Hellraiser Quotes

Like most others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.

I'm not a humanitarian, I'm a hell-raiser.

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

This one is for our crew, but it’s also for all the weird girls and word nerds, for all the in-the-middle wickeds and queers and misfits and hell-raisers.

Your flesh is killing your spirit. You have forsaken yourself.

I love your brother and your father more than I love myself. I would die for them. Fight for them until the bitter end. Go against the whole world for them. But you…” She dragged her face up to look at me. Her eyes were full of tears. “I’ve always loved you just a tiny bit more. My regal, rebel boy. My legendary hellraiser, my sad prince, my unlikely savior, my beautiful, broken Knight.

Her expression shut faster than a poked clam. 'I'll just get a cardigan.' He might not be a hellraiser anymore but Devin valued his reputation. 'Haven't you got anything sexy?' 'Yes,' said Rachel, 'my mind.

But can one actually see beauty with eyes blurred by the lack of almost everything a human being needs?

You're my most precious art, my little hell-raiser, my Dante.

Democracy is supposed to be ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’. Capitalism is ‘of the capitalist, for the capitalist’. Period.

Pleasure was pain there, and vice versa. And he knew it well enough to call it home.

Hellraisers destroy only themselves, and they do it because they love life too much to fall asleep.

What I wanted to say was that I knew Eric would never try to steal my paycheck or throw me out the window, that I'd always been terrified I'd fall for a hard-drinking, hellraising, charismatic scoundrel like you, Dad, but I'd wound up with a man who was exactly the opposite.

It was that sleep itself—the act of closing the eyes and relinquishing control of her consciousness—was something she was temperamentally unsuited to.

Everywhere, in the wreckage around him, he found evidence to support the same bitter thesis: that he had encountered nothing in his life—no person, no state of mind or body—he wanted sufficiently to suffer even passing discomfort for.

A skin was nothing. Pigs had skins; snakes had skins. They were knitted of dead cells, shed and grown and shed again. But a name? That was a spell, which summoned memories.

Scout Finch, juvenile desperado, hellraiser extraordinary.

Nobody in this band was a musician when they joined up, but everybody was in some kind of trouble. Play con entusiasmo, as loudly as you can, and trust the good will and bad ear of the gringo hellraiser.

When, finally, she did sleep, it was the slumber of a watcher and waiter. Light, and full of sighs.

Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself.

The flawlessly beautiful were flawlessly happy, weren’t they?

He spoke of both dancing and death with equal nonchalance, as though one carried as little significance as the other. It calmed her, hearing him talk that way.

Already d'Anton did not believe this. He recognized it as a disclaimer that Camille would issue from time to time in the hope of disguising the fact that he was an inveterate hell-raiser.

That’s got to stop,” says I. “The idea of any blood-thirsty pirate (Mexican President Diaz) sitting on a throne and reaching across the border to tromp on our Constitution makes my blood boil.” — Mother Jones

Most modern men want sex and can’t have it. They want success and never get it. They want money and never earn enough. Everybody has desires and nobody— Except the psychopathic few— Has the guts to go out and just take what they want.” —Professor Michael Friday

So intent was Frank upon solving the puzzle of Lemarchand’s box that he didn’t hear the great bell begin to ring.

We have such sites to show you

The seasons long for each other, like men and women, in order that they may be cured of their excesses.

What do you see out there?” I ask. “Pittsburgh,” he replies. Now I laugh. “No, young man. What you see is hell with the lid taken off.” — Mother Jones

Is a few hours of hell-raising, or respite from life's toil worth this every morning?

Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser.

No tears, please. It’s a waste of good suffering.

My pleasure in 'hell-raising' in class is my pleasure in chaos,

I heard that Harry Nilsson had died. The secret to being a successful hellraiser, it seemed, was to stop raising hell before hell razed you.

Go home now,” says I. “Keep away from the saloons. Save your money. You are going to need it.” “What are we going to need it for?” asks a voice from the crowd. “For guns and ammunition,” says I.

Turning back to the crowd I say, “I am duty bound to make this plea, but I want to say, with all due respect to the governor here, that I doubt seriously that he will do — cannot do — anything. And for the reason that he is owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the capitalists who placed him here in this building.” — Mother Jones

To the RKO motion picture camera at her 100th birthday party: “I pray for the day when working men and women are able to earn a fair share of the wealth they produce in a capitalist system, a day when all Americans are able to enjoy the freedom, rights and opportunities guaranteed them by the Constitution of the United States of America.” — Mother Jones

I found a brief piece of by Antonio Vivaldi around this time which became my ‘Pinhead Mood Music’. Called Al Santo Sepolcro (At The Holy Sepulchre), it opens more like a piece of modern orchestral music, and although it it moves toward Vivaldi’s familiar harmonies, there is always the threat that it will fall back into dissonance. The piece progresses in an exquisite agony, poised on a knife edge between beauty and disfigurement, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. Perfect.

I go back to the union man and say, “Sir, this is a house of God, not a proper place for a union meeting. I have some things to say today that God would not want to hear in His own house. Boys, I want you to get up, every one of you, and go across the road. I want you to sit down on the hillside over there and wait for me to speak to you.

Didn't open the box? What was it last time? Didn't know what it was? And yet we do keep finding each other, don't we? - Cenobite

But if it failed to show itself she would not grieve too deeply, for fear that the mending of broken hearts be a puzzle neither wit nor time had the skill to solve.

George was a hell-raiser, prone to drink and miss a gig,

Your most treasured depravity is child’s play beside the experiences we offer.

A husband I may be, but the change is my mistress and I can never stray." -Leo Bailey Demons Bride

Allí el placer era dolor, y viceversa. Y él lo conocía tan bien que era como sentirse en casa.

Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself. So

Spring, if it lingers more than a week beyond its span, starts to hunger for summer to end the days of perpetual promise

Do you understand?” the figure beside the first speaker demanded. Its voice, unlike that of its companion, was light and breathy—the voice of an excited girl. Every inch of its head had been tattooed with an intricate grid, and at every intersection of horizontal and vertical axes a jeweled pin driven through to the bone. Its tongue was similarly decorated. “Do you even know who we are?” it asked.

Aside from the possible scientific explanations for the death of ballsiness, there is an economic one, which I think may be the real cause: high rents. It's very hard to be a ballsy writer when you can't afford to live anywhere. It makes you absolutely nervous and insane and takes all yours guts away. I have to say this is the case for yours truly. If I could pay a 1954 rent of fifty-eight dollars a month, I might actually be a ballsy writer. But I'm so crippled by my enormous twenty-first century rent that I can barely get out of bed, let alone raise hell, which is what you need to do to qualify as a ballsy writer. You have to be a hell-raiser. You have to care about political things and you have to be able to afford booze, not to mention days lost to hangovers. But if you're worried all the time about having to go live with your parents as a thirty-seven-year-old, then to hell with hell. You only have one goal: to come up with the rent. You don't have time for political causes or all-night orgies.

He was mystery, he was darkness, he was all she had dreamed of. And if she would only free him he would service her -oh yes- until her pleasure reached that thereshold that, like all theresholds, was a place where the strong grew stronger, and the weak perished.

But despite all the hell-raising and destruction and chaos he had created in our lives, I could not imagine what my life would be like--what the world would be like--without him in it. As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had.

What the hell’s the matter with you men? Are you cowards as well as stupid? You boys make me sick. I’m done with you. You hear me? I want you to go back to your places now and stay with your children until I say you’re needed. “Tell your wives and your older children to bring with them dish pans and cooking pots. Tell them to bring their stirring spoons and ladles. Tell them to carry a mop over their shoulders. We’re goin’ to march on that mine and we’re going to stand guard to see that no scabs are allowed in. Do you hear me?” — Mother Jones

The extraordinary thing is this: that the moment you make a story or create an image that finds favour with an audience, you’ve effectively lost it. It toddles off, the little bastard; it becomes the property of the fans. It’s they who create around it their own mythologies; who make sequels and prequels in their imagination; who point out the inconsistencies in your plotting. I can envisage no greater compliment. What more could a writer or a film maker ever ask, than that their fiction be embraced and become part of the dream-lives of people who it’s likely he’ll never meet?

I take it Hella is your road name? Or should I just stick to ‘cunt’?” He laughs, a smirk beaming from his mouth. “I like the sound of ‘cunt’ coming out of those sweet lips. Maybe you should stick to that.” He pulls out a packet of cigarettes, placing one in his mouth and watching me every two seconds. “Hella isn’t my road name. Had it since I was a kid. It was so people couldn’t kill me and sluts couldn’t bang down my door after having my dick lodged down their throat once.” He blew a cloud of smoke in my face.  “Well, I’ve had your dick in me, and I gotta tell you…” I stand, bending over the table and scanning his huge arms with a smile. “I’m a little disappointed,” I lie through a whisper.

Well, honey, it’s capitalism that brings out the meanness and greed,” says I. “Our founding fathers did a decent job of framing our democracy. They wrote the Constitution and added a Bill of Rights that intended for people of all classes to enjoy the freedoms the Constitution offers. But capitalism came along without a constitution or a bill of rights and the industrialists grabbed unrestricted power. The capitalists wrote their own ‘Declaration of Capitalism’.” — Mother Jones

The Great Carouser by Stewart Stafford The Great Carouser approaches, His belly as stacked cheddar rolls, Used as a springboard for lust, And a battering ram for tavern doors. Shrieks of terror and welcome, Greet his arrival with ale demands, Tankards clank and merriment begins, Lewd ditties and jokes by the bar. Balancing acts on tables, With tongues held hostage, By braggadocio squatters, In an intoxicated stranglehold. Slurred speech and equilibrium loss, Signal festivities end for the gang, Staggering out into the starlit street, Partners on each arm for shady exertions. Then waking as if mauled by a bear, A quick drink and a greasy feast initiated, For the strange girls snoring in his bed, The Great Carouser has struck again. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

Hal wouldn't have done anything so...so...so sinful. Especially not on the night before he left for Central America as she claims.

It was love that had troubled her, love that had shown her the road to Hell.

Doug Bradley: "The character I played in Hunters, the Dutchman, I can see echoes of later... Pinhead in Hellraiser. This strange, strange character whose head was kind of empty but who conveyed all kinds of things. I remember getting the best note ever from a director when I was the Dutchman; Clive said, 'Dougie, I want you to say this line as if the North Wind was blowing through your eyes...

Now that I think of it, she doesn’t listen to me because I am not talking to her, but to some dark listener within myself. And she doesn’t really talk to me either. Of course when the children or some other hell-raising crises are concerned, all that changes.

Dışarıda, yakınlarda bir yerde, dünya birazdan uyanacaktı. Frank onun uyanmasını, anlamsız hedefler peşinde bir tur daha koşmak üzere kalkmasını tam da bu odanın penceresinden, günler birbirini kovaladıkça seyretmişti... Orada, dışarıda kendisini heyecanlandıracak bir şey kalmadığını çok iyi bilerek. İhtiras yoktu, ter dökmek vardı yalnızca. Tutku yoktu, aniden gelen şehvet vardı yalnızca... Ve bir o kadar ani olan ilgisizlik hissi.

The best part of life is spent in earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it. To hell with money! Pursuit of it is not going to mould my life for me. I am going to live life sturdily and Spartan-like, to drive life into a corner and reduce it to its lowest terms, and if I find it sublime I shall know it by experience … Time, for example, just one hour of time is far more important than money. Whenever you waste your time over printed words that neither enlighten nor amuse you, you are in a sense committing suicide.

If that’s what it feels like to get burned,” she whispers, “I’ll jump right into hell.” I smile. “Careful what you wish for, little hellraiser. Fire is exciting. But it’s also unpredictable.

When he stayed at the Crown Hotel in Denver, we went to visit him. He’d got a bull whip with which he was terrorising people and a hand mallet and ball that he was whacking around his room, smashing pictures in the process. I was looking out for a suitable polo field so Hunter took us round an old (and, unfortunately, highly radioactive) airbase in his SUV. He had a round tin full of coke in the vehicle into which he continually dipped a straw and sniffed. I was sitting in the back seat with a bucket of ice and a bottle of Chivas Regal, which Hunter kept reaching back for, still driving of course! He once turned up at polo wearing a white plastic mask. He was totally insane, absolutely crazy.

Come to Daddy,” he said. The phrase didn’t sound right out of Rory’s mouth. Some boys never grew to be daddies, however many children they sired.

I’m not a humanitarian, I’m a hell-raiser. –Mother Jones

unshooable

I love your brother and your father more than I love myself. I would die for them. Fight for them until the bitter end. Go against the whole world for them. But you…” She dragged her face up to look at me. Her eyes were full of tears. “I’ve always loved you just a tiny bit more. My regal, rebel boy. My legendary hellraiser, my sad prince, my unlikely savior, my beautiful, broken Knight.” I gulped, looking down at her. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. But I couldn’t not say it. The moment seemed too real and raw. She brushed my cheek and gave me a smile so genuine and powerful, I thought it could outshine the sun. “What if tomorrow never comes?” I whispered. “Then, my darling boy, we’ll make the best of today.

on the eve of scoring his biggest ever movie triumph with Gladiator. What follows is the story of four

Being academically gifted Burton was saved from a life of drudgery down the mines but when his family hit a rocky financial patch he was forced to quit school and take a job as a shop assistant, his way out of the valleys through education seemingly strangled at birth. It was then that acting presented itself as a new means of escape when Burton joined a local club and began performing in shows, so impressing the youth leader who managed to persuade the council to readmit the boy to school after almost two years’ absence. It was an unprecedented move.

She knew he was telling the truth, the kind of unsavoury truth that only monsters were at liberty to tell. He had no need to flatter or cajole; he had no philosophy to debate, or sermon to deliver. His awful nakedness was a kind of sophistication. Past the lies of faith, and into purer realms.

There is a takeaway here for aspiring hell-raisers: We get only what we’re willing to fight for—nothing more and, I hope, nothing less.

My best friend looks at me and downs the shot of bourbon in his glass. His eyes are red and rheumy, a look of misery etched upon his face. Trey sniffs loudly and slams his glass down on the bar, drawing the attention of a few of the people sitting around us. “I loved her, man,”he says. I nod and pat him on the shoulder. “I know you did, man.”We're sitting at the bar in the Yellow Rose Lounge, a quiet place where people can go to have a drink and conversation. Furnished in dark woods, with soft, dim lighting, it's more peaceful than your average watering hole. The music is kept low enough that you don't have to shout to be heard, and the flat panel televisions showing highlights from various games are kept on mute. The Yellow Rose is a lounge that caters to business professionals and people who want to have a quiet drink, a mellow conversation, or be alone with their thoughts. There are plenty of bars in Austin that cater to the hellraisers and I've been known to patronize those places now and then. But, it's also nice to have a place like the Yellow Rose for times when I need some quiet solitude. Or, when I need help nursing a friend through a bad, bitter breakup. The bartender pours Trey another shot –which he immediately downs. “Might as well leave the bottle,”I say. The bartender pauses and gives me a considering look, knowing he shouldn't leave a bottle with customers. I think it's a law or something. Reaching into my pocket, I drop a couple of hundreds down on the bar, which seems to relieve him of his inner-conflict. He quickly scoops up the cash, sets the bottle down, and strolls down to the other end of the bar. I pour Trey another shot, which he downs almost instantly and then holds his glass up for another. Not wanting to see him pass out or die from alcohol poisoning, I know I need to pace him. I set the bottle back down on the bar in front of me and turn to my friend.

My best friend looks at me and downs the shot of bourbon in his glass. His eyes are red and rheumy, a look of misery etched upon his face. Trey sniffs loudly and slams his glass down on the bar, drawing the attention of a few of the people sitting around us. “I loved her, man,” he says. I nod and pat him on the shoulder. “I know you did, man.” We're sitting at the bar in the Yellow Rose Lounge , a quiet place where people can go to have a drink and conversation. Furnished in dark woods, with soft, dim lighting, it's more peaceful than your average watering hole. The music is kept low enough that you don't have to shout to be heard, and the flat panel televisions showing highlights from various games are kept on mute. The Yellow Rose is a lounge that caters to business professionals and people who want to have a quiet drink, a mellow conversation, or be alone with their thoughts. There are plenty of bars in Austin that cater to the hellraisers and I've been known to patronize those places now and then. But, it's also nice to have a place like the Yellow Rose for times when I need some quiet solitude. Or, when I need help nursing a friend through a bad, bitter breakup. The bartender pours Trey another shot –which he immediately downs. “Might as well leave the bottle,” I say. The bartender pauses and gives me a considering look, knowing he shouldn't leave a bottle with customers. I think it's a law or something. Reaching into my pocket, I drop a couple of hundreds down on the bar, which seems to relieve him of his inner-conflict. He quickly scoops up the cash, sets the bottle down, and strolls down to the other end of the bar. I pour Trey another shot, which he downs almost instantly and then holds his glass up for another. Not wanting to see him pass out or die from alcohol poisoning, I know I need to pace him. I set the bottle back down on the bar in front of me and turn to my friend.

No tears please, it's a waste of good suffering"- Pinhead:Hellraiser

We'll tear your soul apart!!"-Pinhead, Clive Barker's Hellraiser

We can't be the suspect and the victim; the peacemaker and the hellraiser.

I wish I'd been a Hell-raiser when I was 30 years old. I tried when I was 50 but I always got sleepy.

The inside of my skull is more like a wall upon which decades of posters have been plastered - for circuses, for trials, for vaudevilles and public exorcisms - their images (some garish, some spare) pasted on top of one another. In places, the more recent additions have been torn and gouged away, revealing glimpses of events that have long since passed from view, but whose fragments are here patched with more modern entertainments, creating a sum far weirder than its parts. in others, an image has gathered echoes, and is now surrounded by bizarre puns and riffs upon itself.

Wriggling out of his grasp she braced herself on his shoulders and tried to stand. Next thing she knew, he had her around the legs and took her down to the mattress in some sort of super-fast ninja move. She screamed and laughed, and he was laughing every bit as hard as he came down on top of her. And, oh God, his laughter was a sweet and sexy rumble that lit her up inside. “You fight dirty, Easy,” she said around her chuckles. “I haven’t had this much fun in so long.” She caressed his face with her fingers. “Me neither. Between overloading on classes and my epilepsy, I often feel like a little old lady trapped in the body of a twenty-year-old. All I need is some cats.” “Cats are awesome,” he said. “When I was a kid, I used to sneak stray cats into the house, just for a night or two. I’d keep them in my room and bring up bowls of milk and cans of tuna for them.” “Aw, you were a sweet little boy, weren’t you?” she asked, loving how he was opening up to her. The closeness, the sharing, the way his big body was lying on her legs and hips, leading him to prop his head up on her lower stomach—both her heart and her body reacted. “Maybe for about five minutes.” He winked. “Mostly, I was a hell-raiser. Growing up, we didn’t live in the best neighborhood. Drug dealers on the corner, gang activity trying to pull in even the younger kids, crack house one block over. All that. Trouble wasn’t hard to find.” He shrugged. “Army straightened me out, though.” “Well, we lived in a nice neighborhood growing up and here my father was the freaking drug dealer on the corner. Or close enough, anyway.” Jenna stared at the ceiling and shook her head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get serious.” His thumb stroked along her side, sliding the cotton of her borrowed shirt against her skin in a way that almost tickled. “Don’t apologize. Our histories are what they are, you know?” She nodded and gave him a little smile. “Yeah.” Shifting off her, Easy stretched out alongside her and propped his head up on his arm. “I’m thirty, Jenna,” he said out of nowhere. And he was telling her this because? He thought their age difference was too great? He thought she was too young? He was worried she would think he was too old? Probably D) all of the above. Thing was, all she saw when she looked at Easy was a guy she really freaking liked. One who’d saved her life, helped make her sister safe, and gave her a sense of security she hadn’t felt in years. He was hot as hell, easy to talk to, and one of the kindest guys she’d ever known. Maybe some of that was because he was older. Who knew? “And I need to know this because?” she asked, resting her head on her arm. The muscles of his shoulders lifted into a shrug, but his face was contemplative. “Because there’s clearly something going on between us.” Heat rushed across her body. She held up a hand, and he laced his fingers between hers. “When I look at you, I don’t see a bunch of differences, Easy.” “What do you see then?” Warmth flooded into Jenna’s cheeks, and she chuckled. He’d said that she was beautiful, after all, so why couldn’t she give him a compliment in return? “A really hot guy I’d like to get to know more.” A smug smile slipped onto his face, and she might’ve rolled her eyes if it weren’t so damn sexy. “Really hot, huh?” “Well, kinda hot, anyway.” “Nuh-uh,” he said, tugging her hand to his chest. “Can’t take it back now.” Cheeks burning and big smile threatening, she rolled onto her side to face him. They lay there, side by side, her chest almost touching his, looking at each other. Tension and desire and anticipation crackled in the space between them, making it hard to breathe. “What do you see when you look at me?” she whispered, half-afraid to ask but even more curious to hear what he’d say. Did he mostly see someone who was too young for him? Or a needy girl he had to save and babysit?

When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church which belongs to God, and the public Library, which belongs to you. The public library is the great equalizer."–Keith RichardsOutlaw, hellraiser, and one of rock music’s most gifted and influential guitarists.

My pleasure in 'hell-raising' in class is my pleasure in chaos.

As longtime friends observed, Howie was a “hell-raiser.” The inexhaustible Buffett energy poured from him in such a whirlwind that he was nicknamed the Tornado, a cousin to Warren’s childhood nickname, Firebolt—but with a very different connotation.

ELLIOTT ROOSEVELT, son of the president, who conducted a seven-month commentary on Mutual, April 3–Nov. 30, 1939; 15m, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at 7:15 for Emerson Radios. Roosevelt made news by loudly disagreeing with some of his father’s policies: he was known as a “hell-raiser” on the air and off.

Little pieces of heaven clutched in her hell-raising fists.

So you talked to that boyfriend of yours since he’s been gone, or are you having you some fun times with another fella while he’s away?” I spewed the tea in my mouth and shook my head as I began to cough. How was it she always knew what was going on when no one else did? “Well, who is he? He’s made you spit tea all over my lap. I at least want a name and a few details.” Shaking my head, I turned so I could look her in the eyes. “There is no one. I got strangled on my tea because you asked me such an insane question. Why would I cheat on Sawyer? He’s perfect, Grana.” She made a hmph sound and reached over to pat my leg. “Ain’t no man perfect, baby girl. Not a one. Not even your daddy. Although he thinks he is.” She always joked about Daddy being a pastor. He’d been a “hell-raiser” growing up, according to her. When she told me stories about him as a kid, her eyes would light up. Sometimes I could swear that she missed the person he used to be. “Sawyer’s as perfect as it gets.” “Well, I don’t know about that. I drove by the Lowry’s this morning, and his cousin Beau was out cutting their grass.” She paused and shook her head, a big grin on her face. “Girl, there ain’t a boy in this town who can hold a candle to Beau Vincent with his shirt off.” “Grana!” I swatted her hand, horrified that my grandmother had admired Beau shirtless. She chuckled. “What? I’m old, Ashton baby, not blind.” I could only imagine how Beau looked shirtless and sweaty. I’d almost had a wreck last week when I’d passed the Green’s and he’d been cutting their grass shirtless. It was hard not to look at him. I’d told myself I had just been examining the tattoo on his ribs, but of course I knew the truth. His well-defined abs were really hard to ignore. It just wasn’t possible. Then something about the ink on them made his abs even sexier. “I ain’t the only old woman looking. I’m just the only one honest enough to admit it. The others just hire the boy to cut their grass so they can sit at the window and drool.

My best friend looks at me and downs the shot of bourbon in his glass. His eyes are red and rheumy, a look of misery etched upon his face. Trey sniffs loudly and slams his glass down on the bar, drawing the attention of a few of the people sitting around us. “I loved her, man,” he says. I nod and pat him on the shoulder. “I know you did, man.” We're sitting at the bar in the Yellow Rose Lounge, a quiet place where people can go to have a drink and conversation. Furnished in dark woods, with soft, dim lighting, it's more peaceful than your average watering hole. The music is kept low enough that you don't have to shout to be heard, and the flat panel televisions showing highlights from various games are kept on mute. The Yellow Rose is a lounge that caters to business professionals and people who want to have a quiet drink, a mellow conversation, or be alone with their thoughts. There are plenty of bars in Austin that cater to the hellraisers and I've been known to patronize those places now and then. But, it's also nice to have a place like the Yellow Rose for times when I need some quiet solitude. Or, when I need help nursing a friend through a bad, bitter breakup. The bartender pours Trey another shot – which he immediately downs. “Might as well leave the bottle,” I say. The bartender pauses and gives me a considering look, knowing he shouldn't leave a bottle with customers. I think it's a law or something. Reaching into my pocket, I drop a couple of hundreds down on the bar, which seems to relieve him of his inner-conflict. He quickly scoops up the cash, sets the bottle down, and strolls down to the other end of the bar. I pour Trey another shot, which he downs almost instantly and then holds his glass up for another. Not wanting to see him pass out or die from alcohol poisoning, I know I need to pace him. I set the bottle back down on the bar in front of me and turn to my friend

He was his mother’s son more than his father’s. And he couldn’t understand how someone like his mother had ever been with someone like his father. He didn’t know how they met because she had never mentioned it. And Dante remembered everything about her. ‘You’re my most precious art, my little hell-raiser, my Dante.