Song of Solomon

by Toni Morrison

“I hope it is a rainbow, and nobody has run off with the pot, cause I need it.” “Everybody needs it.” “Not as bad as me.” Guitar smiled. “Look like you really got the itch now. More than before.” “Yeah, well, everything’s worse than before, or maybe it’s the same as before. I don’t know. I just know that I want to live my own life. I don’t want to be my old man’s office boy no more. And as long as I’m in this place I will be. Unless I have my own money. I have to get out of that house and I don’t want to owe anybody when I go. My family’s driving me crazy. Daddy wants me to be like him and hate my mother. My mother wants me to think like her and hate my father. Corinthians won’t speak to me; Lena wants me out. And Hagar wants me chained to her bed or dead. Everybody wants something from me, you know what I mean? Something they think they can’t get anywhere else. Something they think I got. I don’t know what it is—I mean what it is they really want.”

Chained by circumstances