Hood Talk Quotes

Cowboy: New York hood talk means kill the mother fucker wherever you find him. A rat is a rat is a rat is a rat. Is an informer.

One of the biggest issues with mainstream feminist writing has been the way the idea of what constitutes a feminist issue is framed. We rarely talk about basic needs as a feminist issue. Food insecurity and access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. Instead of a framework that focuses on helping women get basic needs met, all too often the focus is not on survival but on increasing privilege. For a movement that is meant to represent all women, it often centers on those who already have most of their needs met.

When Alex leaves a little later, Carlos steps forward. “Need help?” I shake my head. “Are you ever gonna talk to me again? Dammit, Kiara, enough with the silent treatment. I’d rather have you say your little two-word sentences than stop talkin’ altogether. Hell, just flip me off again.” I toss my backpack in the backseat and start the engine. “Where are you goin’?” Carlos asks, stepping in front of my car. I beep. “I’m not movin’,” he says. My response is another beep. It’s not an intimidating, deep beep like most cars, but it’s the best my car can give. He places both hands on the hood. “Move,” I say. He moves all right. With pantherlike quickness, Carlos jumps through the open passenger window, feet first. “You should get the door fixed,” he says.

I'm not talking about killing Cobblepot and Scarecrow or Clayface. Not Riddler or Dent... I'm talking about him. Just him. And doing it because... because he took me away from you.

What did you spend so much time talking about with Ila? If you weren’t dancing with that long-legged fellow, you were talking to her like it was some kind of secret.” “Ila was giving me advice on being a woman,” Egwene replied absently. He began laughing, and she gave him a hooded, dangerous look that he failed to see. “Advice! Nobody tells us how to be men. We just are.” “That,” Egwene said, “is probably why you make such a bad job of it.

Once there was a boy,” said Jace. Clary interrupted immediately. “A Shadowhunter boy?” “Of course.” For a moment a bleak amusement colored his voice. Then it was gone. “When the boy was six years old, his father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors – killing birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky. “The falcon didn’t like the boy, and the boy didn’t like it, either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with beak and talons when he came near: For weeks his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He didn’t know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to tame. But the boy tried, because his father told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father. “He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it – instead he tried to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. Hee fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat. Later it ate so savagely that its beak cut the skin of his palm. But the boy was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if the bird had to consume his blood to make that happen. “He began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like likght. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he neary shouted with delight Sometimes the bird would hope to his shoulder and put its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud. “Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands and broke its neck. ‘I told you to make it obedient,’ his father said, and dropped the falcon’s lifeless body to the ground. ‘Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.’ “Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he’d learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed.

Originally, he'd wanted to focus his work on the convict leasing system that had stolen years off of his great-grandpa H's life, but the deeper into the research he got, the bigger the project got. How could he talk about Great-Grandpa H's story without also talking about his grandma Willie and the millions of other black people who had migrated north, fleeing Jim Crow? And if he mentioned the Great Migration, he'd have to talk about the cities that took that flock in. He'd have to talk about Harlem, And how could he talk about Harlem without mentioning his father's heroin addiction - the stints in prison, the criminal record? And if he was going to talk about heroin in Harlem in the '60s, wouldn't he also have to talk about crack everywhere in the '80s? And if he wrote about crack, he'd inevitably be writing, to, about the "war on drugs." And if he started talking about the war on drugs, he'd be talking about how nearly half of the black men he grew up with were on their way either into or out of what had become the harshest prison system in the world. And if he talked about why friends from his hood were doing five-year bids for possession of marijuana when nearly all the white people he'd gone to college with smoked it openly every day, he'd get so angry that he'd slam the research book on the table of the beautiful but deadly silent Lane Reading Room of Green Library of Stanford University. And if he slammed the book down, then everyone in the room would stare and all they would see would be his skin and his anger, and they'd think they knew something about him, and it would be the same something that had justified putting his great-grandpa H in prison, only it would be different too, less obvious than it once was.

Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal." "Reznak? Why should I fear him?" Dany rose from the pool. Water trickled down her legs, and gooseflesh covered her arms in the cool night air. "If you have some warning for me, speak plainly. What do you want of me, Quaithe?" Moonlight shown in the woman's eyes. "To show you the way." "I remember the way. I go north to go south, east to go west, back to go forward. And to touch the light I have to pass beneath the shadow." She squeezed the water from her silvery hair. "I am half-sick of riddling. In Qarth I was a beggar, but here I am a queen. I command you-" "Daenerys. Remember the Undying. Remember who you are." "The blood of the dragon." But my dragons are roaring in the darkness. "I remember the Undying. Child of three, they called me. Three mounts they promised me, three fires, and three treasons. One for blood and one for gold and one for . . ." "Your Grace?" Missandei stood in the door of the queen's bedchamber, a lantern in her hand. "Who are you talking to?" Dany glanced back toward the persimmon tree. There was no woman there. No hooded robe, no lacquer mask, no Quaithe. A shadow. A Memory. No one.

We can all talk to the dead. It’s getting them to talk back that’s the hard part.”2

We rarely talk about basic needs as a feminist issue. Food insecurity and access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. Instead of a framework that focuses on helping women get basic needs met, all too often the focus is not on survival but on increasing privilege. For a movement that is meant to represent all women, it often centers on those who already have most of their needs met.

Headache!" Zeus bellowed. "Bad. bad headache!" As if to prove his point, the lord of the universe slammed his face into his pancakes, which demolished the pancakes and the plate and put a crack in the table, but did nothing for his headache. "Aspirin?" Apollo suggested. (he was the god of healing) "Nice cup og tea?" Hestia suggested "I could split your skull open," offered Hephaestus, the blacksmith god "Hephaestus!" Hera cried. "Don't talk to your father that way!" "What?" Hephaestus demanded "Clearly he's got a problem in there. I could open up the hood and take a look. Might relieve the pressure. Besides, he's immortal. It won't kill him

Harry felt winded, as though he had just walked into something heavy. He had last seen those cool gray eyes through slits in a Death Eater’s hood, and last heard that man’s voice jeering in a dark graveyard while Lord Voldemort tortured him. He could not believe that Lucius Malfoy dared look him in the face; he could not believe that he was here, in the Ministry of Magic, or that Cornelius Fudge was talking to him, when Harry had told Fudge mere weeks ago that Malfoy was a Death Eater.

He says that woman speaks with nature. That she hears voices from under the earth. That wind blows in her ears and trees whisper to her. That the dead sing through her mouth and the cries of infants are clear to her. But for him this dialogue is over. He says he is not part of this world, that he was set on this world as a stranger. He sets himself apart from woman and nature. And so it is Goldilocks who goes to the home of the three bears, Little Red Riding Hood who converses with the wolf, Dorothy who befriends a lion, Snow White who talks to the birds, Cinderella with mice as her allies, the Mermaid who is half fish, Thumbelina courted by a mole. (And when we hear in the Navaho chant of the mountain that a grown man sits and smokes with bears and follows directions given to him by squirrels, we are surprised. We had thought only little girls spoke with animals.) We are the bird's eggs. Bird's eggs, flowers, butterflies, rabbits, cows, sheep; we are caterpillars; we are leaves of ivy and sprigs of wallflower. We are women. We rise from the wave. We are gazelle and doe, elephant and whale, lilies and roses and peach, we are air, we are flame, we are oyster and pearl, we are girls. We are woman and nature. And he says he cannot hear us speak. But we hear.

Oh, look, the lights are so pretty,” I said dreamily, having just noticed them. I smiled at the way the lights were dancing overhead, pink and yellow and blue. I felt some pressure on my arm and thought, I should look over and see what’s going on, but then the thought was gone, sliding away like Jell-O off a hot car hood. “Fang?” “Yeah. I’m here.” I struggled to focus on him. “I’m so glad you’re here.” “Yeah, I got that.” “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I peered up at him, trying to see past the too-bright lights. “You’d be fine,” he muttered. “No,” I said, suddenly struck by how unfine I would be. “I would be totally unfine. Totally.” It seemed very urgent that he understand this. Again I felt some tugging on my arm, and I really wondered what that was about. Was Ella’s mom going to start this procedure any time soon? “It’s okay. Just relax.” He sounded stiff and nervous. “Just...relax. Don’t try to talk.” “I don’t want my chip anymore,” I explained groggily, then frowned. “Actually, I never wanted that chip.” “Okay,” said Fang. “We’re taking it out.” “I just want you to hold my hand.” “I am holding your hand.” “Oh. I knew that.” I drifted off for a few minutes, barely aware of anything, but feeling Fang’s hand still in mine. “Do you have a La-Z-Boy somewhere?” I roused myself to ask, every word an effort. “Um, no,” said Ella’s voice, somewhere behind my head. “I think I would like a La-Z-Boy,” I mused, letting my eyes drift shut again. “Fang, don’t go anywhere.” “I won’t. I’m here.” “Okay. I need you here. Don’t leave me.” “I won’t.” “Fang, Fang, Fang,” I murmured, overwhelmed with emotion. “I love you. I love you sooo much.” I tried to hold out my arms to show how much, but I couldn’t move them. “Oh, jeez,” Fang said, sounding strangled.

Jason Todd: Bruce, I forgive you for not saving me. But why? Why on God's Earth is HE still alive? Ignoring what he's done in the past. Blindly, stupidly, disregarding the entire graveyards he's filled, the thousands who have suffered, the friends he's crippled. You know, I thought... I thought I'd be the last person you'd ever let him hurt. If it had been you he beat to a bloody pulp, if he had taken you from this world, I would've done nothing but search the planet for this pathetic pile of evil death-worshiping garbage and sent him off to Hell. Bruce: You don't understand. I don't think you've ever understood. Jason: What? What, your moral code just won't allow for that? It's too hard to cross that line? Bruce: No! God almighty, no. It'd be too damned easy. All I've ever wanted to do is kill him. But if I do that... if I allow myself to go down into that place... I'll never come back. Jason: Why? I'm not talking about killing Penguin, or Scarecrow, or Dent. I'm talking about him. Just him. And doing it because... because he took me away from you.

No man has seen God. No man has seen Lucifer. No man that I've ever talked to! It's just a useful way of looking at the world. And seeing into it.

One of the greatest paradoxes of the Black Power movement was that it talked unceasingly about not imitating the values of white society, but in advocating violence it was imitating the worst, the most brutal, and the most uncivilized value of American life. American Negroes had not been mass murderers. They had not murdered children in Sunday school, nor had they hung white men on trees bearing strange fruit. They had not been hooded perpetrators of violence, lynching human beings at will and drowning them at whim.

Royce saw to his horse’s needs; then, finding a suitable place, he unrolled his blanket and lay down. “I take it we’re camping here, then?” Royce said nothing, still refusing to acknowledge his existence. “You could have said, ‘We’re going to bed down here for the rest of the night.’ No, wait, you’re right, too much. How about ‘sleeping here’? Two words. Even you could manage that, right? I mean, I know you can talk. You had plenty to say back in Arcadius’s office. Couldn’t keep the words from coming out then, but no, utterly impossible to indicate in any way that we’ll be stopping here for the night.” Hadrian dismounted and began unloading Dancer. “How long were we on the road?” He paused to look up at the moon. “What? Five, six hours? Not a damn word. Getting chilly out, don’t you think, Hadrian? Moon looks like a fingernail, ain’t that right, Hadrian? That tree looks like a goddamn bear, don’t it, Hadrian? Nothing. By the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, I was attacked by a goshawk and a pig-riding dwarf that shot eggs at me with a sling. I was knocked from my horse and wrestled with the dwarf, the hawk, and the pig for what had to be half an hour. The dwarf kept smashing eggs in my face, and that ruddy pig pinned me down, licking them off. I only got away because the dwarf ran out of eggs. Then the hawk turned into a moth that became distracted by the light of the moon.” Royce shifted to his side, hood up. “Yeah, well … thank Maribor and Novron I didn’t need your help that time.” “Didn’t care for my help too much in the stable,” Royce said. “It speaks!

Our police force was not created to serve black Americans; it was created to police black Americans and serve white Americans. This is why even when police were donning white hoods and riding out at night to burn crosses on the lawns of black families, white families could still look at them with respect and trust.

I don’t trust white people like you do. I obviously don’t think they are all murderers, but I think they are all racist.” “All?” I say, eyebrows raised. “It sounds wild, I know, but racism is a spectrum and they all participate in it in some way. They don’t all have white hoods or call us mean things; I know that. But racism isn’t just about that—it’s not about being nice or mean. Or good versus bad. It’s bigger than that. We’re all in this bubble being affected by the past. The moment they decided they got to be white and have all the power and we got to be Black and be at the bottom, everything changed. If we can’t talk about it honestly, and I mean really talk about it, then what’s the point? I read some Malcom X last year, and I agree with him. Some might even treat you good, like an owner might treat a pet.” “That’s wild,” I say. “Yeah, it is. I think anyone can be nice, but it’s not about being nice. You can’t escape a history like that and not be affected. Us Blacks, we start hating ourselves, and them whites start thinking they’re all better than us. Even if they aren’t thinking it constantly, it’s in there somewhere.

When most folks think about the problems of growing up in the hood, they think about what it must feel like to be poor, or hungry, or to have your lights cut off. The struggle nobody talk about is what it feel like to be invisible, or to know in your heart the nobody cares. Mama didn’t want to be famous, she wanted to be seen.

Some people believe that it isn’t so much power that is exchanged in TPE, as it is authority. The intrinsic difference between power and authority can best be explained thusly: If we were talking about a car, then power would be what was under the hood. Exercising that power would mean taking the car out for a spin. Having the authority to do so might involve a driver’s license, possessing the keys, or having the title and registration.

I overheard Nona talking about my little buds and how she remembered back when she was developing into a woman, and that was enough for me.

I will never understand it,” she said. “We’re the top of our food chain, so you’d think we’d relate to those guys the best. Seems like we’d be trying to talk them into trade agreements.” Eddie laughed at that. “So you’re telling me that as a kid, you were rooting for the wolf to eat the Riding Hood babe?” “My last name was Wolfe. I took it all kind of personally.

Ayo Jah bring yo greedy ass on nigga! I’m tryin to get up with this chick tonight.” Jah was down stairs raiding the refrigerator. He came out with a bottle of coke, A huge sandwich he whipped up, two bags of chips, and two boxes of cupcakes. “Yo, you better go get my sister in-law back cuz, she the only reason yo ass ever have food up in this bitch.” Los looked at Jah as if he were crazy, he could barley carry everything he had in his hands and was chomping and talking at the same time.

There are people whose learning is so great, they seem to inhabit a different realm of species-hood entirely. Somehow, they appear untroubled by the nullness. They are filled up with history and legends and beautiful poetry and all the gestures of all the great people down through time. When they talk, they are carried on a sea of their own belonging. It is like they were born to be fathers to us all.

That friend date had me going home and taking the longest shower of my life.” “I took one too,” I say in a whisper, my cheeks burning as I look at him through my lashes. His face turns completely serious, and he groans. “God, Elle, why’d you have to say that to me?” I laugh. “Say what? That I touched myself thinking about you?” His eyes hood a little. “If you want me to keep my word, you need to stop talking about that.

They were all tall and slender with heads groomed like manikins' heads, and as they talked the heads waved gracefully above their dark tailored suits, rather like long-stemmed flowers and rather like cobras' hoods.

Try not to breathe,” I tell Lira. “It might get stuck halfway out.” Lira flicks up her hood. “You should try not to talk then,” she retorts. “Nobody wants your words being preserved for eternity.” “They’re pearls of wisdom, actually.” I can barely see Lira’s eyes under the mass of dark fur from her coat, but the mirthless curl of her smile is ever-present. It lingers in calculated amusement as she considers what to say next. Readies to ricochet the next blow. Lira pulls a line of ice from her hair, artfully indifferent. “If that is what pearls are worth these days, I’ll make sure to invest in diamonds.” “Or gold,” I tell her smugly. “I hear it’s worth its weight.” Kye shakes the snow from his sword and scoffs. “Anytime you two want to stop making me feel nauseated, go right ahead.” “Are you jealous because I’m not flirting with you?” Madrid asks him, warming her finger on the trigger mechanism of her gun. “I don’t need you to flirt with me,” he says. “I already know you find me irresistible.” Madrid reholsters her gun. “It’s actually quite easy to resist you when you’re dressed like that.” Kye looks down at the sleek red coat fitted snugly to his lithe frame. The fur collar cuddles against his jaw and obscures the bottoms of his ears, making it seem as though he has no neck at all. He throws Madrid a smile. “Is it because you think I look sexier wearing nothing?” Torik lets out a withering sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. I’m not sure whether it’s from the hours we’ve gone without food or his inability to wear cutoffs in the biting cold, but his patience seems to be wearing thin. “I could swear that I’m on a life-and-death mission with a bunch of lusty kids,” he says. “Next thing I know, the lot of you will be writing love notes in rum bottles.” “Okay,” Madrid says. “Now I feel nauseated.” I laugh.

And you don’t even need to say anything. I’m screwed up. I don’t know how any of this works anymore than you do. But I do believe you’re worth every second it would take to figure it out,” Mason said, a smile taking over his features.

Batman: You don't understand. I don't think you've ever understood. Jason Todd: What? That your moral code just won't allow for that? It's too hard to cross that line? Batman: No! God Almighty, no. It'd be too damned easy............But if I do that, if I allow myself to go down into that place... I'll never come back. Jason Todd: Why? I'm not talking about killing Penguin or Scarecrow or Dent. I'm talking about *him*, just him. And doing it because... because he took me away from you. Batman: I can't. I'm sorry.

There was a time we laughed at the old guys up on the hill. The ones who graduated a couple of years before us, and who would hang around the school and the ballpark still, and would sit on the hoods of their cars and tell us how when they were seniors they did it better, faster, and further. We laughed, because we were still doing it, and all they could do was talk. If our goals were not met, there was next year, but it never occurred to us that one day there would not be a next year, and that the guys sitting on the hoods of their cars at the top of the hill, wishing they could have one more year, willing to settle for one last game, could one day be us.

Yeah,” "Jah said, seriously taking in Spooky’s words. “You’re right, my dude. I’m just gonna lay it out for shorty and let the cards fall wherever they fall.” “That’s what I’m talking about.” Spooky nudged him. “And when you speak to Yoshi, ask her if she’s got a friend.” “How the hell … ?” “Jah, you’re like my brother. I know you.” Spooky gave him a wink.

are still talking about that amazing party I threw on the night of her execution.

You’re not listening to any of this, are you?” As far as she was concerned, it was really a rhetorical question. Rather than answer yes or no, Esteban had a question of his own. “Would it matter?” he asked her. “You seem to like to talk, and I’ve got a pulse.” He looked at her over the hood of the car before getting in. “I figure that’s about all you require.

He and Werner eat their first meal in their starchy new uniforms at a long wooden table in the refectory. Some boys talk in whispers, some sit alone, some gulp food as if they have not eaten in days. Through three arched windows, dawn sends a sheaf of hallowed golden rays. Frederick flutters his fingers and asks, “Do you like birds?” “Sure.” “Do you know about hooded crows?

Sometimes, when he talks about returning to Newark, he reminds me of my father. A love for home so deep, you go out into the world with the soul purpose of bringing the world back to your hood.

Then all was quiet save only for the low voices of those that talked together, ... , and saving, also, for the mellow snoring of Friar Tuck, who enjoyed his sleep with a noise as of one sawing soft wood very slowly.

We entered the cool cave of the practice space with all the long-haired, goateed boys stoned on clouds of pot and playing with power tools. I tossed my fluffy coat into the hollow of my bass drum and lay on the carpet with my worn newspaper. A shirtless boy came in and told us he had to cut the power for a minute, and I thought about being along in the cool black room with Joey. Let's go smoke, she said, and I grabbed the cigarettes off the amp. She started talking to me about Wonder Woman. I feel like something big is happening, but I don't know what to do about it. With The Straight Girl? I asked in the blankest voice possible. With everything. Back in the sun we walked to the edge of the parking lot where a black Impala convertible sat, rusted and rotting, looking like it just got dredged from a swamp. Rainwater pooling on the floor. We climbed up onto it and sat our butts backward on the edge of the windshield, feet stretched into the front seat. Before she even joined the band, I would think of her each time I passed the car, the little round medallions with the red and black racing flags affixed to the dash. On the rusting Chevy, Joey told me about her date the other night with a girl she used to like who she maybe liked again. How her heart was shut off and it felt pretty good. How she just wanted to play around with this girl and that girl and this girl and I smoked my cigarette and went Uh-Huh. The sun made me feel like a restless country girl even though I'd never been on a farm. I knew what I stood for, even if nobody else did. I knew the piece of me on the inside, truer than all the rest, that never comes out. Doesn't everyone have one? Some kind of grand inner princess waiting to toss her hair down, forever waiting at the tower window. Some jungle animal so noble and fierce you had to crawl on your belly through dangerous grasses to get a glimpse. I gave Joey my cigarette so I could unlace the ratty green laces of my boots, pull them off, tug the linty wool tights off my legs. I stretched them pale over the car, the hair springing like weeds and my big toenail looking cracked and ugly. I knew exactly who I was when the sun came back and the air turned warm. Joey climbed over the hood of the car, dusty black, and said Let's lie down, I love lying in the sun, but there wasn't any sun there. We moved across the street onto the shining white sidewalk and she stretched out, eyes closed. I smoked my cigarette, tossed it into the gutter and lay down beside her. She said she was sick of all the people who thought she felt too much, who wanted her to be calm and contained. Who? I asked. All the flowers, the superheroes. I thought about how she had kissed me the other night, quick and hard, before taking off on a date in her leather chaps, hankies flying, and I sat on the couch and cried at everything she didn't know about how much I liked her, and someone put an arm around me and said, You're feeling things, that's good. Yeah, I said to Joey on the sidewalk, I Feel Like I Could Calm Down Some. Awww, you're perfect. She flipped her hand over and touched my head. Listen, we're barely here at all, I wanted to tell her, rolling over, looking into her face, we're barely here at all and everything goes so fast can't you just kiss me? My eyes were shut and the cars sounded close when they passed. The sun was weak but it baked the grime on my skin and made it smell delicious. A little kid smell. We sat up to pop some candy into our mouths, and then Joey lay her head on my lap, spent from sugar and coffee. Her arm curled back around me and my fingers fell into her slippery hair. On the February sidewalk that felt like spring.

When most folks think about the problems of growing up in the hood, they think about what it must feel like to be poor, or hungry, or to have your lights cut off. The struggle nobody talks about is what it feels like to be invisible, or to know in your heart that nobody cares. Mama didn’t want to be famous; she wanted to be seen. All those years I thought we were so different, but when I stepped onstage and saw all those facing smiling back at me, I realized Mama and I craved the same thing.

They talked in the car always, he trying to find the key to her own ignition behind the hooded eyes, she sitting back of the right-hand steering wheel and talking, talking, nothing but MG-words, inanimate-words he couldn’t really talk back at. Soon

I’d gone to an outdoor store in Minneapolis called REI about a dozen times over the previous months to purchase a good portion of these items. Seldom was this a straightforward affair. To buy even a water bottle without first thoroughly considering the latest water bottle technology was folly, I quickly learned. There were the pros and cons of various materials to take into account, not to mention the research that had been done regarding design. And this was only the smallest, least complex of the purchases I had to make. The rest of the gear I would need was ever more complex, I realized after consulting with the men and women of REI, who inquired hopefully if they could help me whenever they spotted me before displays of ultralight stoves or strolling among the tents. These employees ranged in age and manner and area of wilderness adventure proclivity, but what they had in common was that every last one of them could talk about gear, with interest and nuance, for a length of time that was so dumbfounding that I was ultimately bedazzled by it. They cared if my sleeping bag had snag-free zipper guards and a face muff that allowed the hood to be cinched snug without obstructing my breathing. They took pleasure in the fact that my water purifier had a pleated glass-fiber element for increased surface area. And their knowledge had a way of rubbing off on me. By the time I made the decision about which backpack to purchase—a top-of-the-line Gregory hybrid external frame that claimed to have the balance and agility of an internal—I felt as if I’d become a backpacking expert.

I cannot return," she said, sadness weighing down each word. "I am sorry." "We need you, Isabelle," Adam said, his voice rough. "We need your clever brain and your wicked shot and your passion for helping people." "You are talking about Robin," she whispered. "No, I'm not," he said forcefully. "I'm talking about you. The girl that stood up to a camp of outlaws and challenged for her place among them. The girl who took on the most powerful man in the country and beat him. The girl who stared down a soldier of the king to protect innocent people. We've got our hands full helping the rebel barons and protecting the people of Sherwood. No one knows about Robin's death besides the Men, and we can't let anyone find out. The people need something to believe in now more then ever. We need Robin Hood to live on, even if the man himself is gone. But I'm too tall and Little's a terrible shot. Helena's the only one with a bow arm good enough to pretend to be Robin, and she won't let any of us hear the end of it. We need you." He cleared his throat. "I need you.

We head to that corner of the basement. Rev straddles the weight bench and sits down while Declan sits on a yoga ball and leans against the corner. They fall into these positions so easily that I wonder if this is their space, the way Rowan and I claim her room or the plush couch in my basement. I’m not a violent person, but hitting something sounds really good. I draw back a hand and swing, throwing my whole body into it. Ow. Ow. The bag swings slightly, but shock reverberates down my arm. I think I’ve dislocated every joint of every finger, but I can feel it, and it’s the first thing I’ve truly felt in weeks. It feels fantastic. I need one of these in my basement. I grit my teeth and pull back my arm to do it again. “Whoa.” A hand catches my arm in midswing. I’m standing there, gasping, and Declan has a hold of my elbow. His eyebrows are way up. “So . . . yeah,” he says. “I don’t want to be sexist here, but after the way you talk about cars, I didn’t expect you to throw a punch like that.” I draw back and straighten, feeling foolish. “Sorry.” “What are you apologizing for?” He looks at me like I’m crazy. “I just don’t want to watch you break a wrist.” “Here.” Rev half stands, holding out a pair of black padded gloves. He’s pushed back the hood of his sweatshirt, and I wonder if he’s grown more comfortable around me—or if he’s just warm. “If you really want to beat on it, put on gloves

When some bigoted white people heard the message of Donald Trump and others in the GOP that their concerns mattered, that the fear generated by their own biases had a target in Mexican and Muslim immigrants, many embraced the GOP to their own detriment. We talk at length about the 53 percent of white women who supported the Republican candidate for president, but we tend to skim past the reality that many white voters had been overtly or passively supporting the same problematic candidates and policies for decades. Researchers point to anger and disappointment among some whites as a result of crises like rising death rates from suicide, drugs, and alcohol; the decline in available jobs for those who lack a college degree; and the ongoing myth that white people are unfairly treated by policies designed to level the playing field for other groups—policies like affirmative action. Other studies have pointed to the appeal of authoritarianism, or plain old racism and sexism. Political scientist Diana Mutz said in an interview in Pacific Standard magazine that some voters who switched parties to vote for Trump were motivated by the possibility of a fall in social status: “In short, they feared that they were in the process of losing their previously privileged positions.

I still can’t believe it.” Daniel ran a hand through his locs. “Yeah. Right.” She caught the thin wedge of anger in his voice. “Well. I can’t.” “He couldn’t, either. Whereas I—we—all his friends—can believe it, no problem. Who does that? Go help some White girl. In a park. In Northwest DC. At night.” He shook his head and dropped another book into the box. “What else could he have done?” Daniel straightened. “Girl, he should have sped up, kept on running right to a well-lit road, and called some White folk to help her. He just didn’t know how he needed to be if he was going to live in this country.” He sighed. “We tried. Gave him ‘the talk,’ like our parents did when we were little kids.” He shook his head. “He thought he knew about cops. But the cops he knew in England, ninety percent of them weren’t carrying guns. No, make that a hundred percent, the bougie ’hoods where he came up. Art historian, Lord Fauntleroy accent, Yale and Georgetown—none of it was ever going to keep him safe. Like I said, we tried to warn him. But seems like it never sank in.

It was a sledge, and it was reindeer with bells on their harness. But they were far bigger than the Witch’s reindeer, and they were not white but brown. And on the sledge sat a person whom everyone knew the moment they set eyes on him. He was a huge man in a bright red robe (bright as hollyberries) with a hood that had fur inside it and a great white beard that fell like a foamy waterfall over his chest. Everyone knew him because, though you see people of his sort only in Narnia, you see pictures of them and hear them talked about even in our world – the world on this side of the wardrobe door. But when you really see them in Narnia it is rather different. Some of the pictures of Father Christmas in our world make him look only funny and jolly. But now that the children actually stood looking at him they didn’t find it quite like that. He was so big, and so glad, and so real, that they all became quite still. They felt very glad, but also solemn.

He sounds . . . different. It’s like how when I go with my grandma to one of the nice grocery stores out in the suburbs and she tells me to “talk like you got some sense.” She doesn’t want people to think we’re “some of those hood rats who frequent their establishments.” Trey calls it code-switching. Miles sounds like it’s not code-switching for him. It sounds like how he naturally talks, like he belongs in the suburbs. I mean, he is from the suburbs, but in the Ring a few weeks back, he sounded extremely hood.

The unemployment rate for young black men post-apartheid shot up, sometimes as high as 50 percent. What happens to a lot of guys is they finish high school and they can’t afford university, and even little retail jobs can be hard to come by when you’re from the hood and you look and talk a certain way. So, for many young men in South Africa’s townships, freedom looks like this: Every morning they wake up, maybe their parents go to work or maybe not. Then they go outside and chill on the corner the whole day, talking shit. They’re free, they’ve been taught how to fish, but no one will give them a fishing rod.

But there’s never been anyone? Really?” Sarah shrugs. “Penny and I were tutored at home when we were young . . . but in year ten, there was this one boy.” I rub my hands together. “Here we go—tell me everything. I want all the sick, lurid details. Was he a footballer? Big and strong, captain of the team, the most popular boy in school?” I could see it. Sarah’s delicate, long and lithe, but dainty, beautiful—any young man would’ve been desperate to have her on his arm. In his lap. In his bed, on the hood of his car, riding his face . . . all of the above. “He was captain of the chess team.” I cover my eyes with my hand. “His name was Davey. He wore these adorable tweed jackets and bow ties, he had blond hair, and was a bit pale because of the asthma. He had the same glasses as I and he had a different pair of argyle socks for every day of the year.” “You’re messing with me, right?” She shakes her head. “Argyle socks, Sarah? I am so disappointed in you right now.” “He was nice,” she chides. “You leave my Davey alone.” Then she laughs again—delighted and free. My cock reacts hard and fast, emphasis on hard. It’s like sodding granite. “So what happened to old Davey boy?” “I was alone in the library one day and he came up and started to ask me to the spring social. And I was so excited and nervous I could barely breathe.” I picture how she must’ve looked then. But in my mind’s eyes she’s really not any different than she is right now. Innocent, sweet, and so real she couldn’t deceive someone if her life depended on it. “And then before he could finish the question, I . . .” I don’t realize I’m leaning toward her until she stops talking and I almost fall over. “You . . . what?” Sarah hides behind her hands. “I threw up on him.” And I try not to laugh. I swear I try . . . but I’m only human. So I end up laughing so hard the car shakes and I can’t speak for several minutes. “Christ almighty.” “And I’d had fish and chips for lunch.” Sarah’s laughing too. “It was awful.” “Oh you poor thing.” I shake my head, still chuckling. “And poor Davey.” “Yes.” She wipes under her eyes with her finger. “Poor Davey. He never came near me again after that.” “Coward—he didn’t deserve you. I would’ve swam through a whole lake of puke to take a girl like you to the social.” She smiles so brightly at me, her cheeks maroon and round like two shiny apples. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” I wiggle my eyebrows. “I’m all about the compliments.

Shocked, she uttered a hoarse protest and shifted beneath him, but he soothed her with his hands, stroking her legs and hips, resettling her on the mattress. "Lie still. You don't have to do anything, my love. Let me take care of you. Yes. You can touch me if you... mmm, yes..." He purred as he felt her trembling fingers touch his glistening hair, the back of his neck, the hard slope of his shoulders. He moved lower, his hair-roughened legs sliding along the insides of hers, and she realized that his face was just above the triangle of fiery red curls. Flooded with embarrassment, she automatically reached down to cover the private area with her hand. St. Vincent's erotic mouth lowered to her hip, and she felt him smile against her tender skin. "You shouldn't do that," he whispered. "When you hide something from me, I want it all the more. I'm afraid you're filling my head with the most lascivious ideas... you'd better take your hand away, sweet, or I might do something really depraved." As her shaking hand withdrew, he let one fingertip wander into the springy hair, delicately searching the cushiony softness. "That's right... obey your husband," he whispered wickedly, stroking farther, deeper, until he had separated the cluster of curls. "Especially in bed. How beautiful you are. Open your legs, my love. I'm going to touch inside you. No, don't be afraid. Will it help if I kiss you here? Be still for me..." Evie sobbed as his mouth searched through the triangle of brilliant red hair. His warm, ruthlessly patient tongue found the little peak half concealed beneath the vulnerable hood. His long, agile finger probed the entrance of her body, but he was momentarily dislodged as she jerked in surprise. Whispering reassurances against her swollen flesh, St. Vincent slid his finger inside her again, deeper this time. "Innocent darling," came his soft murmur, and his tongue tickled a place so excruciatingly sensitive that she quivered and moaned. At the same time, his finger stroked her inner softness with a languid rhythm.

I get out the car. For at least seven hours I don’t have to talk about One-Fifteen. I don’t have to think about Khalil. I just have to be normal Starr at normal Williamson and have a normal day. That means flipping the switch in my brain so I’m Williamson Starr. Williamson Starr doesn’t use slang—if a rapper would say it, she doesn’t say it, even if her white friends do. Slang makes them cool. Slang makes her “hood.” Williamson Starr holds her tongue when people piss her off so nobody will think she’s the “angry black girl.” Williamson Starr is approachable. No stank-eyes, side-eyes, none of that. Williamson Starr is nonconfrontational. Basically, Williamson Starr doesn’t give anyone a reason to call her ghetto.

Ash watched her carefully, scrutinizing her every word and gesture. The question of her sanity came to mind. It was like the scent of something burning in the room. He swept a hand toward the book. “Are we talking about . . . reincarnation?” The word took its place in the room like a stranger come in from the cold. Arming himself with cold logic, Ash was ready to challenge any argument she might offer. “I don’t have all the answers, Ash.” Her voice was gentle and frank, her gray eyes like droplets of water flooded with light. “Hubert said that sometimes there are rare bonds between extraordinary people . . . bonds so strong they cannot be broken . . . not even by death.” She smiled and shrugged a shoulder. “That’s what he said.

Looking back, Colleen and Neal have somewhat different perspectives. . . . She remembers she "was impressed that he seemed to have so much charisma. People were looking to him for answers and just had a great regard for him." Then Neal adds, "So much charisma [that] she turned me down when I first asked her for a date." Fortunately for both, he called again, and this time she said yes. . . . Colleen found herself increasingly drawn to him. She found him "really cute and interesting," even if he did lack just a little social polish. He didn't care for dancing and didn't like small talk, both of which were more important to other people than they were to her. He "was so knowledgeable and such a good speaker, even though he did talk fast. But if you could listen fast you could learn a lot." As Neal came to know her better, he was impressed with her maturity, her sensitivity to other people, and the depth of her spiritual convictions. He began feeling a "spiritual impetus that this was a young woman out of the ordinary." . . . Emma remembered, "Our first introduction to Colleen was when you came home one night and said, 'I've got to see more of that girl. She has some thinking under her hood.'" . . . "I knew I was not dealing with an eighteen-year-old co-ed who was so anxious to please me that I'd have my way when I shouldn't," he said. "We hadn't been married long before I knew I had a kind of Gibraltar--someone who would be tough and strong in the storms of life.

The air is crisp on my skin, and though my hands are wrapped under thick gloves, I shove my fists into my pockets anyway. The wind penetrates here through every layer, including skin. I’m dressed in fur so thick that walking feels like an exertion. It slows me down more than I would like, and even though I know there’s no imminent threat of attack, I still don’t like being unprepared in case one comes. It shakes me more than the cold ever could. When I turn to Lira, the ends of her hair are white with frost. “Try not to breathe,” I tell her. “It might get stuck halfway out.” Lira flicks up her hood. “You should try not to talk then,” she retorts. “Nobody wants your words being preserved for eternity.” “They’re pearls of wisdom, actually.” I can barely see Lira’s eyes under the mass of dark fur from her coat, but the mirthless curl of her smile is ever-present. It lingers in calculated amusement as she considers what to say next. Readies to ricochet the next blow. Lira pulls a line of ice from her hair, artfully indifferent. “If that is what pearls are worth these days, I’ll make sure to invest in diamonds.” “Or gold,” I tell her smugly. “I hear it’s worth its weight.” Kye shakes the snow from his sword and scoffs. “Anytime you two want to stop making me feel nauseated, go right ahead.” “Are you jealous because I’m not flirting with you?” Madrid asks him, warming her finger on the trigger mechanism of her gun. “I don’t need you to flirt with me,” he says. “I already know you find me irresistible.” Madrid reholsters her gun. “It’s actually quite easy to resist you when you’re dressed like that.” Kye looks down at the sleek red coat fitted snugly to his lithe frame. The fur collar cuddles against his jaw and obscures the bottoms of his ears, making it seem as though he has no neck at all. He throws Madrid a smile. “Is it because you think I look sexier wearing nothing?” Torik lets out a withering sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. I’m not sure whether it’s from the hours we’ve gone without food or his inability to wear cutoffs in the biting cold, but his patience seems to be wearing thin. “I could swear that I’m on a life-and-death mission with a bunch of lusty kids,” he says. “Next thing I know, the lot of you will be writing love notes in rum bottles.” “Okay,” Madrid says. “Now I feel nauseated.

I don’t trust white people like you do. I obviously don’t think they are all murderers, but I think they are all racist.” “All?” I say, eyebrows raised. “It sounds wild, I know, but racism is a spectrum and they all participate in it in some way. They don’t all have white hoods or call us mean things; I know that. But racism isn’t just about that—it’s not about being nice or mean. Or good versus bad. It’s bigger than that. We’re all in this bubble being affected by the past. The moment they decided they got to be white and have all the power and we got to be Black and be at the bottom, everything changed. If we can’t talk about it honestly, and I mean really talk about it, then what’s the point? I read some Malcom X last year, and I agree with him. Some might even treat you good, like an owner might treat a pet.

A month passed, and it was time again for Marcus to return to his research. He had been avoiding it because it wasn’t going well. Originally, he’d wanted to focus his work on the convict leasing system that had stolen years off of his great-grandpa H’s life, but the deeper into the research he got, the bigger the project got. How could he talk about Great-Grandpa H’s story without also talking about his grandma Willie and the millions of other black people who had migrated north, fleeing Jim Crow? And if he mentioned the Great Migration, he’d have to talk about the cities that took that flock in. He’d have to talk about Harlem. And how could he talk about Harlem without mentioning his father’s heroin addiction—the stints in prison, the criminal record? And if he was going to talk about heroin in Harlem in the ’60s, wouldn’t he also have to talk about crack everywhere in the ’80s? And if he wrote about crack, he’d inevitably be writing, too, about the “war on drugs.” And if he started talking about the war on drugs, he’d be talking about how nearly half of the black men he grew up with were on their way either into or out of what had become the harshest prison system in the world. And if he talked about why friends from his hood were doing five-year bids for possession of marijuana when nearly all the white people he’d gone to college with smoked it openly every day, he’d get so angry that he’d slam the research book on the table of the beautiful but deadly silent Lane Reading Room of Green Library of Stanford University. And if he slammed the book down, then everyone in the room would stare and all they would see would be his skin and his anger, and they’d think they knew something about him, and it would be the same something that had justified putting his great-grandpa H in prison, only it would be different too, less obvious than it once was.

A yellow-and-brown streak glided from the purple rustling stems to the bank, stretched its neck to the water, drank, and lay still—a big cobra with fixed, lidless eyes. ‘I have no stick—I have no stick,’ said Kim. ‘I will get me one and break his back.’ ‘Why? He is upon the Wheel as we are—a life ascending or descending—very far from deliverance. Great evil must the soul have done that is cast into this shape.’ ‘I hate all snakes,’ said Kim. No native training can quench the white man’s horror of the Serpent. ‘Let him live out his life.’ The coiled thing hissed and half opened its hood. ‘May thy release come soon, brother!’ the lama continued placidly. ‘Hast thou knowledge, by chance, of my River?’ ‘Never have I seen such a man as thou art,’ Kim whispered, overwhelmed. ‘Do the very snakes understand thy talk?’ ‘Who knows?’ He passed within a foot of the cobra’s poised head. It flattened itself among the dusty coils. ‘Come, thou!’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Not I,’ said Kim. ‘I go round.’ ‘Come. He does no hurt.’ Kim hesitated for a moment. The lama backed his order by some droned Chinese quotation which Kim took for a charm. He obeyed and bounded across the rivulet, and the snake, indeed, made no sign.

Once there was a boy. When the boy was 6 years old, his father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors - killing birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky. The falcon didn't like the boy, and he didn't like it, either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with his beak and talons when he came near: For weeks his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He didn't know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to train. But the boy tried, because his father had told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father. He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was ment to be easier to tame. He leard the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was ment to keep the bird blind, but he couldn't bring himself to do it - instead he tryed to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. He fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat. Later it ate so savagely that the beak cut his palm. But the boy was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if it had to consume his blood to make that happen. He began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like light. When it learned to circle and land on his wrist, he nearly shouted with delight. Sometimes the bird would hop to his sholder and but its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain that it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud. Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands, and broke its neck. 'I told you to make him obedient,' his father said, and dropped the falcon's lifeless body to the ground. "Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not ment to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.' Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he'd learned: That to love is to destroy, and to be loved is to be the one destroyed.

We walk around inside that house like everything is okay, but it’s not, Quinn. We’ve been broken for years and I have no idea how to fix us. I find solutions. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at. But I have no idea how to solve me and you. Every day I come home, hoping things will be better. But you can’t even stand to be in the same room with me. You hate it when I touch you. You hate it when I talk to you. I pretend not to notice the things you don’t want me to notice because I don’t want you to hurt more than you already do.” He releases a rush of air. “I am not blaming you for what I did. It’s my fault. I did that. I fucked up. But I didn’t fuck up because I was attracted to her. I fucked up because I miss you. Every day, I miss you. When I’m at work, I miss you. When I’m home, I miss you. When you’re next to me in bed, I miss you. When I’m inside you, I miss you.” Graham presses his mouth to mine. I can taste his tears. Or maybe they’re my tears. He pulls back and presses his forehead to mine. “I miss you, Quinn. So much. You’re right here, but you aren’t. I don’t know where you went or when you left, but I have no idea how to bring you back. I am so alone. We live together. We eat together. We sleep together. But I have never felt more alone in my entire life.” Graham releases me and falls back against his seat. He rests his elbow against the window, covering his face as he tries to compose himself. He’s more broken than I’ve ever seen him in all the years I’ve known him. And I’m the one slowly tearing him down. I’m making him unrecognizable. I’ve strung him along by allowing him to believe there’s hope that I’ll eventually change. That I’ll miraculously turn back into the woman he fell in love with. But I can’t change. We are who our circumstances turn us into. “Graham.” I wipe at my face with my shirt. He’s quiet, but he eventually looks at me with his sad, heartbroken eyes. “I haven’t gone anywhere. I’ve been here this whole time. But you can’t see me because you’re still searching for someone I used to be. I’m sorry I’m no longer who I was back then. Maybe I’ll get better. Maybe I won’t. But a good husband loves his wife through the good and the bad times. A good husband stands at his wife’s side through sickness and health, Graham. A good husband- a husband who truly loves his wife - wouldn’t cheat on her and then blame his infidelity on the fact that he’s lonely.” Graham’s expression doesn’t change. He’s as still as a statue. The only thing that moves is his jaw as he works it back and forth. And then his eyes narrow and he tilts his head. “You don’t think I love you, Quinn?” “I know you used to. But I don’t think you love the person I’ve become.” Graham sits up straight. He leans forward, looking me hard in the eye. His words are clipped as he speaks. “I have loved you every single second of every day since the moment I laid eyes on you. I love you more now than I did the day I married you. I love you, Quinn. I fucking love you!” He opens his car door, gets out and then slams it shut with all his strength. The whole car shakes. He walks toward the house, but before he makes it to the front door, he spins around and points at me angrily. “I love you, Quinn!” He’s shouting the words. He’s angry. So angry. He walks toward his car and kicks at the front bumper with his bare foot. He kicks and he kicks and he kicks and then pauses to scream it at me again. “I love you!” He slams his fist against the top of his car, over and over, until he finally collapses against the hood, his head buried in his arms. He remains in this position for an entire minute, the only thing moving is the subtle shaking of his shoulders. I don’t move. I don’t even think I breathe. Graham finally pushes off the hood and uses his shirt to wipe at his eyes. He looks at me, completely defeated. “I love you,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “I always have. No matter how much you wish I didn’t.

Knightmare. Breezeo’s archenemy. Where Breezeo is light, a breath of fresh air, the nice breeze on a warm summer day, Knightmare is the storm that rolls in and takes it all away. Darkness, thick and suffocating, the shadows you can’t escape in the night in back alleyways. Black leather framed with dark armor, head to toe, from the combat boots the whole way up to the oversized black hood with a metal mask covering part of the face, rendering him unrecognizable. I’ve always been envious of the costume. Beats the damn pseudo-spandex, that’s for sure. “I, uh, wow.” Kennedy stands in the doorway of her apartment with a look of awe as her eyes scan the costume. “That’s just… wow.” “Wow, huh?” I glance down. “Good or bad?” “It’s just, uh, you know…” “Wow?” I guess. She nods, fighting off a smile. “Wow.” I smirk. “It’s the original.” “Seriously?” “Straight from the second movie,” I say, touching an armored chest plate with a fingerless glove-clad hand. “Well, except for these gloves. The real ones wouldn’t fit because of the cast, so I had to improvise.” “It’s, uh…” “Wow?” “Nice,” she says, touching the costume, fingertips grazing the armor. “Kind of weird seeing you like this, but still, it’s nice.” “Thanks,” I say as she steps aside for me to come in the apartment. “I talked them into letting me borrow it. Might not give it back, though. I’m kind of enjoying it.” “You should keep it,” she says, her eyes still scanning me as she closes the door. “It’s, uh…” “Nice?” “Wow.” She smiles playfully as she walks away. “I need to finish getting ready for work. Maddie, you've got a visitor!” A moment after Kennedy disappears, Madison runs in. She skids to a stop when she spots me, eyes wide, mouth popping open. “Whoa.” I push the hood off, shoving the mask up, her expression changing when she sees it’s me, face lighting up. She runs right at me, slamming into me so hard I stumble. I laugh as she hugs me. “Hey, pretty girl.” She looks up at me. “You think I’m pretty?” “What? Of course.” I kneel next to her, grinning as I press a finger to the tip of her nose. “You look like your mom.” “You think Mommy’s pretty, too?” “I think she's the most beautiful woman in the world.” Her expression shifts rapidly when I say that before her eyes widen. “Even more beautifuler than Maryanne?” I lean closer, whispering, repeating her words. “Even more beautifuler than Maryanne.” “Whoa

Alan, as per his usual routine, got up early and peeked into my rom to check on me. What he found were his teenage stepdaughter and her childhood sweetheart curled up in the same bed, sound asleep and draped all over each other. He hissed my name, alarmed: "Jenna!" "Wha-?" I sat straight up, immediately aware of what was happening and how it all looked. I clambered over Cameron, who was just coming to consciousness, and followed Alan into the kitchen. "It's nothing, I swear," I said in a whisper. If Mom wasn't up yet, I wanted to keep it that way. Alan shook his head. "It looks bad." He glanced toward my bedroom. "Was that Ethan? Tell him to come out here. I want to talk to him." "Um, it's not Ethan. It's Cameron." He put his hands to his head. "Jenna. Jenna." "I know. Is Mom awake?" "Not yet." I kept my voice low. "Can we talk by the fish tank?" He led, I followed. "He came to my window in the night," I explained. "He needed to talk. I let him in. It was me. It was my idea. It was all...nothing happened." "This isn't my area," Alan said, looking at the fish. "Your mom is supposed to do the tough stuff. We have a policy of laissez-faire when it comes to me and...this kind of thing." "Exactly. So," I said hopefully, "go make the coffee and we'll pretend nothing every happened." Cameron came into the room, his blanket wrapped around him. His hair was sticking up in the back, and his long eyelashes hooded sleepy eyes. "I just needed to talk to someone," he said to Alan. "Guess we fell asleep." "Uh-huh." Alan cast an anxious glance toward his and mom's bedroom and said, "You couldn't talk in the kitchen?" "We didn't think about it," I said. "That's how innocent it was, see?" Alan stared at us, still shaking his head. "Look, Cameron, just get out of here before Jenna's mom sees you. Okay?" He nodded. "I'll go get my boots." I breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Alan." When Cameron shut my bedroom door, Alan said, "Jenna. This is the kind of situation that's very, very awkward, to say the least. If your mom were to find out, I would be in scalding hot water." "She won't. Thank you thank you thank you." "Now. I need my coffee." He shuffled off to the kitchen, ankles cracking. "I'm too old for this." Back in my room, I watched Cameron get ready to go, thinking about everything we'd talked about and what it meant. "Where do you live?" I asked. "I'll take you home." "I share a studio apartment with three other guys. It's a dump," he said, lacing up his boots. "How come you were sleeping in my car yesterday?" "Sometimes I don't want to be there." He pulled on his jacket. "I'll go straight to school, shower in the locker room. See you later." He started to open the window. "Wait," I said. "You can use the front door, you know. Just be quiet." "Okay." He paused on his way out of my room, looing back once to say, "Thanks.

Crawl underneath the hood of any growing church that is actually growing from the unchurched, and you will find that the number one reason newcomers attend is that they were invited by a friend. Churches grow from the unchurched because their members and attendees talk about it to their unchurched friends. It comes up in their conversations like the mention of a good movie, a favorite restaurant or a treasured vacation spot. There is a culture of invitation.

Dick Tracy is a hayseed nightmare, a petrified hick’s vision of big city America. While Tracy and his gal Tess Trueheart are drawn taut and chalk white, the crooks are fat, greasy, beady-eyed, and beastly. Gould’s city is full of physical mutants who look funny, who talk funny, have funny names — like Flattop, B.O. Plenty, The Brow, and the Blank. It’s the kind of thing you see when Pat Robertson’s 700 Club does an investigative report on raves or porn, hysteria boiled down to four panels a day and ten on Sunday. As street hoods turned into executive syndicates, “Dick Tracy” turned to 50s-60s sci-fi two-way wrist radios, moon girls, and Gould lecturing interviewers on how stupid NASA was with its clunky jet propulsion systems. If the aliens weren’t on the city streets, Gould sent Tracy into space to find more.

The hood had a clear see-through sheet that allowed you to see (like a mask) and allowed the person to breathe and talk on ascent due to the air released from the expanding jacket. To make sure the trainees did not hold their breath (one could not be sure if the bubbles where from the jacket or trainees breathing) they had to sing (normally go ho ho ho) on the way up. Early Santa Clause practice. The Steinke hood replaced the Momsen lung and was later replaced by escape suits, called Submarine Escape Immersion Equipment.

I talked about God’s presence being in a place in the Old Testament—the Holy of Holies. In the Gospels, God’s Presence was in a person—Jesus Christ. But, since the day of Pentecost in Acts, God’s presence indwells all who repent and surrender to Him. Those people are His church. Here is the progression: God’s Presence in a Building—The Temple God’s Presence in a Person—Jesus Christ God’s Presence in a People—The Church

Jack and Caleb stood in the driveway, the cars’ engines revving, and talked about their new toys. The lights from the porch spilled down to them. Jenna stood, leaning against the post, watching, enjoying seeing their bond and appreciation of the cars. “Boys with toys.” She smiled from the top step. “You guys look happy.” “What’s not to be happy about? These are the coolest cars ever,” Caleb said with the exuberance of a teen with his very own custom hot rod. “You owe me a ride, Jack.” “Honey, I aim to give you the ride of your life as soon as this one goes home to his wife.” Jack gave her a wicked grin and closed the hood of his car. Jenna laughed and smiled. “You have a one-track mind.” When was the last time she felt this light? “Honey, my mind hasn’t been off you since I saw you in the diner.” “I got the hint. I’m going.” Caleb closed the hood of his car, still purring like a really big kitten. He walked over to Jenna as she came down the porch steps to the gravel drive. He wrapped his arms around her, careful of her healing back, and she wrapped hers around him. So easy to do now that she’d opened herself to him, the whole family. He bent and whispered into her ear, “Thank you. Thank you for what you gave to my wife, my children, and me. I’ll never be able to repay you. If you ever need me, I’ll be there for you, no matter what. You can count on me. You’re an angel, an absolute angel.” “Get your hands off my woman. You have one of your own at home.” Jack watched his brother-in-law with Jenna. They’d created a close bond, the same as with his sister. She didn’t shy away from him when he embraced her; instead she held him and drew on his strength. Caleb would be like a big brother to her. He would protect her. Caleb drew Jenna away just enough to look into her eyes. He put his hand to her cheek, his other arm still wrapped around her. “Thank you.” “You’re welcome, Caleb. You’re a good man.” “You make me want to be a better one.” “I just want you and your family to have a happy life.” “We will, thanks in part to you and Jack. You’re part of that family now, too. Don’t ever forget that.” “Thank you.” “Don’t thank me. You’re a wonderful person. The best I’ve ever met.” He kissed her cheek and released her, turning back toward Jack. “I already punched you for kissing my sister. I guess I have to punch you for kissing her now, too,” Jack teased. Caleb didn’t rise to the bait. “You hurt her, and I’ll be the one throwing the punches.” He smiled back at Jack, then walked over and gave him a big bear hug. “Thanks for what you did for me, Summer, and the kids. It means everything to us. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He smacked Jack on the back before getting into his car. Caleb revved the engine, beamed them an excited smile, and took off like a rocket toward home. “You going to hurt me, Jack?” “Not if I can help it. I’ll spend the rest of my life and yours trying to make you happy. How’s that sound?” “Like heaven. Take me for a ride.” -Jenna, Caleb, & Jack

Greg wasn’t in the mood to talk. He really hated when anybody from his old hood called him; that life was behind him.

Quincy only talked to her when he was horny and wanted some, but other than that their conversations were very scarce. He had a lot on his mind and was extremely anxious to get back to the hood.

You know, you read the papers after a young man dies in this city, someone's always saying, 'He was just starting to get his life together, he was just talking about going back to school, getting his GED, getting job, talking about being a real father to his daughter, talking about getting away from the hood, about enlisting, about marrying his fiancée, he was just about to do this, to do that...' All these 'just's, whether they were true or not, because they all died young and 'just' was all they had, tomorrow was all they had. And the same could be said for my boy. He was 'just' about to finish his schooling, he was 'just' about to find his own way in the world, 'just' about to show me the man that now, now, he'll never get to be, the man that over the years would have null-and-voided every hardship, every heartache I've ever endured in my life.

The meeting broke up to the sound of squeaking chairs, shuffling feet, and cop chatter, as everyone sitting stood up and formed into little conversation groups with those already standing—except for Major Nelson of the Highway Patrol, who just jammed his hat onto his closely cropped head and marched out the door as if the “Colonel Bogey March” was playing. The huge man from the tribal police, Weems, sauntered over to talk to Chambers, and Special Agent Recht sat by herself and looked around the room, quietly disapproving. Hood caught her eye and shook his head.

Natalia didn't talk to me for four weeks, but at least she had still been paying my rent. She'd been ignoring my texts and calls constantly,

Looka that,” Debs snapped back at him. “Talking asshole.” Hood

I was gonna go talk to Natalia today and see if she wanted to help me break them up.

It was after tea-time; it was pouring with rain, and had been all day; his hood was dripping into his eyes, his cloak was full of water; the pony was tired and stumbled on stones; the others were too grumpy to talk.

and when we talk about holy books and hooded men and death, why do we never mention the kkk?

Like we changed our [radio] call signs in the middle of fucking things. Like we changed our [radio] call signs in the middle of fucking things. The Gooks some way or another got the roster of our shit. The fucking yo-yos in the back used to have all these fucking Indigenous Personnel working for them. So we were in the field and we were called, like, Robin Hood, Robin Hood One, Robin Hood Six, Broken Arrow. And they started to get our fucking call signs. And [the enemy] started talking to us on the fucking radios.... So when we went to the field, the six teams going had already talked. And we said, if this shit hits like it again, we'll all use something that we use back home. So like all of a sudden we became Batman and Robin, Snoopy and Pigpen. Y'know, "Snoopy, have you seen Pigpen?" "He's with Schroeder." Right? So we knew where everybody was. You fucking got the radio, and you're saying, "I'm in a deep fucking trouble? You people fucking serious?" Y'know? "What the fucking you doing to do? Send me to jail? Do me a fucking favor." I'm out there getting fucking murdered, and they're telling me I'm in fucking trouble.

When the boy was six years old, his father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors—killing birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky. “The falcon didn’t like the boy, and the boy didn’t like it, either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with beak and talons when he came near: For weeks his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He didn’t know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to tame. But the boy tried, because his father had told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father. “He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it—instead he tried to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. He fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat. Later it ate so savagely that its beak cut the skin of his palm. But the boy was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if the bird had to consume his blood to make that happen. “He began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like light. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he nearly shouted with delight. Sometimes the bird would hop to his shoulder and put its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud. “Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands and broke its neck. ‘I told you to make it obedient,’ his father said, and dropped the falcon’s lifeless body to the ground. ‘Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.’ “Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he’d learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed.

Learning and knowledge were part of the white man’s game, and to be Black and intellectual was to be not, to my mind, normal. The normal kids were back in the neighborhood. The few friends I made at JHS 210 lived all over the city, so I couldn’t hang out with them and do the normal things, like playing stickball, talking about girls and records, and just hanging around the ’hood, keeping clear of the gangs. My parents would see to it that getting back to “normal” never happened.

Originally, he’d wanted to focus his work on the convict leasing system that had stolen years off of his great-grandpa H’s life, but the deeper into the research he got, the bigger the project got. How could he talk about Great-Grandpa H’s story without also talking about his grandma Willie and the millions of other black people who had migrated north, fleeing Jim Crow? And if he mentioned the Great Migration, he’d have to talk about the cities that took that flock in. He’d have to talk about Harlem. And how could he talk about Harlem without mentioning his father’s heroin addiction—the stints in prison, the criminal record? And if he was going to talk about heroin in Harlem in the ’60s, wouldn’t he also have to talk about crack everywhere in the ’80s? And if he wrote about crack, he’d inevitably be writing, too, about the “war on drugs.” And if he started talking about the war on drugs, he’d be talking about how nearly half of the black men he grew up with were on their way either into or out of what had become the harshest prison system in the world. And if he talked about why friends from his hood were doing five-year bids for possession of marijuana when nearly all the white people he’d gone to college with smoked it openly every day, he’d get so angry that he’d slam the research book on the table of the beautiful but deadly silent Lane Reading Room of Green Library of Stanford University. And if he slammed the book down, then everyone in the room would stare and all they would see would be his skin and his anger, and they’d think they knew something about him, and it would be the same something that had justified putting his great-grandpa H in prison, only it would be different too, less obvious than it once was.

Elmwood UFO Capital of the World Stop through Elmwood at any time of year other than the last full weekend in July, and you’ll think the aliens have already come and gone … and took everyone with them! Not much seems to be happening in this sleepy little burg. But that hasn’t always been the case. The first UFO sighting near Elmwood occurred on March 2, 1975. A star-shaped light chased a local woman and eventually landed on her car’s hood when she stopped to get a better look. A year later, in April 1976, another fireball—this one the size of a football field—shot out a blue light beam that blasted all the sparkplugs in a police cruiser driven by officer George Wheeler. Little green men seem to have trained their laser sights on Elmwood. And Elmwood welcomes the extraterrestrial attention. A few years ago Tomas Weber of the UFO Site Center Corporation in Chippewa Falls proposed that a two-square-mile UFO landing pad be built near town. The price? Twenty-five million dollars. The project has yet to get off the ground, or on the ground. Nobody talks much about it anymore, perhaps due to some type of black-ops “shadow government” cover-up.

Americans used to extol good-hearted Robin Hood, taking from the rich to give to the poor, and now we’ve stepped into the shoes of the Sheriff of Nottingham. When as a society we shrug at 30 million children living in low-income families in America, slashing their benefits while urging them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, we need to look in the mirror and have a good talk with ourselves.

What you do, boy, is get the money and get as far away from here as you can. Don't even stay for your brother's funeral. It might end up being yours also. So start running and maybe one day you and me both will be thankful for what's happening. I don't know. I know your mother deserves more than a double funeral. When your mother talks to you, I hope you will keep this between us. It won't matters if she knows I'm the one who made Jimmy pay for his ugliness.

Hey!” It was Sukey, at the base of the tree. Others. Umbrellas and hooded ponchos and raincoats. Upturned faces. Rafe, Terry, Dee, Low, Juicy. “We’re moving out here!” shouted Sukey. “You don’t want to,” I called down. “It’s cold and wet!” “Don’t care!” yelled Low. “It’s vile in there!” THEY STRAPPED UP the tarps from the beach to extend our roof cover. They found a stash of paint-spattered groundsheets and swarmed over the canopy, lashing the bright-blue vinyl to the treehouse posts. They stretched them between platforms, over nets and ladders. I felt restless. If they didn’t want to go back to the house, whatever, but I did. I wanted the fireplace and the cabinets packed with snack cakes and miniature powdered donuts. The indoor plumbing. I asked Dee, then Terry, then Rafe what the deal was, but they refused to talk about it. It was only when Sukey finished setting up her sleeping bag, weighing it down with rocks, that I got a straight answer: during the night the older generation had dosed itself with Ecstasy. No one knew if it had been a plan or covert action, but they’d promptly ascended new heights of repulsive. It was true Juicy and Terry had watched them fool around from behind slatted doors at the beginning—even Low had done it. Out of a sense of desperate boredom, soon after the phones were taken away. Also vengeance. And scorn. Now they regretted it. Maybe they’d had had stronger stomachs, back then. “Plus that was just like, normal old-people sex,” said Juicy. “How would you know?” said Rafe. “Like, couples,” said Juicy. “This is . . . like, everything.” “They’re walking around butt naked,” said Low. “I saw two fathers and Dee’s mother in a three—” started Juicy.

The white kids call Dustin Cavanaugh a wigger because he wears his clothes baggy and listens to gangsta rap and tries to talk like he came from the hood. He’s like our school’s very own version of Al Jolson. He doesn’t actually talk to the black kids. Or, I guess, maybe it’s more like they don’t talk to him. If he’s a wigger for “acting black,” what does that make them? Or me?

Suddenly Frodo noticed that a strange-looking weather-beaten man, sitting in the shadows near the wall, was also listening intently to the hobbit-talk. He had a tall tankard in front of him, and was smoking a long-stemmed pipe curiously carved. His legs were stretched out before him, showing high boots of supple leather that fitted him well, but had seen much wear and were now caked with mud. A travel-stained cloak of heavy dark-green cloth was drawn close about him, and in spite of the heat of the room he wore a hood that overshadowed his face; but the gleam of his eyes could be seen as he watched the hobbits.

The one who later told the story in most detail was Simone de Beauvoir, then around twenty-five years old and given to watching the world closely through her elegant hooded eyes. She was there with her boyfriend, Jean-Paul Sartre, a round-shouldered twenty-seven-year-old with downturned grouper lips, a dented complexion, prominent ears, and eyes that pointed in different directions, for his almost-blind right eye tended to wander outwards in a severe exotropia or misalignment of the gaze. Talking to him could be disorienting for the unwary, but if you forced yourself to stick with the left eye, you would invariably find it watching you with warm intelligence: the eye of a man interested in everything you could tell him.

I fetched my bag, tucked the folded newspaper inside, and grabbed the house keys. Clay beat me to the door.  I scowled down at him.  He stared back at me.  After a moment, he shook his neck, jangling his tags.  Defeated, I clipped on his leash.  He negotiated well without using a single word. I used my cell to call the number for the first ad.  The man sounded a bit brusque as if my planned visit inconvenienced him.  Shrugging it off, I led Clay to the address.  A rusty car parked on the front lawn with a “for sale” sign affirmed I had the right place.  Clay and I walked toward the car. A man called hello from the open garage and made his way toward us.  As he neared, his demeanor changed, and I inwardly groaned.  He introduced himself as Howard and looked me over with interest.  Clay moved to stand between us, his stoic presence a good deterrent. Howard talked about the car for a bit, going through the laundry list of its deficiencies.  Then he popped the hood so I could look at the engine.  In the middle of Howard’s attempt to impress me with his vast mechanical knowledge, Clay sprang up between us.  Howard yelped at Clay’s sudden move and edged away as Clay placed his paws on the front of the car to get a good look at the engine, too.  I fought not to smile at the man’s stunned expression.  At Clay’s discreet nod, I bought the car, not bothering with the second ad. No matter what errand I wanted to run during the week before classes started, Clay insisted on tagging along.  On Friday, when I drove to the bookstore, Clay rode a very cramped shotgun and waited in the car while I made my purchases.  Later, he sat in the hot car again while I bought some basic school supplies. However, Monday, when I tried leaving for my first class, I put my foot down.  He bristled and growled and tried to follow me. “Your license only wins you so much freedom.  Dogs aren’t allowed on campus and definitely not in the classroom.” Thankfully, Rachel had left first and didn’t hear me scold him. I tried to leave again, but he stubbornly persisted.  Finally, exasperated, I reminded him that he slept on my bed because of my good grace.  He resentfully stepped away from the door. *

It was snowing, and Father Maloney gave us a pep talk. 'You're heroes. It's a pleasure to be your spiritual guide, and I'm proud to be part of the 506th.' He used the hood of the jeep as an altar, and we knelt in the snow to get communion.

Mick?” she whispered. “Yeah?” “Are you feeling something?” “You could say that,” he murmured. “You?” She licked her lips and he nearly groaned. “I think so,” she whispered. “That’s good.” “Are you going to kiss me?” He cupped her face, let his thumbs trace her jawbone, his fingers sinking into her silky waves. “No,” he said quietly. “And not because I don’t want to, but because when I do, I want to know you’re ready. That you’ll feel it.” She sighed. “Guys do whatever they want all the time, no emotions necessary. I want that skill.” Another shaky breath escaped her, and since they were literally an inch apart, they shared air for a single heartbeat during which neither of them moved. Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “Okay, so I’m definitely feeling things.” She hesitated and then her hands came up to his chest. “Maybe we should test it out to be sure.” God, she was the sweetest temptation he’d ever met, and he wanted nothing more than to cover her mouth with his. Instead, he brushed his mouth to her cheek. “Please, Mick,” she whispered, her exhale warming his throat. He loved the “please,” and he wanted to do just that more than anything. But when she tried to turn her head into his, to line up their mouths, he gently tightened his grip, dragging his mouth along her smooth skin instead, making his way to her ear. “Not yet,” he whispered, letting his lips brush over her earlobe and the sensitive skin beneath it. She moaned and clutched him. “Why not?” It took every ounce of control he had to lift his head and meet her gaze. “Because I want to make sure you’re really with me, that you’re feeling everything I’m feeling. That there’ll be no doubt, no regrets.” “You sure have a lot of requirements.” He laughed. And she was right, it was all big talk for a guy who didn’t do relationships anymore. Still, he forced himself to step back and shut the passenger door. As he rounded the hood to the driver’s side, he tried to remind himself of all the reasons she was a bad idea. He lived two hundred miles away and he was hoping to move his mom up by him and never come back here. Not to mention that Quinn lived an equal two hundred miles in the opposite direction and she was in a deeply vulnerable place. No way would he even think about taking advantage of that. But when he slid behind the wheel and their eyes locked, he realized that while his mind could stand firm, the rest of his body wasn’t on board with the in-control program.

Mick?” she whispered. “Yeah?” “Are you feeling something?” “You could say that,” he murmured. “You?” She licked her lips and he nearly groaned. “I think so,” she whispered. “That’s good.” “Are you going to kiss me?” He cupped her face, let his thumbs trace her jawbone, his fingers sinking into her silky waves. “No,” he said quietly. “And not because I don’t want to, but because when I do, I want to know you’re ready. That you’ll feel it.” She sighed. “Guys do whatever they want all the time, no emotions necessary. I want that skill.” Another shaky breath escaped her, and since they were literally an inch apart, they shared air for a single heartbeat during which neither of them moved. Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “Okay, so I’m definitely feeling things.” She hesitated and then her hands came up to his chest. “Maybe we should test it out to be sure.” God, she was the sweetest temptation he’d ever met, and he wanted nothing more than to cover her mouth with his. Instead, he brushed his mouth to her cheek. “Please, Mick,” she whispered, her exhale warming his throat. He loved the “please,” and he wanted to do just that more than anything. But when she tried to turn her head into his, to line up their mouths, he gently tightened his grip, dragging his mouth along her smooth skin instead, making his way to her ear. “Not yet,” he whispered, letting his lips brush over her earlobe and the sensitive skin beneath it. She moaned and clutched him. “Why not?” It took every ounce of control he had to lift his head and meet her gaze. “Because I want to make sure you’re really with me, that you’re feeling everything I’m feeling. That there’ll be no doubt, no regrets.” “You sure have a lot of requirements.” He laughed. And she was right, it was all big talk for a guy who didn’t do relationships anymore. Still, he forced himself to step back and shut the passenger door. As he rounded the hood to the driver’s side, he tried to remind himself of all the reasons she was a bad idea. He lived two hundred miles away and he was hoping to move his mom up by him and never come back here. Not to mention that Quinn lived an equal two hundred miles in the opposite direction and she was in a deeply vulnerable place. No way would he even think about taking advantage of that. But when he slid behind the wheel and their eyes locked, he realized that while his mind could stand firm, the rest of his body wasn’t on board with the in-control program.

Syn didn’t even think twice. He made his way to the end of the bar and lifted the top, coming behind the bar. The two girl bartenders looked at him in shock and Syn flashed his badge again. “Where’s Furious?” he asked, using his authoritative cop tone. “He left,” they said in unison, still looking at him strangely. “Damnit,” Syn hissed and raced out of the pub. He looked anxiously up and down the sidewalk and saw Furious sitting on the bench, head hanging low, waiting on the bus. Even though he had a hoodie pulled up and hanging low over his forehead ... Syn knew it was his ma– He’s not my damn man, he’s just a friend. Syn approached his new friend with all the confidence in the world but wasn’t prepared for the angry, haunted eyes that looked up at him when he slowly removed Furious’ hood. Syn sucked in a hard breath and blew it out slowly before finally deciding to speak. “Furious. Are you okay?” No answer. “Are you hurt?” Syn was really concerned. Furious looked detached, closed in on himself. “Bab–” Shit. “Furi,” Syn quickly corrected. “Please answer me. Look my place is right there.” Syn pointed in the direction of his building. “If you want you can come up and talk. I can take you home later.” It was a few long and very intense minutes that Furious didn’t move or say anything. “We’ll just talk, okay?” Syn tried again. Thanks a lot MARTA. Perfect timing. Just Syn’s luck that the bus pulled up to the curb and the air doors swung open. “Furious, I just want to talk.” “No thanks, Detective.” Furious' voice was so deep and angry, it’d felt like Furi had struck him. Syn swallowed a hard gulp.

Lara, are you alright?" Keir asked, still seething. "I'm fine, belov—" "As if you really care!" Antas stood, and walked over to face Keir. "You, who have dallied with another, even as your so-called warprize attempts to claim you." Dallied? Did that mean what I thought it meant? I flushed, and then went cold at the idea that Keir would turn to another while— "Lower your hood, and show all how true you are to the one you would bond with." Antas pointed at Keir. "Do it now, warrior." There was absolute silence in the tent as Keir glared at Antas. But then his expression changed slightly, and his eyes crinkled in silent humor. Keir lifted his hands and lowered his hood to reveal a small purplish bruise on his neck. A love bite. Oh Goddess above. I blushed bright red, heat flooding my face. My love bite. Keir arched an eyebrow as the Elders reacted to the sight. Antas, however, was nearly foaming at the mouth. "You see? You see? He has broken faith with this Xyian even before she—" It took everything I had to say the words aloud before the entire Council of Elders. "I put that there." "Eh?" Antas twisted to face me. I drew a deep breath, and raised my voice. "That is my mark on his neck." As the group reacted to that, my blush deepened, if that was possible. Then I made the mistake of looking at Keir, and had to cover my mouth to prevent myself from laughing. He looked so smug. Simus was under no such handicap. He was howling with mirth. Antas was scowling, as were Essa and Wild Winds. "How so?" Antas snapped. "You have been kept apart from—" "Her bath." Amyu spoke. "It had to be during her bath." I looked over my shoulder to see that she was none too happy either. I turned back to face the Elders. "It was in my bath," I admitted. "Keir snuck in to see me." As one, the Eldest turned to glare at Keir. Keir shrugged. Simus laughed and slapped him on the back. "The skies favor the bold." Antas paused as a ripple of laughter swept the room again. "So you talked to Keir, despite our rules, despite our—" "We didn't waste time talking," I snapped right back, glaring at him. Then I realized what I'd announced to the room, and blushed bright red. "HEYLA!" Simus shouted. "Truly, the attraction between Warlord and Warprize is as the heat of the summer!

wraparound Wayfarer sunglasses, a shaved head, and small goatee caught our immediate attention in front of the minimart. He was standing next to another man who had a chocolate bar hanging from his mouth like a cigar. The shaved head motioned to me that he wanted to talk to us, but not right there. “You trust that rowdyass?” Sampson asked as we followed at a safe distance. “Alvin Jackson.” “I trust everybody.” I winked. No wink came back from Sampson. “You are badly fucked-up, Sugar,” he said. His eyes were still seriously hooded. “Just trying to do the right thing.” “Ah, yeah, you’re trying too hard, then.” “That’s why you love me.” “Yes, it is,” Sampson said and finally grinned. “If lovin’ you is wrong, I don’t want to be right,” he talk-sang a familiar lyric. We met Roadrunner Alvin Jackson around

Is Death miles away from this house, Reaching for a window in Cincinnati Or breathing down the neck of a lost hiker In British Columbia? Is he too busy making arrangments, Tampering with air brakes, Scattering cancer cells like seeds, Loosening the wooden breams of roller coaster To both with my hidden cottage That visitors find so hard to find? Or if he stepping from a black car Parked at the dark end of the lane, Shaking open the familiar cloak, Its hood raised like the head of a crow, And removing the scythe from the trunk? Did you have any trouble with the directions? I will ask, as I start talking my way out of this

So, here they were, face to face with the Son of God! When they had first seen him in the throne room, he had been nearly indistinguishable from the Father. In a manner that defied explanation and description, both he and the entity who had leaned upon the back of the Father’s throne had been one with God himself. Now, outside the throne room, the Son was clearly his own person, yet his majesty and the wonder he evoked were not diminished. He was unsurpassably beautiful. Tall and graceful, he sat upon his fabulous steed with a dignity that emanated pure power. His snow white hair hung to his saddle-back in thick waves, two intricate braids caught back at the temples to form a tiara entwined with gold. Despite his snowy hair, his face, while containing all the eons of heaven, seemed ageless, eternally youthful. His clothing, while utterly elegant, was simple and straightforward. A gown of blazing white was topped by a sleeveless coat of sky blue, and draping all was a cloak of deep, dark scarlet, its ample hood spread out across his shoulders. Everything was trimmed with gold and silver braid, gleaming gems of many colors peeking here and there from the folds. His horse’s tack was fabulous, all of embossed gold and cushioned wood, carved with dazzling intricacy. But, they had only a moment to take all of this in, before the prince saluted them with an outstretched arm. “Good day, friends,” he hailed them. “We meet again.” Gabriel’s heart lurched. He would have returned the salutation, but his voice failed him. Supporting one another, the four archangels were determined not to fall down. But, it was no use. They simply had no strength to stay upright. Besides, they were overcome with the desire to worship this mighty prince. Slumping to the ground, even the most self-assured of them, Lucifer, was brought to his knees. Again, the seraph flew over them, this time raising them to their feet without laying a hand on them. A swift flick of his fingers, and they were upright, once again. By the time they had regained their composure, the prince had dismounted and was walking toward one root of the mammoth tree. “Follow me,” he said, waving them forward. “It is time for us to have a talk.” Michael was the first to comply. Gabriel followed, with Raphael and Uriel close behind, all of them tingling from head to toe.

WORDS HAVE POWER. WORDS ARE MORE THAN THEIR dictionary definition. The history of a word matters as long as the effects of that history are still felt. Take, for example, the history of the word “nigger.” First simply a take on the Latin noun niger (black), the word became a slur used to demean black slaves in the US. From the 1700s on, the word “nigger” was used almost exclusively to express hatred. Nigger was a word shouted at black men, women, and children by slave masters as they lashed their backs with whips. Nigger was a word hollered by white men in pickup trucks as they chased down black kids. Nigger was a word repeated by men in white hoods as they got ready to burn a cross on the lawn of a black family. Nigger was a word spat at hanged black bodies. Nigger is a very powerful word with a very painful history. As long as we have had the spoken word, language has been one of the first tools deployed in efforts to oppress others. Words are how we process the world, how we form our societies, how we codify our morals. In order to make injustice and oppression palatable in a world with words that say that such things are unacceptable, we must come up with new words to distance ourselves from the realities of the harm we are perpetrating on others. This is how black people—human beings—become niggers. All oppression in race, class, gender, ability, religion—it all began with words.

Cheese boys were in a uniquely fucked situation when apartheid ended. It is one thing to be born in the hood and know that you will never leave the hood. But the cheese boy has been shown the world outside. His family has done okay. They have a house. They've sent him to a decent school; maybe he's even matriculated. He has been given more potential, but he has not been given more opportunity. He has been given an awareness of the world that is out there, but he has not been given the means to reach it.

Finally he said, “What did you spend so much time talking about with Ila? If you weren’t dancing with that long-legged fellow, you were talking to her like it was some kind of secret.” “Ila was giving me advice on being a woman,” Egwene replied absently. He began laughing, and she gave him a hooded, dangerous look that he failed to see. “Advice! Nobody tells us how to be men. We just are.” “That,” Egwene said, “is probably why you make such a bad job of it.” Up ahead, Elyas cackled loudly. CHAPTER

There are at least two hundred of them. And if you should read them all through at one sitting you would get a strange sense that this caricature of the hooded face was talking to you. That the Queer One who shuffles through the streets was sitting beside you and whispering marvelous things into your ear.