When they’d first heard that he’d joined the Marines, Dale remembered thinking a wuss like Everett would get eaten alive. Now, Dale couldn’t help but wonder how many men he’d killed.

“We’re going to make one last memory of the city you were born in,” I say. Perhaps this isn’t very good mothering on my part, but I want him to have this one last image of city living.

“I’m afraid our only reentry system will be the twin forces of gravity and atmospheric drag. It will be a spectacular firework wherever it comes down.”

It is the unmistakable rumble of internal combustion, and it thunders like a harbinger of doom, like heavy artillery rolling in, poised to conquer this tranquil bayside town.

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Somehow she had arrived at $250 as the right amount to convince a gutter punk to make a fresh start, but definitely in another place.

Sure, there is the risk of discovering him in flagrante, but she also has to brace herself for the slim but not inconceivable possibility that she might interrupt him in the midst of tinkering with pipe bombs or stashing handguns under his mattress.

“It will be a boy,” she said. “Ryōshi. He will be a right-handed pull hitter with power to the gaps. I can already tell.”

Even though we had drifted apart, I still knew at least one thing about Marvin: he didn’t give a good goddamn about art.

“Give me a minute,” she says. “I want to see if I feel anything.”

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“Whenever you’re ready,” we had told God as we lounged in bed on that first Sunday morning after our ad had gone out. “Rapture away.”

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“The last thing my daddy ever gave me was a paper bag filled with his own shit.”

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“It’s not Rum Springer till someone gets off,” we said, and Deena took them back to the stockroom, one at a time.

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How far up the Allegheny would the Pittsburgh Police Department take me before they pistol whipped me and tossed me in the drink?

Cecily could tell they were edgy, understandable considering the bruise staining her face and the gouge her knife had left in the bar.

I don’t see the sandwich, but thank Christ, she’s carrying whiskey.

“Who wants trouble in this heat?” says Carter. He takes a pull from his beer bottle and meets Crowley’s gaze. “I’m just here for the party.”

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It’s high time I caddied a winner.

Your first day on the job, the only thing they tell you is, “Don’t look down.”

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