Last Bender

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE           “Who’s driving?”   I asked.           “We got a driver. Get in,” he said, holding open the front door.           “No good Church. Wanda Watts told me only two.”           “I said get in. We got it all figured out. You’re working for me now, remember?”           “Wait a minute. No one said [...]

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO           Helen drove me into town. Lives moved in and out of the empty windows and half-demolished walls. A kid washed her doll in an open fire hydrant. She was barefoot and dirty with nowhere to go. I thought of my sister Mary in a little denim dress with her own toothbrush and [...]

Lonergan on Dialectic: “THE DIALECT OF COMMUNITY The name, dialectic, has been employed in a variety of meanings. In Plato, it denoted the art of philosophic dialogue and was contrasted with eristic. In Aristotle, it referred to an effort to discover clues to the truth by reviewing and scrutinizing the opinions of others. For the [...]

The Triumph of Life In many ways Shelley is the most difficult of the Romantic poets. Blake also wrote long difficult works of personal mythology, is apocalyptic in sensibility and can be read as a weird sort of Platonist. Both poets are capable of sustained surreal and grotesque imagery and both were exercised by the [...]

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE           “What about the guy in the car?” Helen asked from the curtain.           “What about him?”   I asked back.           “He’ll attract flies, won’t he?”           “She’s right,” said Linda from the bathroom. “They’ll be lookin’ for him.”           “They already are,” Helen said. “Look.”           A black sedan eased into the [...]

CHAPTER FORTY           Helen’s big hair devoured her head. The black satin robe emblazoned with dragons reached halfway down her legs. It was loosely tied with a tattered belt and I could see portions of her tattoo. She blocked the door and peered at us myopically. “It’s late,” she said. “I gotta work tomorrow.”           [...]

  From: The Temple of Glas By John Lydgate 1370-1451 For thought, constraint, and grievous hevines, For pensifhede, and for heigh distress, To bed I went now this other nyght, Whan that Lucina with her pale light Was Ioyned last with Phebus in aquaria Amyd decembre, when of Ianuarie Ther be kalendes of the new [...]

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE           After a while I got used to the guy kicking and moaning in the trunk. It was easier to get used to than the bugs flying in my mouth on the highway back to town. Linda dropped me off and I followed her in my car to her place, listening to the [...]