10
" Most helpful, Mr. Caelum," she said. "Very, very useful information. And now, shall we hear from Saint Augustine?"
I shrugged. "Why not?" I said
Dr. P read from a blood-red leather book. "My soul was a burden, bruised and bleeding. It was tired of the man who carried it, but I found no place to set it down to rest. Neither the charm of the countryside nor the sweet scents of a garden could soothe it. It found no peace in song or laughter, none in the company of friends at table or in the pleasures of love, none even in books or poetry.... Where could my heart find refuge from itself? Where could I go, yet leave myself behind?"
She closed the book, then reached across the table and took Maureen's hand in hers. "Does that passage speak to you?" she asked. Mo nodded and began to cry. "And so, Mr. Caelum, good-bye."
Because the passage had spoken to me, too, it took me a few seconds to react. "Oh," I said. "You want me to leave?"
"I do. Yes, yes. "
― Wally Lamb , The Hour I First Believed
20
" The non-jocks, the readers, the gay kids, the ones starting to stew about social injustice: for these kids, "letting your freak flag fly" is both self discovery and self defense. You cry for this bunch at the mandatory pep assemblies. Huddled together, miserably, in the upper reaches of the bleachers, wearing their oversized raincoats and their secondhand Salvation Army clothes, they stare down at the school-sanctioned celebration of the A list students. They know bullying, these kids--especially the ones who frefuse to exist under the radar. They're tripped in the hallway, shoved against lockers, pelted with Skittles in the lunchroom. For the most part, their tormentors are stealth artists.
The freaks know where there's refuge: I the library, the theater program, art class, creative writing. "
― Wally Lamb , The Hour I First Believed
