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But it didn’t take long for them to intuit that there was indeed a pecking order. They might never be Americans, but neither were they held in the lowest regard.
As I study his face, I feel something akin to disappointment. What he’s done to himself in the last twenty years is a stain on his family tree.
Rude, he could be sick
Paul explained that a couple of nights earlier he and this friend had pretended to be gay and lured a guy to an empty parking lot not far from Steer Queer. Once they got there, they got out of their cars. “And as soon as that faggot got on his knees, we beat the shit out of him. When we were done, he looked like a fucking used tampon.”
Neither will I forget the epilogue of that story, a detail so vivid and chilling, and, I believed, telling. After Paul and his friend left that man groaning and bloodied on the pavement, they drove off, but when they were halfway home, they had to pull over. “I felt so sick about touching that queer, I had to puke my guts out,” Paul said,
To live in the suburbs required resources and government assistance that only whites had once received freely. Everyone else made their way slowly by working thrice as hard in order to live two-thirds as well.
Andy stood furtively on the perimeters of circles, groups, cliques, waiting, surreptitiously edging his way in, fawning and maneuvering toward a thinned coterie of friendships. Friends became collectible things, useful only for how they inflated Andy’s value. He might not be one of them, but he’d convince them otherwise.
Eric’s crime was being Black. It was the second time that year that a white girl had been taken out of the school for dating a Black boy. Not long after the Donna-and-Eric affair, a group of us (all white, except for me) were hanging out in Marie’s basement—surely drinking from her mom’s liquor cabinet—and someone asked how our parents would have reacted to a similar situation. All of the girls, except for Marie,
Their parents adored me, sat next to my family at church, had taken me trick-or-treating, and driven me home from birthday parties. I was the kid that all parents liked and trusted, I thought. I didn’t want to date any of those girls to begin with, but I certainly didn’t want to be told I couldn’t.
I’m reminded of a research study that argued that the proliferation of SUVs in the United States was a reflection of the growing mistrust and fear in society, which was, in turn, attributable to the decades-long trend in income inequality. Larger cars, in other words, made people feel safer, not on the road per se, but from one another.
This sounds like the author's voice, not Andres's
I don’t say anything because it won’t be anything nice. Youth, after all, is no excuse for abject stupidity. Few politicians don’t suck, but why pick the one that sucks the most? George W. Bush? Really?
This is so judgy
She knows that it pains me to leave this house. Rather consistently over the last twenty years, I haven’t offered to go to the market, I never went bowling with Henry, I resisted all of my mother’s attempts at dining out, I went to the movies only for matinee showings on non-holidays. On some visits, I didn’t even step out onto the patio. I hate this place. I hate the town,
Then why did you go to your highschool reunion??
As far as I can tell, the suburbs are where people go to preserve their ignorance, in service of a delusion they’ve mistaken for a dream. They tired of the more interesting human experiment and fled. Cowards, the lot. Working class, middle class, and one-percenters alike.
This is very judgey
“Where are you from?” I ask, before immediately remembering that Paul already told me and despite detesting the question itself. “Cuba,” she says. Cuban. Wonderful. I bet she’s one of these right-wing types who want all of us to suffer through their PTSD because their parents or grandparents were wealthy landowners who lost their estancias when Castro took over.
Please stop
On the other hand, they’re pretty rad people who would give this situation a pass, considering the nature, intent, and impact of the humor. It’s a lazy play on words, not a calculated attack on a religious minority. And the source, too, merits consideration: a person experiencing an acute mental health crisis; a Black woman experiencing an acute mental health crisis.
Again, this is taking me out of the story
Besides, Ikbir has never hired a Black person to work at the store; maybe I don’t need to feel too sorry for him.
I hate how he just goes on these random trains of thought
Adult-onset conservatism is also just exhaustion. A lifetime of being optimistic about life’s unsolved problems fosters disappointment and, eventually, pessimism. But no one wants to believe they’re pessimistic, so they switch perspectives and move the goalposts. The injustices that could have been remedied with more resources or more empathy transform into intractable dilemmas that we then argue must be addressed with austerity and hard knocks, when the truth is that we never pumped in enough resources or empathy to have truly solved anything. Boom: conservative. Or maybe it isn’t a
...more
This is an entire rant
“Simone, can I ask you a personal question?” “Everything’s personal. Shoot.” “How does it get to this point? To be in here?” “This.” Simone places a finger on her temple. “Managing this is a full-time job. I feel okay now, but sometimes life gets in the way, and this gets neglected.” “Aren’t the meds enough? If you just stick to them—” “Not that simple, Andy. Plus, I don’t like them.”
Wtf aren't you a public health professor?
We are, after all, a society that mistreats people to the point of damage so that we can then use the damage as a pretext for more mistreatment.
THE NEIGHBORHOOD
The first part of this chapter is an entire sociology textbook
Phyllis eyed Wesley
Ok why are we reading about Simone's parents now?!
LATE-STAGE CAPITALISM
Why are we jumping to Paul's life story now?!
Jerzy looked at him for a moment before reaching out and taking his son’s penis in his hand and giving it a subtle squeeze, as if it were a cow’s udder, and he, the farmer. Paul swatted his father’s hand away. “You should thank me for that.” Jerzy stumbled backward but maintained a grin on his face. “Don’t know why you turned out so short, but you definitely owe me for your manhood.”
Wtf this is weird
Should I go?” “No. Tonya won’t be home for at least an hour.” “We’re going to hell.” “For this?” Jeremy asks. “Among other things.” “I’m not going to stress about it.” “What would you do if your wife walked through that door right now?” “I don’t know.”
Absolutely trashy
Barely eke out a high school degree, spend time locked up, and earn next to nothing, but they’re still making bank off of slavery-era memorabilia. Meanwhile, someone mentions reparations, and immediately everyone wants an itemized list of how exactly Black people are going to spend every last dime of their money.
Wtf?! This is so random
This is the fourth day of this, of taking advantage of Jeremy’s kids’ swim lessons to meet up, get high, and fuck. I told Marco already, but I didn’t tell Jeremy that I told Marco. I called Marco as soon as I got home after the first time. He’d just gone to bed.
Trashy
This is the fourth day of this, of taking advantage of Jeremy’s kids’ swim lessons to meet up, get high, and fuck. I told Marco already, but I didn’t tell Jeremy that I told Marco. I called Marco as soon as I got home after the first time. He’d just gone to bed.
He told him??
We did that for two years’ worth of Tuesdays, and at some point, it became obvious that the clerks were preoccupied with me. If I remained still, they kept their positions behind the counter. If I moved about the store, they did too. It had never, not for one moment, occurred to me to steal anything, but the clerks made me self-conscious. I began monitoring my movements.
I would have liked a flashback of this, there's way too much telling in this book and not enough showing
But I’m not a complete swine. I apologized to Marco. Even if, frankly, I don’t think he deserved the apology, since he cheated first.
So it's okay to cheat as long as your partner does it first? Okay Andres.
“He’s a good Mexican,” Jeremy’s father said once to his wife, knowing well that Andy wasn’t Mexican; in fact, he’d said it in defense of Andy, who Jeremy’s mother felt had been spending too much time with their son. The demographics of the town and the surrounding towns had been shifting in recent years, and they’d both been secretly disappointed that their son had started a new school and had somehow aligned himself with one of the few non-white kids. “Could be worse,” he said to his wife. The parameters of worse were clear even when unspoken.
Wow so racist
How it was always Jeremy calling. How Andy seemed to stop seeing his other friends. What happened to Simone and Marie and Greg and Sal and Alex and Marie and Rhonda and Mike D. or was it Mike C. and Monique and all of the Nicoles.
Right? He ditched his friends when he got a boyfriend
“Even the good guys are ruined eventually. You can’t have a two-tiered system of power in society. People walking around with a license to kill. That’ll corrupt anyone, especially in an uneven society that uses the pretext of poverty to legitimize racism.”
People don't talk like this
Simone caps her muted absolution with a shrug. “I was too.” I don’t need this shit crosses my mind. I mean, give me a freaking break. This isn’t all my fault. Maybe if society hadn’t been so completely demoralizing for queer youth, I might have found a way to incorporate my relationship with Jeremy into my social life. As it happened, I was effectively forced into a double life.
Wtf no you're just a terrible friend
And then suddenly, he announced that he had diabetes. “What?” “Yeah, doctor told me last summer.” “Shit. You’re only twenty-two.” “I know.” Henry put his head down. “That’s why I’m keeping in shape.” “Fuck, Henry. How did you let this happen?”
That's the first thing you say??!
“When Enrique died, I thought about those two abortions,” she says. “I always wondered if they were girls. That would have been nice to have two and two, no?” I just wish the one sibling I had had gotten his shit together.
Wow sooooooo rude to his dead brother
I split the difference. I remain faithful by masturbating in my childhood bedroom while thinking of my high school boyfriend. Later, I send my husband a see-you-soon text.
He's terrible
To ride a bicycle along the wide boulevards, commercial corridors, and immense, frenetic intersections of the suburbs is to take your life into your own hands.
Not every suburb is like this!!!
Sometimes, when I come across one of the newer immigrants, I want to beg them to go back to the city. Don’t trade in proximity to your communities or to humanity for more space! You’ll die younger because of it!
Not all cities are diverse and welcoming to people of color
