“maybe to be controlled was a privilege. i tried to appreciate the asphyxiation of the leash around my neck, the euphoric suffocation of obsessive love. it worked for a while.”
we landed the big account, ghostbusters-style.
over cheap beer and well drinks, they shared classic stories, brave recollections, and dark musings. the rumors, the gossip, the urban legends ran wild. new canaan had a curse, their peers decided. their generation, the classes of the first five years of the infant millennium, they were all stepping through life with a piano suspended above them and bull’s-eyes on the crowns of their skulls.
“i didn’t leave the boat house because you were with her; i left because i’m sick of watching you be a coward […] there’s just not enough room for me in your life because cocaine is your mistress. she’s there when you need her, and she makes you feel bigger than life. why would you want anything else? you don’t have to worry about her hurting you or about you disappointing her. and you can share her with your friends without jealousy or guilt.”
brackett omensetter was a wide and happy man. he could whistle like the cardinal whistles in the deep snow, or whirr like the shy white rising from its cover, or be the lark a-chuckle at the sky. he knew the earth. he put his hands in water. he smelled the clean fir smell. he listened to the bees.
“a little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment.”