“This is the main advantage of ether: it makes you behave like the village drunkard in some early Irish novel … total loss of all basic motor skills: blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue- severance of all connection between the body and the brain. Which is interesting, because the brain continues to function more or less normally … you can actually watch yourself behaving in this terrible way, but you can’t control it.”
“Drunk Rachel sees no consequences, she is either excessively expansive and optimistic or wrapped up in hate. She has no past, no future. She exists purely in the moment.”
“It seems to me that Officer Moore is the one who brought the trouble to town by hiring that construction crew to build his shed. He already knew the guy was trouble last year when he hauled him in for being drunk,” I said trying to control the anger in my voice.
“She kissed me and left. I turned off the t.v. and opened another beer. Nothing to do on this island but get drunk. I walked to the window. On the beach below Dee Dee was sitting next to a young man, talking happily, smiling and gesturing with her hands. The young man grinned back. It felt good not to be part of that sort of thing. I was glad I wasn’t in love, that I wasn’t happy with the world. I liked being at odds with everything. People in love often become edgy, dangerous. They lose their sense of perspective. They lose their sense of humor. They become nervous, psychotic bores. They even become killers.”
“Dad stands for a minute, swaying, and puts the penny back in his pocket. He turns toward Mam and she says, You’re not sleeping in this bed tonight. He makes his way downstairs with the candle, sleeps on a chair, misses work in the morning, loses the job at the cement factory, and we’re back on the dole again.”
“Hari was shocked by the story but he did not like to be thought of as another orphan in Jagu’s care. He did have parents after all—even if one was a drunkard and the other an invalid—and a home, a proper home, not just a place on a railway platform.”