“Memory is too unreliable to be ‘truthful’.”
“All true? I think autobiographers are big liars.”
“I suppose you could say that Paul is a … hustler? His rich wife Corina paid him grandly when they divorced, wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s called alimony,” I laughed.”
“How erotic Texas must be!” she said.
I was sure she had meant “exotic,” but I followed through: “Maybe, if you find cactus and deserts erotic, sensual.”
“It was never about the money; at times no money was involved, just sex.”
“Then what?”
“It was always about—” I had never asked that question of myself. “It was always about—” No word came, no answer.
“Power.”
“I think the camouflage of fiction allows more authenticity – you know, acknowledging that it is a ‘fiction’, a terrific lie, and that you want it to be believed.”
“Love can fuck up desire, I’ll agree to that,” I said, and I believed that. If, on the occasions when someone I had sex with remained after orgasm, and an edge of friendship was being suggested to me—as, say, we might lie, though rarely, talking—if, then, at those times, all desire faded.”
“No, I did not tell him about the raids on gay bars; cops invading private homes to arrest men having sex, the sexual act being illegal; entrapment, lying, aroused cops, years-long prison terms, suicides, violence.”
“During the Mardi Gras carnival in New Orleans, drunk and drugged and sleepless for sex-driven nights and days, I saw leering clowns on gaudy floats tossing cheap necklaces to grasping hands that clutched and grabbed and tore them, spilling beads; and revelers crawled on littered streets, wrestling for them, bleeding for them on sidewalks; and beads fell on spattered blood like dirty tears—and I saw costumed revelers turn into angels, angels into demons, demons into clowning angels; and in a flashing moment the night split open into a deeper, darker chasm out of which soared demonic clowning angels laughing.”
“Because it’s getting to be the blue hour, and that’s the time when everything is revealed.”
“Whatever I want,' he says.
'Yes.'
'I'm afraid you haven't been privy to that dream yet.”
“I am a weapon made of flesh, a sword covered in skin. I was born to kill a king, to end a reign of terror before it can truly begin.”
“You will never find the eye with your fingers, Bran. You must search with your heart.”
“That was the splendid thing about life: Though it was cruel, it was also mysterious, filled with wonder and surprise; sometimes the surprises were so amazing that they qualified as miraculous, and by witnessing those miracles, a despondent person could discover a reason to live, a cynic could obtain unexpected relief from ennui, and a profoundly wounded boy could find the will to heal himself and medicine for melancholy.”
“I wanted to have something good to remember about today,” she replied quietly. “Something that wasn't petty and mean. Sometimes you have to provide such moments yourself.”
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