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The two stopped and listened, their heads angled in attention, truly believing that the worst, both here and elsewhere, was over. It was the kind of day where anything felt possible. As if the charity of the world had tipped, finally, to one side of the rusted scale. The kind of day where you can fill in your scars with Magic Marker and tell yourself you’re normal—and it might be true.
The folks who made up the crew were just like people anywhere else in New England. Weatherworn and perennially exhausted or pissed off or both.
“What’s an army anywhere but a bunch of state-sanctioned mass shooters funded by our tax dollars?”
Some of our leaders are even lizards in disguise. I mean, how else do you explain Dick Cheney?
These “people” included Linda McMahon—co-founder of WWE—who was currently running as a Republican for a Connecticut Senate seat. She was rumored to have ordered thirty of these hogs for a Christmas fundraiser she was hosting at her mansion in Stamford, where wrestling superstars were supposed to attend.
omg Linda is now secretary of education
She stared at him, blank-faced, before lurching forward to release a spray of vomit onto the hog’s back. She reached down and gathered some dead leaves and half-heartedly rubbed the sludge off the animal. She waved Hai off, then wiped her face on her shirtsleeve, removed one of the Altoids from her nose, popped it in her mouth, and hobbled back to the barn.
what the hell
Berkshyer. In England. This place had some of the finest pork in the world. And when England was trying to get into Japan—you know, to do missionary shit or whatever—they tried to win over the emperor by giving him these Berkshire hogs. Well,” Wayne licked his lips, “the emperor was so amazed by the flavor of these hogs, so rich with fat, sweet and juicy, he flung his doors wide open. And that’s how Christianity came to Japan.
“No, I didn’t outlive Stalin to be depressed.” She shook her head defiantly. “You kids blame everything on feelings. Do you blame starvation on feelings too? Floods? Earthquakes?”
“People don’t know what’s enough, Labas. That’s their problem. They think they suffer, but they’re really just bored. They don’t eat enough carrots.”
You feel both lost but also at peace with everything, and it makes you want to call somebody on the phone for no reason.”
okay was even better than happy because I thought it had a better chance of lasting.”
“You’re—” she gestured at him, “a liggabit. Boy and boy, girl and girl. I see them in newspapers. Liggabit community.” “Oh—oh, you mean LGBT?” He wiped his eyes and let out a single disbelieving laugh.
Rhetoric is like a battlefield, but in the mind. About positions and counterattacks. Isn’t that right?”
the unmarked presence of Jackson’s six slaves, who Hai later learned were Albert, Amy, Emma, and Hetty, along with her two sons, Cyrus and George. Like the fake Vietnamese in The Green Berets, they were everywhere yet nowhere to be found.
“Look, being fucked up is actually what’s most common. It’s the majority of who we are, what everybody is. Fucked up is the most normal thing in the world. You’re both fucked up and you’re normal, got it?”
“Lady said there’s some sort of festival to celebrate asparagus. Apparently it packs the town every year for the whole damn weekend. Whitest shit I’ve heard of in a while, that’s for sure.”
