The house had the stale smell of a grandparent. When you’re a kid, the smell gives you the creeps; when you’re an adult, you want to bottle it and let it out with a cup of cocoa on a bad day.
Esperanza and Myron shared a yellow cab to the Chelsea Hotel on Twenty-third Street between Seventh and Eighth. The cab smelled like a Turkish whorehouse, which was an improvement over most.
Ironic, I guess. He was a humanitarian, my father. He survived going against the wishes of despots and dictators in some of the most dangerous and war-torn jungles in the world. He finally settled back in the relative safety of the United States and dies in a car crash driving me to a basketball game. It.
Two minutes later, we were ushered into Mr. Flannery’s inner sanctum. The office smelled of cigar smoke and Lemon Pledge. Snap-together furniture, the kind you might find at Kmart or Bradlees, had been stained dark, feigning rich oak and mahogany and working about as well as a Las Vegas toupee.
Semper paratus.” “It’s Latin,” Shane said. “It means ‘Always ready.
So what does she think?” Esperanza asked again. “About what?” “About the prospects for peace in the Middle East,” she snapped. “What do you think I mean? Your playing again.
According to the chalkboard, tonight was “Ladies Night” featuring “Dollar Drafts for Chicks,” a marketing ploy that drew in, it appeared, a certain female clientele. For example, one straw-haired woman, who was cackle-laughing in a “notice me” manner, wore a yellow T-shirt that read “Sloppy Seconds,” which, alas, seemed all too apropos. Megan.
Rumor had it TC was black though it was hard to see any trace of skin through the work of his tattoo artist. The obscure ink images blanketed almost all available somatic sites. Body piercing too appeared to be more of a lifestyle with TC than a hobby. The man looked like a nightmare version of Mr. Clean. Myron.
Esperanza said, “Some bottled blond with a bottled tan is down here to see you.
Win looked at him. “Were you ever in the military?” he asked. Pants seemed confused. “No.” “You are a worthless punk,” Win said in the same tone he might use when discussing a mixed stock report. “A pitiful ectoplasm such as yourself wearing army fatigues is an affront to any man or woman who has ever experienced real combat. If I ever happen across you again donning any similar garb, I will hurt you severely. Do I make myself clear?
His smile did more than lack warmth. It was the most purely physical smile Myron had ever seen, a byproduct strictly of the brain giving specific orders to certain muscles. It touched no part of him but his lips. Myron.
We talked about how most Americans used to be in the middle, relatively speaking. That’s how America kept its balance all those years. The left and the right were close enough to have disagreements but not hate.” “Okay.” “That world is gone, Gavin, and so it will now be easy to destroy the social order. The middle has become complacent. They are smart, but they are lazy. They see the grays. They get the other side. Extremists, on the other hand, see only black.
Relationships are never fifty-fifty. Sometimes they are sixty-forty, sometimes eighty-twenty. You’ll be the eighty sometimes, you’ll be the twenty others. The key is to accept and be okay with that.
He didn’t believe in karma, but then again there was no reason to poke karma in the ribs.
They take in the full experience of great loves and great tragedies without backing down or crouching into some sort of defensive stance. If life is going to punch them in the face, they stick their chins out and savor the moment. That is living life to the fullest.
There is a very fine line between relentless and stupid,” Win said. “Try to stay on the right side of it.
Just because you do right doesn’t mean that wrong won’t still find you.
The key to making time slow down is to have new experiences.
We are all so luxuriously stupid when things are good in our life.
People had long memories. No matter how many years passed, he would always be the subject of whispers and innuendos.
The Boomerangs’ motto was an obvious one: Karma is like a boomerang – whatever you give out will come back to you.