123
" With two fingers, he stroked the edges of his thick mustache like some diminutive Chinese emperor about to sign a death order. He said, We’re not made to wallow in pleasure. Pleasure is joy’s assassin. He paused to spit in the coffee can. He said, I can see past this day to the time when these same waves will be made of blood. You believe that? Sounds like you know the Bible, I said. That I do. I’ve studied on it pretty good. You don’t mind, he said, brightening up—you don’t mind, I gotta make a quick stop by a friend’s house right this side of San Clemente. With that statement, his manner altered. He smiled, showing the pointy incisors of a gerbil. "
― Mary Karr , Lit
124
" Walking behind Warren, I’m approaching execution, till he stops and draws from his breast pocket a small blue velvet box. It holds a platinum ring with a sapphire the size of a chiclet flanked by diamonds of equal size, which—with all the drinks in me—makes me wobble. He slides it onto my shaking finger, saying, They’re family stones. Mother had it made. I joke I’ll need a bodyguard to wear it in public. When I lean back to stare into his green eyes, I resist the urge to kiss him—a public display he’d hate. But our gazes are so interwoven, I feel neither Texas trash nor WASP-itude can touch us. It doesn’t matter that my mother-in-law sobs through much of the meal, not—I’m guessing—from joy. Warren’s brother Dev says with genuine puzzlement as we head down the grand staircase, She was crying? And I think How do they block this stuff out? Nor does it matter that Mother offered to paint Mr. Whitbread in the nude and quote fix anything you need fixed close quote. "
― Mary Karr , Lit
125
" I must have had heatstroke to miss it. His eyes were tar pits, his body slick with sweat. This wasn’t cannabis sativa high, nor heroin nod-off high, nor John Lennon’s imagine-all-the-people-living-in-one-world high. This was eyeball-boiling, grind-your-teeth-to-bloody-stubs high. In short, crystal meth high. Sorry, I said. I gotta make my old man dinner. Why, I thought, why didn’t I just go to the midwestern college I’d weaseled my way into early admission, then chickened out of? "
― Mary Karr , Lit
127
" He said, It’s the truth that saves us, but some people’s truth is bitter gall. You’re a woman, Mary, with the curse of Eve on you. I wondered where were the ubiquitous squad cars that had plagued my friends and me. The doughnut-munching bastards. You wanna see my truth? Sam asked. I firmly doubted I had a choice. I said of course I’d be honored to see his truth, wise in the arcana as he seemed to be. Then I waited for him to raise up the hatchet or samurai sword with which he would surely split my skull to the gizzard. With some ceremony, Sam drew from under his shirt a suede pouch on a leather cord slung around his neck. Opening it, he drew out a thin object a few inches long and wrapped in red silk with tiny Chinese ideograms on it. On his lap, he unfolded it with one hand—a small brownish-black burnt-looking thing like an umbilicus. A root or charm, I thought. That’s my twin brother’s finger, he said. "
― Mary Karr , Lit