The Handyman Method

But you can’t have it all, not at once, every duck in a row. Life won’t bend that way, and a belief in the possibility is corrosive… and all the while, the most precious stuff is sprinkled right at your feet, waiting to be held.

You are never in your own orbit. Your circle always belongs to something larger than yourself.

humans had to sleep, but not all things did.

Ten minutes later, Trent stood clutching his son’s tooth as the Sienna backed out of the drive, its taillights flaring into the dark. Letting his lungs inflate like two bellows, Trent forced everything out. The night ate his screams. The night ate everything.

He didn’t consider it an omen, but he did wish his brain—that malignant turd in the punchbowl socked between his ears—hadn’t conjured it at the moment he first set eyes on the place.

What of happiness, then? May we speak of the taste of joyful meat?

When prey dies in fear, hunters will say the meat tastes bitter.

And clearly, I must have something against turtles! First in The Troop, now poor Morty. No actual turtles—or any other critters—have ever been hurt in the writing of any Cutter book.

As for Hank… he was a ball to write, in the way that deplorable fictional characters can be. I always imagined that if Hank had a closet, you’d find a hard hat in there, a white hood, a MAGA cap, and a blister pack of Infowars-branded male enhancement pills.

Ned’s arm wadded up where it met his shoulder, the cruel alchemies of pressure and resistance making his skin inflate as his humerus went down, down.… Blood jetted through the chest of his overalls, right through the weave.

Fatherless boys grew up to be sex pests and compulsive masturbators; Trent had read as much on the internet.

Back in the war, COs used to make the grunts dry-shave as punishment if they caught ’em dog-fucking. But me, I love a dry shave.