Tales of the Madman Underground

So we fell asleep holding hands. If married couples got to do this all the time, shit if I could understand how there were ever divorces, or even fights.

I think everyone always has time to suffer.

Can I ask you something personal?” Six inches but I tell everyone eight.

You know, when someone hurts my feelings, somehow it does not comfort me to know that it was deliberate... On the other hand, knowing that someone else thinks they are assholes helps a great deal." "I think that's some kind of rule for the universe.

Pain only matters when it happens to someone important.

It wasn't that funny, but I laughed. There wouldn't be much laughter in the world if people didn't like each other, because there sure as shit aren't that many good jokes.

... once you were in, they put a note in your file that said you were in therapy, and all your teachers saw that file. They might as well have tattooed CRAZY on your forehead. The next year every teacher would be watching you for the first weird thing you did—and has there ever been a kid who never does anything an adult considers weird?

There's a rule or something that if a girl can crack you up, you have to do what she says.

I guess when life hands you lemons, chop 'em up and get lemonade; when life hands you cats, chop 'em up and get pussy.

Marti wasn't the type to give up without a fight, especially not if she was very afraid - some people are like that. They lean into the fear.

I wondered if they got to enjoy being normal, to know just how terrific it was, or whether it was just invisible to them like air?

I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Which is not an easy thing for a teacher to admit to.

I always liked that time of day, when people were shutting up their shops, putting the town to bed for the night, going home to do normal stuff with their normal families. I wonder if they got to enjoy being normal, to know just how terrific it was, or whether it was just invisible to them like air? Sometimes I got so pissed off at how easy the normal people had it that I just wanted to walk down the street shaking them and screaming into their squishy self-satisfied faces.

Slow down, and enjoy that stuff if it’s possible. Kathy doesn’t care what time I leave, only what time I clock out, and she knows sometimes I sleep here when I’m locked out, or have friends over. Everything’s cool as long as I clock out on time.” She swallowed that big bite she’d rammed in, and said, “Okay. Jeez, I’m so hungry, this stuff is good.” Ketchup for your fries, miss? I can recommend it—it’s my main source of vitamin C.” She smiled. “Sure. What does Kathy do if you clock out late?” Well, a couple times I’ve fallen asleep and done it, and gotten off with a warning. Eventually, though, if I made a habit of it, I’d disappear in the middle of the night, and never be seen again, and the only clues the police would have would be a few orange hairs and some enormous shoe prints. But for a few weeks afterward, all over the country, the Quarter Pounders would taste just a little bit more like Lightsburg, Ohio.

I realized after I got Jesus, I'd marry "that good woman who put me right with the Lord, got me away from the bottle and taught me what life is really all about." Which was to say, some church girl that resembles a pile of loose fat upholstered with pale goopy skin, and whose whole life is chocolate cake and visiting her sister.

Supposedly nobody outside the group knew there was a group. Of course we all knew that wasn't true. High school was like the little clear plastic tunnels that Paul's hamsters lived in: you could run a long way but never get out, and always, everyone could see you.

But I'd been raised pure Ohio: the Zeroth Commandment was Thou Shalt Not Be Any Trouble to Anybody Ever.

I gave up drinking, and the next time I saw Bonny at a party, she was mad at me about that too, and went off and made out all night with Chip Neminech, the tackle who demonstrated that not only is there no I in team, there’s no Q, either. I suppose, given that my mother was a girl, I shouldn’t have been surprised that some of them could get pretty weird.

In the light of the crappy little lamp, all I was looking at was a frizzy mop of blonde hair and a bare back with one big angry red patch on it, but Jesus fucking God she was beautiful, and if you don't understand that, I'm sorry for you.