Love Behind Bars Quotes

Hey,” Shane said from the other side of the bars. “Trade you cigarettes for a chocolate bar.” Funny,” Eve said. She was almost back to her old unGothed self again, though there were still red splotches on her cheeks and around her eyes. “How come you’re always behind bars, troublemaker?” Look who’s talking. I didn’t try to outrun the cops in a hearse.” That hearse had horsepower.” Eve got that moony look in her eyes again. “I love that hearse.

--and then you're in serious trouble, very serious trouble, and you know it, finally, deadly serious trouble, because this Substance you thought was your one true friend, that you gave up all for, gladly, that for so long gave you relief from the pain of the Losses your love of that relief caused, your mother and lover and god and compadre, has finally removed its smily-face mask to reveal centerless eyes and a ravening maw, and canines down to here, it's the Face In The Floor, the grinning root-white face of your worst nightmares, and the face is your own face in the mirror, now, it's you, the Substance has devoured or replaced and become you, and the puke-, drool- and Substance-crusted T-shirt you've both worn for weeks now gets torn off and you stand there looking and in the root-white chest where your heart (given away to It) should be beating, in its exposed chest's center and centerless eyes is just a lightless hole, more teeth, and a beckoning taloned hand dangling something irresistible, and now you see you've been had, screwed royal, stripped and fucked and tossed to the side like some stuffed toy to lie for all time in the posture you land in. You see now that It's your enemy and your worst personal nightmare and the trouble It's gotten you into is undeniable and you still can't stop. Doing the Substance now is like attending Black Mass but you still can't stop, even though the Substance no longer gets you high. You are, as they say, Finished. You cannot get drunk and you cannot get sober; you cannot get high and you cannot get straight. You are behind bars; you are in a cage and can see only bars in every direction. You are in the kind of a hell of a mess that either ends lives or turns them around.

I met a girl in a U-Haul. A beautiful girl And I fell for her. I fell hard. Unfortunately, sometimes life gets in the way. Life definitely got in my way. It got all up in my damn way, Life blocked the door with a stack of wooden 2x4's nailed together and attached to a fifteen inch concrete wall behind a row of solid steel bars, bolted to a titanium frame that no matter how hard I shoved against it- It wouldn't budge. Sometimes life doesn't budge. It just gets all up in your damn way. It blocked my plans, my dreams, my desires, my wishes, my wants, my needs. It blocked out that beautiful girl That I fell so hard for. Life tries to tell you what's best for you What should be most important to you What should come in first Or second Or third. I tried so hard to keep it all organized, alphabetized, stacked in chronological order, everything in its perfect space, its perfect place. I thought that's what life wanted me to do. This is what life needed for me to do. Right? Keep it all in sequence? Sometimes, life gets in your way. It gets all up in your damn way. But it doesn't get all up in your damn way because it wants you to just give up and let it take control. Life doesn't get all up in your damn way because it just wants you to hand it all over and be carried along. Life wants you to fight it. It wants you to grab an axe and hack through the wood. It wants you to get a sledgehammer and break through the concrete. It wants you to grab a torch and burn through the metal and steel until you can reach through and grab it. Life wants you to grab all the organized, the alphabetized, the chronological, the sequenced. It wants you to mix it all together, stir it up, blend it. Life doesn't want you to let it tell you that your little brother should be the only thing that comes first. Life doesn't want you to let it tell you that your career and your education should be the only thing that comes in second. And life definitely doesn't want me To just let it tell me that the girl I met, The beautiful, strong, amazing, resilient girl That I fell so hard for Should only come in third. Life knows. Life is trying to tell me That the girl I love, The girl I fell So hard for? There's room for her in first. I'm putting her first.

Before he had time to figure it out, his walkie-talkie crackled and a voice came on. He punched a button. "Sheriff here. What's up?" "Someone called about a public disturbance behind schmitty's bar," a woman's voice reported. "Cathy use the proper code number," Billy growled. "There ain't no number for a guy acting like a cockroach!" the woman yelled. "he climbed into their Dumpster and he's wallowing in the trash.

You can’t force someone to love you, to be proud of you, to care. The only thing you’re in control of is your own soul and discovering what makes your heart beat.

Do I raise the dead when I put him behind bars? Then what'll I do it for? We used to shoot a man who acted like a dog, but honor was real there, you were protecting something. But here? This is the land of the great big dogs, you don't love a man here, you eat him!

The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains.

I can't believe you'd rather hold handle bars than a girl." He angled his head thoughtfully."I hadn't considered that." "Maybe you should." He hopped over,gingerly swinging his bad leg over to the other side and settled down behind me on the seat. "You got rules on how I can hold you?" "Nothing distracting while I'm driving," I tossed over my shoulder, meeting his gaze."We don't need another accident." "And when you're not driving?" "The Kate-have-a-good-time fund is getting low.Maybe you should think about making a deposit.

Leif gripped Benny's shoulders to hold him back, but he broke free and chased the truck, pumping his tiny arms and legs with great furry. "I love you!" he called out, when he was just ten feet away. I gripped the metal bars, my throat choked with emotion. "I love you!" Silas cried, as he followed. They both kept after us, sprinting wildly behind the cage. I watched their mouths moving, saying those words over and again, as the truck bounded through the woods and their small bodies disappeared, unreachable, behind the trees.

Hell,” he finished absurdly. “Because—” He produced a twenty-peso note and laid it on the table. “I like it,” he called to them, through the open window, from outside. Cervantes stood behind the bar, with scared eyes, holding the cockerel. “I love hell. I can’t wait to get back there. In fact I’m running, I’m almost back there already.

My mom always said, there are two kinds of love in this world: the steady breeze, and the hurricane. The steady breeze is slow and patient. It fills the sails of the boats in the harbor, and lifts laundry on the line. It cools you on a hot summer’s day; brings the leaves of fall, like clockwork every year. You can count on a breeze, steady and sure and true. But there’s nothing steady about a hurricane. It rips through town, reckless, sending the ocean foaming up the shore, felling trees and power lines and anyone dumb or fucked-up enough to stand in its path. Sure, it’s a thrill like nothing you’ve ever known: your pulse kicks, your body calls to it, like a spirit possessed. It’s wild and breathless and all-consuming. But what comes next? “You see a hurricane coming, you run.” My mom told me, the summer I turned eighteen. “You shut the doors, and you bar the windows. Because come morning, there’ll be nothing but the wreckage left behind.” Emerson Ray was my hurricane. Looking back, I wonder if mom saw it in my eyes: the storm clouds gathering, the dry crackle of electricity in the air. But it was already too late. No warning sirens were going to save me. I guess you never really know the danger, not until you’re the one left, huddled on the ground, surrounded by the pieces of your broken heart. It’s been four years now since that summer. Since Emerson. It took everything I had to pull myself back together, to crawl out of the empty wreckage of my life and build something new in its place. This time, I made it storm-proof. Strong. I barred shutters over my heart, and found myself a steady breeze to love. I swore, nothing would ever destroy me like that summer again. I was wrong. That’s the thing about hurricanes. Once the storm touches down, all you can do is pray.

Whenever I thought of home, I didn’t think of a place; I thought of people, the ones who shaped us into the people we were meant to become, the ones who loved us with our scars and told us those scars were beautiful, the ones who allowed us to make mistakes and still loved us fully.

The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains.”  -Josephine Baker

Is there a more pitiable spectacle than that of a wife contending with others for that charm in her husband's sight which no philters and no prayers can renew when once it has fled forever? Women are so unwise. Love is like a bird's song beautiful and eloquent when heard in forest freedom, harsh and worthless in repetition when sung from behind prison bars. You cannot secure love by vigilance, by environment, by captivity. What use is it to keep the person of a man beside you if his soul be truant from you?

This is a love story,” Michael Dean says, ”but really what isn’t? Doesn’t the detective love the mystery or the chase, or the nosey female reporter who is even now being held against her wishes at an empty warehouse on the waterfront? Surely, the serial murder loves his victims, and the spy loves his gadgets, or his country or the exotic counterspy. The ice-trucker is torn between his love for ice and truck and the competing chefs go crazy for scallops, and the pawnshop guys adore their junk. Just as the housewives live for catching glimpses of their own botoxed brows in gilded hall mirrors and the rocked out dude on ‘roids totally wants to shred the ass of the tramp-tatted girl on hookbook. Because this is reality, they are all in love, madly, truly, with the body-mic clipped to their back-buckle and the producer casually suggesting, “Just one more angle.”, “One more jello shot.”. And the robot loves his master. Alien loves his saucer. Superman loves Lois. Lex and Lana. Luke loves Leia, til he finds out she’s his sister. And the exorcist loves the demon, even as he leaps out the window with it, in full soulful embrace. As Leo loves Kate, and they both love the sinking ship. And the shark, god the shark, loves to eat. Which is what the Mafioso loves too, eating and money and Pauly and Omertà. The way the cowboy loves his horse, loves the corseted girl behind the piano bar and sometimes loves the other cowboy. As the vampire loves night and neck. And the zombie, don’t even start with the zombie, sentimental fool, has anyone ever been more love-sick than a zombie, that pale dull metaphor for love, all animal craving and lurching, outstretched arms. His very existence a sonnet about how much he wants those brains. This, too is a love story.

Just that winter she had found herself saying to a young woman who worked with her at the tasting bar on Saturdays that between a man and a woman there was always one person who was stronger than the other one. 'That doesn't mean the weaker one doesn't love the stronger,' she'd pleaded. The girl looked at her blankly. But for my mother what mattered was that as she spoke, she had suddenly identified herself as the weaker one. This revelation sent her reeling. What had she thought all those years but the opposite? She pulled her chair as close to his head as she could and laid her face on the edge of his pillow to watch him breathing, to see the flutter of the eye beneath his eyelid when he dreamed. How could it be that you could love someone so far from home? She had put billboards and roads in between them, throwing roadblocks behind her and ripping off the rearview mirror, and thought that that would make him disappear? erase their life and children? It was so simple, as she watched him, as his regular breathing calmed her, that she did not even see it happening at first. She began to think of the rooms in our house and the hours that she had worked so hard to forget spent inside of them. Like fruit put up in jars and forgotten about, the sweetness seemed even more distilled as she returned. There on that shelf were all the dates and silliness of thier early love, the braid that began to form of their dreams, the solid root of a burgeoning family. The first solid evidence of it all. Me.

A bar, as any good dictionary will tell you, is a rod of wood or iron that can be used to fasten a gate. From this came the idea of a bar as any let or hindrance that can stop you going where you want to; specifically the bar in a pub or tavern is the bar-rier behind which is stored all the lovely intoxicating liquors that only the bar-man is allowed to lay is hands on without forking out.

I worship her, Bertie! I worship the very ground she treads on!" continued the patient, in a loud, penetrating voice. Fred thompson and one or two fellows had come in, and McGarry, the chappie behind the bar, was listening with his ears flapping. But there's no reticence about Bingo. He always reminds me of the hero of a musical comedy who takes the centre of the stage, gathers the boys round him in a circle, and tells them all about his love at the top of his voice.

Being related by blood doesn’t make someone family, Snow White. Love does that.

Besides, who doesn't love vampires and monsters and haunting hearts beating beneath the floorboards?

Oooo, what is that?” Red yelled when she saw the palace. “That’s Buckingham Palace,” Alex said. “It’s where the monarchy resides.” Red was mesmerized. “What a stylish and tasteful place! Look at that beautiful statue out front of it in the middle of the street! That looks exactly like the statue I wanted to build in celebration of Charlie’s and my wedding!” Red left the others and flew down to the gate. She peered through the bars at the palace in delight. She had to hang on to the bars tightly because the fairy dust was making her drift back to the sky. One of the palace guards on duty saw Red and stared at her in disbelief. It wasn’t every day he saw a floating woman at the gate. “Yoo-hoo!” Red called to him. “I just love your hat! Please tell the current monarch that Queen Red of the Center Kingdom says hello —” Conner flew to the gate and pulled Red’s hands off the bars. “Red, come on. You’re gonna get left behind!

Well, it sounds like you like her. So, here’s what you do: when you see her tonight, tell her she looks hot. Chicks love being told they look hot. Oh, and order her a salad—chicks love lettuce.

Darcy is everything to me,” he breathed. “She’s all I think about and all I want. I see so much good in her and she somehow brings out the best in me. And if you feel that you can’t keep this secret for us or like you have to tell the authorities about what’s going on between us, then I understand. Because you want to protect her as fiercely as I do. But even if we’re torn apart, even if I went to Darkmore Penitentiary and had to live out the rest of my days behind bars, I’d never regret a moment of it. Because my life was empty before I loved her. And parting us won’t change the way I feel for her.

It was the sort of pub Alan liked, furnished with wall- to-wall forty-five-year-old gin-and-tonic drinkers. A notice on the wall behind the bar read: Please do not ask for credit, as a punch in the mouth often causes offence.

I’m not sure how the ponies happened, though I have an inkling: “Can I get you anything?” I’ll say, getting up from a dinner table, “Coffee, tea, a pony?” People rarely laugh at this, especially if they’ve heard it before. “This party’s ‘sposed to be fun,” a friend will say. “Really? Will there be pony rides?” It’s a nervous tic and a cheap joke, cheapened further by the frequency with which I use it. For that same reason, it’s hard to weed it out of my speech – most of the time I don’t even realize I’m saying it. There are little elements in a person’s life, minor fibers that become unintentionally tangled with your personality. Sometimes it’s a patent phrase, sometimes it’s a perfume, sometimes it’s a wristwatch. For me, it is the constant referencing of ponies. I don’t even like ponies. If I made one of my throwaway equine requests and someone produced an actual pony, Juan-Valdez-style, I would run very fast in the other direction. During a few summers at camp, I rode a chronically dehydrated pony named Brandy who would jolt down without notice to lick the grass outside the corral and I would careen forward, my helmet tipping to cover my eyes. I do, however, like ponies on the abstract. Who doesn’t? It’s like those movies with the animated insects. Sure, the baby cockroach seems cute with CGI eyelashes, but how would you feel about fifty of her real-life counterparts living in your oven? And that’s precisely the manner in which the ponies clomped their way into my regular speech: abstractly. “I have something for you,” a guy will say on our first date. “Is it a pony?” No. It’s usually a movie ticket or his cell phone number. But on our second date, if I ask again, I’m pretty sure I’m getting a pony. And thus the Pony drawer came to be. It’s uncomfortable to admit, but almost every guy I have ever dated has unwittingly made a contribution to the stable. The retro pony from the ‘50s was from the most thoughtful guy I have ever known. The one with the glitter horseshoes was from a boy who would later turn out to be straight somehow, not gay. The one with the rainbow haunches was from a librarian, whom I broke up with because I felt the chemistry just wasn’t right, and the one with the price tag stuck on the back was given to me by a narcissist who was so impressed with his gift he forgot to remover the sticker. Each one of them marks the beginning of a new relationship. I don’t mean to hint. It’s not a hint, actually, it’s a flat out demand: I. Want. A. Pony. I think what happens is that young relationships are eager to build up a romantic repertoire of private jokes, especially in the city where there’s not always a great “how we met” story behind every great love affair. People meet at bars, through mutual friends, on dating sites, or because they work in the same industry. Just once a coworker of mine, asked me out between two stops on the N train. We were holding the same pole and he said, “I know this sounds completely insane, bean sprout, but would you like to go to a very public place with me and have a drink or something...?” I looked into his seemingly non-psycho-killing, rent-paying, Sunday Times-subscribing eyes and said, “Sure, why the hell not?” He never bought me a pony. But he didn’t have to, if you know what I mean.

The glow lasted through the night, beyond the bar's closing, when there were no cabs on the street. And so Mathilde and Lotto decided to walk home, her arm in his, chatting about nothing, about everything, the unpleasant, hot breath of the subway belching up from the grates. 'Chthonic', he said, booze letting loose the pretension at his core, which she still found sweet, an allowance from the glory. It was so late, there were few other people out, and it felt, just for this moment, that they had the city to themselves. She thought of all the life just underfoot, the teem of it that they were passing over, unknowing. She said, 'Did you know that the total weight of all the ants on Earth is the same as the total weight of all the humans on Earth.' She, who drank to excess, was a little bit drunk, it was true, there was so much relief in the evening. When the curtains closed against the backdrop, an enormous bolder blocking their future had rolled away. 'They'll still be here when we're gone,' he said. He was drinking from a flask. By the time they were home, he'd be sozzeled. 'The ants and the jellyfish and the cockroaches, they will be the kings of the Earth.'... 'They deserve this place more than we do,' she said. 'We've been reckless with our gifts.' He smiled and looked up. There were no stars, there was too much smog for them. 'Did you know,' he said, 'they just found out just a while ago that there are billions of worlds that can support life in our galaxy alone.' ...She felt a sting behind here eyes, but couldn't say why this thought touched her. He saw clear through and understood. He knew her. The things he didn't know about her would sink an ocean liner. He knew her. 'We're lonely down here,' he said, 'it's true, but we're not alone.' In the hazy space after he died, when she lived in a sort of timeless underground grief, she saw on the internet a video about what would happen to our galaxy in billions of years. We are in an immensely slow tango with the Andromeda galaxy, both galaxies shaped like spirals with outstretched arms, and we are moving toward each other like spinning bodies. The galaxies will gain speed as they draw near, casting off blue sparks, new stars until they spin past each other, and then the long arms of both galaxies will reach longingly out and grasp hands at the last moment and they will come spinning back in the opposite direction, their legs entwined, never hitting, until the second swirl becomes a clutch, a dip, a kiss, and then at the very center of things, when they are at their closest, there will open a supermassive black hole.

I promise not to step on you—I only look like a clodhopper,” he was saying when Jo reached them. He winked at Ella, who glanced away and blinked, as if surprised that he’d come so close to guessing what she thought. Jo slid up to the bar behind her sister, planted a stiff arm on the ledge, and raised an eyebrow at him. He glanced up and saw her. She expected him to blanche, or bristle, or pretend he’d just forgotten someplace else he had to be. A lot of men did that, when they realized that the girl they thought was alone had brought friends to look out for her. But instead he only said, “Oh,” softly, his smile so wide and earnest that crows’-feet appeared at the edges of his eyes; he smiled as though she was an old friend, as though he had been waiting for Jo a long time and was delighted to see her at last.

Danny . . . dearest man who serves me booze. Do you see the way my eyes are flitting back and forth? Can you feel the crazy exuding from them?” He nods, swallowing hard. “This is my third date here, okay? This is my third time trying to find somebody to love me after two failed attempts from this supposedly perfect matchmaking system. I’m feeling a little out of control, mildly psychotic, and you know what, I will just say it, slightly turned on.” Shit, I didn’t want to say that to Danny. Shaking that thought, I continue, “So please be a gent, and scamper behind your little bar and give me more whiskey. Got it?

The Three-Decker "The three-volume novel is extinct." Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail. It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail; But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best— The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest. Fair held the breeze behind us—’twas warm with lovers’ prayers. We’d stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs. They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed, And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest. By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook, Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed, And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest. We asked no social questions—we pumped no hidden shame— We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came: We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell. We weren’t exactly Yussufs, but—Zuleika didn’t tell. No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared, The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered. ’Twas fiddle in the forc’s’le—’twas garlands on the mast, For every one got married, and I went ashore at last. I left ’em all in couples a-kissing on the decks. I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques. In endless English comfort by county-folk caressed, I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest! That route is barred to steamers: you’ll never lift again Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain. They’re just beyond your skyline, howe’er so far you cruise In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws. Swing round your aching search-light—’twill show no haven’s peace. Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray-bearded seas! Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep’s unrest— And you aren’t one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest! But when you’re threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail, At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale, Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed, You’ll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest. You’ll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread; You’ll hear the long-drawn thunder ’neath her leaping figure-head; While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shine Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine! Hull down—hull down and under—she dwindles to a speck, With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck. All’s well—all’s well aboard her—she’s left you far behind, With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind. Her crew are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make? You’re manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming’s sake? Well, tinker up your engines—you know your business best— She’s taking tired people to the Islands of the Blest!

The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals; They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat, And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me. The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea, And comes from a country far away as health. --from "Tulips", written 18 March 1961

There is a vast difference between being a Christian and being a disciple. The difference is commitment. Motivation and discipline will not ultimately occur through listening to sermons, sitting in a class, participating in a fellowship group, attending a study group in the workplace or being a member of a small group, but rather in the context of highly accountable, relationally transparent, truth-centered, small discipleship units. There are twin prerequisites for following Christ - cost and commitment, neither of which can occur in the anonymity of the masses. Disciples cannot be mass produced. We cannot drop people into a program and see disciples emerge at the end of the production line. It takes time to make disciples. It takes individual personal attention. Discipleship training is not about information transfer, from head to head, but imitation, life to life. You can ultimately learn and develop only by doing. The effectiveness of one's ministry is to be measured by how well it flourishes after one's departure. Discipling is an intentional relationship in which we walk alongside other disciples in order to encourage, equip, and challenge one another in love to grow toward maturity in Christ. This includes equipping the disciple to teach others as well. If there are no explicit, mutually agreed upon commitments, then the group leader is left without any basis to hold people accountable. Without a covenant, all leaders possess is their subjective understanding of what is entailed in the relationship. Every believer or inquirer must be given the opportunity to be invited into a relationship of intimate trust that provides the opportunity to explore and apply God's Word within a setting of relational motivation, and finally, make a sober commitment to a covenant of accountability. Reviewing the covenant is part of the initial invitation to the journey together. It is a sobering moment to examine whether one has the time, the energy and the commitment to do what is necessary to engage in a discipleship relationship. Invest in a relationship with two others for give or take a year. Then multiply. Each person invites two others for the next leg of the journey and does it all again. Same content, different relationships. The invitation to discipleship should be preceded by a period of prayerful discernment. It is vital to have a settled conviction that the Lord is drawing us to those to whom we are issuing this invitation. . If you are going to invest a year or more of your time with two others with the intent of multiplying, whom you invite is of paramount importance. You want to raise the question implicitly: Are you ready to consider serious change in any area of your life? From the outset you are raising the bar and calling a person to step up to it. Do not seek or allow an immediate response to the invitation to join a triad. You want the person to consider the time commitment in light of the larger configuration of life's responsibilities and to make the adjustments in schedule, if necessary, to make this relationship work. Intentionally growing people takes time. Do you want to measure your ministry by the number of sermons preached, worship services designed, homes visited, hospital calls made, counseling sessions held, or the number of self-initiating, reproducing, fully devoted followers of Jesus? When we get to the shore's edge and know that there is a boat there waiting to take us to the other side to be with Jesus, all that will truly matter is the names of family, friends and others who are self initiating, reproducing, fully devoted followers of Jesus because we made it the priority of our lives to walk with them toward maturity in Christ. There is no better eternal investment or legacy to leave behind.

I hadn't told him the news yet, but in that same preternatural way he was always aware of what I was feeling or thinking, he could smell my lies a mile away. He was just giving me time to come to him. To tell him I'd be baking his bun for the next seven and a half months. ''I'm okay." Dex's chuckle filled my ears as he wrapped his arms around my chest from behind, his chin resting on the top of my head. "Just okay?" He was taunting me, I knew it. This man never did anything without a reason. And this reason had him resembling a mama bear. A really aggressive, possessive mama bear. Which said something because Dex was normally that way. I couldn't even sit around Mayhem without him or Sonny within ten feet. I leaned my head back against his chest and laughed. "Yeah, just okay." He made a humming noise deep in his throat. "Ritz," he drawled in that low voice that reached the darkest parts of my organs. "You're killin' me, honey." Oh boy. Did I want to officially break the news on the side of the road with chunks of puke possibly still on my face? Nah. So I went with the truth. "I have it all planned out in my head. I already ordered the cutest little toy motorcycle to tell you, so don't ruin it." A loud laugh burst out of his chest, so strong it rocked my body alongside his. I friggin' loved this guy. Every single time he laughed, I swear it multiplied. At this rate, I loved him more than my own life cubed, and then cubed again. "All right," he murmured between these low chuckles once he'd calmed down a bit. His fingers trailed over the skin of the back of my hand until he stopped at my ring finger and squeezed the slender bone. "I can be patient." That earned him a laugh from me. Patience? Dex? Even after more than three years, that would still never be a term I'd use to describe him. And it probably never would. He'd started to lose his shit during our layover when Trip had called for instructions on how to set the alarm at the new bar. "Dex, Ris, and Baby Locke, you done?" Sonny yelled, peeping out from over the top of the car door. "Are you friggin' kidding me?" I yelled back. Did everyone know? That slow, seductive smile crawled over his features. Brilliant and more affectionate than it was possible for me to handle, it sucked the breath out of me. When he palmed my cheeks and kissed each of my cheeks and nose and forehead, slowly like he was savoring the pecks and the contact, I ate it all up. Like always, and just like I always would. And he answered the way I knew he would every single time I asked him from them on, the way that told me he would never let me down. That he was an immovable object. That he'd always be there for me to battle the demons we could see and the invisible ones we couldn't. "Fuckin' love you, Iris," he breathed against my ear, an arm slinking around my lower back to press us together. "More than anything.

All over England loving hands are packing trunks and tuck-boxes for the young gentlemen of Narkover, who reassemble today. Eager young voices are heard shouting, 'Mater! Don't forget to put in that pack of cards with the nicked aces,' or 'Auntie Frances, where have you put my dud half-crowns?' From many a home the father is, alas, temporarily absent, behind bars, but the lonely mother has the consolation of seeing her boy develop in the way his father would have wished.

There are people who spend years behind bars for unspeakable crimes, their physical constraints visible. Others commit sins, and although not punishable by law, their sentences are as confining as those in jail. The burden of my sins was condemning me, emotional constraint was my punishment. The lie that had sprouted out of love had turned into something that I realized might destroy an innocent child, a decent marriage, a good man. These were the nooses I carried around with me.

But many of us love the fact that Ricardo was able, nearly two hundred years ago, to produce insights that illuminate our understanding today. It’s easy to see the difference between nineteenth-century farming and twenty-first-century frothing, but not so easy to see the similarity before it is pointed out to us. Economics is partly about modelling, about articulating basic principles and patterns that operate behind seemingly complex subjects like the rent on farms or coffee bars.

Books had always been a comfort to her. More than comfort. There were times when reading came close to an addiction. When things had been tough at home, Harriet’s solution had been to remove herself from life and disappear. She’d chosen to be invisible. Sometimes physically, by hiding under the table, but sometimes psychologically by diving into a literary world unlike her own. As a child she’d liked to sink into the pages and lose herself for hours at a time. When she was reading, she didn’t just leave her own life behind, she stepped into someone else’s. There were times when she’d read for hours without noticing the passage of time or the onset of darkness. When it grew too dark to read, she simply switched on her flashlight and read under the covers so that she didn’t disturb her sister, who was sleeping in the next bed. At school, she carried her book around. When things were difficult, the weight of her bag would comfort her. It helped just to know the book was there, waiting for her. At various points in the day she’d feel the edges bump against her thigh, reminding her of its existence. It was like having a friend close by, telling her I’m still here and we can spend time together later. Even now, more than a decade on from that difficult time of her life, she found herself instinctively reaching for a book when she was stressed. Comfort was different things to different people. To some it was a bar of chocolate or a glass of wine, a run in the park or coffee with a friend. To Harriet, it was a book.

He reached for Aiden’s hand, which was swinging by the side of Aiden’s chair in a convenient location for Harvard to grab in case Harvard might want to. Harvard not only laced their fingers together, but also brought Aiden’s hand to his lips and kissed the back. Then he let their joined hands rest on the lapel of his uniform blazer, against the golden crown over crossed swords of his captain’s pin… and his heart. Harvard did it all absentmindedly, as though he didn’t have to think about his actions because it came so naturally. Aiden lifted a coffee cup to his lips purely in order to make a Can you believe this? face behind it. There went Harvard again, raising the ideal boyfriend bar to the sky. Could the man not be stopped? “Aw, are you having faith in me, sweetheart?” Aiden murmured. “That’s so nice. And so misplaced.” Harvard murmured, a lovely little sound, patently unconvinced. This is the last time, Aiden thought, and held on. The others ignored Aiden and Harvard’s romantic moment in order to focus on crime.

Someone who’s been behind bars already knows that crime doesn’t pay. They’ve lost everything and appreciate the simple joy of having a job. They’ve dealt with prison politics, so office politics present no challenge. They understand power structures. Each is on probation or parole, so they follow all the rules. They’re used to getting up early and working hard for no pay, so they appreciate minimum wage. But most important, every one of them has something to prove. That they are valuable, worthy, and so much more than a criminal record.

Barbara and I had arrived early, so I got to admire everyone’s entrance. We were seated at tables around a dance floor that had been set up on the lawn behind the house. Barbara and I shared a table with Deborah Kerr and her husband. Deborah, a lovely English redhead, had been brought to Hollywood to play opposite Clark Gable in The Hucksters. Louis B. Mayer needed a cool, refined beauty to replace the enormously popular redhead, Greer Garson, who had married a wealthy oil magnate and retired from the screen in the mid-fifties. Deborah, like her predecessor, had an ultra-ladylike air about her that was misleading. In fact, she was quick, sharp, and very funny. She and Barbara got along like old school chums. Jimmy Stewart was also there with his wife. It was the first time I’d seen him since we’d worked for Hitchcock. It was a treat talking to him, and I felt closer to him than I ever did on the set of Rope. He was so genuinely happy for my success in Strangers on a Train that I was quite moved. Clark Gable arrived late, and it was a star entrance to remember. He stopped for a moment at the top of the steps that led down to the garden. He was alone, tanned, and wearing a white suit. He radiated charisma. He really was the King. The party was elegant. Hot Polynesian hors d’oeuvres were passed around during drinks. Dinner was very French, with consommé madrilène as a first course followed by cold poached salmon and asparagus hollandaise. During dessert, a lemon soufflé, and coffee, the cocktail pianist by the pool, who had been playing through dinner, was discreetly augmented by a rhythm section, and they became a small combo for dancing. The dance floor was set up on the lawn near an open bar, and the whole garden glowed with colored paper lanterns. Later in the evening, I managed a subdued jitterbug with Deborah Kerr, who was much livelier than her cool on-screen image. She had not yet done From Here to Eternity, in which she and Burt Lancaster steamed up the screen with their love scene in the surf. I was, of course, extremely impressed to be there with Hollywood royalty that evening, but as far as parties go, I realized that I had a lot more fun at Gene Kelly’s open houses.

Again, I call to mind that distant moment in [the prison at] Hermanice when on a hot, cloudless summer day, I sat on a pile of rusty iron and gazed into the crown of an enormous tree that stretched, with dignified repose, up and over all the fences, wires, bars and watchtowers that separated me from it. As I watched the imperceptible trembling of its leaves against an endless sky, I was overcome by a sensation that is difficult to describe: all at once, I seemed to rise above all the coordinates of my momentary existence in the world into a kind of state outside time in which all the beautiful things I had ever seen and experienced existed in a total “co-present”; I felt a sense of reconciliation, indeed of an almost gentle consent to the inevitable course of things as revealed to me now, and this combined with a carefree determination to face what had to be faced. A profound amazement at the sovereignty of Being became a dizzying sensation of tumbling endlessly into the abyss of its mystery; an unbounded joy at being alive, at having been given the chance to live through all I have lived through, and at the fact that everything has a deep and obvious meaning— this joy formed a strange alliance in me with a vague horror at the inapprehensibility and unattainability of everything I was so close to in that moment, standing at the very “edge of the finite”; I was flooded with a sense of ultimate happiness and harmony with the world and with myself, with that moment, with all the moments I could call up, and with everything invisible that lies behind it and has meaning. I would even say that I was somehow “struck by love,” though I don’t know precisely for whom or what.

This is a love story, Michael Deane says. But, really, what isn’t? Doesn’t the detective love the mystery, or the chase, or the nosy female reporter, who is even now being held against her wishes at an empty warehouse on the waterfront? Surely the serial murderer loves his victims, and the spy loves his gadgets or his country or the exotic counterspy. The ice trucker is torn between his love for ice and truck, and the competing chefs go crazy for scallops, and the pawnshop guys adore their junk just as the Housewives live for catching glimpses of their own Botoxed brows in gilded hall mirrors, and the rocked-out dude on ‘roids totally wants to shred the ass of the tramp-tatted girl on Hookbook, and because this is reality, they are all in love—madly, truly—with the body mic clipped to their back buckle, and the producer casually suggesting just one more angle, one more Jell-O shot. And the robot loves his master, alien loves his saucer, Superman loves Lois, Lex, and Lana, Luke love Leia (till he finds out she’s his sister), and the exorcist loves the demon even as he leaps out the window with it, in full soulful embrace, as Leo loves Kate and they both love the sinking ship, and the shark—God, the shark loves to eat, which is what the Mafioso loves, too—eating and money and Paulie and omerta` --the way the cowboy loves his horse, loves the corseted girl behind the piano bar, and sometimes loves the other cowboy, as the vampire loves night and neck, and the zombie—don’t even start with the zombie, sentimental fool; has anyone ever been more lovesick than a zombie, that pale, dull metaphor for love, all animal craving and lurching, outstretched arms, his very existence a sonnet about how much he wants those brains? This, too, is a love story.

According to the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the average debt for court-related fines and fees in 2018 was $13,607. The median income of African American households was only $41,361 that year and $36,959 for households headed by African American females. While one in four women in the United States has a loved one behind bars, according to Essie Justice Group, one in two Black women has a loved one who is incarcerated. Many Black American women find themselves paying much of their income to the state as a result of the incarceration of their partners, children, and other family members.

As you rusticate, you'll encounter beauty and ugliness, peace and danger. But it will be real and of the earth. I'm an optimistic person, but deep inside all optimists, there's a bound-and-gagged pessimist sitting in the basement, struggling to get out. I believe if we don't deconstruct our lives and learn to be more earthbound and earth-friendly and sustainable, and try to live with all God's creatures, even if they're not big-eyed and behind bars in a zoo, or on our screen savers, then sooner than expected we'll be forced to, through political mandate or economics or from overuse of our resources.

At this time, we would like to open up the floor to the victim, Aubriella Adams, to speak.”      The room feels motionless, quiet, as if everyone knows this is an important moment. They know what this man did to my girl. They know what kind of monster he is.      Aubrey stands and unfolds a piece of paper. I didn’t know this was going to happen, if I did I would not be okay with it. I don't want her to go through any more pain. She looks at Rich and holds his stare and now I know why she needs to do this. I see no fear in her face. I see anger and I see strength but she’s devoid of fear. She squares her shoulders and stands fierce.      “You were supposed to take care of me. You weren’t supposed to take my innocence. You raped me and abused me. I want to look you in the eye and tell you…. You are a monster. You are sick. You are a murderer and a pedophile. You need to know, you may have taken my youth, but you will never….ever have my future. I have a man I love and I’m loved by him. I’m going to have his children one day. One day soon, I’m going to go to college. I’m going to have a career. I’m going to grow old. I’m going to live my life and you will rot behind bars.” She continues staring him down as she takes a seat.

To One in Bedlam With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars, Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine; Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares, Pedant and pitiful. O, how his rapt gaze wars With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine Lift his long, laughing reveries like enchaunted wine, And make his melancholy germane to the stars? O, lamentable brother! if those pity thee, Am I not fain of all thy lone eyes promise me; Half a fool's kingdom, far from men who sow and reap, All their days, vanity? Better than mortal flowers, Thy moon-kissed roses seem: better than love or sleep, The star-crowned solitude of thine oblivious hours

The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here. Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in. I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands. I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions. I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons. They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut. Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in. The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble, They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps, Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another, So it is impossible to tell how many there are. My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently. They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep. Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage—— My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox, My husband and child smiling out of the family photo; Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks. I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat stubbornly hanging on to my name and address. They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations. Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head. I am a nun now, I have never been so pure. I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty. How free it is, you have no idea how free—— The peacefulness is so big it dazes you, And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets. It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet. The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me. Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby. Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds. They are subtle : they seem to float, though they weigh me down, Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color, A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck. Nobody watched me before, now I am watched. The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins, And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips, And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself. The vivid tulips eat my oxygen. Before they came the air was calm enough, Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss. Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise. Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine. They concentrate my attention, that was happy Playing and resting without committing itself. The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves. The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals; They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat, And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me. The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea, And comes from a country far away as health. --"Tulips", written 18 March 1961

Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight 1 You scream, waking from a nightmare. When I sleepwalk into your room, and pick you up, and hold you up in the moonlight, you cling to me hard, as if clinging could save us. I think you think I will never die, I think I exude to you the permanence of smoke or stars, even as my broken arms heal themselves around you. 2 I have heard you tell the sun, don't go down, I have stood by as you told the flower, don't grow old, don't die. Little Maud, I would blow the flame out of your silver cup, I would suck the rot from your fingernail, I would brush your sprouting hair of the dying light, I would scrape the rust off your ivory bones, I would help death escape through the little ribs of your body, I would alchemize the ashes of your cradle back into wood, I would let nothing of you go, ever, until washerwomen feel the clothes fall asleep in their hands, and hens scratch their spell across hatchet blades, and rats walk away from the culture of the plague, and iron twists weapons toward truth north, and grease refuse to slide in the machinery of progress, and men feel as free on earth as fleas on the bodies of men, and the widow still whispers to the presence no longer beside her in the dark. And yet perhaps this is the reason you cry, this the nightmare you wake screaming from: being forever in the pre-trembling of a house that falls. 3 In a restaurant once, everyone quietly eating, you clambered up on my lap: to all the mouthfuls rising toward all the mouths, at the top of your voice you cried your one word, caca! caca! caca! and each spoonful stopped, a moment, in midair, in its withering steam. Yes, you cling because I, like you, only sooner than you, will go down the path of vanished alphabets, the roadlessness to the other side of the darkness, your arms like the shoes left behind, like the adjectives in the halting speech of old folk, which once could call up the lost nouns. 4 And you yourself, some impossible Tuesday in the year Two Thousand and Nine, will walk out among the black stones of the field, in the rain, and the stones saying over their one word, ci-gît, ci-gît, ci-gît, and the raindrops hitting you on the fontanel over and over, and you standing there unable to let them in. 5 If one day it happens you find yourself with someone you love in a café at one end of the Pont Mirabeau, at the zinc bar where wine takes the shapes of upward opening glasses, and if you commit then, as we did, the error of thinking, one day all this will only be memory, learn to reach deeper into the sorrows to come—to touch the almost imaginary bones under the face, to hear under the laughter the wind crying across the black stones. Kiss the mouth that tells you, here, here is the world. This mouth. This laughter. These temple bones. The still undanced cadence of vanishing. 6 In the light the moon sends back, I can see in your eyes the hand that waved once in my father's eyes, a tiny kite wobbling far up in the twilight of his last look: and the angel of all mortal things lets go the string. 7 Back you go, into your crib. The last blackbird lights up his gold wings: farewell. Your eyes close inside your head, in sleep. Already in your dreams the hours begin to sing. Little sleep's-head sprouting hair in the moonlight, when I come back we will go out together, we will walk out together among the ten thousand things, each scratched in time with such knowledge, the wages of dying is love.

Paul... informs us that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” From a Kingdom perspective, if it’s got “flesh and blood”—if it’s human—it’s not our enemy. To the contrary, if it’s got “flesh and blood” it’s someone we’re commanded to love and thus someone we’re to be fighting for—even if they regard us as their enemy. We may profoundly disagree with their political, ethical, and religious views. We may find their lifestyle disgusting. They may in fact be criminals that need to be locked up behind bars. They may threaten us and our nation. Still, from a Kingdom perspective, our struggle is never against other humans. Our struggle is rather for them and against the evil that works to oppress both them and us.

— and then you’re in serious trouble, very serious trouble, and you know it, finally, deadly serious trouble, because this Substance you thought was your one true friend, that you gave up all for, gladly, that for so long gave you relief from the pain of the Losses your love of that relief caused, your mother and lover and god and compadre, has finally removed its smily-face mask to reveal centerless eyes and a ravening maw, and canines down to here, it’s the Face In The Floor, the grinning root-white face of your worst nightmares, and the face is your own face in the mirror, now, it’s you, the Substance has devoured or replaced and become you, and the puke-, drool-and Substance-crusted T-shirt you’ve both worn for weeks now gets torn off and you stand there looking and in the root-white chest where your heart (given away to It) should be beating, in its exposed chest’s center and center-less eyes is just a lightless hole, more teeth, and a beckoning taloned hand dangling something irresistible, and now you see you’ve been had, screwed royal, stripped and fucked and tossed to the side like some stuffed toy to lie for all time in the posture you land in. You see now that It’s your enemy and your worst personal nightmare and the trouble It’s gotten you into is undeniable and you still can’t stop. Doing the Substance now is like attending Black Mass but you still can’t stop, even though the Substance no longer gets you high. You are, as they say, Finished. You cannot get drunk and you cannot get sober; you cannot get high and you cannot get straight. You are behind bars; you are in a cage and can see only bars in every direction. You are in the kind of a hell of a mess that either ends lives or turns them around. You are at a fork in the road that Boston AA calls your Bottom, though the term is misleading, because everybody here agrees it’s more like someplace very high and unsupported: you’re on the edge of something tall and leaning way out forward….

I shall have to speak to her about your cursing, of course. ’Tis a wife’s duty to help her husband get into Heaven. I’m sure if she’s vigilant, she’ll break you of that unfortunate habit in no time.” Lachlan paled and reached behind him for the latch. Darach leaned his shoulder against the door. Their eyes met. “You’re sure you doona want to stay for another drink?” he asked. “Nay, I wouldnae want to disturb your wedding night.” The silence lengthened. Caitlin reached for the pitcher. “There’s more.” Lachlan yanked open the door and ran out. Darach slammed it shut behind him. After sliding the bar into place, he turned to his wife. She had a mischievous smile on her face. “I thought he’d ne’er leave.” Darach’s jaw dropped. “You did that on purpose?” “Well, I couldnae kick him out, now, could I? That would be rude.” He threw back his head and laughed. So much for being innocent. Caitlin laughed too, and twirled in a circle. His heart swelled as he watched her. So lovely, so devious. Lady MacKenzie.

   I was soon bored, for my friend Moschku had his hands full with serving his guests with brandy and gossip, and only seldom did he hop over the bar to my table, sink his verbal claws into me, and attempt a learned conversation about politics and literature.    I was bored even without that and looked around the room.    Its basic color was green.    The frugally trimmed petroleum lamp filled the room with greenish light. Green mold lay on the walls, the great rectangular oven was lacquered green, and green moss grew out of Israel's fieldstone floor. Green sediment in the schnaps glasses, green oxidation on the small tin measuring glasses that the peasants drank out of when they walked up and put their copper coins down on the bar. A green vegetation covered the cheese that Moschku placed in front of me, and his wife was sitting behind the oven in a yellow nightgown with bluish green flowers and rocking her pale green child. Green in the Jew's careworn face, green around his small, restless eyes, around his thin, motionless nostrils, and in the mockingly twisted, sour corners of his mouth.

You’ve known Bryce for what—a few months? We were friends for five years. So don’t fucking talk about me, my brother, or her as if you know anything about us. You don’t know shit, Umbra Mortis.” “I know you were a dick to her for two years. I watched you stand by while Amelie Ravenscroft tormented her. Grow the fuck up.” Ithan barred his teeth. Hunt barred his own right back. Syrinx hopped to his feet and whined, demanding more food. Hunt couldn’t help his exasperated laugh. “Fine, fine,” he said to the chimera, reaching for the container of kibble. Ithan’s eyes burned him like a brand. Hunt had seen that same take-no-shit face during televised sunball games. “Connor was in love with her for those five years, you know.” The wolf headed over to the couch and plopped onto the cushions. “Five years, and by the end of it, he’d only managed to get her to agree to go on a date with him.” Hunt kept his face unreadable as Syrinx devoured his second—potentially third—breakfast. “So?” Ithan turned on the morning news before propping his feet on the coffee table and interlacing his hands behind his head. “You’re at month five, bro. Good luck to you.

The cliché is that illness shows the mottled wolf skull beneath the pampered skin – but it can also be a welcome corridor, returning you to places you’d left behind. Suddenly, in the antiseptic hospital room one afternoon, you remember them all: so many unstarry things. The way shadows caressed a wall in a vacant lot in Berlin, one rainy November day in … 1976, was it? A scrum of garish fans surrounding you on Sunset Boulevard. Postwar London, whose bombsites seemed to harbour all the time in the world. Make-up counters, listening booths, bakelite curves, saloon bar mirrors, diamanté in a jewellery box that played Swan Lake when the lid clicked up. The strange snake hiss of early TV. A new world inventing itself in the middle of the 20th century, when images were things that genuinely shocked, carriers of forbidden knowledge. Something torn from a Hollywood gossip mag or a single image in a clunky library book on Surrealism could literally change your life. Penguin Modern Classic paperbacks; Genet and his cruisey down-is-up theology; Andy and his abyssal Wow. The surprising new meanings ‘love’ could develop far away from home. Backstage’s suffocating air. The way she walked; the way she talked.

God help us you full of talk of a city called Edinburgh and me in silence so very deep we were so very much in love. And the burns and sikes and streams though shallow were deep music to us. You trout-tickler, you flower-picker, climber in willow trees, me laughing below as best I could laugh, though you never thought it ugly. Indeed the word you used was the word beautiful, pinning cowslips behind my ears, you patting and running fingers through our beckwashed hair. Lying by the marigold beds bare toes entwined, then dancing under branches before the elms ever died. But our mutual hearts never did. Bar it is 7 and your raining rage must cease under my morning moon. In my dawn shawl looking dawndown upon you in your foot-striding fellhighhighupuptopheavyrainbeatingrainrain. We have always walked together so long. In the long grass we walked and walked forever so long so very language long and I could say so once you had the slate in my lap. My tongue blank - FOREVER, word we wrote on a slate, remember when you taught me? - only my hands and eyes moving now - two daughters we could have had - but I am looking kindly and lovingly on you 'Please do it' - cool your raging fire lovelorn heart - for me. And love me - forever.

Ree is his. Is his, is devoted to him, is aggravatingly tender and possessively passionate and wrapped up in him in a thousand ways, loves him in a way that is very useful. It seems a law of nature, at this point. Even if the events of this startling evening have served to give him pause, a little. But Ree is still his. He's fairly sure. Such complex knots can't be untied so quickly, can they? Still, it's not the only thing disturbing him, about the Dam's account of early events. She laughs when she sees his face, his sidewise look at her description, and there's definitely a mean note to it. “Oh, it was darling,” she says, and he gets the feeling of a caged animal stuck behind bars, while a cruel child pokes at it. “You were enchanted by his wolf, would follow it anywhere, welcome or not, though mostly he tolerated it. But you couldn't manage his name – and a nickname hadn't stuck at that point – so instead you imitated the sound he made. Rather insultingly, too, if not intentionally – Ruff. Or Woof, or whatever it was that you intended to say, except that it actually came out as Wuff. Or Wuffy, depending, and at varying pitches and volume as you ran after him, falling down and rolling about half the time.” Penn is transfixed. It's outrageous, it's an outrage. It can't possibly be true. It was nothing like that.

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

You’re holding a challenge in a fencing club?” “Yes. Is there something wrong with that?” He pulled on his black pants and the heavy silk green shirt I loved for him to wear because the material seemed to caress hisskin. No, it’s just kind of an incongruous place to hold something so serious as a challenge, isn’t it?” He finished with his shoes, grabbed another towel, and shook it out for me. I made sure Pal still had his back to me, hurrying out of the pool to clasp the towel around me. “It is no less incongruous than holding a challenge in a bar.” I smiled. “Yes, but my challenge to you wasn’t serious. I hope you’ll notice that I’m not freaking out about this at all. I haven’t even asked you how good you are with asword.” “I noticed.” His mouth burned on mine for a moment, his fire being shared between us as his tongue twined around mine in a fiery—albeit brief—dance. “You are learning to have faith in me as is proper between a mateand her wyvern.” “No, I am learning to ask around. Pal told me earlier today that Dmitri had picked swords and that you were pleased because you were some sort of master swordsman a few centuries ago. You’d better not have forgotten anything.” Pal peeked at me out of the corner of his eye, his grin not too obvious. Drake pinched my bare behind as punishment for my saucy tone. “I never forget. Istvan will drive you when you are ready. The challenge is not for an hour. Do not be late.” “Happy chevauchee-ing,” I called, feeling remarkably happy.

When you buy from an independent, locally owned business, as opposed to nationally owned businesses, you strengthen the economic base of our city. And of course there’s no doubt that you’ll receive a better quality product or service. I share John Roeser’s amazement that people today tend to prefer saving a dollar or too two on a birthday cake, for example, by purchasing a sub-par cake made with artificial, cheap ingredients from a mass retailer, when Roeser’s Bakery offers some of the most delectable, housemade cakes in the world. How could anyone step into a fast food joint when we live in a city that has Lem’s barbecque rib tips, Kurowski’s kielbasa, Manny’s matzo ball soup, and Lindy’s chili within reach? You can’t even compare the products and services of the businesses featured in this book with those of mass retailers, either: Jjust try putting an Optimo hat on your head—you’ll ooze with elegance. Burn a beeswax lambathe from Athenian Candle and watch it glow longer than any candle you’ve ever lit. Bite into an Andersonville coffeecake from the Swedish Bakery—and you’ll have a hard time returning to the artificial ingredient– laden cakes found at most grocers. Equally important, local, family- owned businesses keep our city unique. In our increasingly homogenized and globalized world, cities that hold on tightly to their family-owned, distinctive businesses are more likely to attract visitors, entrepreneurs, and new investment. Chicago just wouldn’t be Chicago without these historic, one-of-a-kind places, and the people that run them from behind the scenes with nothing but love, hard work, and pride.

This is a love story, Michael Deane says. But, really, what isn’t? Doesn’t the detective love the mystery, or the chase, or the nosy female reporter, who is even now being held against her wishes at an empty warehouse on the waterfront? Surely the serial murderer loves his victims, and the spy loves his gadgets or his country or the exotic counterspy. The ice trucker is torn between his love for ice and truck, and the competing chefs go crazy for scallops, and the pawnshop guys adore their junk, just as the Housewives live for catching glimpses of their own Botoxed brows in gilded hall mirrors, and the rocked-out dude on ’roids totally wants to shred the ass of the tramp-tatted girl on Hookbook, and because this is reality, they are all in love—madly, truly—with the body mic clipped to their back buckle, and the producer casually suggesting just one more angle, one more Jell-O shot. And the robot loves his master, alien loves his saucer, Superman loves Lois, Lex, and Lana, Luke loves Leia (till he finds out she’s his sister), and the exorcist loves the demon even as he leaps out the window with it, in full soulful embrace, as Leo loves Kate and they both love the sinking ship, and the shark—God, the shark loves to eat, which is what the mafioso loves, too—eating and money and Paulie and omertà—the way the cowboy loves his horse, loves the corseted girl behind the piano bar, and sometimes loves the other cowboy, as the vampire loves night and neck, and the zombie—don’t even start with the zombie, sentimental fool; has anyone ever been more lovesick than a zombie, that pale, dull metaphor for love, all animal craving and lurching, outstretched arms, his very existence a sonnet about how much he wants those brains? This, too, is a love story.

For Blitz, meanwhile, an almost tragic dilemma had begun. As time passed, he and Giuseppe understood each other better and better, conversing and playing together on the floor with immense amusement, and so he found himself madly in love also with Giuseppe, as well as Nino. But Nino was always out, and Giuseppe always at home: thus it was impossible for him to live constantly in the company of both his loves, as he would have wished. And in consequence, with either one, he was always tortured by regret: and if he was with one, the mere mention of the others name or a smell that recalled him was enough for his homesickness to stream behind him, like a banner against the wind. At times, while he was on sentry duty outside Ninos school, suddenly, as if at a message brought him by a cloud, he would begin to sniff the sky with a mournful whimper, recalling the incarcerated Giuseppe. For a few minutes, a dissension would rend him, drawing him in two opposite directions at the same time; but finally, having overcome his hesitation, he would dash toward the San Lorenzo house, his long nose cleaving the wind like a prow. But at his destination, unfortunately, he found the door barred; and all his cries, mortified by the muzzle, passionately calling for Giuseppe, were in vain; for Giuseppe, though hearing him and suffering in his solitary room, longing to let him in, was unable to do so. Then, resigning himself to his destiny of waiting outside doors, Blitz would stretch out there on the ground, where, at times, in his boundless patience, he would doze off. And perhaps he had a dream of love, which brought him a reminiscence of Nino: it's a fact that, a moment later, he would stir from his sleep and hop down the steps with desperate whimpers, to retrace his way to the school.

He rested on his back, loosening his hold on me, and I turned over so I was lying on my side, facing him. I rested a hand on his chest, and his eyes watched mine until his hand found my own. I murmured, “I don’t regret that.” He hooked his finger around mine. “Really?” I nodded. I couldn’t, not anymore. Not after we made out in my closet, then my bed, and after I was practically begging him for it at the bar. I croaked, “I touched your bulge.” He started laughing, curving more into me. “You did.” “It was the most momentous and memorable part of the night.” I was grinning. He lifted his head. “Really?” He wasn’t. I nodded. “For sure. I became the definition of a wanton hussy.” He started laughing again. I kept going, “I can imagine all the stories that start with, ‘The day she touched my bulge’, or ‘The day I touched his bulge,’ ‘The moment my hand felt his jeans, and his dick swelled underneath’, or even . . .” I was laughing now, “‘I laid my hands on him, right over his jeans, and he rose up. He answered my call. I called out, Come forth, hard penis, and answer milady’s beckoning. My hips call upon your touch. You must heed and give forth plentiful of your pleasure.’” He continued laughing, wrapping his arms around me, and somehow he had curled his entire body around mine again. I was lying on my back once more, and he stopped, lifting his head from my neck. He gazed down at me, shifting to rise up on his elbow. He caught some hairs and tucked them behind my ear, letting his hand linger there, holding me gently. He grew serious. “I want to keep doing this.” I rested my hand over his on my face. “Fucking me from behind?” He grinned and then sobered. “No. This, whatever it is. We don’t need to put words to it, if you don’t want to.” I groaned. “Please, don’t. I tend to get bitchy when words are applied to situations

On August 21, 1931, invited to address an American Legion convention in Connecticut, he made the first no-holds-barred antiwar speech of his career. It stunned all who heard it or read it in the few papers that dared report it in part: I spent 33 years . . . being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. . . . I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City [Bank] boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. . . . In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. . . . I had . . . a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions. . . . I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three cities. The Marines operated on three continents. . . . We don’t want any more wars, but a man is a damn fool to think there won’t be any more of them. I am a peace-loving Quaker, but when war breaks out every damn man in my family goes. If we’re ready, nobody will tackle us. Give us a club and we will face them all. . . . There is no use talking about abolishing war; that’s damn foolishness. Take the guns away from men and they will fight just the same. . . . In the Spanish-American War we didn’t have any bullets to shoot, and if we had not had a war with a nation that was already licked and looking for an excuse to quit, we would have had hell licked out of us. . . . No pacifists or Communists are going to govern this country. If they try it there will be seven million men like you rise up and strangle them. Pacifists? Hell, I’m a pacifist, but I always have a club behind my back!

Mostly Gaylord deals with insurance scamming. He takes a car off a lot and the insurance company pays.” “That’s still stealing.” “I guess, but it’s an insurance company, and everyone hates those people.” “I don’t hate them.” “Well, you’re weird,” Lula said. “Do you like the car?” “I love the car.” “There you go. And by the way, you might want to put a dab of concealer on your nose.” Kranski’s Bar was on the corner of Mayberry Street and Ash. This was a neighborhood very similar to the Burg, but the houses were a little larger, the cars were newer, the kitchen appliances were probably stainless. I parked in the small lot beside the tavern, and Lula and I sashayed into the dim interior. Bertie was working behind the bar that stretched across the back of the room. A bunch of high-top tables were scattered around the front of the room. Two women sat at one of the tables, eating nachos and drinking martinis. At one end of the bar four men were drinking beer and watching the overhead television. I spotted Kenny Morris at the other end. He was alone, nursing what looked like whiskey. Bertie caught my eye, tilted his head toward Kenny, and I nodded back. “I guess that’s the guy you’re looking for,” Lula said. “You want to tag-team him?” “No. I just want to talk to him. I’ll go it alone.” Lula hoisted herself onto a barstool by the four men, and I approached Kenny. “Anyone sitting here?” I asked him. “No,” he said. “No one ever sits there.” “Why not?” “The television is at the other end.” “But you’re here.” “Yeah, I’m not into the team television thing.” He looked a lot like his yearbook photograph. His hair was a little longer. He was slim. Medium height. Pleasant looking. Wearing jeans and a blue dress shirt with the top button open and the sleeves rolled. He was staring at my nose with an intensity usually displayed by dermatologists during a skin cancer exam. I couldn’t blame him. I’d smeared some makeup on it, but even in the dark bar it was emitting a red glow. “It’s a condition,” I said. “It comes and goes. It’s not contagious or anything. Do you come in here often?” “Couple times a week.

Mr. Morales sidles up to the bar and says, “May I have this dance, Lara Jean?” “You may,” I say. To John I warn, “Don’t you dare come close to me.” He throws his hands out like he’s warding me off. “Don’t you come close to me!” As Mr. Morales leads me in a slow dance, I press my face against his shoulder to hide my smile. I’m really quite good at this espionage thing. John McClaren is sitting on a love seat now, watching Stormy play and chatting with Alicia. I’ve got him right where I want him. I can’t even believe how lucky I am. I’d been planning on showing up at his next Model UN meeting, but this is so much better. I’m thinking I’ll come up from behind him, take him by surprise, when Stormy stands up and declares she needs a piano break, she wants to dance with her grandson. I go turn on the stereo and cue up the CD we decided on for her break. John is protesting: “Stormy, I told you I don’t dance.” He used to try and fake sick during the square-dancing unit in gym--that’s how much he hates dancing. Stormy doesn’t listen, of course. She pulls him off the love seat and starts trying to teach him how to fox-trot. “Put your hand on my waist,” she orders. “I didn’t wear heels to sit behind a piano all night.” Stormy’s trying to teach him the steps, and he keeps stepping on her feet. “Ouch!” she snaps. I can’t stop giggling. Mr. Morales is too. He dances us over closer. “May I cut in?” he asks. “Please!” John practically pushes Stormy into Mr. Morales’s arms. “Johnny, be a gentleman and ask Lara Jean to dance,” Stormy says as Mr. Morales twirls her. John gives me a searching look, and I have a feeling he’s still suspicious of me and whether or not I have his name. “Ask her to dance,” Mr. Morales urges, grinning at me. “She wants to dance, don’t you, Lara Jean?” I shrug a sad kind of shrug. Wistful. The very picture of a girl who is waiting to be asked to dance. “I want to see the young people dance!” Normal yells. John McClaren looks at me, one eyebrow raised. “If we’re just swaying back and forth, I probably won’t step on your feet.” I feign hesitation and then nod. My pulse is racing. Target acquired.

She'd loved birds long before her physical limitations kept her grounded. She'd found a birding diary of her grandmother's in a trunk in the attic when she was Frankie's age, and when she asked her father about it, he dug through boxes on a shelf high above her head, handing down a small pair of binoculars and some field guides. She'd seen her first prothonotary warbler when she was nine, sitting alone on a tupelo stump in the forest, swatting at mosquitoes targeting the pale skin behind her ears. She glanced up from the book she was reading only to be startled by an unexpected flash of yellow. Holding her breath, she fished for the journal she kept in her pocket, focusing on the spot in the willow where he might be. A breeze stirred the branches, and she saw the brilliant yellow head and underparts standing out like petals of a sunflower against the backdrop of leaves; the under tail, a stark white. His beak was long, pointed and black; his shoulders a mossy green, a blend of the citron yellow of his head and the flat slate of his feathers. He had a black dot of an eye, a bead of jet set in a field of sun. Never had there been anything so perfect. When she blinked he disappeared, the only evidence of his presence a gentle sway of the branch. It was a sort of magic, unveiled to her. He had been hers, even if only for a few seconds. With a stub of pencil- 'always a pencil,' her grandmother had written. 'You can write with a pencil even in the rain'- she noted the date and time, the place and the weather. She made a rough sketch, using shorthand for her notes about the bird's coloring, then raced back to the house, raspberry canes and brambles speckling bloody trails across her legs. In the field guide in the top drawer of her desk, she found him again: prothonotary warbler, 'prothonotary' for the clerks in the Roman Catholic Church who wore robes of a bright yellow. It made absolute sense to her that something so beautiful would be associated with God. After that she spent countless days tromping through the woods, toting the drab knapsack filled with packages of partially crushed saltines, the bottles of juice, the bruised apples and half-melted candy bars, her miniature binoculars slung across one shoulder. She taught herself how to be patient, how to master the boredom that often accompanied careful observation. She taught herself how to look for what didn't want to be seen.

They stood on tiptoe, strained their eyes. “Let me look.” “Well, look then.” “What you see?” That was the question. No one saw anything. Then, simultaneously, three distinct groups of marchers came into view. One came up 125th Street from the east, on the north side of the street, marching west towards the Block. It was led by a vehicle the likes of which many had never seen, and as muddy as though it had come out of East River. A bare-legged black youth hugged the steering-wheel. They could see plainly that he was bare-legged for the vehicle didn’t have any door. He, in turn, was being hugged by a bare-legged white youth sitting at his side. It was a brotherly hug, but coming from a white youth it looked suggestive. Whereas the black had looked plain bare-legged, the bare-legged white youth looked stark naked. Such is the way those two colors affect the eyes of the citizens of Harlem. In the South it’s just the opposite. Behind these brotherly youths sat a very handsome young man of sepia color with the strained expression of a man moving his bowels. With him sat a middle-aged white woman in a teen-age dress who looked similarly engaged, with the exception that she had constipation. They held a large banner upright between them which read: BROTHERHOOD! Brotherly Love Is The Greatest! Following in the wake of the vehicle were twelve rows of bare-limbed marchers, four in each row, two white and two black, in orderly procession, each row with its own banner identical to the one in the vehicle. Somehow the black youths looked unbelievably black and the white youths unnecessarily white. These were followed by a laughing, dancing, hugging, kissing horde of blacks and whites of all ages and sexes, most of whom had been strangers to each other a half-hour previous. They looked like a segregationist nightmare. Strangely enough, the black citizens of Harlem were scandalized. “It’s an orgy!” someone cried. Not to be outdone, another joker shouted, “Mama don’t ’low that stuff in here.” A dignified colored lady sniffed. “White trash.” Her equally dignified mate suppressed a grin. “What else, with all them black dustpans?” But no one showed any animosity. Nor was anyone surprised. It was a holiday. Everyone was ready for anything. But when attention was diverted to the marchers from the south, many eyes seemed to pop out in black faces. The marchers from the south were coming north on the east side of Seventh Avenue, passing in front of the Scheherazade bar restaurant and the interdenominational church with the coming text posted on the notice-board outside: SINNERS ARE SUCKERS! DON’T BE A SQUARE! What caused the eyes of these dazed citizens to goggle was the sight of the apparition out front. Propped erect on the front bumper of a gold-trimmed lavender-colored Cadillac convertible driven by a fat black man with a harelip, dressed in a metallic-blue suit, was the statue of the Black Jesus, dripping black blood from its outstretched hands, a white rope dangling from its broken neck, its teeth bared in a look of such rage and horror as to curdle even blood mixed with as much alcohol as was theirs. Its crossed black feet were nailed to a banner which read: THEY LYNCHED ME! While two men standing in the back of the convertible held aloft another banner reading: BE NOT AFRAID!

Father will bury us with both hands. He boasts of me to his so-called friends, telling them I’m the next queen of this kingdom. I don’t think he’s ever paid so much attention to me before, and even now, it is minuscule, not for my own benefit. He pretends to love me now because of another, because of Tibe. Only when someone else sees worth in me does he condescend to do the same. Because of her father, she dreamed of a Queenstrial she did not win, of being cast aside and returned to the old estate. Once there, she was made to sleep in the family tomb, beside the still, bare body of her uncle. When the corpse twitched, hands reaching for her throat, she would wake, drenched in sweat, unable to sleep for the rest of the night. Julian and Sara think me weak, fragile, a porcelain doll who will shatter if touched, she wrote. Worst of all, I’m beginning to believe them. Am I really so frail? So useless? Surely I can be of some help somehow, if Julian would only ask? Are Jessamine’s lessons the best I can do? What am I becoming in this place? I doubt I even remember how to replace a lightbulb. I am not someone I recognize. Is this what growing up means? Because of Julian, she dreamed of being in a beautiful room. But every door was locked, every window shut, with nothing and no one to keep her company. Not even books. Nothing to upset her. And always, the room would become a birdcage with gilded bars. It would shrink and shrink until it cut her skin, waking her up. I am not the monster the gossips think me to be. I’ve done nothing, manipulated no one. I haven’t even attempted to use my ability in months, since Julian has no more time to teach me. But they don’t believe that. I see how they look at me, even the whispers of House Merandus. Even Elara. I have not heard her in my head since the banquet, when her sneers drove me to Tibe. Perhaps that taught her better than to meddle. Or maybe she is afraid of looking into my eyes and hearing my voice, as if I’m some kind of match for her razored whispers. I am not, of course. I am hopelessly undefended against people like her. Perhaps I should thank whoever started the rumor. It keeps predators like her from making me prey. Because of Elara, she dreamed of ice-blue eyes following her every move, watching as she donned a crown. People bowed under her gaze and sneered when she turned away, plotting against their newly made queen. They feared her and hated her in equal measure, each one a wolf waiting for her to be revealed as a lamb. She sang in the dream, a wordless song that did nothing but double their bloodlust. Sometimes they killed her, sometimes they ignored her, sometimes they put her in a cell. All three wrenched her from sleep. Today Tibe said he loves me, that he wants to marry me. I do not believe him. Why would he want such a thing? I am no one of consequence. No great beauty or intellect, no strength or power to aid his reign. I bring nothing to him but worry and weight. He needs someone strong at his side, a person who laughs at the gossips and overcomes her own doubts. Tibe is as weak as I am, a lonely boy without a path of his own. I will only make things worse. I will only bring him pain. How can I do that? Because of Tibe, she dreamed of leaving court for good. Like Julian wanted to do, to keep Sara from staying behind. The locations varied with the changing nights. She ran to Delphie or Harbor Bay or Piedmont or even the Lakelands, each one painted in shades of black and gray. Shadow cities to swallow her up and hide her from the prince and the crown he offered. But they frightened her too. And they were always empty, even of ghosts. In these dreams, she ended up alone. From these dreams, she woke quietly, in the morning, with dried tears and an aching heart.

One thing leads to another in this world, Flamen, and we human beings get dragged along like—like dead leaves spinning in the wake of a skimmer. Diablo was saying a while back how you fine down your principles so that a machine can handle them, and pretty soon the person using the machine comes to imagine that this is how it’s always been— there never was a subtler way of thinking. That’s some of where it’s at, but it’s not all by any means. Take the fine expensive home you live in, with its automatic defenses and its mines sown under the lawn like daffodil-bulbs. You shut yourself up behind armor-plate, you shut your mind too. You advertise Guardian traps on your show, don’t you—those steel bands spiked like an Iron Maiden? What’s the mentality of someone who’s prepared to come home from visiting neighbors and find a corpse hung up in the doorway? I say he’s already insane when he commits himself to that course of action, and you don’t have to wait for him to lose his marbles under an overdose of Ladromide before he stops thinking as a responsible mature person ought to! And what’s the reason that’s advanced for acting this way?” He rounded on Reedeth. “You know! You probably have it dinned into you a dozen times a day at your work! ‘Be an individual!’” Conroy contrived to make the slogan sound obscene. “And what’s this been twisted into? The biggest Big Lie in history! It’s no use making your life so private you refuse to learn from other people’s experience—you just get stuck in a groove of mistakes you need never have made. We have more knowledge available at the turn of a switch than ever before, we can bring any part of the world into our own homes, and what do we do with it? Half the time we advertise goods people can’t afford, and anyhow they’ve got the color and hold controls adrift because the pretty patterns are fun to look at when you’ve bolted and barred your mind with drugs. Split! Divide! Separate! Shut your eyes and maybe it’ll go away! “We mine our gardens, we close our frontiers, we barricade our cities with Macnamara lines to shut off black from white, we divide, divide, divide!” A stamp emphasized each repetition of the word. “It gets into our families, goddamn it, it gets into our very love-making! Christ, do you know I had a girl student last year who thought she was having an affair with a boy back home and all they’d ever done was sit in front of the comweb and masturbate at each other? Twenty miles apart! They’d never even kissed! We’re going insane, our whole blasted species—we’re heading for screaming ochlophobia! Another couple of generations and husbands will be afraid to be alone in the same room with their wives, mothers will be afraid of their babies, if there are any babies!

On that, I pushed, shoved, desperate to get to a place where I could completely fade away and do it alone. Having been given too much too soon and paying the price by having it ripped away so that was all I’d ever have. Nothing. All I’d ever be. Alone. With all that, I made my final dash through the flames, making my way through the bar, out, and I ran to my car on my high heels. Destined to fade away. Ready to fade away. Needing nothing but to leave it all far behind.

Charlie stared at the picture, everyone wearing big smiles, everyone just a little drunk. He raised his snifter, and said, “Good-bye, Ethan. You were a good man and a great friend. I love you, and I’ll miss you.” He tossed back the cognac, moved out from behind the bar, and flipped off the lights. He started for the back of the restaurant, to the pull-down staircase to his apartment, thought better of it, and went back to the bar to retrieve the bottle of cognac.

He clicks his tongue, his jaw grinding, but he continues with the act nonetheless. "I just prefer you to call me by your loving nicknames." He glues his eyes to the back of the bar as he speaks, like he's looking over the shelves of amber bottles and rows of clean glasses. Stoic as ever. Taking another sip of the fairy wine, I drain my glass. "And what might those be?" "Asshole, for one." He tilts his head. His lips twitch. "Hobgoblin was pretty original." I snort, trapping the laugh that threatens to leave me behind my teeth. "Indeed.

For a split second, Az thought Madi might tell him to move so he could slide in behind him, but after a moment's hesitation, he stepped into the oval-shaped tub and sat, moving until he was flush against Az, leaning back tentatively, shoulders up around his ears. Az chuckled. “At ease, motek. I simply want your company. I’m not waiting here with a weapon under the bubbles.” Madi relaxed visibly, resting his head against Az’s shoulder. “That’s better.” Az let his hands roam along Madi’s chest and torso. It seemed the best way to appreciate Madi’s form: slick, soapy fingers playing at his nipples, slipping along the ridges of his abdomen, threading through the hair just beneath his navel, stopping just short of his cock before slowly traveling upward again. Madi gave a sigh that sounded almost content. Az nuzzled behind his ear and along the curve of his throat, enjoying the salty tang of Madi’s skin on his lips. The longer Az caressed him, the more tranquil Madi seemed to grow, his chest rising and falling beneath Az’s hands. “Why didn’t you let me answer the question?” he finally asked. “What?” Madi asked, voice husky. “Earlier. Why didn’t you let me answer the question the therapist asked? What I admired about you? Did you think I’d have nothing to say?” Madi hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe I don’t want to know. Maybe once it’s out there, there’s no taking it back.” Az threaded wet fingers through Madi’s hair, murmuring, “And if I don’t want to take it back?” Madi took a deep breath, shaking his head. “What is there for men like us? Just this. Fighting. Fucking. Killing. Mistrust. Misunderstandings.” “Is that all this is to you?” Az asked, knowing in his heart that wasn’t how Madi truly saw them, even if it would make things easier for the both of them if he did. Madi was quiet, but his hand caught Az’s wrist, sliding to tangle their fingers together. This gesture spoke the words it seemed Madi could not, causing a warmth to spread through Az that rivaled the bath water. Az spoke before he could stop himself. “The first thing I admired about you was your beauty. You were a sight for sore eyes that night in the bar, and I was shocked you wanted me.” This time, it was Madi who turned his head, nosing under Az’s chin in a barely-there touch. “When I realized why you were there after a bit of shameless snooping, I dismantled your weapon, not because you were the competition, but because I realized after the night we spent together, the only way I’d ever see you again was if I did something to make you angry enough to want to get even.” Madi didn’t answer but squeezed Az’s hand. Az could feel the uptick in his breaths, which told him Madi was listening. “I admire your skill with a weapon, motek, your precision. The way you kill is art. Truly. But you fucked like you killed…from a safe distance, where nobody can harm you. I needed you closer to me. At the core of every stupid decision I’ve made, every backwards plan, it was always just that. I wanted you—the real you—as close as I could get you.” “Why?” Madi asked, voice raw. “Because I knew, even then I think, that I could love you, but I wasn’t sure I could ever break down your walls enough to get you to love me.” “Yet here I am.” Az raised their intertwined fingers to kiss Madi’s palm. “Yes, here you are.

For a split second, Az thought Madi might tell him to move so he could slide in behind him, but after a moment's hesitation, he stepped into the oval-shaped tub and sat, moving until he was flush against Az, leaning back tentatively, shoulders up around his ears. Az chuckled. “At ease, motek. I simply want your company. I’m not waiting here with a weapon under the bubbles.” Madi relaxed visibly, resting his head against Az’s shoulder. “That’s better.” Az let his hands roam along Madi’s chest and torso. It seemed the best way to appreciate Madi’s form: slick, soapy fingers playing at his nipples, slipping along the ridges of his abdomen, threading through the hair just beneath his navel, stopping just short of his cock before slowly traveling upward again. Madi gave a sigh that sounded almost content. Az nuzzled behind his ear and along the curve of his throat, enjoying the salty tang of Madi’s skin on his lips. The longer Az caressed him, the more tranquil Madi seemed to grow, his chest rising and falling beneath Az’s hands. “Why didn’t you let me answer the question?” he finally asked. “What?” Madi asked, voice husky. “Earlier. Why didn’t you let me answer the question the therapist asked? What I admired about you? Did you think I’d have nothing to say?” Madi hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe I don’t want to know. Maybe once it’s out there, there’s no taking it back.” Az threaded wet fingers through Madi’s hair, murmuring, “And if I don’t want to take it back?” Madi took a deep breath, shaking his head. “What is there for men like us? Just this. Fighting. Fucking. Killing. Mistrust. Misunderstandings.” “Is that all this is to you?” Az asked, knowing in his heart that wasn’t how Madi truly saw them, even if it would make things easier for the both of them if he did. Madi was quiet, but his hand caught Az’s wrist, sliding to tangle their fingers together. This gesture spoke the words it seemed Madi could not, causing a warmth to spread through Az that rivaled the bath water. Az spoke before he could stop himself. “The first thing I admired about you was your beauty. You were a sight for sore eyes that night in the bar, and I was shocked you wanted me.” This time, it was Madi who turned his head, nosing under Az’s chin in a barely-there touch. “When I realized why you were there after a bit of shameless snooping, I dismantled your weapon, not because you were the competition, but because I realized after the night we spent together, the only way I’d ever see you again was if I did something to make you angry enough to want to get even.” Madi didn’t answer but squeezed Az’s hand. Az could feel the uptick in his breaths, which told him Madi was listening. “I admire your skill with a weapon, motek, your precision. The way you kill is art. Truly. But you fucked like you killed…from a safe distance, where nobody can harm you. I needed you closer to me. At the core of every stupid decision I’ve made, every backwards plan, it was always just that. I wanted you—the real you—as close as I could get you.” “Why?” Madi asked, voice raw. “Because I knew, even then I think, that I could love you, but I wasn’t sure I could ever break down your walls enough to get you to love me.” “Yet here I am.” Az raised their intertwined fingers to kiss Madi’s palm. “Yes, here you are.

The separation of families is now widely understood as a human rights crisis at the border, yet comparatively little attention has been paid to the destruction of black families in the era of mass incarceration. One in four women in the United States has a loved one behind bars, and the figure is nearly one in two for black women. When men are locked up, the women who love them are sentenced too-to social isolation, depression, grief, shame, costly legal fees, far-away prison visits (often with children in tow) and the staggering challenges of helping children overcome the trauma of parental incarceration. When loved ones are released from their cages, it is often women who are faced with the daunting task of supporting them as they struggle and often fail in a system rigged against them.

If I Wanted to Go to Heaven” September 18, 2024 at 12:41 PM Verse 1: If I wanted to go to heaven, I’d be on my knees tonight, Prayin’ for forgiveness, under the pale moonlight. But I’m sittin’ here in this old bar, with a whiskey in my hand, Thinkin’ 'bout the life I’ve lived, and the man I am. Chorus: If I wanted to go to heaven, I’d change my wicked ways, I’d trade these boots for angel wings, and walk the righteous way. But the road to redemption is a long and winding ride, And if I wanted to go to heaven, I’d have to leave this life behind. Verse 2: I’ve loved and lost, and fought my wars, with a heart that’s scarred and torn, I’ve seen the highs, I’ve felt the lows, in the eye of every storm. But there’s a fire in my soul, that keeps me on this path, And if I wanted to go to heaven, I’d have to face my past. Chorus: If I wanted to go to heaven, I’d change my wicked ways, I’d trade these boots for angel wings, and walk the righteous way. But the road to redemption is a long and winding ride, And if I wanted to go to heaven, I’d have to leave this life behind. Bridge: Maybe someday I’ll find the strength, to turn my life around, But tonight I’ll raise my glass, to the lost and the found. For every sinner has a story, and every saint has a past, And if I wanted to go to heaven, I’d have to make it last. Chorus: If I wanted to go to heaven, I’d change my wicked ways, I’d trade these boots for angel wings, and walk the righteous way. But the road to redemption is a long and winding ride, And if I wanted to go to heaven, I’d have to leave this life behind. Outro: So here’s to all the dreamers, and the ones who never quit, If I wanted to go to heaven, I’d have to make the best of it. But for now, I’ll keep on livin’, with this heart of mine, And if I wanted to go to heaven, I’d have to leave this life behind.

The Golem, The Monster was in love with herself; the Goy was in love with her too. She was in love with Club Golan. A perfect storm was approaching and I could almost feel it. I didn't know what was wrong with my beautiful girlfriend as her face gradually began to look like a monster's and she started treating me like garbage. What was controlling her mind? Who was behind her, making her get so sick again so quickly after meeting some new people at the beach bar? Why did Sabrina say that I would die lonely and sad, and why was Martina's perception of me so wrong and unreal? How was their plan on track, I didn't understand while I was running after Martina and I couldn't understand where our happiness had slipped out of our hands again? I was desperately trying to figure out what had happened to my life, my career, and what had happened to my pretty girlfriend, what had happened to my baby? It was almost like my girlfriend's perceptions were all wrong somehow. She had seen me as a useless homeless bum and she had seen the only value or service in Europe and Barcelona which could make a living or money as, 'short shorts and loose legs'. I felt hopeless and I didn't understand what the spell was. How was my 'Stupid Bunny' a Frankenstein? I could feel it on my skin, and I could see it in Martina's eyes, that the criminals' plans were in play and had been working since the moment Adam arrived in Spain, or maybe even before that somehow. Before I even met Martina. Before we even broke all up with Sabrina. Before the Red Moon, the last date and before the provocation the following night. I felt like 10-20 criminals were trying to bully me and trying to woo Martina and outsmart me with her, but I was so worried for her and was so busy trying to save her every day with her on my mind, as if I too was under spells, under possession and couldn't do anything about it to help her or break the illusions keeping her possessed, even when supposedly she was, we were, rid of the bad people. I felt like I was in a screenplay in the set up stages of a drama. I felt like someone had sat down with a piece of paper and a pen, and was drawing plans against my life. I felt like someone had written a screenplay on how to play this out, how to take the club from me and Martina. Someone must have written a list of characters. Casting. I never called Sabrina a bitch. Adam and Martina both called her “bitch.” Martina said “The Bitch” and Adam said “that Crazy Bitch.” ’The Goy’ ’The Bitch’ ’The Gipsy’ ’The Giants’ ’The Golem’ ’The Lawyer’ ’The Big Boss’ ’My Girlfriend’ ’The False Flag’ ’The Big Brother’ ’The Stupid Bunny’ ’The Big Boss Daddy’ ’The Italian Connection’, etc. I was unable to break any illusion, the secret, the code; I was dumbstruck in love with “my girlfriend” (who I thought was my “stupid bunny”), being the ‘false flag’, and maybe it was actually “the bitch” portrayed by Sabrina who was my true love perhaps, putting me to the tests, with Adam and the rest, using Martina and her brother, playing with strings, with her long pretty fingernails, teaching me a lesson for cheating when I thought she was cheating too and making me unhappy when I thought she was unhappy with me. As if I knew, Sabrina had been behind my new girlfriend, Martina playing roles; I had seen all the signs and jokes. I just couldn't comprehend it having a cover over my eyes. I was unsure what should I do what would be real wise? I didn't think Sabrina would be capable of hurting me at all. Why did Martina keep saying, Tomas you are so nice and tall?

Without thinking about what I was doing, I pushed my chair back. “I’m sorry Sandra, but I should probably get home.” “Audrey, sweetheart.” Colin’s tone was placating, like he was talking to an upset child. “Don’t do that.” “You shouldn’t call her that.” My eyes widened at the growly voice behind me. I didn’t know when Josiah had gotten up from his place at the bar but I could feel his presence behind me now, dark and menacing. Colin looked up at him. “Excuse me?” “I don’t think she likes you calling her sweetheart. So how about you go find your own table and leave these ladies alone.” “How about you mind your own business.” “I would love to but you keep bothering them and I don’t like it.” My heart raced and I felt like I was glued to my chair. Sandra grinned at Josiah, as if this whole scene was making her night. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder. He towered behind me like a wall of timber, arms crossed and brow deeply furrowed, his eyes locked on Colin.

The two young boys raced along the sidewalk, twisting their way between passers-by, their eyes frantically glancing behind them at the large pursuing policeman. Suddenly Mr. Thorn, a large, burley man dressed in black blocked their way and took them both by the collars. “So there you are!” He snatched the apple quickly from James’ hand. “What have we here?” He was about to take a bite of it, when he saw the officer racing towards them. “It’s all right officer. I have the young scoundrels and I’ll make full restitutions for their thievery.” He quickly fished coins from his pocket and with a conning smile, put them in the hand of the frowning Policeman. “And a little extra for your trouble, my good man. It’s such a small crime and the criminals so . . . minor.” The burly policeman rocked back and forth considering and then grunted, after all it was Christmas. “Very well sir. I’ll give these to the Vendor but I catch either of you snatching again, it’s behind bars with you and a good strong workhouse. You got me!” Jonas glanced down at his worn out boots, his face red with shame. “Oh yes sir.” James followed suit and then glanced up into the gruff face of the law. “Sorry, we were just hungry!” Mr. Thorn smiled and tipped his hat to the Policeman, who shaking his head, sauntered away. Immediately Mr. Thorn slapped Jonas hard across the face, drawing blood from his nose and then smacked James on the head, crushing his cap. He snatched the apple from James’ hand and pocketed them both. “So here you two no-accounts are? I’ve been searching high and wide for the lot of you. I left you at this corner and I expected to find you right where I left ya!” He then snatched the cup from Jonas’ hand with a scowl. He poured the coins into his hand and his greedy eyes took in the meager profits. Jonas immediately stammered justification for their absence. “We-we found a better corner to beg at, Mr. Thorn. I think we done all right.” Mr. Thorn cleared his throat considering and then his boisterous laughter echoed. He put his big arms around the two young lads. “Well, you done fine for us boys! We needs the money! We’ll have to have you two young Sirs representing our fine establishment again tomorrow, I do believe.” He chuckled cruelly. “We’ve great charity in our hearts for you kiddies but a soulful heart won’t put bread and molasses on the table.” He greedily poured the coins into his coat pocket. Both lads coughed mischievously at mention of such charitable actions. Thorn eyed them both to see if they are making fun of him, which they were. Jonas cleared his throat. “A bit of a tickle.” Thorn growled and gruffly took hold of the boy’s arm. “I’d tickle you both with a whip if I thought you was funning with me! Now boys, you’ve roughed my gentle nature. You know that I has nothing but love for the lot of you. My big heart swells at the sight of each and every one of you little bastards . . . I mean kiddies. Shall we on home?” “Here Jamey lad, you hold the cup. Give us a song the two of you, to beg alms by. I think I’m in the mood for “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”, but make it sweet or there’s a lashing for the both of ya!” Jonas and James exchanged tortured looks. Together the young Nicholas boys sweetly began to sing the song, as they moved through the crowd. The Tall Toymaker followed them down the sidewalk, trying not to be observed by Thorn. ”And a villain enters the scene, an ugly villain at that!

All the great braggarts, victimizing the world, but the end is waiting for them also. Morality and immorality, love, hate, terror, and all that talk of courage and honor--all rhetorical skirts we hide behind to deny our own mortality . It all ends. The greatest gift of all is that it ends. If you realize and accept that, nothing has power over you, good or evil.

Norm made his way behind a wet bar. “You want something, Myron? I don’t think they have any Yoo-Hoo in here, but I’m sure—” “Nothing,” Myron interrupted. Norm did the mock surrender thing with his hands. “Sheesh, Myron, relax,” he said. “What’s twisting your nipple?” “I wanted to warn you, Norm.” “Warn me about what?” “I don’t want to do this. As far as I’m concerned, your love life should be personal. But it’s not that easy. Not anymore. It’s going to get out, Norm. I’m sorry.” Norm Zuckerman did not move. He opened his mouth as though readying to protest. Then he stopped. “How did you find out?” “You were with Jack. At the Court Manor Inn. A maid saw you.” Norm

The last man who raped one of our boys…” Hell burned behind the man’s steel gray eyes. “…got his dick ripped off and his ass fucked by a red hot pry-bar.” Oh

You … That was all I thought about when I was rescued, that was all I thought about during the six years I was there. You.” He slipped a wisp of hair behind my ear. “You were what kept me alive in that hell. And you’re what will keep me alive in this one.” “You’re free. Alive. How is this hell?” “It might not be a wall of metal bars and a half a world if distance, but there’s still something keeping me separated from you … It’s hell to go from loving someone, thinking of them every minute of every day and thinking you’d never see them again, only to make it home and see them and realize they aren’t yours to love anymore.

Jake,” I murmur. He opens his eyes. “Are you absolutely sure this is what you want? The baby, I mean.” “I’m sure.” His gaze drops to my stomach. “This baby will be made of everything I have loved my whole life.” “I’m gonna get fat,” I mumble. “No, you’re going to get even sexier.” Coming close again, he wraps his arms around me tightly, rubbing the tip of his nose against mine. “How could I not want something made up of Trudy Wethers’s DNA?” “Still Bennett.” I grin. “You haven’t made an honest woman of me yet.” “You ready to hop that plane to Vegas now?” “A shotgun wedding. My folks would be so proud.” I laugh. “What do you want to do about the wedding?” he asks. “Move it forward?” “That would give me a matter of weeks to plan it. Why don’t we just wait until after the baby is born?” I see him quickly do the math in his head. “We wouldn’t be able to get married July twenty-first. You okay with that?” “I’m going to have a mini-Jake soon. Of course I’m okay with that.” “Or a mini-Tru,” he says. Then his expression suddenly changes. “Fuck, a girl. We might have to lock her up, Tru.” I scrunch up my face. “Why?” “Because, if she looks anything like you, I’m one day going to be fighting off horny teenage boys left, right, and centre. I’ll probably end up in jail for beating one to death if I find him with his hands on my baby girl.” He shudders comically. I let out a laugh. “Let’s hope if we have a boy, he’s doesn’t grow up to be one of those horny teenagers…or God forbid, as horny as you are. Otherwise we’ll have some girl’s dad round here kicking his ass.” “Then I’ll end up in jail for beating the shit out of the dad—fuck, this is a no-win, sweetheart,” he groans, dropping his head back against the rest. “I’m doomed to a future behind bars.” Laughing softly, I say, “Don’t worry, baby, we’ll figure a way to keep you out of prison.” I kiss the tip of his nose, then open the door, ready to get out of the car and into the house to bed.

In tribunal, Mother held a funeral. Fake condolers spread, A debate they held For here I was, Behind bars, Her heart I took stealthily, And she… Fell for me, Unwillingly. Silence! the judge said to audience: Mother, defense, Reporters, radio agents, The girl's father; the wronged. Plead your case, judge says, to the father, my prosecutor, to guillotine, pushing me closer. "This boy is but a thief, Stealing a heart from my daughter. His poetry starting a war within her, Between his charm and care For her and another, Between his eloquence and fear, And how much closer she went. On love she came to reflect. And his way a choice she sent: Love not the rhyme, but me… repent. Or let poetry be enough, throw away my love. Of quitting poetry, he reported then betrayed her heart and stole it. Now without him she is With her love he lives And caused his madness her death This, your honor is the case. I now demand Justice, And the guillotine." "Silence! Defense." This boy, your honor, A poet and a sweet-talker, Both things, inevitable and meritless. He, I say, shall be sold To the unemployed, And those who of hope are void, Or to radio agents To break him apart And be, for entertainment, sold in a gallery of yearning and joining, specially or renouncement and criticism, alternately, or love unescapable. Money, it shall yield, a compensation to the girl and her lost heart that is now ancient." "Silence! The Mother." "Your honor, If him you must kill, Include me in the will. Let the pond of his blood Water the crops Let its source be my heart and his unpublished poems and the starved bellies and the nibs of birds the branch inhabitants That should be rather the middle Between his memory and the kill Rather fearless Not a hunger filled injustice" The father, "I object, It is all of him I want A compensation for my daughter and her heart" The defense, "Rather to pieces be fractioned, Between the ill, the unemployed and the runaway; Divided." A humming noise, In his honor's chest, In my rhymes, Rather… in the entire court. "Silence!", he said. He a man who is free His heart telling him to revolt The only power he's got Is but a plea to God To be by the revolution killed not And by karma hit not. What I now see fit, Is for him to be executed, by what to his nature is opposite. Deny him the pen And the flag Tell him every detail of the girl and her lost heart No way to reach her will be allowed he This is my decree Allowed not his poetry Is but death to the free To be by his words suffocated To love stealthily "All Rise!" "Case dismissed." Oh, la la la Oh, la la la

Whenever I thought of home, I didn’t think of a place. I thought of people. I thought of the ones who’d shaped me into the woman I’d become, the ones who’d loved me with my scars and told me those scars were beautiful, the ones who’d allowed me to make mistakes and still loved me.

Do you love me?” I asked, terrified to hear her answer. Her brows knitted together, and she placed her fork down. “I’ll love you the day you stop letting me down.

Sorry,” Brodie said with a grin as he covered the last ten yards at the end of the pier, a small mutt racing down the docks behind him. “Didn’t mean to startle.” “So, an Irishman and an Aussie walk into a bar,” Kerry said, recovering quickly and teasing Grace’s husband as he stopped a few feet away. She bent down and clapped her hands as the scruffy mutt came skidding to a stop in front of her. “Hello, Mr. Whomper, and how are you today?” She gave him a good ear scratch, then laughed when he immediately wriggled over to his back in hopes of a belly rub to go with it. Laughing she obliged, then straightened, leaving the dog to sniff out Cooper’s feet, hoping for more of the same from the newcomer. “Heck of a watchdog you have there, Monaghan,” Cooper said, squatting down to give the dog a good once-over. “You realize,” Brodie said, “you’ve just made a shameless love slave out of him for life.” “Well, he has good hands,” Kerry said, then lifted her own in mock surrender when both men looked at her. Cooper was certain his surprised expression mirrored Brodie’s. “What?” Brodie chuckled, and his grin had the same cheek Cooper had been told his did.

Behind the bar, tall females in white feathered tops danced on poles, their faces set in masks of lascivious contempt. Keith Blanchard, then Maxim’s editor-in-chief, told me, “It’s a sexy night!” To me, “sexy” is based on the inexplicable overlap of character and chemicals that happens between people…the odd sense that you have something primal in common with another person whom you may love, or you may barely even like, that can only be expressed through the physical and psychological exchange that is sex. When I’m in the plastic “erotic” world of high, hard tits and long nails and incessant pole dancing—whether I’m at a CAKE party, walking past a billboard of Jenna Jameson in Times Square, or dodging pillows at the Maxim Hot 100—I don’t feel titillated or liberated or aroused. I feel bored, and kind of tense.

With time and heartache, I learned the hardest truth of life: you can’t force love to happen, no matter how hard you try. You can’t force someone to love you, to be proud of you, to care. The only thing you’re in control of is your own soul and discovering what makes your heart beat.

It’s a hell of a thing to see the woman you love behind bars.  It’s another damn thing all together being the one who put her there.

A few minutes passed wherein the truck hummed, country music twanged on the radio, and I read the same paragraph in my history book four times. Then Tommy asked, “So, did you two hook up yet?” “Tommy!” I squealed. “What a question!” “What?” He half-turned toward me. “I’m just asking.” “If we hadn’t hooked up,” I said, “that question would be awkward and embarrassing. And if we had hooked up, it would be-“ “-awkward and embarrassing,” Hunter said. Tommy watched Hunter driving for a moment. Tommy’s expression was inscrutable, and I could see in the rearview mirror that Hunter’s was, too. “So you have hooked up,” Tommy concluded. “Of course not,” I said. “Hunter met his girlfriend in the bathroom. He has a fortune-teller and a bar waitress on the side.” “Never say I didn’t raise class.” Tommy turned all the way around to face me. “And how do you know this?” “We live in the same dorm.” Tommy grinned. “Uh-huh. You’re from the same town, the same farm even, you live in the same dorm, you know all about each other’s business, but you haven’t hooked up.” When he put it that way, why hadn’t we? He made it sound as if the prerequisites or hooking up were familiarity, proximity…and he must sense the desire, at least on my end. He didn’t understand the complications, the humiliations, the hundred reasons why not that hummed underneath us like the never-ending sound of New York traffic, or the drone of the Kentucky interstate behind the autumn trees. “It’s none of your business, Dad.” Maybe it was because I could hardly hear Hunter over the motor and the radio, but I was surprised by how embarrassed he sounded, and wistful.

Dreamy tosspots, they stand all afternoon in a 2nd Avenue bar looking at the sun-patterns under the L or their own faces in the mirror; they do good but not good enough work on the paper and dream of the novel they're certainly going to get around to someday; they stand behind a desk on the lecture-platform lecturing with loving and fruitless persuasion to students watching the clock; throughout whole evenings with sinking heart they sit watching their wives over the edge of a book and wondering how, how, how had it ever come about; they live in and search the past not to discover where and at what point they missed the boat but only to revel in the fancied and fanciful pleasures of a better happier and easier day; they see not wisely but too well and what they see isn't worth it; they eat of and are eaten by ennui, with no relief from boredom even in their periodic plunges from euphoria to despair or their rapid rise back to the top again. They wake up mornings such as this, all but out of their minds with remorse, enduring what others call and can call a hangover—that funny word Americans will joke about forever, even when the morning-after is their own.

You’re going to make a great mother someday.” Kira chuckled.  “Oh, I don’t know if I’ll have kids of my own,” she said, as she loaded the dishwasher.  “I just love working with children.”  She added soap and closed the door.  “What I’d really like to do is go into child psychology, so I can help kids like Andrew.”  She looked out at the group, to a sad-looking, dark-skinned little boy sitting quietly at the outermost edge of the circle.  Andrew came from a broken home.  His abusive father now sat behind bars serving a maximum of fifteen years, but the scars he left on his five children – from the oldest at thirteen to five year-old Andrew – would be a lifetime sentence.  Kira’s heart had gone out to the boy from the moment his mother first dropped him off. 

Lloyd was still that nigga; even behind bars he was running things. But he was a realist. All the wiretaps the Feds and local authorities used against him, he was lucky they wasn’t trying to give him a death sentence due to all the conspiracy charges, too, when he was heard ordering hits on rivals.

When I pass the bar, you'll be barred from bars but put behind them.

A man walks into a bar and sees a good-looking, smartly dressed woman perched on a barstool. He walks up behind her and says, “Hi there, good looking, how’s it going?” She turns around, faces him, looks him straight in the eye and says, “Listen, I’ll screw anybody, anytime, anywhere, your place, my place, it doesn’t matter. I’ve been doing it ever since I got out of college. I just flat out love it.” “No kidding? I’m a lawyer, too! What firm are you with?

In 1991, a college sophomore studying music in the American Midwest made the mistake of selling some drugs to the wrong person. Until then, he hadn’t done much more than smoke pot and sell some of it to his friends. Petty vandalism at his high school was as high stakes as his criminal career had been. Then, as these things tend to go when you’re just 18 years old, he tried to push the envelope and test his boundaries. He started experimenting with hard drugs like LSD. But he was naive, and the brashness of youth got the best of him. He sold some of that LSD outside his circle—to an undercover policeman. And as if his luck couldn’t get worse, like a scene out of a TV movie of the week, the judge, under pressure to make an example out of this young man, sentenced him to 6 to 25 years in prison. It’s a faceless, timeless story that transcends race, class, and region. A young kid makes a mistake that forever changes their lives and their family’s lives as well. We are all too familiar with how stories like this usually end: The kid spends their most impressionable years behind bars and comes out worse than when they went in. Life on the outside is too difficult to contend with; habits learned on the inside are too difficult to shed. They reoffend; their crimes escalate. The cycle continues. This story, however, is a little different. Because this young man didn’t go back to jail. In fact, after being released in less than 5 years on good behavior, he went on to become one of the best jazz violinists in the world. He left prison with a fire lit underneath him—to practice, to repent, to humble himself, to hustle, and to do whatever it took to make something of his life. No task was too small, no gig was too tiny, no potential fan was too disinterested for him not to give it everything he had. And he did. The story is a little different for another reason, too. That young man’s name is Christian Howes. He is my older brother.

On our return from the bush, we went straight back to work at the zoo. A huge tree behind the Irwin family home had been hit by lightning some years previously, and a tangle of dead limbs was in danger of crashing down on the house. Steve thought it would be best to take the dead tree down. I tried to lend a hand. Steve’s mother could not watch as he scrambled up the tree. He had no harness, just his hat and a chainsaw. The tree was sixty feet tall. Steve looked like a little dot way up in the air, swinging through the tree limbs with an orangutan’s ease, working the chainsaw. Then it was my turn. After he pruned off all the limbs, the last task was to fell the massive trunk. Steve climbed down, secured a rope two-thirds of the way up the tree, and tied the other end to the bull bar of his Ute. My job was to drive the Ute. “You’re going to have to pull it down in just the right direction,” he said, chopping the air with his palm. He studied the angle of the tree and where it might fall. Steve cut the base of the tree. As the chainsaw snarled, Steve yelled, “Now!” I put the truck in reverse, slipped the clutch, and went backward at a forty-five-degree angle as hard as I could. With a groan and a tremendous crash, the tree hit the ground. We celebrated, whooping and hollering. Steve cut the downed timber into lengths and I stacked it. The whole project took us all day. By late in the afternoon, my back ached from stacking tree limbs and logs. As the long shadows crossed the yard, Steve said four words very uncharacteristic of him: “Let’s take a break.” I wondered what was up. We sat under a big fig tree in the yard with a cool drink. We were both covered in little flecks of wood, leaves, and bark. Steve’s hair was unkempt, a couple of his shirt buttons were missing, and his shorts were torn. I thought he was the best-looking man I had ever seen in my life. “I am not even going to walk for the next three days,” I said, laughing. Steve turned to me. He was quiet for a moment. “So, do you want to get married?” Casual, matter-of-fact. I nearly dropped the glass I was holding. I had twigs in my hair an dirt caked on the side of my face. I’d taken off my hat, and I could feel my hair sticking to the sides of my head. My first thought was what a mess I must look. My second, third, and fourth thoughts were lists of every excuse in the world why I couldn’t marry Steve Irwin. I could not possibly leave my job, my house, my wildlife work, my family, my friends, my pets--everything I had worked so hard for back in Oregon. He never looked concerned. He simply held my gaze. As all these things flashed through my mind, a little voice from somewhere above me spoke. “Yes, I’d love to.” With those four words my life changed forever.

You love me?” “Yes, Maddie.” His reached for her, his hand curling around her neck. “I love you. I adore you. I can’t live without you. Please don’t make me.” Her heart filled with joy, erasing the last hours from her mind in an instant. “I thought you hated me. I didn’t think you’d forgive me.” He gave a sharp nod. “I was angry. I was hurt. And it didn’t matter. I loved you anyway.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her body close to his. “I’m sorry. I didn’t feel like I had any other choice. I was wrong. I will never go behind your back again.” He shook his head and trailed a path down her spine. “You’re right, I didn’t give you a choice. I shut you out. I didn’t fight for you. I don’t have a good excuse. Only I fell for you so quickly and I was afraid to let you go, for fear I’d ruin you.” Confused, she searched his gaze. “Ruin me?” “Every day that passed, I became more of a mess. Every time I turned around, something else was falling apart and I had no answers. Everything in my life was going to hell: my family sucks, I own a bar I hate, I couldn’t go back to the career I loved, and my father is being blackmailed. And worst of all, I couldn’t figure out a way to keep you. I have never felt so helpless.” Tears flooded the corners of her eyes. “Mitch, why didn’t you tell me?” “Because.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat as his fingers tightened on the back of her neck. “You were becoming the woman you needed to be. Every day, you got stronger. More confident. More sure of who you were and what you wanted. I couldn’t ruin it for you.” She went to her tiptoes and kissed him, a soft brush of promise. “Don’t you understand?” He shook his head. “I’ve never been so clueless in my life.” She rubbed her thumb over his jaw. “You saved me. And I will love you forever.

He watches my face closely. Paul does that a lot. You don’t have to speak for him to know how you’re feeling. I turn my back to the mirror, and I see the work of art he’s created. He drew the daisy, and he’s colored it with my colors. It’s reaching toward a shaft of sunlight from behind bars. That part is exactly what I expected. But at the base of the daisy, Maggie lays with her head balanced on the lower petals, just like she used to balance it on my knee. She’s perfect in all her black-and-white glory, and the eyes sparkle, just like hers did. A sob builds in my throat. “I love it,” I croak out. “It’s perfect.” Paul reaches for me slowly, careful not to scare me with his slow movements, and he pulls me to his chest. I wrap my arms around him, and he closes my open shirt behind me with his fingers and draws me close into him. He strokes a hand down the back of my head. “You’re welcome,” he says. I see Logan give him a thumbs-up. “Thank you, Logan,” I say. I look in the mirror again. It’s truly perfect.