Ragtime

by E.L. Doctorow

Across America sex and death were barely distinguishable.

And though the newspapers called the shooting the Crime of the Century, Goldman knew it was only 1906 and there were ninety-four years to go.

Yet I know these are the happy years. And ahead of us are only great disasters.

America was a great farting country.

How can the masses permit themselves to be exploited by the few. The answer is By being persuaded to identify with them.

It was evident to him that the world composed and recomposed itself constantly in an endless process of dissatisfaction.

This country will not let me breathe.

He heard through his brain the electric winds of an empty universe.

Friendship is what endures. Shared ideals, respect for the whole character of a human being. Why can’t you accept your own freedom? Why do you have to cling to someone in order to live?

Father had always felt secretly that as a family they were touched by an extra light. He felt it going now.

Or is injustice, once suffered, a mirror universe, with laws of logic and principles of reason the opposite of civilization’s?

Wealth is the oppressor. Coalhouse Walker did not need Red Emma to learn that. He needed only to suffer.

my death was determined the moment Sarah died.

And by that time the era of Ragtime had run out, with the heavy breath of the machine, as if history were no more than a tune on a player piano.