake straws. I know he’s going to hit Sid because that’s what he does. I’ve seen him hit Barry. I, too, have been hit by Scott after I beat him and his buddies at a game of poker. His hands are in fists, and I can see his knobby old-man knuckles, the many liver spots almost joining to become one big discoloration, like a burn. Then he pops his fist up toward Sid, a movement like a snake rearing its head and lunging forth. I see Sid start to bring his arm up to block his face, but then he brings it down and clutches his thigh. It’s almost as if he decided not to protect himself. The end result is a punch in his right eye, a screaming older daughter, a frightened younger daughter, a father trying to calm many people at once, and a mother-in-law cheering wildly as though we have all done something truly amazing.

That's bullshit, buddy. And you know it. The trouble was, he DIDN'T know it. He had come face to face with something Susannah had found out for herself after shooting the bear: he could TALK about how he didn't want to be a gunslinger, how he didn't want to be tramping around this crazy world where the three of them seemed to be the only human life, that what he really wanted more than anything else was to be standing on the corner of Broadway and Forty-second Street, popping his fingers, munching a chili-dog, and listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival blast out of his Walkman earphones as he watched the girls go by, those ultimately sexy New York girls with their pouty go-to-hell mouths and their long legs in short skirts. He could talk about those things until he was blue in the face, but his heart knew other things. It knew that he had ENJOYED blowing the electronic menagerie back to glory, at least while the game was on and Roland's gun was his own private handheld thunderstorm. He had ENJOYED kicking the robot rat, even though it had hurt his foot and even though he had been scared shitless. In some weird way, that part--the being scared part--actually seemed to add to the enjoyment. All that was bad enough, but his heart knew something even worse: that if a door leading back to New York appeared in front of him right now, he might not walk through it. Not, at least, until he had seen the Dark Tower for himself. He was beginning to believe that Roland's illness was a communicable disease.

I tried to imagine what it would be like if Constantin were my husband. It would men getting up at seven and cooking him eggs and bacon and toast and coffee and dawdling about in my nightgown and curlers after he'd left for work to wash up the dirty plates and make the bed, and then when he came home after a lively, fascinating day he'd expect a big dinner, and I'd spend the evening washing up even more dirty plates till I fell into bed, utterly exhausted. This seemed a dreary and wasted life for a girl with fifteen years of straight A's, but I knew that's what marriage was like, because cook and clean and wash was just what Buddy Willard's mother did from morning till night, and she was the wife of a university professor and had been a private school teacher herself.

I am not a buddy-buddy person at work. I feel the need to say this because I think that sometimes we give ourselves a pass at caring about our colleagues because we’re introverts, or we don’t want to make friends at work. You might think that I am the sort who loves to make lots of work friends, and therefore I don’t understand how this feels to you, but I assure you: I understand that you don’t feel like that human side is all that interesting in the workplace. Being an introvert is not an excuse for making no effort to treat people like real human beings, however. The bedrock of strong teams is human connection, which leads to trust. And trust, real trust, requires the ability and willingness to be vulnerable in front of each other. So, your manager will hopefully treat you like a human who has a life outside of work, and spend a few minutes talking about that life when you meet.

over me. And his brother offers me his hand. “The girl who tamed the beast. It’s nice to finally meet.” Andy laughs. I can tell by the sparkle in his eyes he knows exactly what his brother is like. “Come on, let's sit and get ready.” Their mom sits and drags me with her. “How did BJ seem today? He gets tense sometimes when it’s game day. Was he tense?” She’s tense but I get it. This is a lifetime of work coming to a head. The culmination of a family full of dreams all coming true in one moment. Sami sits next to me, doing her indifferent face. It’s weird being with them and being with my family. The life was the same and then completely opposite. His parents wanted what was best for him, same as mine, and they had a dream for him, same as mine, but they let him choose the dream, in the end. My dad did that for me, but my mom didn't. I wish she could see and feel what this moment is like. I wish I

The average grunt when not out in “the shit”, the boonie, thought about all the “Ball Games”, the battles, he had fought, all the narrow escapes from death, of buddies who had fallen one by one and wondered just how long his luck would hold. It came from knowing that a grunt could not fight in many “Ball Games” before he became a casualty. The general thinking was that if a grunt fought in say six without being hit he would not last another six, for there was a feeling that, sooner or later, death caught up with you but it was not what actually happened. There was a near-truism that if a grunt remained in the shit for a long time without a break he was almost certain to become a casualty, but casualty and death are not synonymous. A more realistic calculation was between three to six people wounded for one “kool aid”, killed in action. Nevertheless, it sure was unsettling to think that the best to hope for was receiving a wound.

There is no moral in this novel; it is not bourgeois; it does not say they were wrong to play when they should have toiled; it just tells what the consequences were. In Greek drama they were beginning, as a society, to discover science, which means causal law. Here in this novel there is Nemesis: not fate, because any one of us could have chosen to stop playing in the street, but, as I narrate from the deepest part of my life and heart, a dreadful Nemesis for those who kept on playing. I myself, I am not a character in this novel; I am the novel. So, though, was our entire nation at this time. This novel is about more people than I knew personally. Some we all read about in the newspapers. It was, this sitting around with our buddies and bullshitting while making tape recordings, the bad decision of the decade, the sixties, both in and out of the establishment. And nature cracked down on us. We were forced to stop by things dreadful.

Both Cooper and Brennan got their start as extras. Like Brennan, Cooper had learned his craft by roaming around movie lots, absorbing the atmosphere and watching how things were done—especially the subtle interplay between actors, and between the best actors and the camera lens, which always picked up details that not even the most perceptive directors could spot before they were projected onto a screen. And like Brennan, when Cooper got his first two minutes of screen time, he was prepared. Watch him in Wings, playing an aviator about to go to his death, enter a tent and converse with the film’s two stars, Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen, who are immediately fascinated by his bluff allure. He is a hero without bravado. He is for those two minutes the picture’s star, the very embodiment of what Hemingway called grace under pressure. Cooper’s ability to convey composure just before a dogfight, to act with such quiet courtesy and aplomb, stuns Rogers and Arlen—and just that quickly Cooper takes the picture away from them.

Butterfly effect.” “Right. It means small events can have large, whatchamadingit, ramifications. The idea is that if some guy kills a butterfly in China, maybe forty years later—or four hundred—there’s an earthquake in Peru. That sound as crazy to you as it does to me?” It did, but I remembered a hoary old time-travel paradox and pulled it out. “Yeah, but what if you went back and killed your own grandfather?” He stared at me, baffled. “Why the fuck would you do that?” That was a good question, so I just told him to go on. “You changed the past this afternoon in all sorts of little ways, just by walking into the Kennebec Fruit . . . but the stairs leading up into the pantry and back into 2011 were still there, weren’t they? And The Falls is the same as when you left it.” “So it seems, yes. But you’re talking about something a little more major. To wit, saving JFK’s life.” “Oh, I’m talking about a lot more than that, because this ain’t some butterfly in China, buddy. I’m also talking about saving RFK’s life, because if John lives in Dallas, Robert

Unlike some of his buddies, Truely had never been afraid of books. Following his daddy's example, he had read the newspaper every day of his life since the sixth grade, starting with the sports page. He had a vague idea what was going on in the world. It was true that Truely could generally nail a test, took a certain pride in it, but he was also a guy who like to dance all night to throbbing music in makeshift clubs off unlit country roads. He liked to drink a cold beer on a hot day, maybe a flask of Jack Daniel's on special occasions. He wore his baseball cap backwards, his jeans ripped and torn--because they were old and practically worn-out, not because he bought them that way. His hair was a little too long, his boots a little too big, his aspirations modest. He preferred listening to talking--and wasn't all that great at either. He like barbecue joints more than restaurants. Catfish and hush puppies or hot dogs burned black over a campfire were his favorites. He preferred simple food dished out in large helpings. He liked to serve himself and go for seconds.

To heal, men must learn to feel again. They must learn to break the silence, to speak the pain. Often men, to speak the pain, first turn to the women in their lives and are refused a hearing. In many ways women have bought into the patriarchal masculine mystique. Asked to witness a male expressing feelings, to listen to those feelings and respond, they may simply turn away. There was a time when I would often ask the man in my life to tell me his feelings. And yet when he began to speak, I would either interrupt or silence him by crying, sending him the message that his feelings were too heavy for anyone to bear, so it was best if he kept them to himself. As the Sylvia cartoon I have previously mentioned reminds us, women are fearful of hearing men voice feelings. I did not want to hear the pain of my male partner because hearing it required that I surrender my investment in the patriarchal ideal of the male as protector of the wounded. If he was wounded, then how could he protect me? As I matured, as my feminist consciousness developed to include the recognition of patriarchal abuse of men, I could hear male pain. I could see men as comrades and fellow travelers on the journey of life and not as existing merely to provide instrumental support. Since men have yet to organize a feminist men’s movement that would proclaim the rights of men to emotional awareness and expression, we will not know how many men have indeed tried to express feelings, only to have the women in their lives tune out or be turned off. Talking with men, I have been stunned when individual males would confess to sharing intense feelings with a male buddy, only to have that buddy either interrupt to silence the sharing, offer no response, or distance himself. Men of all ages who want to talk about feelings usually learn not to go to other men. And if they are heterosexual, they are far more likely to try sharing with women they have been sexually intimate with. Women talk about the fact that intimate conversation with males often takes place in the brief moments before and after sex. And of course our mass media provide the image again and again of the man who goes to a sex worker to share his feelings because there is no intimacy in that relationship and therefore no real emotional risk.

Willie called me one night in September 1991 after I had been gone a few weeks and said, “Let’s get back together.” I knew I loved him, but I told him I wasn’t sure about it. He was trying to change my life, and it was really his way or no way. I just didn’t know what to do. “Let me think about it,” I said. “I’ll call you back tomorrow.” I was convinced she’d found someone else. I was telling all my buddies that it was over between us, and I was gathering other girls’ phone numbers to prepare myself to move on. I just knew it was over, and I wasn’t waiting to hear it from her the next day. I was convinced she wanted to end our relationship but couldn’t muster the courage to tell me. Korie called me the next day, and I was ready to tell her that I didn’t want to get back together anymore and that our relationship was over. I was certainly going to end it before she ended it. I just knew she already had a new boyfriend at Harding. “I’ve got something to tell you,” Korie told me. “What do you want to say?” I asked her, deciding it better to hear her out first. “Let’s get back together,” she said. My ears started buzzing. I threw all the girls’ phone numbers in the trash can. About a month later, Korie and I decided we were going to get married.

The biologist, who sees man as a balanced whole, and for whom muscles, bones, sinews and veins are as important as brains, can only look on, upset, as the destruction of all physical work and fitness continues. When Martti Ahtisaari entered the arena of Finnish politics, my biologist friend Olavi Hildén — a university professor over sixty yet still in great shape — became furious: “How could people even consider to choose him as our president? He can’t even walk properly: he just ambles along!” If one has the patience to cool down, he will admit that charming personalities exist even among chubby people: many great things have been achieved from behind thick layers of fat. But still, it is frightening to see the presidential chair filled by someone who has completely allowed his willpower and discipline to slacken in one sphere of life. This is all the more unpleasant if we follow sociologists in believing that presidential victories are no longer determined by candidates’ ideals, but rather by the images of themselves that they project. Is the popularity of Ahtisaari due to the fact that he is perceived as a buddy by the typical Finnish male, feasting on beer and and sausages in his sauna, and that he reminds the typical Finnish female of her own pot-bellied companion?

Korie: Willie and I dated for about eight months, and then I was getting ready to leave for school at Harding University. Willie was still attending seminary school, and I wanted him to go to Harding University with me. But Willie said he wasn’t leaving West Monroe. He wanted me to stay in West Monroe with him. We broke up before I left for school in August, and I’m sure he thought I’d find someone else at college, because that’s what typically happens when you leave home. Willie called me one night in September 1991 after I had been gone a few weeks and said, “Let’s get back together.” I knew I loved him, but I told him I wasn’t sure about it. He was trying to change my life, and it was really his way or no way. I just didn’t know what to do. “Let me think about it,” I said. “I’ll call you back tomorrow.” I was convinced she’d found someone else. I was telling all my buddies that it was over between us, and I was gathering other girls’ phone numbers to prepare myself to move on. I just knew it was over, and I wasn’t waiting to hear it from her the next day. I was convinced she wanted to end our relationship but couldn’t muster the courage to tell me. Korie called me the next day, and I was ready to tell her that I didn’t want to get back together anymore and that our relationship was over. I was certainly going to end it before she ended it. I just knew she already had a new boyfriend at Harding. “I’ve got something I want to tell you,” Korie told me. “What do you want to say?” I asked her, deciding I’d better hear her out first. “Let’s get back together,” she said. My ears started buzzing. I threw all the girls’ phone numbers in the trash can. About a month later, Korie and I decided we were going to get married. Korie: I had turned eighteen in October 1991, so legally I was allowed to do whatever I wanted. But I knew I had to call my parents, Johnny and Chrys, to get their permission. We had had some discussions about my getting married that summer that had not gone so well, so I knew they were not going to be excited about it. I mustered up the courage to make the phone call. “Look, I’m legal, so I’m just going to say it,” I told them. “I’m getting married, and you’re going to have to be behind me or not.” Of course, my parents told me it was the worst idea ever, and they were naturally worried that I was going to leave school and come home. They asked me to at least wait until I’d finished college. I hung up the phone and called Willie immediately. “I just told them and it didn’t go so well,” I blurted out. “They’ve already called me and they’re on their way over here,” he said.

they had never been apart, and there was nothing Evelyn could do about it but unwrap her Almond Joy candy bar and sit there for the duration. “The front yard had a great big old chinaberry tree. I remember, we’d pick those little chinaberries all year long, and at Christmas, we’d string them and wrap them all around the tree from top to bottom. Momma was always warning us not to put chinaberries up our nose, and of course the first thing Idgie did, as soon as she learned to walk, was to go out in the yard and put chinaberries up her nose and in her ears as well. To the point that Dr. Hadley had to be called! He told Momma, ‘Mrs. Threadgoode, it looks like you’ve got yourself a little scalawag on your hands.’ “Well, of course Buddy just loved to hear that. He encouraged her every step of the way. But that’s how it is in big families. Everybody has their favorite. Her real name was Imogene, but Buddy started calling her Idgie. Buddy was eight when she was born, and he used to carry her all over town, just like she was a doll. When she got old enough to walk, she’d paddle around after him like a little duck, dragging that little wooden rooster behind her. “That Buddy had a million-dollar personality, with those dark eyes and those white teeth…he could charm you within an inch of your life. I don’t know of a girl in Whistle

became a blurry swirl of shapes and colors narrowing into a luminous spot of white light at the end of a black anoxic tunnel and dissolving into a rapid series of bright sharp images that I recognized at once from my childhood: long forgotten memories of important moments flashing by faster than anything I’d ever experienced, twenty to thirty frames a second, each one of them original, like perfect photographic slides from the archives of my young life, every scene compressed into a complete story with sights and sounds and smells and feelings from the time. Each image was euphoric, rapturous. The smiling face of my beautiful young mother / a gentle touch from her hand on my face / absorbing her love / playing in the sand at the seashore with my father / waves washing up on the beach / feeling the strength and security of his presence / soothing, kind-hearted praise from a teacher at school / faces and voices of adoring aunts and uncles / steam trains coming in at the local railroad station / hearing myself say “choo-choo” / the excitement of shared discovery with my brother on Christmas morning / running free through a familiar forest with a happy dog / hitting a baseball hard and hearing encouraging cries from my parents behind me in the bleachers / shooting baskets in a backyard court with a buddy from high school / a tender kiss from the soft warm lips of a lovely teenage girl / the encouraging thrust of her stomach and thighs against mine.

Chip had been in there for a few very long hours. I had all kinds of awful thoughts about what might have happened to him in there. What if he’d been roughed up? Strip-searched? Who knows what awful things could have happened in a place like that? I saw scary-looking characters come and go as I sat in that cold, concrete lobby, trying to make myself invisible. Finally, out came Chip. “Hi, baby. Thanks for bailing me out,” he said. He sounded almost chipper. “Are you okay?” “Yeah, yeah! You’ll never guess who I saw in there. Alfonzo! Remember the lawn guy who used to work for me? We had a good time catching up.” Only Chip could go to prison and come out talking about all the friends he’d run into there. I came out and I was like, “Whoa! That was awesome. Jo, I met this guy. He did this thing. You know this old guy that I used to tell you about--he and I used to work together? He’s doing great. Well, he’s in jail, but things are really good otherwise.” Two of the policemen were also buddies of mine. These guys were literally standing on the other side of these bars going, “Why are you here? What’s the deal?” We had this endearing conversation right there, while I was in a jail cell. I used to live out in the boonies when I was in college, and I had mowed this one guy’s grass. So I told him what I was in for. “Long story short, I got these dogs running around.” And he was like, “Oh, dude, you’ll be fine. I’m sure they’ll get you right out of here.” It was just another day in my new life with Chip Gaines.

It is a painful irony that silent movies were driven out of existence just as they were reaching a kind of glorious summit of creativity and imagination, so that some of the best silent movies were also some of the last ones. Of no film was that more true than Wings, which opened on August 12 at the Criterion Theatre in New York, with a dedication to Charles Lindbergh. The film was the conception of John Monk Saunders, a bright young man from Minnesota who was also a Rhodes scholar, a gifted writer, a handsome philanderer, and a drinker, not necessarily in that order. In the early 1920s, Saunders met and became friends with the film producer Jesse Lasky and Lasky’s wife, Bessie. Saunders was an uncommonly charming fellow, and he persuaded Lasky to buy a half-finished novel he had written about aerial combat in the First World War. Fired with excitement, Lasky gave Saunders a record $39,000 for the idea and put him to work on a script. Had Lasky known that Saunders was sleeping with his wife, he might not have been quite so generous. Lasky’s choice for director was unexpected but inspired. William Wellman was thirty years old and had no experience of making big movies—and at $2 million Wings was the biggest movie Paramount had ever undertaken. At a time when top-rank directors like Ernst Lubitsch were paid $175,000 a picture, Wellman was given a salary of $250 a week. But he had one advantage over every other director in Hollywood: he was a World War I flying ace and intimately understood the beauty and enchantment of flight as well as the fearful mayhem of aerial combat. No other filmmaker has ever used technical proficiency to better advantage. Wellman had had a busy life already. Born into a well-to-do family in Brookline, Massachusetts, he had been a high school dropout, a professional ice hockey player, a volunteer in the French Foreign Legion, and a member of the celebrated Lafayette Escadrille flying squad. Both France and the United States had decorated him for gallantry. After the war he became friends with Douglas Fairbanks, who got him a job at the Goldwyn studios as an actor. Wellman hated acting and switched to directing. He became what was known as a contract director, churning out low-budget westerns and other B movies. Always temperamental, he was frequently fired from jobs, once for slapping an actress. He was a startling choice to be put in charge of such a challenging epic. To the astonishment of everyone, he now made one of the most intelligent, moving, and thrilling pictures ever made. Nothing was faked. Whatever the pilot saw in real life the audiences saw on the screen. When clouds or exploding dirigibles were seen outside airplane windows they were real objects filmed in real time. Wellman mounted cameras inside the cockpits looking out, so that the audiences had the sensation of sitting at the pilots’ shoulders, and outside the cockpit looking in, allowing close-up views of the pilots’ reactions. Richard Arlen and Buddy Rogers, the two male stars of the picture, had to be their own cameramen, activating cameras with a remote-control button.

Hi, Bruce,’ said Uzma. ‘Hello,’ Bruce replied. ‘Would it be possible to have a photo taken?’ she asked. ‘Sure, we can do that!’ he replied, smiling broadly. I took the photograph. Then it was my turn. He signed my book and bandanna and posed for another photograph. Just as I was about to let the next fan have their moment in the sun I turned to Springsteen and said, ‘Bruce. Three words: “Point Blank”, acoustic’ The following night I was sitting in the Sheffield Arena with Amolak and my sister. It was 16 April 1993 and we were in the front block ten or fifteen rows from the stage. Uzma was having the time of her life. It was her first Springsteen concert and it was so wonderful to see her having so much fun. Springsteen had just finished singing ‘Badlands’ when he requested an acoustic guitar and told the audience: ‘A fella came up to me and asked for this song. I don't know if he's out there tonight, but if he is, this is for you.’ He began slowly strumming the acoustic guitar before singing, ‘Do you still say your prayers darling, before you go to bed at night? Praying that tomorrow everything will be all right?’ He was singing ‘Point Blank’. I doubled up, buried my face in my hands and wept. Amolak hugged me. ‘Point Blank’ was one of my favourite songs. I never imagined I would hear it sung acoustically. The fact that Springsteen had remembered my request and then decided to actually listen to my suggestion was overwhelming. As I continued to cry uncontrollably and as Bruce Springsteen continued to sing ‘Point Blank’, Amolak said to me: ‘You see, buddy, dreams do come true.’ *

That New Year I was invited to stay with one of my old school buddies, Sam Sykes, at his house on the far northwestern coast of Sutherland, in Scotland. It is as wild and rugged a place as anywhere on earth, and I love it there. It also happens to boast one of my favorite mountains in the world, Ben Loyal, a pinnacle of rock and steep heather that overlooks a spectacular estuary. So I did not need much encouraging to go up to Sam’s and climb. This time up there, I was to meet the lady who would change my life forever; and I was woefully ill-prepared for the occasion. I headed up north primarily to train and climb. Sam told me he had some other friends coming up for New Year. I would like them, he assured me. Great. As long as they don’t distract me from training, I thought to myself. I had never felt more distant from falling in love. I was a man on a mission. Everest was only two months away. Falling in love was way off my radar. One of Sam’s friends was this young girl called Shara. As gentle as a lamb, beautiful and funny--and she seemed to look at me so warmly. There was something about this girl. She just seemed to shine in all she did. And I was totally smitten, at once. All I seemed to want to do was hang out with her, drink tea, chat, and go for nice walks. I tried to fight the feeling by loading up my backpack with rocks and heavy books, then going off climbing on my own. But all I could think about was this beautiful blond girl who laughed in the most adorable way at how ridiculous it was to carry Shakespeare up a mountain. I could sense already that this was going to be a massive distraction, but somehow, at the same time, nothing else seemed to matter. I found myself wanting to be with this girl all the time.

his strength had shot past Khalik’s, much to the prince’s horror. “This is it…” Khalik sat on the floor of the gymnasium with his head cupped in both hands. Alex had just pressed four hundred and fifteen pounds. “The natural order of the universe is undone. Up is down. Red is blue. Cats are hyenas, worms are dragons… This is the end.” “It’s not the end, buddy.” Thundar patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t take it so hard. Third place in the cabal ain’t too bad. I mean, Alex was in third place a coupla days ago, and now look at him!” The minotaur burst out laughing while Khalik slowly looked up. Thundar’s glee faded. The look on the prince’s face was flat, like he was seeing a dead body. “Wh-what is it?” The minotaur’s eyes darted back and forth. “You’re looking at me like I was in my coffin or something.” “Mark my words, Thundar, son of Gulbiff,” Khalik pronounced like he was an oracle predicting the very doom of the world. “What has happened to me can happen to you.” The minotaur glanced at Alex who’d sprung up from the weight bench, stretched his chest, and was scurrying over to the kettlebell stand like an excited child. There was indistinct muttering coming from his mouth, and a wild look in his eyes as his biceps flexed when he rubbed his hands together. Thundar looked at those thick arms. “Humans can’t get that strong… can they? Not without life enforcement or some crazy magic or something, right?” Khalik glanced at Alex, who was swinging a massive iron kettlebell like he could pitch it clear across the room. “Does he look crazy to you?” “Yes,” Thundar said without hesitation. “Is he using magic to make himself stronger?” “I-in a way.” Khalik grinned evilly. “Then prepare yourself, because soon, it will happeeeeeen to yoooouuuu—Argh!” Thundar pushed the prince over.

The first buddy pair enters the deep end of the pool and begins buddy breathing. The games begin when, like a hungry shark, an instructor menacingly stalks the two trainees. Suddenly, the instructor darts forward, grabs the snorkel, and tosses it about ten feet away where it slowly sinks to the bottom. It is the duty of the last person to have taken a breath, to retrieve the snorkel. As the swimmer dives ten feet deep to recover the snorkel, his buddy floats motionless, his face underwater, holding his breath, patiently conserving oxygen. The swimmer returns with the snorkel and hands it to his buddy, but before his teammate can grab it and breathe, the instructor sadistically snatches the snorkel and again tosses it away. The swimmer, still holding his breath, dives to get the snorkel, but the instructor grabs his facemask and floods it with pool water. The swimmer has a choice. He can clear his mask of water, by blowing valuable air into it through his nose, or he can continue to swim with his mask full of water blurring his vision. The swimmer makes the right decision and retrieves the snorkel. All this time both trainees are holding their breath, battling the urge to surface and suck in a lung full of sweet fresh air. With lungs burning and vision dimming, the swimmer hands the snorkel to his buddy. After taking only two breaths, his buddy returns the snorkel and, finally the instructor allows the swimmer to breathe his two breaths. While the trainees try to breathe, instructors splash water into foam around them while screaming insults. Despite the distractions, the snorkel travels back and forth between the trainees until once again, an instructor snatches it, tosses it across the pool, and floods both students’ masks. This harassment continues until the instructor is satisfied with the trainees’ performance.

You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. Wherever you have turned, James, in your short time on this earth, you have been told where you could go and what you could do (and how you could do it) and where you could live and whom you could marry. I know your countrymen do not agree with me about this, and I hear them saying, “You exaggerate.” They do not know Harlem, and I do. So do you. Take no one’s word for anything, including mine—but trust your experience. Know whence you came. If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go. The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear. Please try to be clear, dear James, through the storm which rages about your youthful head today, about the reality which lies behind the words acceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.

The next day’s call would be vital. Then at 12:02 P.M., the radio came to life. “Bear at camp two, it’s Neil. All okay?” I heard the voice loud and clear. “Hungry for news,” I replied, smiling. He knew exactly what I meant. “Now listen, I’ve got a forecast and an e-mail that’s come through for you from your family. Do you want to hear the good news or the bad news first?” “Go on, then, let’s get the bad news over with,” I replied. “Well, the weather’s still lousy. The typhoon is now on the move again, and heading this way. If it’s still on course tomorrow you’ve got to get down, and fast. Sorry.” “And the good news?” I asked hopefully. “Your mother sent a message via the weather guys. She says all the animals at home are well.” Click. “Well, go on, that can’t be it. What else?” “Well, they think you’re still at base camp. Probably best that way. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.” “Thanks, buddy. Oh, and pray for change. It will be our last chance.” “Roger that, Bear. Don’t start talking to yourself. Out.” I had another twenty-four hours to wait. It was hell. Knowingly feeling my body get weaker and weaker in the vain hope of a shot at the top. I was beginning to doubt both myself and my decision to stay so high. I crept outside long before dawn. It was 4:30 A.M. I sat huddled, waiting for the sun to rise while sitting in the porch of my tent. My mind wandered to being up there--up higher on this unforgiving mountain of attrition. Would I ever get a shot at climbing in that deathly land above camp three? By 10:00 A.M. I was ready on the radio. This time, though, they called early. “Bear, your God is shining on you. It’s come!” Henry’s voice was excited. “The cyclone has spun off to the east. We’ve got a break. A small break. They say the jet-stream winds are lifting again in two days. How do you think you feel? Do you have any strength left?” “We’re rocking, yeah, good, I mean fine. I can’t believe it.” I leapt to my feet, tripped over the tent’s guy ropes, and let out a squeal of sheer joy. These last five days had been the longest of my life.

One night, Kevin and I were at a pool hall where we saw a guy playing pool by himself; this guy looked like a hustler. He asked me if I wanted to play for twenty dollars. “I’ll tell you what,” I told him. “You can play my buddy Kevin. If you win two out of three games, I’ll give you twenty dollars. If he wins, you have to leave with us and go to a Bible study.” The guy looked at me like I was nuts. He walked around the pool table a few times, pondering my offer. I took a twenty-dollar bill out and placed it on the table. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.” What he didn’t know was that Kevin is quite the player and that I don’t make bets with eternal consequences on the line unless I know we’re going to win! Of course, my buddy Kevin beat him. In fact, Kevin broke and ran the table in two straight games. The other guy never even took a shot! To my surprise, the guy followed through on his bet, although he didn’t seem too happy about it. As we walked to my truck to leave, he threw a full can of beer across the road and declared he was ready for a change in his life anyway. I thought that was a powerful statement since he didn’t even know what we were going to share with him. He knew how we rolled, despite our presence in such a rugged place. We studied the Bible with him for several hours and baptized him the same night. What I didn’t know was that the guy was sentenced to prison for an earlier crime the very next day! I wouldn’t see him again until he showed up unannounced with his Bible in hand at my house on Christmas Day a couple of years later. “Hey, I just got out of jail,” he told me. “Did they let you out or did you escape?” I asked him. “I was released,” he said. He then tearfully thanked me for sharing with him and let me know that was the best thing that could have happened to him before the two years of prison. Obviously, neither one of us believed our encounter had been an accident. He came to our church a couple of times over the next few months, and I continued to study with him. After a while, though, he quit coming around and I lost track of him.

… The frayed and gritty edges of everyone’s world were being worried away by neighbors you’d never noticed until the air spilled over with the tragedy of their loss. The war had taken them or their children; killed them, lost them, torn off body parts, shipped them back brain-fried…. … Tales fell from hearts in heavy, wet tones of grief and confusion…. … Even when rare moments of relative calm and clarity crept briefly through our days, they crawled in with head hanging through that most familiar of all tunnels, our sense of loss. Each new friend seemed only to step in and announce himself with his last breath. Why hadn’t we loved him earlier when there had been more time? That overriding sense of loss was the dismal cloud through which you viewed the world. Dreading life’s relentless advance, but knowing your locks could never keep it out…. … As the late 60’s gave in and died, and I trudged through my first year as an art student in college, even the old folks were growing up. Their World War II glories clouded over. Someone had shot the president, his brother, and a great civil rights leader, dragging us all out of our warm, snuggly innocence. People seemed infested by life, burdened by the stifling weight of it, until we could only force shallow, labored breaths. Each new day was just an old one playing through again, a dust-laden August, a storm always riding right on top of you that never quite cut loose. It settled into your joints until they grew achy, too heavy to lift; tarring all hearts with a dark, heavy plaque. Days stuck together as walking and breathing grew tedious. Until even my bubbly sister couldn’t offer up a smile without a shadow lurking inside it. We trudged through life as our mighty nation killed our sons and broke our buddies, defending itself from skinny barefoot farmers with sticks, in rice swamps somewhere on the other side of existence, where you couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad. Some lost tiny nowhere that hadn’t even existed when you’d been a kid; when the world had been innocent and untainted. Back when Father Knew Best, Beaver’s mom fed his dad all the answers, and Annie Oakley never had to shoot to kill…. - From “Entertaining Naked People

The first time he’d cut off ears because he was there and it was being done, but that was it. He wasn’t one of those who once they were in all that lawlessness couldn’t wait to get going, the ones who weren’t too well put together or were pretty aggressive to start off with and only needed the slightest opportunity to go ape-shit. One guy in his unit, guy they called Big Man, he wasn’t there one or two days when he’d slashed some pregnant woman’s belly open. Farley was himself only beginning to get good at it at the end of his first tour. But the second time, in this unit where there are a lot of other guys who’d also come back and who hadn’t come back just to kill time or to make a couple extra bucks, this second time, in with these guys who are always looking to be put out in front, ape-shit guys who recognize the horror but know it is the very best moment of their lives, he is ape-shit too. In a firefight, running from danger, blasting with guns, you can’t not be frightened, but you can go berserk and get the rush, and so the second time he goes berserk. The second time he fucking wreaks havoc. Living right out there on the edge, full throttle, the excitement and the fear, and there’s nothing in civilian life that can match it. Door gunning. They’re losing helicopters and they need door gunners. They ask at some point for door gunners and he jumps at it, he volunteers. Up there above the action, and everything looks small from above, and he just guns down huge. Whatever moves. Death and destruction, that is what door gunning is all about. With the added attraction that you don’t have to be down in the jungle the whole time. But then he comes home and it’s not better than the first time, it’s worse. Not like the guys in World War II: they had the ship, they got to relax, someone took care of them, asked them how they were. There’s no transition. One day he’s door gunning in Vietnam, seeing choppers explode, in midair seeing his buddies explode, down so low he smells skin cooking, hears the cries, sees whole villages going up in flames, and the next day he’s back in the Berkshires. And now he really doesn’t belong, and, besides, he’s got fears now about things going over his head. He doesn’t want to be around other people, he can’t laugh or joke, he feels that he is no longer a part of their world, that he has seen and done things so outside what these people know about that he cannot connect to them and they cannot connect to him. They told him he could go home? How could he go home?

In a matter of sixty short minutes, that thing could whisk Neil away to civilization, I thought. Hmm. My goodness, that was a beautiful prospect. Somehow I had to get on that chopper with him. I packed in thirty seconds flat, everything from the past three months. I taped a white cross onto my sleeve, and raced out to where Neil was sat waiting. One chance. What the heck. Neil shook his head at me, smiling. “God, you push it, Bear, don’t you?” he shouted over the noise of the rotors. “You’re going to need a decent medic on the flight,” I replied, with a smile. “And I’m your man.” (There was at least some element of truth in this: I was a medic and I was his buddy--and yes, he did need help. But essentially I was trying to pull a bit of a fast one.) The pilot shouted that two people would be too heavy. “I have to accompany him at all times,” I shouted back over the engine noise. “His feet might fall off at any moment,” I added quietly. The pilot looked back at me, then at the white cross on my sleeve. He agreed to drop Neil somewhere down at a lower altitude, and then come back for me. “Perfect. Go. I’ll be here.” I shook his hand firmly. Let’s just get this done before anyone thinks too much about it, I mumbled to myself. And with that the pilot took off and disappeared from view. Mick and Henry were laughing. “If you pull this one off, Bear, I will eat my socks. You just love to push it, don’t you?” Mick said, smiling. “Yep, good try, but you aren’t going to see him again, I guarantee you,” Henry added. Thanks to the pilot’s big balls, he was wrong. The heli returned empty, I leapt aboard, and with the rotors whirring at full power to get some grip in the thin air, the bird slowly lifted into the air. The stall warning light kept buzzing away as we fought against gravity, but then the nose dipped and soon we were skimming over the rocks, away from base camp and down the glacier. I was out of there--and Mick was busy taking his socks off. As we descended, I spotted, far beneath us, this lone figure sat on a rock in the middle of a giant boulder field. Neil’s two white “beacons” shining bright. I love it. I smiled. We picked Neil up, and in an instant we were flying together through the huge Himalayan valleys like an eagle freed. Neil and I sat back in the helicopter, faces pressed against the glass, and watched our life for the past three months become a shimmer in the distance. The great mountain faded into a haze, hidden from sight. I leaned against Neil’s shoulder and closed my eyes. Everest was gone.

I made a long speech in bad French in which I admitted that I was no critic, that I was always passionate and prejudiced, that I had no reverence for anything except what I liked. I told them that I was an ignoramus, which they tried to deny vigorously. I saidl would rather tell them stories. I began—about a bum who had tried to hit me up for a dime one evening as I was walking towards the Brooklyn Bridge. I explained how I had said No to the man automatically and then, after I had walked a few yards it suddenly came to me that a man had asked me for something and I ran back and spoke to him. But instead of giving him a dime or a quarter, which I could easily have done, I told him that I was broke, that I had wanted to let him know that, that was all. And the man had said to me—"do you mean that, buddy? Why, if that's the way it is, I'll be glad to give you a dime myself." And I let him give it to me, and I thanked him warmly, and walked off. They thought it a very interesting story. So that's how it was in America? Strange country ... anything could happen there. "Yes," I said, "a very strange country," and I thought to myself that it was wonderful not to be there any more and God willing I'd never return to it. "And what is it about Greece that makes you like it so much?" asked someone. I smiled. "The light and the poverty," I said. "You're a romantic," said the man. "Yes," I said, "I'm crazy enough to believe that the happiest man on earth is the man with the fewest needs. And I also believe that if you have light, such as you have here, all ugliness is obliterated. Since I've come to your country I know that light is holy: Greece is a holy land to me." "But have you seen how poor the people are, how wretchedly they live?" "I've seen worse wretchedness in America," I said. "Poverty alone doesn't make people wretched." "You can say that because you have sufficient …." "I can say it because I've been poor all my life," I retorted. "I'm poor now," I added. "I have just'enough to get back to Athens. When I get to Athens I'll have to think how to get more. It isn't money that sustains me—it's the faith I have in myself, in my own powers. In spirit I am a millionaire—maybe that's the best thing about America, that you believe you'll rise again." "Yes, yes," said Tsoutsou, clapping his hands, "that's the wonderful thing about America: you don't know what defeat is." He filled the glasses again and rose to make a toast "To America!" he said, "long may it live!" "To Henry Miller!" said another, "because he believes in himself.

Davy, ever the daring one, bought a jumbo peppermint milk shake and got fifty cents back. He talked me out of getting plain vanilla. “You can get plain vanilla anytime!” he said. “Try…” He scanned the chalkboard that listed all the flavors. “Try peanut butter!” I did. I have never been sorry, because it was the best milk shake I ever tasted, like a melted and frozen Reese’s cup. And then it happened. We were walking across the parking lot, under the burning sun, with our shakes freezing our hands in the big white paper cups that had Spinnin’ Wheel in red across the sides. A sound began: music, first from a few car radios and then others as teenaged fingers turned the dial to that station. The volume dials were cranked up, and the music flooded out from the tinny speakers into the bright summer air. In a few seconds the same song was being played from every radio on the lot, and as it played, some of the car engines started and revved up and young laughter flew like sparks. I stopped. Just couldn’t walk anymore. That music was unlike anything I’d ever heard: guys’ voices, intertwining, breaking apart, merging again in fantastic, otherworldly harmony. The voices soared up and up like happy birds, and underneath the harmony was a driving drumbeat and a twanging, gritty guitar that made cold chills skitter up and down my sunburned back. “What’s that, Davy?” I said. “What’s that song?” …Round…round…get around…wha wha wha-oooooo… “What’s that song?” I asked him, close to panic that I might never know. “Haven’t you heard that yet? All the high-school guys are singin’ it.” …Gettin’ bugged drivin’ up and down the same ol’ strip…I gotta find a new place where the kids are hip… “What’s the name of it?” I demanded, standing at the center of ecstasy. “It’s on the radio all the time. It’s called—” Right then the high-school kids in the lot started singing along with the music, some of them rocking their cars back and forth, and I stood with a peanut butter milk shake in my hand and the sun on my face and the clean chlorine smell of the swimming pool coming to me from across the street. “—by the Beach Boys,” Davy Ray finished. “What?” “The Beach Boys. That’s who’s singin’ it.” “Man!” I said. “That sounds…that sounds…” What would describe it? What word in the English language would speak of youth and hope and freedom and desire, of sweet wanderlust and burning blood? What word describes the brotherhood of buddies, and the feeling that as long as the music plays, you are part of that tough, rambling breed who will inherit the earth? “Cool,” Davy Ray supplied. It would have to do. …Yeah the bad guys know us and they leave us alone…I get arounnnnddddd… I was amazed. I was transported. Those soaring voices lifted me off the hot pavement, and I flew with them to a land unknown. I had never been to the beach before. I’d never seen the ocean, except for pictures in magazines and on TV and movies. The Beach Boys. Those harmonies thrilled my soul, and for a moment I wore a letter jacket and owned a red hotrod and had beautiful blondes begging for my attention and I got around.

joke around—nothing serious—as I work to get my leg back to where it was. Two weeks later, I’m in an ankle-to-hip leg brace and hobbling around on crutches. The brace can’t come off for another six weeks, so my parents lend me their townhouse in New York City and Lucien hires me an assistant to help me out around the house. Some guy named Trevor. He’s okay, but I don’t give him much to do. I want to regain my independence as fast as I can and get back out there for Planet X. Yuri, my editor, is griping that he needs me back and I’m more than happy to oblige. But I still need to recuperate, and I’m bored as hell cooped up in the townhouse. Some buddies of mine from PX stop by and we head out to a brunch place on Amsterdam Street my assistant sometimes orders from. Deacon, Logan, Polly, Jonesy and I take a table in Annabelle’s Bistro, and settle in for a good two hours, running our waitress ragged. She’s a cute little brunette doing her best to stay cheerful for us while we give her a hard time with endless coffee refills, loud laughter, swearing, and general obnoxiousness. Her nametag says Charlotte, and Deacon calls her “Sweet Charlotte” and ogles and teases her, sometimes inappropriately. She has pretty eyes, I muse, but otherwise pay her no mind. I have my leg up on a chair in the corner, leaning back, as if I haven’t a care in the world. And I don’t. I’m going to make a full recovery and pick up my life right where I left off. Finally, a manager with a severe hairdo and too much makeup, politely, yet pointedly, inquires if there’s anything else we need, and we take the hint. We gather our shit and Deacon picks up the tab. We file out, through the maze of tables, and I’m last, hobbling slowly on crutches. I’m halfway out when I realize I left my Yankees baseball cap on the table. I return to get it and find the waitress staring at the check with tears in her eyes. She snaps the black leather book shut when she sees me and hurriedly turns away. “Forget something?” she asks with false cheer and a shaky smile. “My hat,” I say. She’s short and I’m tall. I tower over her. “Did Deacon leave a shitty tip? He does that.” “Oh no, no, I mean…it’s fine,” she says, turning away to wipe her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I just…um, kind of a rough month. You know how it is.” She glances me up and down in my expensive jeans and designer shirt. “Or maybe you don’t.” The waitress realizes what she said, and another round of apologies bursts out of her as she begins stacking our dirty dishes. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Really. I have this bad habit…blurting. I don’t know why I said that. Anyway, um…” I laugh, and fish into my back pocket for my wallet. “Don’t worry about it. And take this. For your trouble.” I offer her forty dollars and her eyes widen. Up close, her eyes are even prettier—large and luminous, but sad too. A blush turns her skin scarlet “Oh, no, I couldn’t. No, please. It’s fine, really.” She bustles even faster now, not looking at me. I shrug and drop the twenties on the table. “I hope your month improves.” She stops and stares at the money, at war with herself. “Okay. Thank you,” she says finally, her voice cracking. She takes the money and stuffs it into her apron. I feel sorta bad, poor girl. “Have a nice day, Charlotte,” I say, and start to hobble away. She calls after me, “I hope your leg gets better soon.” That was big of her, considering what ginormous bastards we’d been to her all morning. Or maybe she’s just doing her job. I wave a hand to her without looking back, and leave Annabelle’s. Time heals me. I go back to work. To Planet X. To the world and all its thrills and beauty. I don’t go back to my parents’ townhouse; hell I’m hardly in NYC anymore. I don’t go back to Annabelle’s and I never see—or think about—that cute waitress with the sad eyes ever again. “Fucking hell,” I whisper as the machine reads the last line of

Barack had arrived in my life a wholly formed person. From our very first conversation, he’d shown me that he wasn’t self-conscious about expressing fear or weakness and that he valued being truthful. At work, I’d witnessed his humility and willingness to sacrifice his own needs and wants for a bigger purpose. And now in Hawaii, I could see his character reflected in other small ways. His long-lasting friendships with his high school buddies showed his consistency in relationships. In his devotion to his strong-willed mother, I saw a deep respect for women and their independence. Without needing to discuss it outright, I knew he could handle a partner who had her own passions and voice. These were things you couldn’t teach in a relationship, things that not even love could really build or change. In opening up his world to me, Barack was showing me everything I’d ever need to know about the kind of life partner he’d be.

I kick the backs of seats when I don’t get the life I need. Do not block the aisles if I experience absolution. There should be enough room to dance in it. A room the size of all the wisdom I have so far gathered up  but have not yet consistently handled well.

500+ contacts, 100+ friends..! 30+ close friends..! But, still, I dial, Those 9 numbers..! When I need to, Share my heart..! When I need to, See my besties...!

Pvt. David Webster of the 101st spoke directly to it. On February 15, a buddy had died a particularly gruesome death. Webster wrote, “He wasn’t twenty years old. He hadn’t begun to live. Shrieking and moaning, he gave up his life on a stretcher. Back in America the standard of living continued to rise. Back in America the race tracks were booming, the night clubs were making record profits , Miami Beach was so crowded you couldn’t get a room anywhere. Few people seemed to care. Hell, this was a boom, this was prosperity , this was the way to fight a war. We wondered if the people would ever know what it cost the soldiers in terror, bloodshed, and hideous, agonizing deaths to win the war.” 48

don’t quit, buddy; life is hard sometimes, but if you stay with it and keep moving forward, you’ll prevail .

Have you ever looked at a painting or heard a song or just been somewhere beautiful--maybe an old creaky house or a sunlit field or in front of a wild oak tree, just as the moon was rising--and felt like, yes, this is me this is me exactly, I could be looking in a mirror of my dreams? Have you ever felt anything like that at all in your life? If not, well, take it from old Buddy here--you ain't been looking hard enough. It's out there for you, the feeling of recognizing yourself in something else, and when you find it, oh it will feel so good deep inside of you. It'll change you forever.

Our quality of life has skyrocketed and our once staunch London loyalism has been replaced by an almost embarrassing enthusiasm for everything “Dansk.” The greatest change has been the shift in work–life balance. Whereas previously we might snatch dinner once Duncan escaped from work at around nine, he now leaves his desk at five. Work later than 5.30, and the office is a morgue. Work at the weekend, and the Danes think you are mad. The idea is that families have time to play and eat together at the end of the day, every day. And it works. Duncan bathes and puts our 14-month-old daughter Liv to bed most nights. They are best buddies, as opposed to strangers who try to reacquaint at the weekend. Cathy Strongman, The Guardian

World Integration Day (9th October Sonnet) When I am gone, Celebrate not October 9th, as the day Naskar was born. Celebrate it if you so desire, as the World Day of Integration. Tie a bracelet of assimilation, amongst buddies across culture. Pledge to have each other's back, even if deemed tradition's traitor. Mark you, one day is not enough, to live as an integration advocate. But the journey of a million miles, must begin with one bold step. Live each day of your life, as proof of love and oneness. Cause inclusion defying prejudice, You are the cure for divisiveness.

School friends are like the bijou of friends. School friends were and are the sorcerers of real happiness. Happiness that once thrived through us, by virtue of the fact that we were untouched by the ways of the world. And happiness that comes through them even today, however sporadic, by the virtue of the fact that the pure and unadulterated impressions of buddy-love that were left on us then, could not be eroded by time or too much awareness or too many new friends.

If you kill yourself, then every minute of your life has been wasted.” “I don’t know how,” he said. “How to live anymore.” “When I got stuck or confused, you used to say, ‘We'll figure it out.’ I love you, Daddy. My mom did, too, and Gramma. I hate to admit it, but Trish does, your buddies do. With so many people loving you, I know we'll figure it out.

Now, kids, this is another good time to remind you that wine is for grown-ups! It tastes horrible and could seriously mess up your life. Don’t even be tempted until you’re at least forty years old! Aw, but Percy, you whine (get it, whine?), it sounds like the satyrs had so much fun drinking wine! It might sound that way, kids. But satyrs can be pretty stupid. (Again, no offense to my buddy Grover.) You

You need a bib, buddy.” I opened the patio door, shooed him out, and after wiping up the mess with a paper towel, cracked open a beer while I made sure he did his business. After his success, I nodded a good boy and left Gus outside to enjoy the outdoors while I headed upstairs to change clothes and shower.

So you do think I’m racist,” Buddy Lee said. “I think maybe for the first time in your life you’re seeing what the world looks like for people that don’t look like you. I mean you still ignorant as hell, but you learning. But then, so am I. We both learning. We both done said and did shit that we wish we could take back. I think if you figure out at one point in your life you was a terrible person, you can start getting better. Start treating people better. Like as long as you wouldn’t laugh at that joke now, I think you on the right road. Same as if the next time I get offered a drink I don’t go the hell off and just walk away, instead of jacking somebody up because they had the nerve to think I was in a gay bar to meet somebody,” Ike said. He held his shot glass up and motioned for the bartender. Buddy Lee downed his shot, too. He gasped as he sat the glass down on the bar. “Goddamn that shit will take the paint off a ball hitch. I guess you’re right. Feels like we waited pretty late in the day to start learning shit,” Buddy Lee said. The bartender brought them two more shots. “Day ain’t over yet,” Ike said.

So how is this different from bludgeoning all your friends to death with your sad, obsessive patter? Glad you asked! Enlisting a Breakup Buddy is an act of taking control. Instead of allowing your need to vent, complain, and wallow seep into every area of your life and every relationship you have (which will only keep you stuck and miserable), you are limiting yourself to one friend who agrees to help—thus ensuring that you are supported but don't subject others to an endless stream of whining. Having an established agreement also takes away any guilt you may feel about calling that friend for the third time that day. You asked them to stick with you for sixty days—they accepted. They want to be there. So you can pick up the phone when you need to without feeling ashamed or risking your friendships.

Note to the Breakup Buddy So a friend has asked you to be their Breakup Buddy. That's awesome! And you should consider it an honor because basically they've said, “My life is falling to pieces and you are the one person I can turn to.” That's got to feel great because really, isn't that what we were put here on this planet to do anyway—help one another? But now you are thinking, “Hmmm. This is a big responsibility. What am I supposed to do? What if I'm not qualified to be a Breakup Buddy?” Listen, all you need to be qualified is a pair of ears and some patience. That's it. But we do have a list of guidelines and thoughts for you to consider during your two months of servitude. 1. It is NOT your job to fix this person. They'll have to do that on their own. What you can do is listen to them, be honest with them and guide them toward making smart choices .. . like not calling. 2. It's okay to set limits. You have a life too and you don't want to be taken advantage of. If one hour on the phone is all you can do, then that's cool. If you can't talk at work—fine. Just let them know when you are available and what to do in case of emergency meltdowns. 3. Make it fun. It's okay to let them sob into your sweater for a while, but then suggest a movie or a concert or maybe just a hike. In fact, say, “Let's walk while we talk.” Try not to let them get too sedentary. Your job and their recovery will be much easier if you're out in the world where life's distractions can prove that even the most heartbroken of us can be amused by small dogs, handsome pedestrians, and a great window display. 4. Patience. Patience. Patience. It may take a while for your buddy to get a handle on her new single reality. That's okay. As long as they are doing it in the safe company of you, their Breakup Buddy, and not their ex. 5. Share the wealth. Your experiences, strength, and hope will help guide them out of the darkness and into the light. You may have been through something similar, so share your story and the things you did that helped you get through it. Hearing it from someone else is more comforting than you can imagine. 6. You're a good friend for doing this.

We suggest finding a “mindfulness buddy” and committing to a 15-minute conversation every week, covering at least these two topics: a. How am I doing with my commitment to my practice? b. What has arisen in my life that relates to my practice? We also suggest ending the conversation with the question, “How did this conversation go?” We instituted this in our mindfulness-based emotional intelligence program (Search Inside Yourself) and found it very effective. 2.

School friends are like the bijou of friends. School friends were and are the sorcerers of real happiness. Happiness that once thrived through us, by virtue of the fact that we were untouched by the ways of the world. And happiness that comes through them even today, however sporadic, by the virtue of the fact that the pure and unadulterated impressions of buddy-love that were left on us then, could not be eroded by time or too much awareness or too many new friends.

CAMPBELL CHANGED MY PERSPECTIVE ON LIFE FROM that of a holding room where you wait to meet Christ later to a living room in which to commune with Christ’s consciousness here and now. It’s not just the personal-relationship “Buddy Jesus” I was taught in Sunday school, the Divine Pal we keep in our pockets, sticking His head out of our handbags like a purse dog, ready to offer help finding parking or protection from the flu that’s been going around. It’s an invitation you extend for His essence to pass through you. Active and empowering, not just “please protect me,” but transform me. Merge with me. Help me kill this overactive, critical, limiting brain of mine. Help me escape the dungeons of cultural expectation, familial expectation, all the I shoulds and I shouldn’ts, I cans and I can’ts. Help me take the small person inside me and kick his ass, leave him for dead, and resurrect to my full, connected, light-filled potential. The story is you being reborn, you getting saved from your basic, boring, limited, mundane, same-story-at-every-party, same-vacation-every-year, same-restaurant-every-birthday, same-river-of-negative-thoughts self-loathing and cruel humanity and awakening to who you really are. Go and do likewise.

Louisa grabs her purse. “He ate chicken nuggets and some applesauce. Did you already eat dinner, or do you want me to make you a sandwich before I leave?” For a second, I hear another voice asking me if I want a sandwich. It makes something in me ache. I don’t know why I’m not over Charlie ghosting me. It’s fucked up, but I miss her more than Dakota. Once I realized what my ex had been doing behind my back, she was dead to me. Charlotte, though… It’s weird as hell not having her in my life anymore. And as much as I thanked her for taking care of Asher, I’m seeing now that I didn’t appreciate how she took care of me too. Always feeding me. Always helping me if I needed a study buddy. Always knowing how to cheer me up after Dakota reamed me out for something stupid. Just being an amazing friend. Did I run Charlie off? Did I do something to hurt her? Was Dakota lying about why her sister left? When I’m not pissed about her leaving, I’m still tormented. It keeps me

Growing up, there were two small letters that sent chills down my spine: PE. Physical Education class was the bane of my awkward, prepubescent existence. The moment I walked into the musky locker room to change, my heart would start to pound. As I surreptitiously tried to change without flashing an inch of skin (sometimes even wearing a second bra as insurance) I would desperately search for any excuse to escape the daily drills and dodgeball games. Paper cut? Haircut? Apocalypse? I tried them all. Looking back, I realize I liked playing outside. What I really dreaded was the moment my coach said, “Line up, let’s pick teams!” Inevitably, the two jockiest kids were assigned as team captains, and then I spent an agonizing few minutes watching them go through my entire class before picking me or my fellow nonathletically inclined buddy, Smelly Matthew. Then one day, my elementary school social life changed. Our coach decided to allow the new girl to be team captain. She had just transferred from a nearby school and didn’t know anyone. In one of the greatest moments in PE history, she picked me first! I was so excited that I ran over to her and then held her hand while she picked the rest of our team. I think we lost in soccer that day, but I was on top of the world. After the game I asked her why she picked me. And then she said one of the greatest things anyone has ever said to me, “I wanted to get to know you.

relationship. From the little I knew of her, she appeared to enjoy a spontaneous, carefree lifestyle and wasn’t searching for anything that might upset the apple cart. Not the worst woman to date now and then. No expectations and no commitments. After turning down a beer with Rue, I said good night to him, explaining that the day of interrogations had given me a headache. “You sure?” “Yeah. I’ll catch you in the morning. How about tomorrow night if you don’t have anything else going on?” “That sounds good. Then I’ll see you in the morning, buddy.” I climbed into my Corvette and headed south on Habersham. I felt like a jerk for lying to my partner and best friend, but I didn’t want to make a big deal out of nothing. It was just a light dinner and drinks.

Bobby went down in a tub of Dom Pérignon. Bobby Keys, so the story goes, is the only man who knows how many bottles of it it takes to fill a bath, because that’s what he was floating in. This was just before the second-to-last gig on the ’73 European tour, in Belgium. No sign of Bobby at the band assembly that day, and finally I was asked if I knew where my buddy was—there had been no reply from his hotel room. So I went to his room and said, Bob, we gotta go, we gotta go right now. He’s got a cigar, bathtub full of champagne and this French chick in with him. And he said, fuck off. So be it. Great image and everything like that, but you might regret it, Bob. The accountant informed Bobby afterwards that he had earned no money at all on the tour as a result of that bathtub; in fact he owed. And it took me ten goddamn years or more to get him back in the band, because Mick was implacable, and rightly so. And Mick can be merciless in that way. I couldn’t answer for Bobby. All I could do was help him get clean, and I did.

Ironically,” he said, “it all proves the ol’ saying, ‘life’s a circle.’ ‘Cause one of my other assigned jobs in the early days, was to help clean the number four gun turret. And wouldn’t ‘ya know… that’s exactly where I’ll be interred someday, back on my ship with my buddies after I pass from this life to the next.

Philosophers are prone to overreach. Eager for profundity, they run the risk of intellectual hallucination; sometimes the shimmering light is not an oasis but your mind’s eye playing tricks on you, and sometimes the simplest explanation is the best. This is why Socrates believed philosophy is best practiced in pairs. The buddy system. You need someone else, another mind, to keep you on track.

Prayer: Dear heavenly Father, I ask Your forgiveness in approaching You with a casual and irreverent attitude. I’ve lost sight of who You are and have become too familiar with You. I repent and will no longer see You as a “buddy” but will revere you as the holy God that You are. Thank You for being so kind and merciful and for forgiving me of my irreverence. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.

My Life with the Eskimo,

[Verse] In this small-town life, you’ll learn a thing or two, Folks talkin' ‘bout the things they think they knew, Down at the diner, where rumors turn the wheel, It’s a rough kinda love that takes time to heal. [Verse 2] You’ll meet folks who smile, but they’re twistin' every knife, There’s always someone lookin' to stir up strife, They’ll keep you guessin', with a heart so untrue, But then there’s someone who sees the real you. [Chorus] There will always be someone, tryin' to bring you down, Gossip rings loud in this two-horse town, But the one who matters, won't make you feel alone, It's the love that, through it all, stands on its own. [Verse 3] In the fields where the golden grain meets the sky, There’s a truth you can feel, 'neath that endless eye, It’s the hand that you hold when the storms roll through, In the quiet of the night, you’ll know they’re true. [Verse 4] There are days, oh buddy, when you’ll feel life's weight, Every hurtful whisper will try to seal your fate, But remember who stood by you without shame, They’re the ones who deserve to share your name. [Chorus] There will always be someone, tryin' to bring you down, Gossip rings loud in this two-horse town, But the one who matters, won't make you feel alone, It's the love that, through it all, stands on its own.

Someone Who Stands By You [Verse] In this small-town life, you’ll learn a thing or two, Folks talkin' ‘bout the things they think they knew, Down at the diner, where rumors turn the wheel, It’s a rough kinda love that takes time to heal. [Verse 2] You’ll meet folks who smile, but they’re twistin' every knife, There’s always someone lookin' to stir up strife, They’ll keep you guessin', with a heart so untrue, But then there’s someone who sees the real you. [Chorus] There will always be someone, tryin' to bring you down, Gossip rings loud in this two-horse town, But the one who matters, won't make you feel alone, It's the love that, through it all, stands on its own. [Verse 3] In the fields where the golden grain meets the sky, There’s a truth you can feel, 'neath that endless eye, It’s the hand that you hold when the storms roll through, In the quiet of the night, you’ll know they’re true. [Verse 4] There are days, oh buddy, when you’ll feel life's weight, Every hurtful whisper will try to seal your fate, But remember who stood by you without shame, They’re the ones who deserve to share your name. [Chorus] There will always be someone, tryin' to bring you down, Gossip rings loud in this two-horse town, But the one who matters, won't make you feel alone, It's the love that, through it all, stands on its own.

Beakwing turned to him. “Greetings, Master’s Buddy, Wolverine, Mistress’s Lovey Cuddle Muffin, Woofy.” The griffin bowed. “And worthy foe. My duties are to Master Nate, Mistress Milia, and to the strengthening of this land. When the master needs me, I will be ready. I will be ready before he even steps out here and looks at me. My protection extends to his newest human disciple, Harmony, and to anyone he takes in.” Wolverine howled in approval. “Good. I hope the next disciple our master takes will be as capable as you.” Beakwing laughed. “I don’t deserve such kind words. I must prove myself when the time comes, even for the smallest things Master or Mistress asks of me.” Wolverine nodded. “Naturally, I agree with you. We’ll make them so proud, they’ll shower us with treats and belly rubs.” Beakwing hopped up in excitement, tail wagging. “Belly rubs! I love belly rubs! I love pats too.” “They are the way of life, my friend,” Wolverine said. “But like many golden rewards, they must be earned.” Beakwing bowed. “Thank you for your wisdom, Master’s Buddy, Wolverine, Mistress’s Lovey Cuddle Muffin, Woofy.” Wolverine barked once in approval. “You’re always welcome, new friend. We will defy the heavens in the master and mistress’s names! It is always a pleasure to hear common goals, Disciple Beakwing Wingy. May you earn your title through honor and perseverance!

No one in his family could remember talking about it. Must have been dreadful, they agreed. And, being Walkers, and Bushes, they didn't bring it up. It was only years later, when he got into politics and had to learn to retail bits of his life, that he ever tried to put words around the war. His first attempts, in the sixties, were mostly about the cahm-rah-deree and the spirit of the American Fighting Man. The Vietnam War was an issue then, and Bush was for it. (Most people in Texas were.) He said he learned "a lot about life" from his years in the Navy—but he never said what the lessons were. Later, when peace was in vogue, Bush said the war had "sobered" him with a grave understanding of the cost of conflict—he'd seen his buddies die. The voters could count on him not to send their sons to war, because he knew what it was. Still later, when he turned Presidential prospect, and every bit of his life had to be melted down to the coin of the realm–character–Bush had to essay more thoughts about the war, what it meant to him, how it shaped his soul. But he made an awful hash of it, trying to be jaunty. He told the story of being shot down. Then he added: "Lemme tell ya, that'll make you start to think about the separation of church and state . Finally, in a much-edited transcript of an interview with a minister whom he hired as liaison to the born-again crowd, Bush worked out a statement on faith and the war: something sound, to cover the bases. It wasn't foxhole Christianity, and he couldn't say he saw Jesus on the water—no, it was quieter than that.... But there, on the Finback, he spent his time standing watch on deck in the wee hours, silent, reflective, under the bright stars... "It was wonderful and energizing, a time to talk to God. "One of the things I realized out there all alone was how much family meant to me. Having faced death and been given another chance to live, I could see just how important those values and principles were that my parents had instilled in me, and of course how much I loved Barbara, the girl I knew I would marry…” That was not quite how he was recalled by the men of the Finback. Oh, they liked him: a real funny guy. And they gave him another nickname, Ellie. That was short for Elephant. What they recollected was Bush in the wardroom, tossing his head and emitting on command the roaring trumpeted squeal of the enraged pachyderm; it was the most uncanny imitation of an elephant. Nor were "sobered" or "reflective" words that leapt to Bar's mind when she remembered George at that time. The image she recalled was from their honeymoon, when she and George strolled the promenades, amid the elderly retirees who wintered at that Sea Island resort. All at once, George would scream "AIR RAID! AIR RAID!" and dive into the shrubs, while Bar stood alone and blushing on the path, prey to the pitying glances of the geezers who clucked about "that poor shell-shocked young man." But there was, once, a time when he talked about the war, at night, at home, to one friend, between campaigns, when he didn't have to cover any bases at all. "You know," he said, "it was the first time in my life I was ever scared. "And then, when they came and pulled me out ..." (Him, Dottie Bush's son, out of a million miles of empty ocean!) "Well." Bush trailed off, pleasantly, just shaking his head.

In Paris, long ago, a French boy my own age, about nineteen, a hustler, whom I had asked to sleep with me, replied, "… par condition." I have ever since retained the sense in which all of life is presented to us "on condition." We slept together many times.

For a while, I decided to worship God. It was a God I arrived at through a method of logical deduction. If there is a God, what would he be like? I asked. He would be a real person in my life, I reasoned, adhering to a literally anthropomorphic view of the sacred. He would be beautiful and I would desire him. Since a friend of mine named Trevor had all those attributes, I concluded that Trev was God. Having settled on him, I then further deduced God's other characteristics from Trevor's behaviour. He was narcissistic, perplexed, rather dispassionate, flawed in various ways, etc. So was God. At night I prayed to him by name. My entreaties seemed about as effective as other people's prayers to their Gods. And with Trevor there was the added advantage that if my prayers failed to reach him, I could always phone.

Everyone loves her shit on Atlantic, and no doubt they’re classics, but when I heard her sing ‘Skylark,’ I told Esther Phillips, my running buddy back then, ‘That girl pissed all over that song.’ It came at a time when we were all looking to cross over by singing standards. I had ‘Sunday Kind of Love’ and ‘Trust in Me,’ and Sam Cooke was doing ‘Tennessee Waltz’ and ‘When I Fall in Love’ at the Copa. We were all trying to be so middle class. It was the beginning of the bougie black thing. I truly believe Aretha had a head start on us since she was the daughter of a rich preacher and grew up bougie. But, hell, the reasons don’t matter. She took ‘Skylark’ to a whole ’nother place. When she goes back and sings the chorus the second time and jumps an octave—I mean, she’s screaming—I had to scratch my head and ask myself, How the fuck did that bitch do that? I remember running into Sarah Vaughan, who always intimidated me. Sarah said, ‘Have you heard of this Aretha Franklin girl?’ I said, ‘You heard her do “Skylark,” didn’t you?’ Sarah said, ‘Yes, I did, and I’m never singing that song again.

How about going after her?” “I tried. She’s gone.” Jack leaned on the bar. “I’m sorry, man. I thought that was going to happen to me with Mel. From the second she hit town, she said she was leaving.” “When did you know? Or think you knew? With Mel?” “Oh, man,” he said, and laughed. “It was real slow. Took me five or ten minutes. It was the jeans. Have you ever noticed how my wife looks in a pair of jeans? Maybe you shouldn’t answer that…” “With me it was a pink dress…” Jack’s eyes widened. “Whoa, damn.” “You shouldn’t give me alcohol,” he said. “Makes me talk.” “Nikki,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. “Yeah, buddy. I saw her. And I think I saw you see her.” He shook his head. “I feel your pain.” “Vanni was furious with me. Paul was sympathetic but pissed. Well,” he amended, “they’re getting over that now. But the girl won’t talk to me. Won’t return calls. I can’t figure out what I did. I was as good to her as I knew how to be.” “Whew, that bites,” Jack said. “But, buddy, that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone out there, just waiting for you to find her. I was forty, man. I thought I was way past having this life. Mel—she makes me feel like a teenager.” “Yeah, maybe it’ll happen. But not while I’m like this. I’m stung. I have to get over this before I can dip into the market again. You know?” “Hang in there, pal. It’s going to be okay.” “Yeah,” he said.

Oh, hell no, you’re not going anywhere,” Jack said. “My sister’s having a baby, her first, and this is the cheering section.” “Wait a minute here,” he said. “I’m not real big on babies. We’ve been over this—I have no idea what to do with them.” “Well, for God’s sake, we’re not going to make you do anything.” Jack laughed. “You know how to eat, raise a glass, smoke a cigar? The delivery team is taking care of the messy stuff.” “Shouldn’t it be real quiet around here? Fewer people?” “We’ll be quiet, we’ll stay out of the way.” Preacher handed Jack a bottle for David. “This guy’s going to break in the new crib. Say good-night, David.” The boy had the bottle in his mouth that fast, leaned his head against Jack’s shoulder sleepily and opened and closed the fingers of one pudgy little hand, holding his bottle with the other. “What if she…” Luke couldn’t go on. “What if she what?” “Screams or something,” he said squeamishly. Jack put his free arm around Luke’s shoulders. “See, you need to be here, buddy. It’s time you learn about the cycle of life. You never know, this could happen to you someday.” “This is not happening to me someday. I’m way past all this.” A few male heads came up. There was some subdued laughter. “Is that so?” Jack said. “Cry me a river, pal, I was over forty when Mel tripped me up. We’re all about the same age around here, except Preacher. He’s still a pup, even though he looks older than the rest of us.” Walt handed Luke a drink. “I was forty-four when Tom was born. I think I’m holding up all right, to tell the truth.” “You’re going to have to come up with a better excuse,” Jack said.

Liz,” Jack said. “Nothing to talk about there.” Now it was Jack’s turn to laugh without humor. “Buddy, on this we’re gonna talk. I know you didn’t take her calls, didn’t return them. I don’t know what’s up with that, but we’re going to be back in town and she works for her aunt Connie every week. You can’t avoid her. She’s scared to death of how you’re going to act toward her.” “She doesn’t have to be scared,” Rick said quietly. Jack sighed. At least that last lacked the edge of hostility. “I’m sure she can’t help it. You’ve been ignoring her. I gotta say, I don’t get that.” “I know you don’t. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to her. I’ll be nice as I can.” “Rick, what the hell’s going on with that?” He took a deep breath. “Jack, it’s going to be all right. Lizzie’s young. Young and beautiful. She’s sweet. And strong. She’ll be fine.” “Something about what you just said sounds real bad.” “Nah, it’ll be okay. Might take a little getting used to, that’s all. She doesn’t need a guy like me weighing her down.” Jack had to concentrate to keep from driving off the road. “What the hell? Is this about the leg?” “It’s not about the leg, but face it, that’s not a great asset. It’s about everything. Ever since Liz ran into me, her life has been messed up. I’m not good for her. She can do a lot better and deserves to.” “She’s

2012 Continuation of Andy’s Reply   My dearest Young, you never fail to amaze me after these many years. You are still the inquisitive young man I’ve come to cherish and love.☺               It wasn’t easy to nurse and care for Albert during his final days. Being an honourable and independent man, it was extremely difficult for him to be dependent on me or anyone for assistance. He fought me every step of the way; only when his health had deteriorated to within an inch of what it once was did he succour my aid. It was a dark moment, but I slowly manoeuvred my way back from depression after Albert’s passing.               There isn’t a day I do not miss his presence. I’m still getting used to being single again, though my passion for rowing and the camaraderie of my rowing buddies kept me from falling into despondency. The ocean has a healing effect on my desolate soul. Back to your question – I am currently single and enjoying life as a single man. There are a couple of guys I see on and off, nothing serious. I’m not looking for love but allowing the universe to bring forth what is in store for me. I recall the words you wrote to Sam in A Harem Boy’s Saga – book II – Unbridled, during our winter holiday in 1966: “Follow love and it will flee; flee love and it will follow.”So, boy, here I am, waiting for love to find me.☺                 Love,               Andy               XOXOXO

It’s safe to say that everyone loved to win when they played those games, and I was no different, but to me playing hockey and baseball really wasn’t just about winning. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we shouldn’t have competition. Even my harshest critics over the years couldn’t complain that I didn’t want to win badly enough. I do believe, however, that learning to handle both winning and losing is the most important part of competition. Coming to grips with the idea that the outcome doesn’t always go your way is a life lesson, not just a lesson in sport. Sometimes we kept score, sometimes we didn’t. But our games were primarily about the sheer joy of play, of being able to go outside with your buddies and simply have a good time.

After parking in the west lot, far from a certain gang member with a reputation that could scare off even the toughest Fairfield football players, Sierra and I walk up the front steps of Fairfield High. Unfortunately, Alex Fuentes and the rest of his gang friends are hanging by the front doors. “Walk right past them,” Sierra mutters. “Whatever you do, don’t look in their eyes.” It’s pretty hard not to when Alex Fuentes steps right in front of me and blocks my path. What’s that prayer you’re supposed to say right before you know you’re going to die? “You’re a lousy driver,” Alex says with his slight Latino accent and full-blown-I-AM-THE-MAN stance. The guy might look like an Abercrombie mode with his ripped bod and flawless face, but his picture is more likely to be taken for a mug shot. The kids from the north side don’t really mix with kids from the south side. It’s not that we think we’re better than them, we’re just different. We’ve grown up in the same town, but on totally opposite sides. We live in big houses on Lake Michigan and they live next to the train tracks. We look, talk, act, and dress different. I’m not saying it’s good or bad; it’s just the way it is in Fairfield. And, to be honest, most of the south side girls treat me like Carmen Sanchez does…they hate me because of who I am. Or, rather, who they think I am. Alex’s gaze slowly moves down my body, traveling the length of me before moving back up. It’s not the first time a guy has checked me out, it’s just that I never had a guy like Alex do it so blatantly…and so up-close. I can feel my face getting hot. “Next time, watch where you’re goin’,” he says, his voice cool and controlled. He’s trying to bully me. He’s a pro at this. I won’t let him get to me and win his little game of intimidation, even if my stomach feels like I’m doing one hundred cartwheels in a row. I square my shoulders and sneer at him, the same sneer I use to push people away. “Thanks for the tip.” “If you ever need a real man to teach you how to drive, I can give you lessons.” Catcalls and whistles from his buddies set my blood boiling. “If you were a real man, you’d open the door for me instead of blocking my way,” I say, admiring my own comeback even as my knees threaten to buckle. Alex steps back, pulls the door open, and bows like he’s my butler. He’s totally mocking me, he knows it and I know it. Everyone knows it. I catch a glimpse of Sierra, still desperately searching for nothing in her purse. She’s clueless. “Get a life,” I tell him. “Like yours? Cabróna, let me tell you somethin’,” Alex says harshly. “Your life isn’t reality, it’s fake. Just like you.” “It’s better than living my life as a loser,” I lash out, hoping my words sting as much as his words did. “Just like you.” Grabbing Sierra’s arm, I pull her toward the open door. Catcalls and comments follow us as we walk into the school. I finally let out the breath I must have been holding, then turn to Sierra. My best friend is staring at me, all bug-eyed. “Holy shit, Brit! You got a death wish or something?” “What gives Alex Fuentes the right to bully everyone in his path?” “Uh, maybe the gun he has hidden in his pants or the gang colors he wears,” Sierra says, sarcasm dripping from every word. “He’s not stupid enough to carry a gun to school,” I reason. “And I refuse to be bullied, by him or anyone else.

Judge drove down I75, careful not to keep glancing over at his passenger, who he was seeing in a whole new light. This sexy motherfucker is gay. According to that email he’d rudely snagged and read Michaels must be the fuck of the millennium, the way that spineless man was begging for his dick. Was he a fuck buddy gone bad or a one-night stand? Didn’t sound like it. The guy said, “They’d had a good thing once.” Maybe he was an ex. Why do I care? Judge was driving himself crazy with the useless questions. That was not what he did. He got ass when he felt like it, then he moved on. But since he’d found out Michaels’ orientation for sure, he wanted to fuck the cocky sonofabitch next to him so bad that his stomach cramped. How had Judge found himself in this situation? If he could reverse time, he’d go back and tell God “hell no” to this partnership. When he’d finished getting dressed at the hotel, he’d heard the commotion downstairs with the hooker. But Judge didn’t draw attention to himself. He moved through life with a purpose, and anything that wasn’t directly related to that purpose, didn’t receive his time or energy. Imagine his surprise when Michaels appeared out of nowhere and started kicking ass like it was a hobby. All Judge could think about was reprimanding Michaels for being such a bad boy. Judge groaned, trying not to squirm in his seat at the thought of holding the feisty man down and fucking the fight right out of him. Shit. “You