“My mother's psychologist says I have an overactive anger switch, but people just keep pissing me off.”
“if you give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, if you teach a man to fish he'll eat all the fish you may have caught for yourself”
“I said, "Jesse, don't flatter yourself that I did this for you. I mean, it has been nothing but one giant pain in the neck, having you for a roommate. Do you think I like having to come home from school or from work or whatever and having to explain stuff like the Bay of Pigs to you? Believe me, life with you is no picnic."
He didn't say anything. He just kept pulling me along.
"Or what about Tad?" I said, bringing up what I knew was a sore subject. "I mean, you think I like having you tag along on my dates? Having you out of my life is going to make things a lot simpler, so don't think, you know, I did this for you. I only did it because that stupid cat of yours has been crying its head off. And also because anything I can do to make your stupid girlfriend mad, I will."
"Nombre de Dios, Susannah," Jesse muttered. "Maria's not my girlfriend."
"Well, she certainly used to be," I said. "And what about that, anyway? That girl is a full-on skank, Jesse. I can't believe you ever agreed to marry her. I mean, what were you thinking, anyway? Couldn't you see what she was like underneath all that lace?”
“But once I'd come up with it, I realized it really was the perfect plan. Instead of waiting for Maria to come to me, I was simply going to go to her and, well...
Send her back to where she came.
Or reduce her to a mound of quivering gelatinous goo. Whichever came first.”
“Didn't you," he asked, "have me
exorcised?"
"Me?" My own voice rocketed up about ten octaves. "Me? Jesse, of course not. I would never do that. I mean, you know I would never do something like that. That kid Jack did it. Your girlfriend Maria made him do it. She was trying to get rid of you. She told Jack you were bothering me, and he didn't know any better, so he exorcised you, and then Felix Diego threw me off the porch roof, and Jesse, they found your body, I mean your bones, and I saw them and I threw up all over the side of the house, and Spike really misses you and I was just thinking, you know, if you wanted to come back, you could, because that's why I've got this rope, so we can find our way back.”
“Kill her for me," she said in that whiny little-girl voice.
Diego took a step toward me, wearing an expression that told me he was only too happy to oblige his lady love.
"Oh, what?" I said. I wasn't even scared. I didn't care anymore. The numbness in my heart had pretty much taken over my whole body. "You always do what she tells you? You know, we have a word for that now. It's called being whipped.”
“I snatched the paper away from Dopey.
"Hey," he yelled. "I was reading that!"
"Let somebody who can pronounce all the big words have a try," I said.”
“You know," I said, holding my ground. "I gotta tell you. The goatee thing? Yeah, way over. And you know a little jewelry really does go a long way. Just something you might want to consider. I'm actually glad you stopped by, because I have a couple things I've been meaning to say to you. Number one,
about your wife? Yeah, she's a skank. And number two, you know that whole thing where you killed Jesse and then buried his remains out back there? Yeah, way un-cool.”
“Hey," Dopey said when I was finished reading. "How come they never mentioned me? I'm the one who found the skeleton."
"Oh, yeah," Sleepy said in disgust. "Your role was really crucial. After all, if it wasn't for you, the guy's
skull might still have been intact.”
“I thought about telling him the truth: 'Oh, nothing. Just having my soul exorcised so I can roam around
purgatory, looking for the ghost of the dead cowboy who used to live in my bedroom.”
“Look, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I said no because the whole thing would just be too
Dirty Dancing , right? Summer fling at the resort, only with the roles reversed: you know, the poor
working girl and the rich doctor's son, nobody puts Baby in the corner, blah blah blah. That kind of thing.”
“Well, I guess slave-runners aren't really my cup of tea. That is who you married instead, right? A slave-runner. Your father must have been so proud."
That wiped the grin right off her face.
"You leave my father out of this," she snarled.
"Oh, why?" I asked. "Tell me something, is he sore at you? Your dad, I mean. You know, for having Jesse killed? Because I imagine he would be. I mean, basically, thanks to you, the de Silva family line ran out. And your kids with that Diego dude turned out to be, as we've already discussed, major losers. I bet whenever you run into your dad out there, you know, on the spiritual plane, he doesn't even say hi anymore, does he? That's gotta hurt."
I'm not sure how much of that, if any, Maria actually understood. Still, she seemed plenty mad.”
“I lay
there in my black slip dress and wondered if I ought to have worn pants. I mean, who knew what I was
going to find up there? What if I had to do some climbing? People might see my underwear.”
“My shoulders sagged. Really, is it too much to ask that I be able to come home from a long day of work and relax? Oh, no. I have to come home and read a bunch of letters written to the love of my life by his fiancée, who, if I am correct, had him killed a hundred and fifty years ago. Then, as if that is not bad enough, he wants me to explain the Vietnam War.”
“It was around then that the phone rang. It was my friend Cee Cee, wanting to know if I cared to join her and Adam McTavish at the Coffee Clutch to drink iced tea and talk bad about everyone we know.”
“If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but if you teach him to fish, he'll eat all the fish you might have caught for yourself.--Advice of Paul Slater, the evil mediator, to Suze”
“Sometimes I think God is like weather--you may not like the weather, but it has nothing to do wit you. You just happen to be there. Deal with it.”
“I've stabbed two people with a fork today. What's wrong with me?”
“Fuck me. God does exist and he sent an angel in a white Mustang to prove it.”
“Call me Mac," he said.
Mackadocious is more like it.
"For the next month, I will be your writing instructor..."
Lip Macking Good.
"It was Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who said, 'Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the Soul within...'"
Big Mac Attack.
"Here, in the next five weeks, I hope you do more revealing than concealing..."
Oh, I'll reveal more than that if you want me to, Mac Daddy.”
“What can a person's heart be made of that can pity a Christian's child and yet can't pity a devil's child, that a thousand times more needs it!”
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