Since We Fell

by Dennis Lehane

“A man is the stories he tells about himself, and most of those stories are lies. Never look too closely. If you uncover his lies, it’ll humiliate you both. Best to just live with the bullshit.”

So she spent her life in search of solutions to problems that were born, raised, lived, and died within the boundaries of her own marrow.

The women who once pursued him turned into women who had to be pursued. They then became women who had to be lubricated with the proper amounts of humor and alcohol. Finally, one day, they’d be repulsed or amused to discover he thought of them sexually.

The soul seemed to flower as the body declined.

“The only people who ask questions like ‘Did he want to be something besides a bartender?’ are people who can become whatever they want. The rest of us are just Americans.”