The Flamethrowers

by Rachel Kushner

by a weak fluorescence, one or two gas stations. I thought about the man trying to light the woman on fire. He wasn’t trying to light her on fire. Certain acts, even as they are real, are also merely gestures. He was saying, “What if I did?” And she was saying, “Go ahead.”

That comes later, but there isn’t nothing before it.

the fathers and uncles who crowded around workbenches, bent over vehicles, their belts buckled off center to avoid scratching the paint.

Young people are doing something even when they’re doing nothing.

All of humanity dresses in uniforms of one sort or another, and these shoes were for pimps.

What occurred did so because I was open to it, and not because fate and I met at a certain angle.

Fools love to declare that they don’t suffer fools.

Lovers offered only what they offered and nothing more, and what they offered came with provisos: believe what you want and don’t look carefully at what isn’t acceptable to you.

Some men will do anything to get you to stop crying. They don’t like to see women cry, nuh-uh. Nice guys will do whatever they can to get you to stop. The problem is most guys aren’t nice.”

It was wanting something a great deal that made people embarrassing—which was why I’d hidden my wants

was okay to be murky to yourself, to know you weren’t an angel, but other people had to be more cleanly divided into good and bad.

Leave, with no answer. Move on to the next question.