“Open me up. Take what you will. You may have it all. I’ve already been stripped of everything that matters—already been torn to pieces by love-marauders and blameless goddesses. I have been plundered and shaken and left to sit in this crater with my hands tied behind my back and my eyes sewn shut. I can hear locusts. . . .”
“We are sharing a dream. In our dream there is an oak tree. We lie beneath it—lie in the shade of the oak tree. The moon casts its glow over us and we are hiding from it.
Your face is spotted with pale light. It is outlined by the white orb hanging over us. You look beautiful. You look lovely. I promise in my heart that I will love you forever. . . .”
“Chantal made eye-contact with her friend Carley, who was seated in the front row of the balcony with an architect named Peter. After some mouthing back and forth, and hand motions which told us we should move, we moved. We sat down next to Carley and Peter. I waved to Carley and shook Peter’s hand. He did his best to give me a firm handshake. He did the manly double-pump. I didn’t play that game. I just gave him a regular, medium-strength shake that lasted half a second. I could tell he wanted more, but that’s all I gave him. . . .”
“When the lights began to swirl, and the ceiling began to lower, and the voices became louder and louder still—I found myself sitting on an apple-red couch near the kitchen. I had a beer in my hand and my eyes were buzzing with human electricity. In front of me was a mass of smiling happy people, each of them fitted with a beer the same as mine. I felt the warmth of the room I was in. It felt foreign and welcome. . . .”
“So maybe ‘When I’m feeling worthless, I go to Torchy’s Tacos’ isn’t the best slogan. Still, I can’t think of single a time I’ve been to Torchy’s when I didn’t feel downright rotten. Their tacos make me feel happy again. That’s actually kind of depressing, but it’s also the truth. . . .”
“Something strange happened, which was that people seemed all right with me, a stranger, being around. They were happy to talk to me. Getting up to use the bathroom meant I would leave. And then I would come back to people who seemed content to know me. All I had to do was relieve myself of all the fluids which had found themselves needing out of me, and hey presto! I’d return to happy faces. It was a neat magic track. I repeated it many times. . . .”
“When I am dead, you can tell them that I only needed one more year after this year—from 12 November, 2011 onward. I would be okay if I died on this very day in 2012. I would say, just before dying, ‘It was enough.’ It has been enough already. And I don’t mean that in a depressing way. I mean that I’ve loved a lot of what has happened to me, and I’m happy to have known so many truly wonderful human beings. How lucky I have been! (How cursed.) . . .”
“I spent the entire summer hiding in different cities. I’d fall asleep in an airport and wake up in Austin or San Francisco. I would find myself sitting on a Greyhound bus, passing through a desolate and dark stretch of land in Texas, bound for New Orleans. Other times I would shake my head and realize I was driving down empty highways at two in the morning. Wherever I went, I took music with me that I couldn’t care less about—except for Deer Tick. John McCauley became my best friend, only he didn’t know it. His voice was raw and whisky-soaked. It offered the comfort of serrated knives. It made me feel better about feeling bad. . . .”
“Once my pupils expanded into black holes, and my skin burned with bursting blood vessels, and my mouth became parched and uncooperative and even angry at me, I was ready to move around Austin until I didn’t feel like doing that anymore. . . .”
“Yes, and I think I’ll see to moving away from that stinking carcass-lagoon as soon as I get back. I’m tired of complaining about it, if you can believe it. I guess that means I’m getting older. I guess that also means I’m truly fed up with that place, and am eager to be rid of it and all of the illnesses it brings upon me. I am sick. I wish to be well. I will never be well so long as I haunt those streets. I will never crawl out of this crater of depression and mania if I spend another year on E. Oliver Street. . . .”