Galveston

by Nic Pizzolatto

her smile flashed the danger of momentum, of riding hard with no plan.

Something becomes too enjoyable, too consistent, and before you know it, you’re compromised.

“She used to be a lot different,” Lance said. “She straightened up before me and I guess she’s taken it a little far, maybe. I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t see Nancy just like she is now, you understand. I see all the Nancy I ever knew, and there were all sorts of her. She likes that I got all that history, even if she acts like she don’t.”

experienced the murky horror that comes with certain hangovers, where you wonder what exactly you’ve been up to, what tickets you’ve written.

Why to be humble.

When it worked, reading could take away the burden of time. This reading habit I picked up over the last twenty years doesn’t make me a different person. It just became the best way for me to spend time, since I couldn’t drink.

Youngsters had taken over one stretch. These tan, slim bodies drew some resentment from me at the way they took it for granted, time and opportunity, their entitlement. A Frisbee glided slow over their heads, and it seemed that for some people the world was forever noon, and I heard their voices and laughs and watched them chase one another like pups. I couldn’t imagine Rocky out there. A lot of things never get to become what they should.

I thought about things you can’t survive, even if they don’t kill you.

spent some time in those early morning hours trying to think my way through to the next right thing.

When I read I got involved in the words and what they were saying so that I didn’t measure the passing of time in typical ways. I was surprised to learn that there was this freedom made of nothing but words.

I’d always had good hands, and I could weld, fit pipes, break down an engine, box, shoot, but I started to understand that certain skills had only ever constrained me, made me into a function, a utility. I hadn’t really understood that until now.