Raising A Boy To Be A Man Quotes

We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are.

All you have to do is speak up. Tell him straight up: "I need you here to protect and provide for us, to give us security in our lives, to help raise these children, to set an example for this boy, who needs to see what real men do, and for this girl, who needs to know what a real man is so she can find one of her own someday. I need you to be the head of this family." Lay it out like this, and your requirements will trump his mother's every time.

Play the game, but don’t believe in it – that much you owe yourself … Play the game, but raise the ante, my boy. Learn how it operates, learn how you operate.

The thing I was raised to be is acutely aware of how easy it would be to reach out and break this human boy. But the man I try to be keeps his arms folded instead.

Your body is yours to protect and to enjoy.” She raises both eyebrows at me meaningfully. “Whoever you should choose to partake in that enjoyment, that is your choice, and choose wisely. Every man that ever got to touch me was afforded an honor. A privilege.” Stormy waves her hand over me. “All this? It’s a privilege to worship at this temple, do you understand my meaning? Not just any young fool can approach the throne. Remember my words, Lara Jean. You decide who, how far, and how often, if ever.” “I had no idea you were such a feminist,” I say. “Feminist?” Stormy makes a disgusted sound in her throat. “I’m no feminist. Really, Lara Jean!” “Stormy, don’t get worked up about it. All it means is that you believe men and women are equal, and should have equal rights.” “I don’t think any man is my equal. Women are far superior, and don’t you forget it. Don’t forget any of the things I just told you.

Actually, we decided to name our son after the man who raised the both of us,” I confirmed quietly. “Because, let’s face it, the only man I ever had to show me the way was your husband.

A farmer depends on himself, and the land and the weather. If you're a farmer, you raise what you eat, you raise what you wear, and you keep warm with wood out of your own timber. You work hard, but you work as you please, and no man can tell you to go or come. You'll be free and independent, son, on a farm.

Evie to Jake “Oh my God,” she breathes “Your boy part is like the Incredible Hulk.” Jake raises an eyebrow and asks “Boy part?” Evie nods and asks “Is he angry?” Jake answers “Not yet. But if you keep referring to him as a ‘boy part,’ he could get there. He’s all man. You don’t want to see him get angry.” Evie responds “Oh, I definitely want to see him get angry.

You are beyond frustrating," she grumbled. "Why can't you do what I ask you to do without issuing a million questions first?" "I could say the same of you." "I don't--Argh." She raised a fist at him. "So maybe I do ask a lot of questions. So what. Anyone in my position would do the same. Besides, I'm a girl and that's my job. You're a boy. You're supposed to pound your chest with your fists and grunt, then do everything in your power to please me." "Hardly. The man you just described is more likely to knock you over the head with a club and drag you away by the hair." -Annabelle and Zacharel

People don’t just happen. We sacrifice former versions of ourselves. We sacrifice the people who dared to raise us. The “I” it seems doesn’t exist until we are able to say, “I am no longer yours.” My grandmother and I, without knowing it, were faithfully following a script that had already been written for us. A woman raises a boy into a man, loving him so intensely that her commitment finally repulses him.

My “Best Woman” speech Good evening everyone, my name is Rosie and as you can see Alex has decided to go down the non-traditional route of asking me to be his best woman for the day. Except we all know that today that title does not belong to me. It belongs to Sally, for she is clearly his best woman. I could call myself the “best friend” but I think we all know that today that title no longer refers to me either. That title too belongs to Sally. But what doesn’t belong to Sally is a lifetime of memories of Alex the child, Alex the teenager, and Alex the almost-a-man that I’m sure he would rather forget but that I will now fill you all in on. (Hopefully they all will laugh.) I have known Alex since he was five years old. I arrived on my first day of school teary-eyed and red-nosed and a half an hour late. (I am almost sure Alex will shout out “What’s new?”) I was ordered to sit down at the back of the class beside a smelly, snotty-nosed, messy-haired little boy who had the biggest sulk on his face and who refused to look at me or talk to me. I hated this little boy. I know that he hated me too, him kicking me in the shins under the table and telling the teacher that I was copying his schoolwork was a telltale sign. We sat beside each other every day for twelve years moaning about school, moaning about girlfriends and boyfriends, wishing we were older and wiser and out of school, dreaming for a life where we wouldn’t have double maths on a Monday morning. Now Alex has that life and I’m so proud of him. I’m so happy that he’s found his best woman and his best friend in perfect little brainy and annoying Sally. I ask you all to raise your glasses and toast my best friend Alex and his new best friend, best woman, and wife, Sally, and to wish them luck and happiness and divorce in the future. To Alex and Sally!

When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands. And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for all the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the backyard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I've never gotten over his death. Often I think what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands. He shaped the world. He DID things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.

Play the game, but play it your own way – part of the time at least. Play the game, but raise the ante, my boy. Learn how it operates, learn how you operate.

Mr. Normal stepped forward and offered him a Scotch bottle. "You look like you could use some." Yeah, you think? Butch took a swig. "Thanks." "So can we kill him now?" said the one with the goatee and the baseball hat. Beth's man spoke harshly. "Back off, V." "Why? He's just a human." "And my shellan is half-human. The man doesn't die just because he's not one of us." "Jesus, you've changed your tune." "So you need to catch up, brother." Butch got to his feet. If his death was going to be debated, he wanted in on the discussion. "I appreciate the support," he said to Beth's boy. "But I don't need it." He went over to the guy with the hat, discreetly switching his grip on the bottle's neck in case he had to crack the damn thing over a head. He moved in tight, so their noses were almost touching. He could feel the vampire heating up, priming for a fight. "I'm happy to take you on, asshole," Butch said. "I'll probably end up losing, but I fight dirty, so I'll make you hurt while you kill me." Then he eyed the guy's hat. "Though I hate clocking the shit out of another Red Sox fan." There was a shout of laughter from behind him. Someone said, "This is gonna be fun to watch." The guy in front of Butch narrowed his eyes into slits. "You true about the Sox?" "Born and raised in Southie. Haven't stopped grinning since '04." There was a long pause. The vampire snorted. "I don't like humans." "Yeah, well, I'm not too crazy about you bloodsuckers." Another stretch of silence. The guy stroked his goatee. "What do you call twenty guys watching the World Series?" "The New York Yankees," Butch replied. The vampire laughed in a loud burst, whipped the baseball cap off his head, and slapped it on his thigh. Just like that, the tension was broken.

Girls say to me, very reasonably, 'why isn't it a bunch of girls? Why did you write this about a bunch of boys?' Well, my reply is I was once a little boy - I have been a brother, a father, I am going to be a grandfather. I have never been a sister, or a mother, or a grandmother. That's one answer. Another answer is of course to say that if you - as it were - scaled down human beings, scaled down society, if you land with a group of little boys, they are more ike a scaled-down version of society than a group of little girls would be. Don't ask me why, and this is a terrible thing to say because I'm going to be chased from hell to breakfast by all the women who talk about equality - this is nothing to do with equality at all. I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been. But one thing you can't do with them is take a bunch of them and boil them down, so to speak, into a set of little girls who would then become a kind of image of civilisation, of society. The other thing is - why aren't they little boys AND little girls? Well, if they'd been little boys and little girls, we being who we are, sex would have raised its lovely head, and I didn't want this to be about sex. Sex is too trivial a thing to get in with a story like this, which was about the problem of evil and the problem of how people are to live together in a society, not just as lovers or man and wife.

Whenever he cried, his grandmother would always tell him, You need a backbone, boy. She thought this was the way to raise a man-child without quite understanding that sometimes it takes backbone to cry the long length of tears required.

When you live with dignity no man will ever take it. Live without it and every boy will steal it.

Rin had dealt with verbal abuse from the Fangs for years. Hearing insults from this boy hardly fazed her. But slandering Tutor Feyrik, the man who had delivered her from Tikany, who had saved her from a miserable future in a forced marriage . . . that was unforgivable. Rin took two steps toward the boy and punched him in the face. Her fist connected with his eye socket with a pleasant popping noise. The boy staggered backward into the students behind him, nearly toppling to the ground. “You bitch!” he screeched. He righted himself and rushed at her. She shrank back, fists raised.

A farmer depends on himself, and the land and the weather. If you’re a farmer, you raise what you eat, you raise what you wear, and you keep warm with wood out of your own timber. You work hard, but you work as you please, and no man can tell you to go or come. You’ll be free and independent, son, on a farm.

Come out of the fog, young man. And remember you don't have to be a complete fool in order to succeed. Play the game, but don't believe in it--that much you owe yourself. Even if it lands you in a strait jacket or a padded cell. Play the game, but play it your own way--part of the time at least. Play the game, but raise the ante, my boy. Learn how it operates, learn how you operate--I wish I had time to tell you only a fragment.

The boy and the man must be raised to see the possibility of self worth, then meet a few others who provide the vision of a road toward it, then spend a lifetime pursing that worth through action and relationship. One of the great tragedies in human life is to be born a male and not be guided toward the value of a man.

I stood there. Still. Frozen. Looking at the most handsome man I’d ever seen in my life. The man I fell in love with when he was still mostly a boy. The man who raised two great kids against the odds. The man who kept the streets of my hometown safe. The only man outside my brother and father who even tried to take care of me, he did it in a way that was beautiful, precious, so I let him. The man who made me happy. The man who was happy being with me.

We raise girls to see each other as competitors—not for jobs or accomplishments, which in my opinion can be a good thing—but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way boys are. If we have sons, we don’t mind knowing about their girlfriends. But our daughters’ boyfriends? God forbid. (But we of course expect them to bring home the perfect man for marriage when the time is right.)

when she was 7, a boy pushed her on the playground she fell headfirst into the dirt and came up with a mouthful of gravel and lines of blood chasing each other down her legs when she told her teacher what happened, she laughed and said ‘boys will be boys honey don’t let it bother you he probably just thinks you’re cute’ but the thing is, when you tell a little girl who has rocks in her teeth and scabs on her knees that hurt and attention are the same you teach her that boys show their affection through aggression and she grows into a young woman who constantly mistakes the two because no one ever taught her the difference ‘boys will be boys’ turns into ‘that’s how he shows his love’ and bruises start to feel like the imprint of lips she goes to school with a busted mouth in high school and says she was hit with a basketball instead of his fist the one adult she tells scolds her ‘you know he loses his temper easily why the hell did you have to provoke him?’ so she shrinks folds into herself, flinches every time a man raises his voice by the time she’s 16 she’s learned her job well be quiet, be soft, be easy don’t give him a reason but for all her efforts, he still finds one ‘boys will be boys’ rings in her head ‘boys will be boys he doesn’t mean it he can’t help it’ she’s 7 years old on the playground again with a mouth full of rocks and blood that tastes like copper love because boys will be boys baby don’t you know that’s just how he shows he cares she’s 18 now and they’re drunk in the split second it takes for her words to enter his ears they’re ruined like a glass heirloom being dropped between the hands of generations she meant them to open his arms but they curl his fists and suddenly his hands are on her and her head hits the wall and all of the goddamn words in the world couldn’t save them in this moment she touches the bruise the next day boys will be boys aggression, affection, violence, love how does she separate them when she learned so early that they’re inextricably bound, tangled in a constant tug-of-war she draws tally marks on her walls ratios of kisses to bruises one entire side of her bedroom turns purple, one entire side of her body boys will be boys will be boys will be boys when she’s 20, a boy touches her hips and she jumps he asks her who the hell taught her to be scared like that and she wants to laugh doesn’t he know that boys will be boys? it took her 13 years to unlearn that lesson from the playground so I guess what I’m trying to say is i will talk until my voice is hoarse so that my little sister understands that aggression and affection are two entirely separate things baby they exist in different universes my niece can’t even speak yet but I think I’ll start with her now don’t ever accept the excuse that boys will be boys don’t ever let him put his hands on you like that if you see hate blazing in his eyes don’t you ever confuse it with love baby love won’t hurt when it comes you won’t have to hide it under long sleeves during the summer and the only reason he should ever reach out his hand is to hold yours

Off To The Races" My old man is a bad man but I can't deny the way he holds my hand And he grabs me, he has me by my heart He doesn't mind I have a Las Vegas past He doesn't mind I have an LA crass way about me He loves me with every beat of his cocaine heart Swimming pool glimmering darling White bikini off with my red nail polish Watch me in the swimming pool bright blue ripples you Sitting sipping on your black Cristal Oh yeah Light of my life, fire of my loins Be a good baby, do what I want Light of my life, fire of my loins Give me them gold coins, gimme them coins And I'm off to the races, cases of Bacardi chasers Chasing me all over town Cause he knows I'm wasted, facing Time again at Riker's Island and I won't get out Because I'm crazy, baby I need you to come here and save me I'm your little scarlet, starlet singing in the garden Kiss me on my open mouth Ready for you My old man is a tough man but He's got a soul as sweet as blood red jam And he shows me, he knows me Every inch of my tar black soul He doesn't mind I have a flat broke down life In fact he says he thinks it's why he might like about me Admires me, the way I roll like a Rolling Stone Likes to watch me in the glass room bathroom, Chateau Marmont Slippin' on my red dress, puttin' on my makeup Glass film, perfume, cognac, lilac Fumes, says it feels like heaven to him Light of his life, fire of his loins Keep me forever, tell me you own me Light of your life, fire of your loins Tell me you own me, gimme them coins And I'm off to the races, cases of Bacardi chasers Chasing me all over town Cause he knows I'm wasted, facing Time again at Riker's Island and I won't get out Because I'm crazy, baby I need you to come here and save me I'm your little scarlet, starlet singing in the garden Kiss me on my open mouth Now I'm off to the races, laces Leather on my waist is tight and I am fallin' down I can see your face is shameless, Cipriani's basement Love you but I'm going down God I'm so crazy, baby, I'm sorry that I'm misbehaving I'm your little harlot, starlet, Queen of Coney Island Raising hell all over town Sorry 'bout it My old man is a thief and I'm gonna stay and pray with him 'til the end But I trust in the decision of the Lord to watch over us Take him when he may, if he may I'm not afraid to say that I'd die without him Who else is gonna put up with me this way? I need you, I breathe you, I never leave you They would rue the day I was alone without you You're lying with your gold chain on, cigar hanging from your lips I said "Hon' you never looked so beautiful as you do now, my man." And we're off to the races, places Ready, set the gate is down and now we're goin' in To Las Vegas chaos, Casino Oasis, honey it is time to spin Boy you're so crazy, baby, I love you forever not maybe You are my one true love, you are my one true love You are my one true love

I know he's a good baby... but the challenge is to raise him into a good boy, then a good man.

Most of Arbus's work lies within the Warhol aesthetic, that is, defines itself in relation to the twin poles of boringness and freakishness; but it doesn't have the Warhol style. Arbus had neither Warhol's narcissism and genius for publicity nor the self-protective blandness with which he insulates himself from the freaky nor his sentimentality. It is unlikey that Warhol, who comes from a working-class family, ever felt any ambivalence toward success which afflicted the children of the Jewish upper middle classes in the 1960s. To someone raised as a Catholic, like Warhol (and virtually everyone in his gang), a fascination with evil comes much more genuinely than it does to someone from a Jewish background. Compared with Warhol, Arbus seems strikingly vulnerable, innocent--and certainly more pessimistic. Her Dantesque vision of the city (and the suburbs) has no reserves of irony. Although much of Arbus's material is the same as that depicted in, say, Warhol's Chelsea Girls (1966)...For Arbus, both freaks and Middle America were equally exotic: a boy marching in a pro-war parade and a Levittown housewife were as alien as a dwarf or a transvestite; lower-middle-class suburbia was as remote as Times Square, lunatic asylums, and gay bars. Arbus's work expressed her turn against what was public (as she experienced it), conventional, safe, reassuring--and boring--in favor of what was private, hidden, ugly, dangerous, and fascinating. These contrasts, now, seem almost quaint. What is safe no long monopolizes public imagery. The freakish is no longer a private zone, difficult of access. People who are bizarre, in sexual disgrace, emotionally vacant are seen daily on the newsstands, on TV, in the subways. Hobbesian man roams the streets, quite visible, with glitter in his hair.

He pushed up a little, raising his head to look into her eyes. After a moment, weariness settled into his features. "It's too late regardless. I'm yours now." I'm yours. The beautiful opposite of what Peter White had said to her. You're mine now, he'd crowed, as if she were a purchased treat. The difference, it seemed, between a boy and a man. Just as Jude had promised.

An oasis in the desert, surely, for a boy raised without a home. A boy who’d grown into an ambitious man . . . Osla knew Philip so well; of course he was ambitious. What man in his lonely, barebones position would turn down such a chance—status, wealth, power, allied to a loving family and a girl he thought he might very well be able to love?

We are still strangers as we sleep, You and I, And all our intimacies Those hours ago Make it only more so.' It is an old cry, I suppose Knowing We have shared bodies Wondering Have we shared minds, And right now I feel more close To those of my own sex Who too have lain and wondered so Than I do, Lady, To you. And I feel I am no longer me But a man, with A girl (Dichotomy; should I call me a boy Or you a woman?) And wonder, perhaps uneasily, Had you woken first, What later thoughts My sleep Might have raised in you. You sleep, oblivious. – Probably the wiser course. Another age might have caused some pious Guilt in one of us at least, Yet prisoners of one time though we may be I feel this closer, now, to all other ages, And all this sexuality. Our nearly love, Only A time machine ... Yet it remains, remains yet, And still I wonder Do we share thoughts? Have we shared thoughts? And if we do, And if we have, Was the only one, This?

The man wrote his message. Are you really a boy, like Xash says? the god asked Arin. You’ve been mine for twenty years. I raised you. The Valorian signed the scrap of paper. Cared for you. The message was rolled, sealed, and pushed into a tiny leather tube. Watched over you when you thought you were alone. The captain tied the tube to a hawk’s leg. The bird was too large to be a kestrel. It didn’t have a kestrel’s markings. It cocked its head, turning its glass-bead eyes on Arin. No, not a boy. A man made in my image . . . one who knows he can’t afford to be seen as weak. The hawk launched into the sky. You’re mine, Arin. You know what you must do. Arin cut the Valorian’s throat.

It was 1976. It was one of the darkest days of my life when that nurse, Mrs. Shimmer, pulled out a maxi pad that measured the width and depth of a mattress and showed us how to use it. It had a belt with it that looked like a slingshot that possessed the jaw-dropping potential to pop a man's head like a gourd. As she stretched the belt between the fingers of her two hands, Mrs. Shimmer told us becoming a woman was a magical and beautiful experience. I remember thinking to myself, You're damn right it had better be magic, because that's what it's going to take to get me to wear something like that, Tinkerbell! It looked like a saddle. Weighed as much as one, too. Some girls even cried. I didn't. I raised my hand. "Mrs. Shimmer," I asked the cautiously, "so what kind of security napkins do boys wear when their flower pollinates? Does it have a belt, too?" The room got quiet except for a bubbling round of giggles. "You haven't been paying attention, have you?" Mrs. Shimmer accused sharply. "Boys have stamens, and stamens do not require sanitary napkins. They require self control, but you'll learn that soon enough." I was certainly hoping my naughty bits (what Mrs. Shimmer explained to us was like the pistil of a flower) didn't get out of control, because I had no idea what to do if they did.

Lee’s hand shook as he filled the delicate cups. He drank his down in one gulp. “Don’t you see?” he cried. “The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’—that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ Don’t you see?” “Yes, I see. I do see. But you do not believe this is divine law. Why do you feel its importance?” “Ah!” said Lee. “I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time. I even anticipated your questions and I am well prepared. Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable people is important. Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But “Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.” Lee’s voice was a chant of triumph. Adam said, “Do you believe that, Lee?” “Yes, I do. Yes, I do. It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, ‘I couldn’t help it; the way was set.’ But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There’s no godliness there. And do you know, those old gentlemen who were sliding gently down to death are too interested to die now?” Adam said, “Do you mean these Chinese men believe the Old Testament?” Lee said, “These old men believe a true story, and they know a true story when they hear it. They are critics of truth. They know that these sixteen verses are a history of humankind in any age or culture or race. They do not believe a man writes fifteen and three-quarter verses of truth and tells a lie with one verb. Confucius tells men how they should live to have good and successful lives. But this—this is a ladder to climb to the stars.” Lee’s eyes shone. “You can never lose that. It cuts the feet from under weakness and cowardliness and laziness.” Adam said, “I don’t see how you could cook and raise the boys and take care of me and still do all this.” “Neither do I,” said Lee. “But I take my two pipes in the afternoon, no more and no less, like the elders. And I feel that I am a man. And I feel that a man is a very important thing—maybe more important than a star. This is not theology. I have no bent toward gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed—because ‘Thou mayest.

A young man asked Socrates the secret to success. Socrates told the young man to meet him near the river the next morning. They met and Socrates asked the young man to walk with him toward the river. When the water got up to their necks, Socrates took the young man by surprise and pushed him under the water. The boy struggled to get out but Socrates kept him there. When the boy started turning blue, Socrates raised the boy’s head out of the water. The first thing the boy did was to take a deep breath of air. Socrates asked, “What did you want the most when you were under water?” The boy replied, “Air.” Socrates said, “That is the secret to success. When you want success as badly as you wanted air underwater, you will have it.” There is no other secret. This is called the burning desire.

Come out of the fog, young man. And remember you don’t have to be a complete fool in order to succeed. Play the game, but don’t believe in it—that much you owe yourself. Even if it lands you in a strait jacket or a padded cell. Play the game, but play it your own way—part of the time at least. Play the game, but raise the ante, my boy. Learn how it operates, learn how you operate—I wish I had time to tell you only a fragment.

My father knew the depth of my relationship to my mother, and he didn’t begrudge us a moment of it. My relationship with him was different. He’d raised me to be a man, and he was proud of me. But to my mother—I suspect to all mothers—their little boys will always be their little boys, no matter how old those boys become.

As a boy, I never knew where my mother was from---where she was born, who her parents were. When I asked she'd say, "God made me." When I asked if she was white, she'd say, "I'm light-skinned," and change the subject. She raised twelve black children and sent us all to college and in most cases graduate school. Her children became doctors, professors, chemists, teachers---yet none of us even knew her maiden name until we were grown. It took me fourteen years to unearth her remarkable story---the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, she married a black man in 1942---and she revealed it more as a favor to me than out of any desire to revisit her past. Here is her life as she told it to me, and betwixt and between the pages of her life you will find mine as well.

I was raised in the Marine Corps and I was taught as a boy that you feed your own men before you feed yourself. It was my belief then, and it remains so today, that my platoon who loves and respect me will slaughter your platoon that hates you. But here is the great lesson I took from the plebe system—it let me know exactly the kind of man I wanted to become. It made me ache to be a contributing citizen in whatever society I found myself in, to live out a life I could be proud of, and always to measure up to what I took to be the highest ideal of a Citadel man—or, now, a Citadel woman. The standards were clear to me and they were high, and I took my marching orders from my college to take my hard-won education and go out to try to make the whole world a better place.

We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak, a hard man.

A mother that is successful in raising a good boy, or girl, to imitate her example and to follow her precepts through life, sows the seeds of virtue, honor and integrity and of righteousness in their hearts that will be felt through all their career in life; and wherever that boy or girl goes, as man or woman, in whatever society they mingle, the good effects of the example of that mother upon them will be felt; and it will never die, because it will extend from them to their children from generation to generation.

When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands. And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for all the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.

One night he sits up. In cots around him are a few dozen sick or wounded. A warm September wind pours across the countryside and sets the walls of the tent rippling. Werner’s head swivels lightly on his neck. The wind is strong and gusting stronger, and the corners of the tent strain against their guy ropes, and where the flaps at the two ends come up, he can see trees buck and sway. Everything rustles. Werner zips his old notebook and the little house into his duffel and the man beside him murmurs questions to himself and the rest of the ruined company sleeps. Even Werner’s thirst has faded. He feels only the raw, impassive surge of the moonlight as it strikes the tent above him and scatters. Out there, through the open flaps of the tent, clouds hurtle above treetops. Toward Germany, toward home. Silver and blue, blue and silver. Sheets of paper tumble down the rows of cots, and in Werner’s chest comes a quickening. He sees Frau Elena kneel beside the coal stove and bank up the fire. Children in their beds. Baby Jutta sleeps in her cradle. His father lights a lamp, steps into an elevator, and disappears. The voice of Volkheimer: What you could be. Werner’s body seems to have gone weightless under his blanket, and beyond the flapping tent doors, the trees dance and the clouds keep up their huge billowing march, and he swings first one leg and then the other off the edge of the bed. “Ernst,” says the man beside him. “Ernst.” But there is no Ernst; the men in the cots do not reply; the American soldier at the door of the tent sleeps. Werner walks past him into the grass. The wind moves through his undershirt. He is a kite, a balloon. Once, he and Jutta built a little sailboat from scraps of wood and carried it to the river. Jutta painted the vessel in ecstatic purples and greens, and she set it on the water with great formality. But the boat sagged as soon as the current got hold of it. It floated downstream, out of reach, and the flat black water swallowed it. Jutta blinked at Werner with wet eyes, pulling at the battered loops of yarn in her sweater. “It’s all right,” he told her. “Things hardly ever work on the first try. We’ll make another, a better one.” Did they? He hopes they did. He seems to remember a little boat—a more seaworthy one—gliding down a river. It sailed around a bend and left them behind. Didn’t it? The moonlight shines and billows; the broken clouds scud above the trees. Leaves fly everywhere. But the moonlight stays unmoved by the wind, passing through clouds, through air, in what seems to Werner like impossibly slow, imperturbable rays. They hang across the buckling grass. Why doesn’t the wind move the light? Across the field, an American watches a boy leave the sick tent and move against the background of the trees. He sits up. He raises his hand. “Stop,” he calls. “Halt,” he calls. But Werner has crossed the edge of the field, where he steps on a trigger land mine set there by his own army three months before, and disappears in a fountain of earth.

Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands. Now like a mighty wild they raise to heaven the voice of song, Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among: Beneath them sit the aged man, wise guardians of the poor. Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

And how is the expectant mother? You mustn't tax yourself, you know.I don't want my nephew born early enough to raise eyebrows." Gideon laid his hand in the small of her back in a protective gesture she knew all too well. "Are you implying that I'm the kind of man who'd allow his wife to tax herself?" "If the shoe fits-" "Behave, both of you," she admonished as Gideon bristled and Jordan glared. "I swear, when you two get near each other, you act like school boys fighting over a half-pence." "Oh, you're much more valuable than a half-pence," Jordan retorted. Before Gideon could say anything to that, he added, "And in any case, I didn't come over here to anger you, moppet. I merey wanted to let you know I'm leaving." "Good," Gideon mumbled under his breath.

Boggs comes a-tearing along on his horse, whooping and yelling like an Injun, and singing out: "Clear the track, thar. I'm on the waw-path, and the price uv coffins is a-gwyne to raise." He was drunk, and weaving about in his saddle; he was over fifty year old, and had a very red face. Everybody yelled at him and laughed at him and sassed him, and he sassed back, and said he'd attend to them and lay them out in their regular turns, but he couldn't wait now because he'd come to town to kill old Colonel Sherburn, and his motto was, "Meat first and spoon vittles to top off on." He see me, and rode up and says:"Whar'd you come f'm boy? You prepared to die?" Then he rode on. I was scared, but a man says: "He don't mean nothing; he's always a-carryin' on like that when he's drunk. He's the best-naturedest old fool in Arkansaw--never hurt nobody, drunk no sober.

One day a young fugitive, trying to hide himself from the enemy, entered a small village. The people were kind to him and offered him a place to stay. But when the soldiers who sought the fugitive asked where he was hiding, everyone became very fearful. The soldiers threatened to burn the village and kill every man in it unless the young man were handed over to them before dawn. The people went to the minister and asked him what to do. The minister, torn between handing over the boy to the enemy or having his people killed, withdrew to his room and read his Bible, hoping to find an answer before dawn. After many hours, in the early morning his eyes fell on these words: “It is better that one man dies than that the whole people be lost.” Then the minister closed the Bible, called the soldiers and told them where the boy was hidden. And after the soldiers led the fugitive away to be killed, there was a feast in the village because the minister had saved the lives of the people. But the minister did not celebrate. Overcome with a deep sadness, he remained in his room. That night an angel came to him, and asked, “What have you done?” He said: “I handed over the fugitive to the enemy.” Then the angel said: “But don’t you know that you have handed over the Messiah?” “How could I know?” the minister replied anxiously. Then the angel said: “If, instead of reading your Bible, you had visited this young man just once and looked into his eyes, you would have known.” While versions of this story are very old, it seems the most modern of tales. Like that minister, who might have recognized the Messiah if he had raised his eyes from his Bible to look into the youth’s eyes, we are challenged to look into the eyes of the young men and women of today, who are running away from our cruel ways. Perhaps that will be enough to prevent us from handing them over to the enemy and enable us to lead them out of their hidden places into the middle of their people where they can redeem us from our fears.

Wanting his mind on other matters, she deliiberately challenged his statement. "You don't know so much about me. There was a man once. He was crazy about me." She tried to look wordly. "Absolutely crazy for me." His answering laughter was warm against her neck, her throat. His lips touched the skin over her pulse and skimmed lightly up to her ear. "Are you, by any chance, referring to that foppish boy with the orange hair and spiked collar? Dragon something?" Savannah gasped and pulled away to glare at im. "How could you possibly know about him? I dated him last year." Gregori nuzzled her neck, inhaling her fragrance, his hand sliding over her shoulder, moving gently over her satin skin to take possession of her breast. "He wore boots and rode a Harley." His breath came out in a rush as his palm cupped the soft weight, his thumb brushing her nipple into a hard peak. The feel of his large hand-so strong, so warm and possessive on her-sent heat curling through her body. Desire rose sharply. He was seducing her with tenderness. Savannah didn't want it to happen. Her body felt better, but the soreness was there to remind her where this could all lead. Her hand caught at his wrist. "How did you find out about Dragon?" she asked, desperate to distract him, to distract herself. How could he make her body burn for his when she was so afraid of him, of having sex with him? "Making love," he corrected, his voice husky, caressing, betraying the ease with which his mind moved like a shadow through hers."And to answer your question, I live in you, can touch you whenever I wish.I knew about all of them. Every damn one." He growled the worrds, and her breath caught in her throat. "He was the only one you thought of kissing." His mouth touched hers. Gently. Lightly. Returned for more. Coaxing, teasing, until she opened to him. He stole her breath, her reason, whirling her into a world of feeling.Bright colors and white-hot heat, the room falling away until there was only his broad shoulders,strong arms, hard body, and perfect,perfect mouth. When he lifted his head, Savannah nearly pulled him back to her.He watched her face,her eyes cloudy with desire, her lips so beautiful, bereft of his. "Do you have any idea how beautiful you are, Savannah? There is such beauty in your soul,I can see it shining in your eyes." She touched his face, her palm molding his strong jaw. Why couldn't she resist his hungry eyes? "I think you're casting a spell over me. I can't remember what we were talking about." Gregori smiled. "Kissing." His teeth nibbled gently at her chin. "Specifically,your wanting to kiss that orange-bearded imbecile." "I wanted to kiss every one of them," she lied indignantly. "No,you did not.You were hoping that silly fop would wipe my taste from your mouth for all eternity." His hand stroked back the fall of hair around her face.He feathered kisses along the delicate line of her jaw. "It would not have worked,you know.As I recall,he seemed to have a problem getting close to you." Her eyes smoldered dangerously. "Did you have anything to do with his allergies?" She had wanted someone, anyone,to wipe Gregori's taste from her mouth,her soul. He raised his voice an octave. "Oh, Savannah, I just have to taste your lips," he mimicked. Then he went into a sneezing fit. "You haven't ridden until you've ridden on a Harley,baby." He sneezed, coughed, and gagged in perfect imitation. Savannah pushed his arm, forgetting for a moment her bruised fist. When it hurt, she yelped and glared accusingly at him. "It was you doing all that to him! That poor man-you damaged his ego for life. Each time he touched me, he had a sneezing fit." Gregori raised an eyebrow, completely unrepentant. "Technically,he did not lay a hand on you.He sneezed before he could get that close.

The students’ announcements were lengthy – the longer roll call was, the shorter first period would be – and filled with double entendres: Boys’ soccer is practicing on Coates Field today, which, if you don’t know where it is, is behind the headmaster’s house, and if you still don’t know where it is, ask Fred. Where are you, Fred? You wanna raise your hand, man? There’s Fred, everyone see Fred? Okay, so Coates Field. And remember – bring your balls.

I'm going to lay it out straight for you here, Carson. And the reason that I'm going to do that is because I have every confidence that it will scare you off badly enough that I can then finish my drink in peace, and we can part as acquaintances who simply have nothing in common." He raised one eyebrow and I joined my hands in my lap, tilting my head as I continued. "I'm the kind of girl who wants to get married in a big, white dress, wearing my grandma's pearls. I want a husband who love me and is faithful to me. I want him to come home me every night, and I don't want to have to worry if he's doing his secretary, because he's the kind of man who has too much honor to do that. I want to wait a year and then I want to start trying for the two kids that we'll eventually have, a girl and a boy. And when we have those kids, I do not want, one day, to have to explain why their daddy is on the internet having relations with everyone from College Honeys to Cougars Gone Wild for money. I want to throw a cartoon themed birthday party at a jump house for my six year old, not mark the occasion by explaining what a "money shot" is. I have a feeling your life goals are somewhat different than mine. And by 'somewhat,' I mean, utterly and completely. Does that explain why it would be a waste of time for both of us to continue being in each other's presence?" Chapter 1

For as to what we have heard you affirm, that there are other kingdoms and states in the world inhabited by human creatures as large as yourself, our philosophers are in much doubt, and would rather conjecture that you dropped from the moon, or one of the stars; because it is certain, that a hundred mortals of your bulk would in a short time destroy all the fruits and cattle of his majesty’s dominions: besides, our histories of six thousand moons make no mention of any other regions than the two great empires of Lilliput and Blefuscu. Which two mighty powers have, as I was going to tell you, been engaged in a most obstinate war for six-and-thirty moons past. It began upon the following occasion. It is allowed on all hands, that the primitive way of breaking eggs, before we eat them, was upon the larger end; but his present majesty’s grandfather, while he was a boy, going to eat an egg, and breaking it according to the ancient practice, happened to cut one of his fingers. Whereupon the emperor his father published an edict, commanding all his subjects, upon great penalties, to break the smaller end of their eggs. The people so highly resented this law, that our histories tell us, there have been six rebellions raised on that account; wherein one emperor lost his life, and another his crown. These civil commotions were constantly fomented by the monarchs of Blefuscu; and when they were quelled, the exiles always fled for refuge to that empire. It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death, rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end. Many hundred large volumes have been published upon this controversy: but the books of the Big-endians have been long forbidden, and the whole party rendered incapable by law of holding employments. During the course of these troubles, the emperors of Blefusca did frequently expostulate by their ambassadors, accusing us of making a schism in religion, by offending against a fundamental doctrine of our great prophet Lustrog, in the fifty-fourth chapter of the Blundecral (which is their Alcoran). This, however, is thought to be a mere strain upon the text; for the words are these: ‘that all true believers break their eggs at the convenient end.’ And which is the convenient end, seems, in my humble opinion to be left to every man’s conscience, or at least in the power of the chief magistrate to determine.

The face that Moses had begged to see—was forbidden to see—was slapped bloody (Exodus 33:19–20). The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth’s rebellion now twisted around his own brow.… “On your back with you!” One raises a mallet to sink in the spike. But the soldier’s heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner’s wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier’s life minute by minute, for no man has this power on his own. Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds his molecules together? Only by the Son do “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). The victim wills that the soldier live on—he grants the warriors continued existence. The man swings. As the man swings, the Son recalls how

Teenage boys are raised on pop culture that presents having sex ‘like a man’ as the ultimate form of female sexual empowerment, and, in the porn to which they are typically exposed from childhood, women are shown begging men for painful or degrading sex acts.

Men are not raised to be intimate, they're raised to be competitive performers. Traditional socialization teaches young boys to filter their sense of self-worth through performance. The paradox for boys is that in order to be worthy of connection they must prove themselves invulnerable, button down warriors in the world's emotional marketplace. In the world of boys and men, you're either a winner or a loser, one up or one down, in control or controlled, man enough or a girl. Where in this set up is the capacity for love?

I once heard Evon Peter—a Gwich’in man, a father, a husband, an environmental activist, and Chief of Arctic Village, a small village in northeastern Alaska—introduce himself simply as “a boy who was raised by a river.” A description as smooth and slippery as a river rock. Did he mean only that he grew up near its banks? Or was the river responsible for rearing him, for teaching him the things he needed to live? Did it feed him, body and soul? Raised by a river: I suppose both meanings are true—you can hardly have one without the other.

When we entered a classroom we always tossed our caps on the floor, to free our hands; as soon as we crossed the threshold we would throw them under the bench so hard that they struck the wall and raised a cloud of dust; this was "the way it should be done." But the new boy either failed to notice this maneuver or was too shy to perform it himself, for he was still holding his cap on his lap at the end of the prayer. It was a head-gear of composite nature, combining elements of the busby, the lancer cap, the round hat, the otter-skin cap and the cotton nightcap--one of those wretched things whose mute ugliness has great depths of expression, like an idiot's face. Egg-shaped and stiffened by whalebone, it began with three rounded bands, followed by alternating diamond-shaped patches of velvet and rabbit fur separated by a red stripe, and finally there was a kind of bag terminating in a cardboard-lined polygon covered with complicated braid. A network of gold wire was attached to the top of this polygon by a long, extremely thin cord, forming a kind of tassel. The cap was new; its visor was shiny. "Stand up," said the teacher. He stood up; his cap fell. The whole class began to laugh. He bent down and picked it up. A boy beside him knocked it down again with his elbow; he picked it up once again. "Will you please put your helmet away?" said the teacher, a witty man.

Bill.' If you don't, I'll do this," and with that he gave me a twitch that I thought would have made me faint. Between this and that, I was so utterly terrified of the blind beggar that I forgot my terror of the captain, and as I opened the parlour door, cried out the words he had ordered in a trembling voice. The poor captain raised his eyes, and at one look the rum went out of him and left him staring sober. The expression of his face was not so much of terror as of mortal sickness. He made a movement to rise, but I do not believe he had enough force left in his body. "Now, Bill, sit where you are," said the beggar. "If I can't see, I can hear a finger stirring. Business is business. Hold out your left hand. Boy, take his left hand by the wrist and bring it near to my right." We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him pass something from the hollow of the hand that held his stick into the palm of the captain's, which closed upon it instantly. "And now that's done," said the blind man; and at the words he suddenly left hold of me, and with incredible accuracy and nimbleness, skipped out of the parlour and into the road, where, as I still stood motionless, I could hear his stick go tap-tap-tapping into the distance. It was some time before either I or the captain seemed to gather our senses, but at length, and about at the same moment, I released his wrist, which I was still holding, and he drew in his hand and looked sharply into the palm. "Ten o'clock!" he cried. "Six hours. We'll do them yet," and he sprang to his feet. Even as he did so, he reeled, put his hand to his throat, stood swaying for a moment, and then, with a peculiar sound, fell from his whole height face foremost to the floor. I ran to him at once, calling to my mother. But haste was all in vain. The captain had been struck dead by thundering apoplexy. It is a curious thing to understand, for I had certainly never liked the man, though of late I had begun to pity him, but as soon as I saw that he was dead, I burst into a flood of tears. It was the second death I had known, and the sorrow of the first was still fresh in my heart. 4 The Sea-chest I LOST no time, of course, in telling my mother all that I knew, and perhaps should have told her long before, and we saw ourselves at once in a difficult and dangerous position. Some of the man's money—if he had any—was certainly due to us, but it was not likely that our captain's shipmates, above all the two specimens seen by me, Black Dog and the blind beggar, would be inclined to give up their booty in payment of the dead man's debts. The captain's order to mount at once and ride for Doctor Livesey would have left my mother alone and unprotected, which was not to be thought of. Indeed, it seemed impossible for either of us to remain much longer in the house; the fall of coals in the kitchen grate, the very ticking of the clock, filled us with alarms. The neighbourhood, to our ears, seemed haunted by approaching footsteps; and what between the dead body of the captain on the parlour floor and the thought of that detestable blind beggar hovering near at hand and ready to return, there were moments when, as the saying goes, I jumped in my skin for terror. Something must speedily be resolved upon, and it occurred to us at last to go forth together and seek help in the neighbouring hamlet. No sooner said than done. Bare-headed as we were, we ran out at once in the gathering evening and the frosty fog. The hamlet lay not many hundred yards away, though out of view, on the other side of the next cove; and what greatly encouraged me, it was in an opposite direction from that whence the blind man had made his appearance and whither he had presumably returned. We were not many minutes on the road, though we sometimes stopped to lay hold of each other and hearken. But there was no unusual sound—nothing but the low wash of the ripple and the croaking of the inmates of the wood.

The face that Moses had begged to see – was forbidden to see – was slapped bloody (Exodus 33:19-20) The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth’s rebellion now twisted around his brow… “On your back with you!” One raises a mallet to sink the spike. But the soldier’s heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner’s wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier’s life minute by minute, for no man has this power on his own. Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds his molecules together? Only by the Son do “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). The victim wills that the soldier live on – he grants the warrior’s continued existence. The man swings. As the man swings, the Son recalls how he and the Father first designed the medial nerve of the human forearm – the sensations it would be capable of. The design proves flawless – the nerves perform exquisitely. “Up you go!” They lift the cross. God is on display in his underwear and can scarcely breathe. But these pains are a mere warm-up to his other and growing dread. He begins to feel a foreign sensation. Somewhere during this day an unearthly foul odor began to waft, not around his nose, but his heart. He feels dirty. Human wickedness starts to crawl upon his spotless being – the living excrement from our souls. The apple of his Father’s eye turns brown with rot. His Father! He must face his Father like this! From heaven the Father now rouses himself like a lion disturbed, shakes His mane, and roars against the shriveling remnant of a man hanging on a cross.Never has the Son seen the Father look at him so, never felt even the least of his hot breath. But the roar shakes the unseen world and darkens the visible sky. The Son does not recognize these eyes. “Son of Man! Why have you behaved so? You have cheated, lusted, stolen, gossiped – murdered, envied, hated, lied. You have cursed, robbed, over-spent, overeaten – fornicated, disobeyed, embezzled, and blasphemed. Oh the duties you have shirked, the children you have abandoned! Who has ever so ignored the poor, so played the coward, so belittled my name? Have you ever held a razor tongue? What a self-righteous, pitiful drunk – you, who moles young boys, peddle killer drugs, travel in cliques, and mock your parents. Who gave you the boldness to rig elections, foment revolutions, torture animals, and worship demons? Does the list never end! Splitting families, raping virgins, acting smugly, playing the pimp – buying politicians, practicing exhortation, filming pornography, accepting bribes. You have burned down buildings, perfected terrorist tactics, founded false religions, traded in slaves – relishing each morsel and bragging about it all. I hate, loathe these things in you! Disgust for everything about you consumes me! Can you not feel my wrath? Of course the Son is innocent He is blamelessness itself. The Father knows this. But the divine pair have an agreement, and the unthinkable must now take place. Jesus will be treated as if personally responsible for every sin ever committed. The Father watches as his heart’s treasure, the mirror image of himself, sinks drowning into raw, liquid sin. Jehovah’s stored rage against humankind from every century explodes in a single direction. “Father! Father! Why have you forsaken me?!” But heaven stops its ears. The Son stares up at the One who cannot, who will not, reach down or reply. The Trinity had planned it. The Son had endured it. The Spirit enabled Him. The Father rejected the Son whom He loved. Jesus, the God-man from Nazareth, perished. The Father accepted His sacrifice for sin and was satisfied. The Rescue was accomplished.

The phone was laid on a desk thousands of miles away. Once more, with that clear familiarity, the footsteps, the pause, and, at last, the raising of the window. "Listen," whispered the old man to himself. And he heard a thousand people in another sunlight, and the faint, tinkling music of an organ grinder playing "La Marimba"— oh, a lovely, dancing tune. With eyes tight, the old man put up his hand as if to click pictures of an old cathedral, and his body was heavier with flesh, younger, and he felt the hot pavement underfoot. He wanted to say, "You're still there, aren't you? All of: you people in that city in the time of the early siesta, the shops closing, the little boys crying loteria nacional para hoy! to sell lottery tickets. You are all there, the people in the city. I can't believe I was ever among you. When you are away I: from a city it becomes a fantasy. Any town, New York, Chicago, with its people, becomes improbable with distance. Just as I am improbable here, in Illinois, in a small town by a ' quiet lake. All of us improbable to one another because we are not present to one another. And it is so good to hear the sounds, and know that Mexico City is still there and the people moving and living . . .

The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey A Man and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: "You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?" So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: "See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides." So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn't gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: "Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along." Well, the Man didn't know what to do, but at last he took his Boy up before him on the Donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said: "Aren't you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey of yours and your hulking son?" The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the donkey's feet to it, and raised the pole and the donkey to their shoulders. They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of the pole. In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned. "That will teach you," said an old man who had followed them: "Please all, and you will please none.

Though he may dally with loose women, he's been raised a gentleman. He would never touch me unless I gave him permission." He might use incredibly powerful seduction tactics, but that was her problem, not Angus's. "Aye," Mary said. "Don't ye remember how the miss took care o' the squire's son when he tried to kiss her in the garden?" She beamed at Sophia. "That was well done." Sophia grinned. "He limped for a week" Angus grunted. "The squire's son isn't half the man this one is. This is no boy ye're dealin' with here. He's a man's man;ye can see it in his eyes." She placed a hand on his arm. "Angus, if it will make you feel better, I promise to call for help if MacLean so much as looks askance at me.

Too soon the two weeks were over and we were back in Lugano, and there we learned about Disaster. We weren’t completely ignorant. We knew about disaster from our previous schools and previous lives. We’d had access to televisions and newspapers. But the return to Lugano marked the beginning of Global Awareness Month, and in each of our classes, we talked about disaster: disaster man-made and natural. We talked about ozone depletion and the extinction of species and depleted rain forests and war and poverty and AIDS. We talked about refugees and slaughter and famine. We were in the middle school and were getting, according to Uncle Max, a diluted version of what the upper-schoolers were facing. An Iraqi boy from the upper school came to our history class and talked about what it felt like when the Americans bombed his country. Keisuke talked about how he felt responsible for World War II, and a German student said she felt the same. We got into heated discussions over the neglect of infant females in some cultures, and horrific cases of child abuse worldwide. We fasted one day each week to raise our consciousness about hunger, and we sent money and canned goods and clothing to charities. In one class, after we watched a movie about traumas in Rwanda, and a Rwandan student told us about seeing his mother killed, Mari threw up. We were all having nightmares. At home, Aunt Sandy pleaded with Uncle Max. “This is too much!” she said. “You can’t dump all the world’s problems on these kids in one lump!” And he agreed. He was bewildered by it all, but the program had been set up the previous year, and he was the new headmaster, reluctant to interfere. And though we were sick of it and about it, we were greedy for it. We felt privileged there in our protected world and we felt guilty, and this was our punishment.

When I look at him, I don’t see the cowardly young man who sold me out to Jeanine Matthews, and I don’t hear the excuses he gave afterward. When I look at him, I see the boy who held my hand in the hospital when our mother broke her wrist and told me it would be all right. I see the brother who told me to make my own choices, the night before the Choosing Ceremony. I think of all the remarkable things he is--smart and enthusiastic and observant, quiet and earnest and kind. He is a part of me, always will be, and I am a part of him, too. I don’t belong to Abnegation, or Dauntless, or even the Divergent. I don’t belong to the Bureau or the experiment or the fringe. I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me--they, and the love and loyalty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group ever could. I love my brother. I love him, and he is quaking with terror at the thought of death. I love him and all I can think, all I can hear in my mind, are the words I said to him a few days ago: I would never deliver you to your own execution. “Caleb,” I say. “Give me the backpack.” “What?” he says. I slip my hand under the back of my shirt and grab my gun. I point it at him. “Give me the backpack.” “Tris, no.” He shakes his head. “No, I won’t let you do that.” “Put down your weapon!” the guard screams at the end of the hallway. “Put down your weapon or we will fire!” “I might survive the death serum,” I say. “I’m good at fighting off serums. There’s a chance I’ll survive. There’s no chance you would survive. Give me the backpack or I’ll shoot you in the leg and take it from you.” Then I raise my voice so the guards can hear me. “He’s my hostage! Come any closer and I’ll kill him!” In that moment he reminds me of our father. His eyes are tired and sad. There’s a shadow of a beard on his chin. His hands shake as he pulls the backpack to the front of his body and offers it to me. I take it and swing it over my shoulder. I keep my gun pointed at him and shift so he’s blocking my view of the soldiers at the end of the hallway. “Caleb,” I say, “I love you.” His eyes gleam with tears as he says, “I love you, too, Beatrice.” “Get down on the floor!” I yell, for the benefit of the guards. Caleb sinks to his knees. “If I don’t survive,” I say, “tell Tobias I didn’t want to leave him.

Have you ever browsed through a family photo collection and seen photos of a boy taken over the course of many years, from babyhood through to young manhood? If you have, you’ll know that boys don’t grow up in a smooth way. They go in surges—looking the same for a year or two, then suddenly seeming to change overnight. And that’s only on the outside. On the inside, great changes are happening, too. But developing maturity and character aren’t as automatic as physical growing. A boy can get stuck. Everyone knows at least one man who is large in body but small in mind or soul. He just hasn’t developed as a mature person. Such men are everywhere—they might be rich, powerful, a president, or a tycoon, but you look at them and think, Yep, still a boy. And not a very nice one.

I began a period of time when I consciously wanted to show Nate that the life of a boy is a life of ease, a life of self in which we try to control everything, and a life spent living in the moment. But the beauty of being a man is that a man embraces difficulty, cares about others, is part of a greater story, is willing to surrender to a greater cause, and lives for the eternal, not the temporary.

Themes of descent often turn on the struggle between the titanic and the demonic within the same person or group. In Moby Dick, Ahab’s quest for the whale may be mad and “monomaniacal,” as it is frequently called, or even evil so far as he sacrifices his crew and ship to it, but evil or revenge are not the point of the quest. The whale itself may be only a “dumb brute,” as the mate says, and even if it were malignantly determined to kill Ahab, such an attitude, in a whale hunted to the death, would certainly be understandable if it were there. What obsesses Ahab is in a dimension of reality much further down than any whale, in an amoral and alienating world that nothing normal in the human psyche can directly confront. The professed quest is to kill Moby Dick, but as the portents of disaster pile up it becomes clear that a will to identify with (not adjust to) what Conrad calls the destructive element is what is really driving Ahab. Ahab has, Melville says, become a “Prometheus” with a vulture feeding on him. The axis image appears in the maelstrom or descending spiral (“vortex”) of the last few pages, and perhaps in a remark by one of Ahab’s crew: “The skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world.” But the descent is not purely demonic, or simply destructive: like other creative descents, it is partly a quest for wisdom, however fatal the attaining of such wisdom may be. A relation reminiscent of Lear and the fool develops at the end between Ahab and the little black cabin boy Pip, who has been left so long to swim in the sea that he has gone insane. Of him it is said that he has been “carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro . . . and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps.” Moby Dick is as profound a treatment as modern literature affords of the leviathan symbolism of the Bible, the titanic-demonic force that raises Egypt and Babylon to greatness and then hurls them into nothingness; that is both an enemy of God outside the creation, and, as notably in Job, a creature within it of whom God is rather proud. The leviathan is revealed to Job as the ultimate mystery of God’s ways, the “king over all the children of pride” (41:34), of whom Satan himself is merely an instrument. What this power looks like depends on how it is approached. Approached by Conrad’s Kurtz through his Antichrist psychosis, it is an unimaginable horror: but it may also be a source of energy that man can put to his own use. There are naturally considerable risks in trying to do so: risks that Rimbaud spoke of in his celebrated lettre du voyant as a “dérèglement de tous les sens.” The phrase indicates the close connection between the titanic and the demonic that Verlaine expressed in his phrase poète maudit, the attitude of poets who feel, like Ahab, that the right worship of the powers they invoke is defiance.

with. Dandelion Wine is nothing if it is not the boy-hid-in-the-man playing in the fields of the Lord on the green grass of other Augusts in the midst of starting to grow up, grow old, and sense darkness waiting under the trees to seed the blood. I was amused and somewhat astonished at a critic a few years back who wrote an article analyzing Dandelion Wine plus the more realistic works of Sinclair Lewis, wondering how I could have been born and raised in Waukegan, which I renamed Green Town for my novel, and not noticed how ugly the harbor was and how depressing the coal docks and railyards down below the town. But, of course, I had noticed them and, genetic enchanter that I was, was fascinated by their beauty. Trains and boxcars and the smell of coal and fire are not ugly to children. Ugliness is a concept that we happen on later and become self-conscious about.

Ronan’s expression was still incendiary. His code of honor left no room for infidelity, for casual relationships. It wasn’t that he didn’t condone them; he couldn’t understand them. “So he’s a man-whore. It’s not your problem,” Gansey said. Ronan was not really Gansey’s problem, either, in Adam’s opinion, but they’d had this argument before. One of Ronan’s eyebrows was raised, sharp as a razor. Gansey strapped his journal closed. “That doesn’t work on me. She had nothing to do with you and Declan.” He said you and Declan like it was a physical object, something you could pick up and look underneath. “You treated her badly. You made the rest of us look bad.” Ronan looked chastened, but Adam knew better. Ronan wasn’t sorry for his behavior; he was only sorry that Gansey had been there to see him. What lived between the Lynch brothers was dark enough to hide anyone else’s feelings.

Norbert Wiener,” Tillingford said. “You recall his work in cybernetics. And, even more important, Enrico Destini’s work in the field of theophonics.” “What’s that?” Tillingford raised an eyebrow. “You are a specialist, my boy. Communication between man and God, of course. Using Wiener’s work, and using the invaluable material of Shannon and Weaver, Destini was able to set up the first really adequate system of communication between Earth and Heaven in 1946. Of course, he had the use of all that equipment from the War Against the Pagan Hordes, those damned Wotan-Worshiping, Oak-Tree-Praising Huns.” “You mean the—Nazis?” “I’m familiar with that term. That’s sociologist jargon, isn’t it? And that Denier of the Prophet, that Anti-Bab. They say he’s still alive down in Argentina. Found the elixir of eternal youth or something. He made that pact with the devil in 1939, you remember. Or was that before your time? But you know about it—it’s history.” “I

I was the boy who killed his first man at eleven. I was the teenager who crushed his cousin’s throat at seventeen. I was the man who bathed in his enemies’ blood without a flicker of remorse, who relished in their screams as if it was a fucking Mozart sonata. Monsters are created, not born. Bullshit. I was born a monster. Cruelty ran in my veins like poison. It ran in the veins of every Vitiello man, passed on from father to son, an endless spiral of monstrosity. I was a born monster shaped into an even worse monster by my father’s blade and fists and harsh words. I was raised to become Capo, to rule without mercy, to dish out brutality without a second thought. I was raised to break others. When Aria was given to me in marriage, everyone waited with baited breath to see how fast I’d break her like my father broke his women. How I’d crush her innocence and kindness with the force of my cruelty, with relentless brutality. Breaking her would have taken little effort. It came naturally to me. A man born a monster, raised to be a monster, bound to be a monster to become Capo. I was gladly the monster everyone feared. Until her. Until Aria. With her, I didn’t have to cover up my darkness. Her light shone brighter than my darkness ever could. With her, I didn’t want to be the monster. I wanted to shield her from that part of my nature. But I was born a monster. Raised to break others. Not breaking her would come with a price. A price a monster like myself shouldn’t risk paying.

A drumbeat joins Sami's rhythm, the crowd ripples and separates, and soon we are dancing. Here in this place the city carved out and abandoned, there is only movement and heat and darkness. I can't see my body, or Reem's, or Sami's, or anyone's. I can only feel my hips moving the stale air and listen to the rise and fall of the feet of those around me. I have been taught all my life that masculinity means short hair and square-toed shoes, taking up space, raising one's voice. To be soft is to be less of a man. To be gentle, to laugh, to create art, to bleed between the legs -- I have been taught that these things make me a woman. I have been taught all my life that to dance is to be vulnerable, and that the world will crush the vulnerable. I was taught to equate invincibility with being worthy of love. But here in the darkness of his abandoned subway platform, I can almost imagine a world big enough for boys like Sami and me to love each other, to dance and let the pain out of our bodies, to breathe and make love and be enough and be enough and be enough.

When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands. And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us the jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.’ Montag

She's amazing." Galen turns to Dr. Milligan, who's standing beside him and staring at Emma as if she were floating in midair. "Yes, she is," Galen says. Dr. Milligan looks at Galen, a knowing smile plastered on his face. "Looks like she's enchanted more than just the little fish. In fact, looks like you're worse off than any of them, my boy." Galen shrugs. He's got nothing to hide from Dr. Milligan. Dr. Milligan lets out his breath in a whistle. "What does Rayna say?" "She likes her." The good doctor raises a thin gray brow. Galen sighs. "She likes her enough.." "Well, can't ask for more than that, I suppose. Shall we, then?" Galen nods. "Emma. Dr. Milligan is here." Emma turns. And freezes. "You!" she chokes out. "You're Dr. Milligan?" The older man bows his head. "Yes, young lady, I am. You remember me, then." She nods, walking slowly toward them as if she smells a trap. "You tried to give me free season passes. You talked to me at the petting tank." "Yes," he says. "Of course I offered you season passes. How else could I study your fascinating interaction with the specimens?" She crosses her arms. "I didn't know I could talk to fish at the time. How did you?" "At first I didn't," he says, closing the distance between them and gently taking her hand. "But when I saw your eye color, I knew you had to be Syrena. I remembered Galen telling me about that gift, but I never really believed it. Which is silly, I suppose. I mean, if I believe in mermaids-ahem, excuse me Galen, Syrena-then why not a gift like that?" "And what do you think now, Dr. Milligan?" Galen says, a little perturbed at the revelation that his friend thought he lied. Also, "mermaids" was uncalled for.

It’s strange, I don’t miss her, it’s strange I don’t feel much of anything,” said Montag. “Even if she dies, I realized a moment ago, I don’t think I’ll feel sad. It isn’t right. Something must be wrong with me.” “Listen,” said Granger, taking his arm, and walking with him, holding aside the bushes to let him pass. “When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands. And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was an individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.” Montag walked in silence. “Millie, Millie,” he whispered. “Millie.” “What?” “My wife, my wife. Poor Millie, poor, poor Millie. I can’t remember anything. I think of her hands but I don’t see them doing anything at all. They just hang there at her sides or they lie there in her lap or there’s a cigarette in them, but that’s all.

Alessandro shrugged and pushed the blade in, dragging it down the man’s skin, making him cry out. He struck him again with his fist, blood spurting onto Alessandro as well. “Did Arturo tell you that the mother of my child was in that limo? She’s carrying my baby inside of her, and that her son was in the limo too? I’m sure he did. I’m sure he left explicit instructions as to who exactly you were supposed to dispose of, didn’t he?” “He’ll kill me. I swear, he’ll kill me,” the man cried, tears mixing in with his blood. “Next, I’ll take an eye, you snivelling little shit!” Alessandro growled, raising his bloody blade to the man’s left eyeball. The unmistakable scent of urine filled the air. Alessandro stepped back in disgust and turned to Jason and his other man, Marty, two of the best Dardano soldiers, loyal and efficient. They took his cue and slipped on their brass knuckles. “Just say the words, ol’ boy, and we’ll stop this,” “Fuck you,” the man shouted. Alessandro smirked. “Such defiance for a man who just pissed himself.” He crossed his arms as Marty and Jason went to work. It only took a minute. “All right. Okay! Stop! Stop! Fine, I’ll talk!

if they label you soft, feather weight and white-livered, if the locker room tosses back its sweaty head, and laughs at how quiet your hands stay, if they come to trample the dandelions roaring in your throat, you tell them that you were forged inside of a woman who had to survive fifteen different species of disaster to bring you here, and you didn’t come to piss on trees. you ain’t nobody’s thick-necked pitbull boy, don’t need to prove yourself worthy of this inheritance of street-corner logic, this blood legend, this index of catcalls, “three hundred ways to turn a woman into a three course meal”, this legacy of shame, and man, and pillage, and man, and rape, and man. you boy. you won’t be some girl’s slit wrists dazzling the bathtub, won’t be some girl’s, “i didn’t ask for it but he gave it to me anyway”, the torn skirt panting behind the bedroom door, some father’s excuse to polish his gun. if they say, “take what you want”, you tell them you already have everything you need; you come from scabbed knuckles and women who never stopped swinging, you come men who drank away their life savings, and men who raised daughters alone. you come from love you gotta put your back into, elbow-grease loving like slow-dancing on dirty linoleum, you come from that house of worship. boy, i dare you to hold something like that. love whatever feels most like your grandmother’s cooking. love whatever music looks best on your feet. whatever woman beckons your blood to the boiling point, you treat her like she is the god of your pulse, you treat her like you would want your father to treat me: i dare you to be that much man one day. that you would give up your seat on the train to the invisible women, juggling babies and groceries. that you would hold doors, and say thank-you, and understand that women know they are beautiful without you having to yell it at them from across the street. the day i hear you call a woman a “bitch” is the day i dig my own grave. see how you feel writing that eulogy. and if you are ever left with your love’s skin trembling under your nails, if there is ever a powder-blue heart left for dead on your doorstep, and too many places in this city that remind you of her tears, be gentle when you drape the remains of your lives in burial cloth. don’t think yourself mighty enough to turn her into a poem, or a song, or some other sweetness to soften the blow, boy, i dare you to break like that. you look too much like your mother not t

I was only hit on once at the grocery store. I remember it was early one Saturday morning and I was buying my daily bacon, when I got tapped on the shoulder. I turned around and I saw a rather short and very feeble eighty-year-old lady looking up at me. She said in a weak, scratchy voice, "Excuse me, young man, could you reach up and grab some ketchup for me?" Well I'm no dummy. I know when I'm getting hit on. I smiled politely and reached up for the ketchup, knowing full well that she just wanted to get a gander at my derriere. As I handed her the ketchup, she said, "Thank you," like I was some piece of meat, a boy toy, or something. Finally I just blurted out, "Look, I'm married, lady!" She acted all surprised and confused. "Excuse me? I don't understand!" I shook my head with a smirk, raised my left hand, and showed her my wedding ring. "Married!" I loudly told her. "I'm taken!" A stock boy at the end of the aisle looked at us and inquired, "Is everything okay?" "I'm fine," I assured him. "I know how to deal with predators." Well, suddenly this sex-crazed lady got all angry at me. Like I was out of line. She huffed off. "Well, I never!" "And you ain't gonna with me either, " I yelled after her. I have to admit, it was nice to get the attention.

When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands. And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for all the hings he did. I cried becase he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I've never gotten over his death. Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten millions fine actions the night he passed on. IMy wife, my wide. Poor Millie, poor, poor Millie. I can't remember anything. I think of her hands but I don't see them doing anything at all. They just hang there at her sides [watching TV] or lie there on her lap or there's a cigarette in them, but that's all.

Now,” Samite continued, “after Essel has just spent time warning you about generalities and how they often don’t apply, I’m going to use some. Because some generalities are true often enough that we have to worry about them. So here’s one: men will physically fight for status. Women, generally, are more clever. The why of it doesn’t matter: learned, innate, cultural, who cares? You see the chest-bumping, the name-calling, performing for their fellows, what they’re really doing is getting the juices flowing. That interval isn’t always long, but it’s long enough for men to trigger the battle juice. That’s the terror or excitation that leads people to fight or run. It can be useful in small doses or debilitating in large ones. Any of you have brothers, or boys you’ve fought with?” Six of the ten raised their hands. “Have you ever had a fight with them—verbal or physical—and then they leave and come back a little later, and they’re completely done fighting and you’re just fully getting into it? They look like they’ve been ambushed, because they’ve come completely off the mountain already, and you’ve just gotten to the top?” “Think of it like lovemaking,” Essel said. She was a bawdy one. “Breathe in a man’s ear and tell him to take his trousers off, and he’s ready to go before you draw your next breath. A woman’s body takes longer.” Some of the girls giggled nervously. “Men can switch on very, very fast. They also switch off from that battle readiness very, very fast. Sure, they’ll be left trembling, sometimes puking from it, but it’s on and then it’s off. Women don’t do that. We peak slower. Now, maybe there are exceptions, maybe. But as fighters, we tend to think that everyone reacts the way we do, because our own experience is all we have. In this case, it’s not true for us. Men will be ready to fight, then finished, within heartbeats. This is good and bad. “A man, deeply surprised, will have only his first instinctive response be as controlled and crisp as it is when he trains. Then that torrent of emotion is on him. We spend thousands of hours training that first instinctive response, and further, we train to control the torrent of emotion so that it raises us to a heightened level of awareness without making us stupid.” “So the positive, for us Archers: surprise me, and my first reaction will be the same as my male counterpart’s. I can still, of course, get terrified, or locked into a loop of indecision. But if I’m not, my second, third, and tenth moves will also be controlled. My hands will not shake. I will be able to make precision movements that a man cannot. But I won’t have the heightened strength or sensations until perhaps a minute later—often too late. “Where a man needs to train to control that rush, we need to train to make it closer. If we have to climb a mountain more slowly to get to the same height to get all the positives, we need to start climbing sooner. That is, when I go into a situation that I know may be hazardous, I need to prepare myself. I need to start climbing. The men may joke to break the tension. Let them. I don’t join in. Maybe they think I’m humorless because I don’t. Fine. That’s a trade I’m willing to make.” Teia and the rest of the girls walked away from training that day somewhat dazed, definitely overwhelmed. What Teia realized was that the women were deeply appealing because they were honest and powerful. And those two things were wed inextricably together. They said, I am the best in the world at what I do, and I cannot do everything. Those two statements, held together, gave them the security to face any challenge. If her own strengths couldn’t surmount an obstacle, her team’s strengths could—and she was unembarrassed about asking for help where she needed it because she knew that what she brought to the team would be equally valuable in some other situation.

So, those women told me witnessing my mother’s weakness drove my own, and her watching my grandfather beat my grandmother was what drove hers. They told me I was raised thinking it was okay for a man to do that to a woman. I was raised thinking self-worth was gained by catering to a man’s needs at whatever cost. Even if it meant degrading myself time and time again. “But the apple can fall far from the tree. Fifty percent of children who grow up seeing that will never walk in their parents’ footsteps, whether it’s a boy watching his father beat his mother or a young girl watching her mother get hit. But this apple landed on the tree’s stump, Gavin. This apple took the same path as her mother.

sandy-haired, friendly, smiling, small-town attorney of Pennington, had been born in 1950 in a roach-infested Newark slum. His father had been a construction worker fully employed through World War II and Korea creating new factories, dockyards and government offices along the Jersey Shore. But with the ending of the Korean War, work had dried up. Cal was five when his mother walked out of the loveless union and left the boy to be raised by his father. The latter was a hard man, quick with his fists, the only law on many blue-collar jobs. But he was not a bad man and tried to live by the straight and narrow, and to raise his toddler son to love Old Glory, the Constitution and Joe DiMaggio. Within two years, Dexter Senior had acquired a trailer home so that he could move where the work was available. And that was how the boy was raised, moving from construction site to site, attending whichever school would take him, and then moving on. It was the age of Elvis Presley, Del Shannon, Roy Orbison and the Beatles, over from a country Cal had never heard of. It was also the age of Kennedy, the Cold War and Vietnam. His formal education was fractured to the point of near nonexistence, but he became wise in other ways: streetwise, fight-wise. Like his departed mother, he did not grow tall, topping out at five feet eight inches. Nor was he heavy and muscular like his father, but his lean frame packed fearsome stamina and his fists a killer punch. By seventeen, it looked as if his life would follow that of his father, shoveling dirt or driving a dump truck on building sites. Unless . . . In January 1968 he turned eighteen, and the Vietcong launched the Têt Offensive. He was watching TV in a bar in Camden. There was a documentary telling him about recruitment. It mentioned that if you shaped up, the Army would give you an education. The next day, he walked into the U.S. Army office in Camden and signed on. The master sergeant was bored. He spent his life listening to youths doing everything in their power to get out of going to Vietnam. “I want to volunteer,” said the youth in front of him. The master sergeant drew a form toward him, keeping eye contact like a ferret that does not want the rabbit to get away. Trying to be kindly, he suggested

It was like the misery felt by an old man who has lived to see his son's body swing on the gallows. He begins to keen and weep for his boy, watching the raven gloat where he hangs: he can be of no help. The wisdom of age is worthless to him. Morning after morning, he wakes to remember that his child is gone; he has no interest in living on until another heir is born in the hall, now that his first-born has entered death's dominion forever. He gazes sorrowfully at his son's dwelling, the banquet hall bereft of all delight, the windswept hearthstone; the horsemen are sleeping, the warriors under ground; what was is no more. No tunes from the harp, no cheer raised in the yard. Alone with his longing, he lies down on his bed and sings a lament; everything seems too large, the steadings and the fields.

Church is important to most folks in the South. So the most important thing going is basically ruled by men as decreed by the Big Man himself. Not only that, but the church puts pressures on women that it does not put on men. Young women are expected to be chaste, moral, and pure, whereas young men are given way more leeway, ’cause, ya know, boys will be boys. Girls are expected to marry young and have kids, be a helpmate to their husbands (who are basically like having another child), and, of course, raise perfect little Christian babies to make this world a better place. So while it’s the preacher man who controls the church, it’s the women—those helpmates—who keep that shit going. They keep the pews tidy and wash the windows; type up the bulletins; volunteer for Sunday school, the nursery, youth group, and Vacation Bible School; fry the chicken for the postchurch dinners; organize the monthly potluck dinners, the spaghetti supper to raise money for a new roof, and the church fund drive; plant flowers in the front of the church, make food for sick parishioners, serve food after funerals, put together the Christmas pageant, get Easter lilies for Easter, wash the choir robes, organize the church trip, bake cookies for the bake sale to fund the church trip, pray unceasingly for their husband and their pastor and their kids and never complain, and then make sure their skirts are ironed for Sunday mornin’ service. All this while in most churches not being allowed to speak with any authority on the direction or doctrine of the church. No, no, ladies, the heavy lifting—thinkin’ up shit to say, standing up at the lectern telling people what to do, counting the money—that ain’t for yuns. So sorry.

One day a boy asked his father, “What is the value of this life?” Instead of answering, the father told his son, “Take this rock and go offer it at a market, however do not accept any offer and bring the rock back to me. If anybody asks the price, raise two fingers and don’t say anything.”The boy then went to the market and a man asked,”How much is this rock? I want to put it in my garden.” The boy didn’t say anything and raised two fingers, so the man said… “$2? I’ll take it.” And the boy went home and told his father, “A man at the market wants to buy this rock for $2.” The father then said, “Son I want you to take this rock to the museum, and if you are asked the price, raise two fingers and don’t say a word.” The boy then went to the museum, and quickly a man wanted to buy the rock, The boy didn’t say anything and raised two fingers and the man said… “$200? I’ll take it.” The boy was shocked and went running home with the rock in hand, “Father a man wants to buy this rock for $200.” His father then said, “There is one last place I’d like you to offer this rock, take it to the precious stone store and show it only to the owner and don’t say a word, if he asks the price raise two fingers.” The son then went to the precious stone store and showed the rock to the owner. “Where did you find this?” The owner asked, “This is a most precious unpolished gem, one of the most valuable in the whole world, I must have it. What price would you take for it?” The boy didn’t say anything and raised two fingers to which the man replied “Two million dollars? That is a bargain, I’ll take it!” The boy not knowing what to say went breathlessly running home to his father anxiously clutching this now priceless gem, terrified that he might lose it, “Father there is a man who wants to buy this rock for two million dollars!!!” The father then said, “Son you have been carrying in your hands, one of the most precious objects of our people, it is truly priceless!” The father then said, “Son do you now know the value of your life?” To which the son replied… 'The value of my life, is much like this rock, it depends on who it is offered to. Some place a value of $2, others $200, and still others two million dollars. I must surround myself with other precious Souls who recognize the greatest value of my life, because it is my most precious possession, and I must not allow it to be under valued, it’s true value is priceless.' " In reply the father said, " Son you have actually held in your possession the TWO most precious things that our people have, one is the stone and the other is YOU, that is why I asked you to hold up TWO fingers" What is the value of this life??? Priceless!

In the same breath, shining Hector reached down for his son—but the boy recoiled, cringing against his nurse's full breast, screaming out at the sight of his own father, terrified by the flashing bronze, the horsehair crest, the great ridge of the helmet nodding, bristling terror— so it struck his eyes. And his loving father laughed, his mother laughed as well, and glorious Hector, quickly lifting the helmet from his head, set it down on the ground, fiery in the sunlight, and raising his son he kissed him, tossed him in his arms, lifting a prayer to Zeus and the other deathless gods: "Zeus, all you immortals! Grant this boy, my son, may be like me, first in glory among the Trojans, strong and brave like me, and rule all Troy in power and one day let them say, 'He is a better man than his father!'— when he comes home from battle bearing the bloody gear of the mortal enemy he has killed in war— a joy to his mother's heart.

It means I’m not alone in this. It means Ben is here with me. It means my life, that felt empty and miserable, now feels difficult but manageable. I can be a single mother. I can raise this child by myself. I can tell this child all about his father. About how his father was a gentle man, a kind man, a funny man, a good man. If it’s a girl, I can tell her to find a man like her father. If it’s a boy, I can tell him to be a man like his father. I can tell him his father would have been so proud of him. If he’s gay, I can tell him to be like his father and find a man like his father—which would be the best of all worlds. If she grows up to be a lesbian, she won’t need to be or find anyone like her father, but she’ll still love him. She’ll know that she came from a man that would have loved her. She’ll know she came from two people that loved each other fiercely. She’ll know not to settle for anything less than a love that changes her life.

When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands. And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for all the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I've never gotten over his death. Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands.

Wait!’ cried a deep, ringing voice. All stood still. Mr. Baker, who had turned away yawning, spun round open-mouthed. At last, furious, he blurted out: — ‘What’s this? Who said “Wait”? What... ‘ But he saw a tall figure standing on the rail. It came down and pushed through the crowd, marching with a heavy tread towards the light on the quarter-deck. Then again the sonorous voice said with insistence: — ‘Wait!’ The lamplight lit up the man’s body. He was tall. His head was away up in the shadows of lifeboats that stood on skids above the deck. The whites of his eyes and his teeth gleamed distinctly, but the face was indistinguishable. His hands were big and seemed gloved. Mr. Baker advanced intrepidly. ‘Who are you? How dare you... ‘ he began. The boy, amazed like the rest, raised the light to the man’s face. It was black. A surprised hum — a faint hum that sounded like the suppressed mutter of the word ‘Nigger’ — ran along the deck and escaped out into the night.

We must become what we wish to teach. As an aside to parents, teachers, psychotherapists, and managers who may be reading this book to gain insight on how to support the self-esteem of others, I want to say that the place to begin is still with oneself. If one does not understand how the dynamics of self-esteem work internally—if one does not know by direct experience what lowers or raises one’s own self-esteem—one will not have that intimate understanding of the subject necessary to make an optimal contribution to others. Also, the unresolved issues within oneself set the limits of one’s effectiveness in helping others. It may be tempting, but it is self-deceiving to believe that what one says can communicate more powerfully than what one manifests in one’s person. We must become what we wish to teach. There is a story I like to tell psychotherapy students. In India, when a family encounters a problem, they are not likely to consult a psychotherapist (hardly any are available); they consult the local guru. In one village there was a wise man who had helped this family more than once. One day the father and mother came to him, bringing their nine-year-old son, and the father said, “Master, our son is a wonderful boy and we love him very much. But he has a terrible problem, a weakness for sweets that is ruining his teeth and health. We have reasoned with him, argued with him, pleaded with him, chastised him—nothing works. He goes on consuming ungodly quantities of sweets. Can you help us?” To the father’s surprise, the guru answered, “Go away and come back in two weeks.” One does not argue with a guru, so the family obeyed. Two weeks later they faced him again, and the guru said, “Good. Now we can proceed.” The father asked, “Won’t you tell us, please, why you sent us away for two weeks. You have never done that before.” And the guru answered, “I needed the two weeks because I, too, have had a lifelong weakness for sweets. Until I had confronted and resolved that issue within myself, I was not ready to deal with your son.” Not all psychotherapists like this story.

At last they came to the lower slopes of the great mountains. Here she met a wild and bedraggled boy. He stumbled across her when she had stopped to rest and suckle the baby. The boy stared at the unlikely pair for a moment, then seated himself on the ground at a respectful distance, obviously preparing to converse. He was the strangest looking boy she had ever seen. Evidently a changeling like herself, for he was tall and straight with long slender limbs, but his hair was golden like the sun and his eyes a deep blue like the sky. He looked to be about fifteen years old, not quite a man, yet man enough to survive. She guessed he must have originated from the fabled district of Shor, in the far south, where it was rumoured that all the people were changelings, and all golden-haired. Astelle tensed, fully expecting Torking to deliver one of his pain bolts to the curious boy, but the child seemed unperturbed, and simply carried on suckling. This boy's attention was obviously not deemed as a threat. She relaxed and smiled at the youth. He returned the smile, white teeth startling against his tanned and dirty face. ‘Why are you travelling all alone?’ he asked. Encouraged by Torking's mindwhispers, Astelle managed to concoct a story very close to the truth. ‘As you can see, my child is rather unusual,’ she explained. ‘I could not bear to raise him among mortals who would constantly deride and insult him – and his father has left me, so I had no choice but to run from my tribe.’ Sympathy appeared in the deep blue eyes. ‘I understand that very well,’ he said. ‘I am an escaped slave. I was captured in infancy, and have no memory of my own people, but all my life I have been mocked and abused because I am different. My name is Bren. I would like to travel with you, if you don't mind. I could take care of you both.’ ‘Keep him,’ Torking mindwhispered. ‘He will be useful to fish and hunt for us. But do not tell him that I speak to you.’ Astelle smiled. ‘Thank you Bren,’ she said. ‘I will be glad of your company. I am called Astelle.’ ‘A Faen name...’ he said wonderingly. They began to climb the mountains of Clor.

History is storytelling,’” Yaw repeated. He walked down the aisles between the rows of seats, making sure to look each boy in the eye. Once he finished walking and stood in the back of the room, where the boys would have to crane their necks in order to see him, he asked, “Who would like to tell the story of how I got my scar?” The students began to squirm, their limbs growing limp and wobbly. They looked at each other, coughed, looked away. “Don’t be shy,” Yaw said, smiling now, nodding encouragingly. “Peter?” he asked. The boy who only seconds before had been so happy to speak began to plead with his eyes. The first day with a new class was always Yaw’s favorite. “Mr. Agyekum, sah?” Peter said. “What story have you heard? About my scar?” Yaw asked, smiling still, hoping, now to ease some of the child’s growing fear. Peter cleared his throat and looked at the ground. “They say you were born of fire,” he started. “That this is why you are so smart. Because you were lit by fire.” “Anyone else?” Timidly, a boy named Edem raised his hand. “They say your mother was fighting evil spirits from Asamando.” Then William: “I heard your father was so sad by the Asante loss that he cursed the gods, and the gods took vengeance.” Another, named Thomas: “I heard you did it to yourself, so that you would have something to talk about on the first day of class.” All the boys laughed, and Yaw had to stifle his own amusement. Word of his lesson had gotten around, he knew. The older boys told some of the younger ones what to expect from him. Still, he continued, making his way back to the front of the room to look at his students, the bright boys from the uncertain Gold Coast, learning the white book from a scarred man. “Whose story is correct?” Yaw asked them. They looked around at the boys who had spoken, as though trying to establish their allegiance by holding a gaze, casting a vote by sending a glance. Finally, once the murmuring subsided, Peter raised his hand. “Mr. Agyekum, we cannot know which story is correct.” He looked at the rest of the class, slowly understanding. “We cannot know which story is correct because we were not there.” Yaw nodded. He sat in his chair at the front of the room and looked at all the young men. “This is the problem of history. We cannot know that which we were not there to see and hear and experience for ourselves. We must rely upon the words of others. Those who were there in the olden days, they told stories to the children so that the children would know, so that the children could tell stories to their children. And so on, and so on. But now we come upon the problem of conflicting stories. Kojo Nyarko says that when the warriors came to his village their coats were red, but Kwame Adu says that they were blue. Whose story do we believe, then?” The boys were silent. They stared at him, waiting. “We believe the one who has the power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must always ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there, you begin to get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture.

When we came out of the cookhouse, we found the boy's father, the Indian man who had been grazing the horses in the pasture, waiting for us. He wanted someone to tell his troubles to. He looked about guardedly, afraid that the Señora might overhear him. 'Take a look at me' he said. I don't even know how old I am. When I was young, the Señor brought me here. He promised to pay me and give me a plot of my own. 'Look at my clothes' he said, pointing to the patches covering his body. 'I can't remember how many years I've been wearing them. I have no others. I live in a mud hut with my wife and sons. They all work for the Señor like me. They don't go to school. They don't know how to read or write; they don't even speak Spanish. We work for the master, raise his cattle and work his fields. We only get rice and plantains to eat. Nobody takes care of us when we are sick. The women here have their babies in these filthy huts.' 'Why don't you eat meat or at least milk the cows?' I asked. 'We aren't allowed to slaughter a cow. And the milk goes to the calves. We can't even have chicken or pork - only if an animal gets sick and dies. Once I raised a pig in my yard' he went on. 'She had a litter of three. When the Señor came back he told the foreman to shoot them. That's the only time we ever had good meat.' 'I don't mind working for the Señor but I want him to keep his promise. I want a piece of land of my own so I can grow rice and yucca and raise a few chickens and pigs. That's all.' 'Doesn't he pay you anything?' Kevin asked. 'He says he pays us but he uses our money to buy our food. We never get any cash. Kind sirs, maybe you can help me to persuade the master . Just one little plot is all I want. The master has land, much land.' We were shocked by his tale. Marcus took out a notebook and pen. 'What's his name?'. He wrote down the name. The man didn't know the address. He only knew that the Señor lived in La Paz. Marcus was infuriated. 'When I find the owner of the ranch, I'll spit right in his eye. What a lousy bastard! I mean, it's really incredible'. 'That's just the way things are,' Karl said. 'It's sad but there's nothing we can do about it.

Where am I?” she asked, interrupting him. He seemed startled by her ability to speak, but he stood and retrieved a glass of some amber liquid from a corner table for her. “You sound as terrible as you look, kiddo. Have a sip.” She stared at it. “Oh, you’re no fun,” he said with a little pout. “I suppose you’ll want water instead. Wait here and be quiet—can’t raise the alarm just yet, can we?” Etta wasn’t sure what that meant, but she complied all the same, watching as the young man walked to the door and stuck his head out into the hall. “You, there—yes, you—bring me a glass of water. And don’t bloody well spit in it this time—you honestly think I’m not well versed enough in that fine art to notice?” The response was immediate and irritated. “I’m not your damned servant.” So there are guards after all. The only question was whether they were protecting him, or protecting themselves from him. “I do believe the official decree from your master and commander was, ‘Give the dear boy what he wants.’ This dear boy wants water. And make it snappy. Pep in your step and all that. Thanks, old chum.

He met my gaze levelly. "Why should you be the one to hire out? The money would go for my apprenticeship." I experienced an odd shift in perception. Because I was "bigger and stronger and could earn more" was no longer true. His shoulders were as wide as mine, and in any test of endurance, his young back would probably hold out better. He grinned sympathetically as he saw me grasp what he already knew. "Perhaps because it is something that I'd like to give you," I said quietly, and he nodded, understanding what those words really meant. "You've already given me more than I could every pay back. Including the ability to go after this for myself." Those were the words we went to bed on, and I was smiling as I closed my eyes. There is monstrous vanity in the pride we take in our children, I told myself. I had bumbled along with Hap, never really giving much thought to what I was or was not teaching him about being a man. Then one evening, a young man meets my eyes and tells me that he can fend for himself if he needs to, and I feel the warm flush of success. The boy had raised himself, I told myself, but I still smiled as I fell asleep.

He’s a murdering chud,” Zil was yelling. “What do you want to do? Lynch him?” Astrid demanded. That stopped the flow for a second as kids tried to figure out what “lynch” meant. But Zil quickly recovered. “I saw him do it. He used his powers to kill Harry.” “I was trying to stop you from smashing my head in!” Hunter shouted. “You’re a lying mutant freak!” “They think they can do anything they want,” another voice shouted. Astrid said, as calmly as she could while still pitching her voice to be heard, “We are not going down that path, people, dividing up between freaks and normals.” “They already did it!” Zil cried. “It’s the freaks acting all special and like their farts don’t stink.” That earned a laugh. “And now they’re starting to kill us,” Zil cried. Angry cheers. Edilio squared his shoulders and stepped into the crowd. He went first to Hank, the kid with the shotgun. He tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Give me that thing.” “No way,” Hank said. But he didn’t seem too certain. “You want to have that thing fire by accident and blow someone’s face off?” Edilio held his hand out. “Give it to me, man.” Zil rounded on Edilio. “You going to make Hunter give up his weapon? Huh? He’s got powers, man, and that’s okay, but the normals can’t have any weapon? How are we supposed to defend ourselves from the freaks?” “Man, give it a rest, huh?” Edilio said. He was doing his best to sound more weary than angry or scared. Things were already bad enough. “Zil, you want to be responsible if that gauge goes off and kills Astrid? You want to maybe give that some thought?” Zil blinked. But he said, “Dude, I’m not scared of Sam.” “Sam won’t be your problem, I will be,” Edilio snapped, losing patience. “Anything happens to her, I’ll take you down before Sam ever gets the chance.” Zil snorted derisively. “Ah, good little boy, Edilio, kissing up to the chuds. I got news for you, dilly dilly, you’re a lowly normal, just like me and the rest of us." “I’m going to let that go,” Edilio said evenly, striving to regain his cool, trying to sound calm and in control, even though he could hardly take his eyes off the twin barrels of the shotgun. “But now I’m taking that shotgun.” “No way!” Hank cried, and the next thing was an explosion so loud, Edilio thought a bomb had gone off. The muzzle flash blinded him, like camera flash going off in his face. Someone yelled in pain. Edilio staggered back, squeezed his eyes shut, trying to adjust. When he opened them again the shotgun was on the ground and the boy who’d accidentally fired it was holding his bruised hand, obviously shocked. Zil bent to grab the gun. Edilio took two steps forward and kicked Zil in the face. As Zil fell back Edilio made a grab for the shotgun. He never saw the blow that turned his knees to water and filled his head with stars. He fell like a sack of bricks, but even as he fell he lurched forward to cover the shotgun. Astrid screamed and launched herself down the stairs to protect Edilio. Antoine, the one who had hit Edilio, was raising his bat to hit Edilio again, but on the back swing he caught Astrid in the face. Antoine cursed, suddenly fearful. Zil yelled, “No, no, no!” There was a sudden rush of running feet. Down the walkway, into the street, echoing down the block.

We end up at an outdoor paintball course in Jersey. A woodsy, rural kind of place that’s probably brimming with mosquitos and Lyme disease. When I find out Logan has never played paintball before, I sign us both up. There’s really no other option. And our timing is perfect—they’re just about to start a new battle. The worker gathers all the players in a field and divides us into two teams, handing out thin blue and yellow vests to distinguish friend from foe. Since Logan and I are the oldest players, we both become the team captains. The wide-eyed little faces of Logan’s squad follow him as he marches back and forth in front of them, lecturing like a hot, modern-day Winston Churchill. “We’ll fight them from the hills, we’ll fight them in the trees. We’ll hunker down in the river and take them out, sniper-style. Save your ammo—fire only when you see the whites of their eyes. Use your heads.” I turn to my own ragtag crew. “Use your hearts. We’ll give them everything we’ve got—leave it all on the field. You know what wins battles? Desire! Guts! Today, we’ll all be frigging Rudy!” A blond boy whispers to his friend, “Who’s Rudy?” The kid shrugs. And another raises his hand. “Can we start now? It’s my birthday and I really want to have cake.” “It’s my birthday too.” I give him a high-five. “Twinning!” I raise my gun. “And yes, birthday cake will be our spoils of war! Here’s how it’s gonna go.” I point to the giant on the other side of the field. “You see him, the big guy? We converge on him first. Work together to take him down. Cut off the head,” I slice my finger across my neck like I’m beheading myself, “and the old dog dies.” A skinny kid in glasses makes a grossed-out face. “Why would you kill a dog? Why would you cut its head off?” And a little girl in braids squeaks, “Mommy! Mommy, I don’t want to play anymore.” “No,” I try, “that’s not what I—” But she’s already running into her mom’s arms. The woman picks her up—glaring at me like I’m a demon—and carries her away. “Darn.” Then a soft voice whispers right against my ear. “They’re already going AWOL on you, lass? You’re fucked.” I turn to face the bold, tough Wessconian . . . and he’s so close, I can feel the heat from his hard body, see the small sprigs of stubble on that perfect, gorgeous jaw. My brain stutters, but I find the resolve to tease him. “Dear God, Logan, are you smiling? Careful—you might pull a muscle in your face.” And then Logan does something that melts my insides and turns my knees to quivery goo. He laughs. And it’s beautiful. It’s a crime he doesn’t do it more often. Or maybe a blessing. Because Logan St. James is a sexy, stunning man on any given day. But when he laughs? He’s heart-stopping. He swaggers confidently back to his side and I sneer at his retreating form. The uniformed paintball worker blows a whistle and explains the rules. We get seven minutes to hide first. I cock my paintball shotgun with one hand—like Charlize Theron in Fury fucking Road—and lead my team into the wilderness. “Come on, children. Let’s go be heroes.” It was a massacre. We never stood a chance. In the end, we tried to rush them—overpower them—but we just ended up running into a hail of balls, getting our hearts and guts splattered with blue paint. But we tried—I think Rudy and Charlize would be proud

We always thought it was cool that my mom only had boys, you know? Doug said, for once dropping his gangsta accent. “Who knew that we actually needed a sister?” Megan looked down at her hands. “Oh, man! Are you gonna go all blubbery on my ass?” Doug asked. Megan laughed. “No.” “So are you comin’ back with me or what?” Megan lifted her head and sighed. “I have a few conditions.” “Shoulda known,” Doug said, rolling his eyes. “First of all, I did not sign up for a truck stop bathroom,” Megan said. “You guys need to start cleaning up after yourselves in there. No more blood, no more hair, no more random stains that I don’t even want identified.” “All right, all right,” Doug said. “That it?” “Hardly,” Megan said. “I want a hands-off rule on all my stuff. Including my bike.” “Okay…” “And I want everyone to stop calling me Megan C Cups behind my back.” Doug’s jaw went slack as he flushed. “How did you know about that?” Megan raised her eyebrows. “All right, fine. Is that all?” Doug said. “You think you can do these things for me?” Megan asked. “Well, I may have to put the beatdown on a few people, but yeah. No problem,” Doug said casually. “Don’t beat down anybody,” Megan said. “Don’t tell me how to do my job,” Doug said, cracking his knuckles comically. “Okay,” Megan said, standing. For the first time all day, she felt calm--certain. “I’ll come back.” “Thank God!” Doug said. “Let’s get the hell outta this place.” “Oh, wait! One more thing,” Megan said, stopping Doug in his tracks. His shoulders slumped and he turned around. “What? You want my kidney?” “I want in on the next ultimate Frisbee game,” Megan said. Doug grinned. “You’re playin’ skins.” Megan grinned back. “We’ll see about that.

There was a man in the garden with the little girl. He was turning over the soil in a garden bed. He had obviously heard the car, because he raised his hand in greeting, but then he had gone back to his work. He had actually turned his back on the car. Tina thought she knew what that meant. The man had not wanted to see Pete the policeman. Maybe he thought Pete was bringing bad news. Tina smiled. Here was good news. Finally, here was good news for this family. The man dug the garden fork into the soil with a little bit of effort. He was deliberately not looking at Pete. The little girl walked down the driveway towards them. Pete said quietly, ‘No real way to prepare them. You go ahead, Lockie.’ Lockie squeezed Tina’s hand. ‘Go on, Lockie, it’s your dad. He’s been looking for you for a long time. Go on.’ She pulled her hand slowly out of Lockie’s grip. She wanted to save him from his fear, but she had saved him once. Lockie would have to do this by himself. The little girl who was surely Sammy looked back at her father, but he was still concentrating on his work. She smiled in Pete’s direction and then she focused on Lockie. She stared at him, as if trying to work out exactly who he was. Lockie pushed his hood back, exposing his short blond hair. He stood, and Tina could sense him holding his breath, waiting for his sister to see him. To really see him. Sammy stared hard at Lockie now, frowning. And then Tina saw recognition light up her face. She looked at her father who had still not looked up. She looked back at Lockie. She started jumping up and down. ‘Lockie!’ she screamed. ‘Lockie, Lockie, Lockie!’ Lockie smiled.The man jerked upright and dropped the garden fork. ‘Stop that, Samantha,’ he whispered angrily. ‘Jesus, stop that! Be quiet. Stop that.’ ‘Lockie, Lockie, Lockie!’ The little girl flew down the driveway and launched herself at her brother, who went, ‘Oof,’ but he steadied himself and wrapped his arms around her. ‘Lockie, Lockie, Lockie,’ she repeated, as if to make the moment real for herself. The man stood and stared at his children, still without realising that he was indeed looking at both his children. He started walking down the driveway. He began with an angry quick stride but the closer he got the more unsure his steps became. He was a big man in charge of a big farm but his steps became small and faltering. Tina could see the disbelief spreading across his face. Sammy let go of Lockie and took his hand. She started pulling him up the driveway. ‘It’s Lockie, Dad. Look, it’s Lockie, come look, Dad, Lockie’s home. He’s home, Dad. I knew he home. He’s home, Dad. I knew he would come home. I told you, Dad. Look its Lockie. Lockie, Lockie, Lockie’s home. Lockie’s home.’ The man stopped a few feet away from Lockie. His mouth was open. He moved it once or twice, but no words came out, and then came a sound that Tina had never heard before. It was a moaning, keening sound, but rough with the depth of his voice. It was four months of agony and the ecstasy of this moment all rolled into one. It was his heart right out there in the open for everyone to see. He opened his arms and dropped to his knees. Lockie let go of Sammy’s hand and continued alone up the driveway towards his father. He was twisting his hands and pulling at his jumper. He walked into his father’s arms and was completely surrounded by the large man. ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Dad, I’m sorry.’ At the bottom of the driveway Tina watched Lockie and his father. Lockie’s voice was muffled by his father’s arms, but Tina could still hear him repeating, ‘I’m sorry.’ Say it, Tina begged the man silently. Please, please, just say it. ‘Oh, Lockie,’ said the man through his tears, his large shoulders heaving. ‘It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault. I’m sorry, Lockie. I’m sorry. I’ve been looking for you, Lockie. Where did you go, mate? Where did you go?

saw nothing finer or more moving in Russia than Tolstoy’s grave. That illustrious place of pilgrimage lies out of the way, alone in the middle of the woods. A narrow footpath leads to the mound, nothing but a rectangle of soil raised above ground level, with no one guarding or keeping watch on it, only two huge trees casting their shade. Leo Tolstoy planted those trees himself, so his granddaughter told me beside his grave. When he and his brother Nikolai were boys, they had heard one of the village women say that a place where you planted trees would be a happy one. So they planted two saplings, partly as a kind of game. Only later did the old man remember that promise of happiness, and then he expressed a wish to be buried under the trees he had planted. And his wish was carried out. In its heart-rending simplicity, his grave is the most impressive place of burial in the world. Just a small rectangular mound in the woods with trees overhead, no cross, no tombstone, no inscription. The great man who suffered more than anyone from his own famous name and reputation lies buried there, nameless, like a vagabond who happened to be found nearby or an unknown soldier. No one is forbidden to visit his last resting place; the flimsy wooden fence around it is not kept locked. Nothing guards that restless man’s final rest but human respect for him. While curious sightseers usually throng around the magnificence of a tomb, the compelling simplicity of this place banishes any desire to gape. The wind rushes like the word of God over the nameless grave, and no other voice is heard. You could pass the place without knowing any more than that someone is buried here, a Russian lying in Russian earth. Napoleon’s tomb beneath the marble dome of Les Invalides, Goethe’s in the grand-ducal vault at Weimar, the tombs in Westminster Abbey are none of them as moving as this silent and movingly anonymous grave somewhere in the woods, with only the wind whispering around it, uttering no word or message of its own.

Odysseus smiled in return, teeth white against his dark beard. “Excellent. One tent’s enough, I hope? I’ve heard that you prefer to share. Rooms and bedrolls both, they say.” Heat and shock rushed through my face. Beside me, I heard Achilles’ breath stop. “Come now, there’s no need for shame—it’s a common enough thing among boys.” He scratched his jaw, contemplated. “Though you’re not really boys any longer. How old are you?” “It’s not true,” I said. The blood in my face fired my voice. It rang loudly down the beach. Odysseus raised an eyebrow. “True is what men believe, and they believe this of you. But perhaps they are mistaken. If the rumor concerns you, then leave it behind when you sail to war.” Achilles’ voice was tight and angry. “It is no business of yours, Prince of Ithaca.” Odysseus held up his hands. “My apologies if I have offended. I merely came to wish you both good night and ensure that all was satisfactory. Prince Achilles. Patroclus.” He inclined his head and turned back to his own tent. Inside the tent there was quietness between us. I had wondered when this would come. As Odysseus said, many boys took each other for lovers. But such things were given up as they grew older, unless it was with slaves or hired boys. Our men liked conquest; they did not trust a man who was conquered himself. “Perhaps he is right,” I said. Achilles’ head came up, frowning. “You do not think that.” “I do not mean—” I twisted my fingers. “I would still be with you. But I could sleep outside, so it would not be so obvious. I do not need to attend your councils. I—” “No. The Phthians will not care. And the others can talk all they like. I will still be Aristos Achaion.” Best of the Greeks. “Your honor could be darkened by it.” “Then it is darkened.” His jaw shot forward, stubborn. “They are fools if they let my glory rise or fall on this.” “But Odysseus—” His eyes, green as spring leaves, met mine. “Patroclus. I have given enough to them. I will not give them this.” After that, there was nothing more to say

(p.112-114) This past, the Negro's past, of rope, fire torture, castration, infanticide, rape; death and humiliation; fear by day and night, fear as deep as the marrow of the bone; doubt that he was worthy of life, since everyone around him denied it; sorrow for this women, for his kinfolk, for his children, who needed his protection, and whom he could not protect; rage, hatred, and murder, hatred for white men so deep that it often turned against him and his own, and made all love, all trust, all joy impossible - this past, this endless struggle to achieve and reveal and confirm a human identity, human authority, yet contains, for all its horror, something very beautiful. I do not mean to be sentimental about suffering - enough is certainly as good as a feast - but people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are. That man who is forced each day to snatch manhood, his identity, out of the fire of human cruelty that rages to destroy it knows, if he survives his effort, and even if he does not survive it, something about himself and human life that no school on earth - and indeed, no church - can teach. He achieves his own authority, and that is unshakable. This is because, in order to save his life, he is forced to look beneath appearances, to take nothing for granted, to hear the meaning behind the words. If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring; whatever it brings must be borne. And at this level of experience one's bitterness begins to be palatable, and hatred becomes too heavy a sack to carry. The apprehension of life here so briefly and inadequately sketched has been the experience of generations of Negroes, and it helps to explain how they have endured and how they have been able to produce children of kindergarten age who can walk through mobs to get to school. It demands great force and great cunning continually to assault the mighty and indifferent fortress of white supremacy, as Negroes in this country have done so long. It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate. The Negro boys and girls who are facing mobs today come out of a long line of improbable aristocrats - the only genuine aristocrats this country has produced. I say "this country" because their frame of reference was totally American. They were hewing out of the mountain of white supremacy the stone of their individuality. I have great respect for that unsung army of black men and women who trudged down back lanes and entered back doors, saying "Yes, sir" and "No, Ma'am" in order to acquire a new roof for the schoolhouse, new books, a new chemistry lab, more beds for the dormitories, more dormitories. They did not like saying "Yes, sir" and "No Ma'am", but the country was in no hurry to educate Negroes, these black men and women knew that the job had to be done, and they put their pride in their pockets in order to do it. It is very hard to believe that they were in anyway inferior to the white men and women who opened those back doors. It is very hard to believe that those men and women, raising their children, eating their greens, crying their curses, weeping their tears, singing their songs, making their love, as the sun rose, as the sun set, were in any way inferior to the white men and women who crept over to share these splendors after the sun went down. ... I am proud of these people not because of their color but because of their intelligence and their spiritual force and their beauty. The country should be proud of them, too, but, alas, not many people in this country even know of their existence.