25 May 2014

from “The Troubles of Celestial Bodies,” in Annie Proulx’s Postcards


            “But I worked it out in my cunning wet brain that if I was consistently haywire and did meticulous work in the sober periods the records would still have some value because there’d be regularity to them. That’s my rationalization. That’s how I work. My work is flawed, but it’s a consistent flaw.” […]
            He started as soon as the cabin was in sight, as though he had crossed a boundary into a more permissive country. The bottle came out of his shirt pocket, the pocket over his heart, his heart’s desire. He tipped it back and let the whiskey flower in his throat. The long exhalation was mostly relief, a little pleasure. […]
            “You know,” he said, “you can get so used to silence that it’s painful when you heard music again.” […]
            “Life cripples us up in different ways but it gets everybody. It gets everybody is how I look at it. Gets you again and again and one day it wins.”
            “Oh yes? And the way you see it you just have to keep getting up until you can’t get up? Question of how long you can last?”
            “Something like that.”

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