Deadline' is the story of a young man forced to discover who he is, and what's important in life, during the short span of his senior year in high school.
Chris CrutcherIf someone's different from you and it scares you or makes you mad, that's God telling you to take a closer look. If you're scared or mad, that's about you, not about the person who scares you or angers you.
Chris CrutcherSo you didnโt tell me it was a messed-up idea to keep this all a secret because. . .โ โBecause experience is the only teacher,โ Hey-Soos says. โEven if I could have told you, it would have been a lecture. Why do you think kids donโt listen to their parents, or people donโt leave churches and do what the preacher tells them? Thereโs only one thing thatโs universal.โ โWhatโs that?โ โThe truth.
Chris CrutcherSomething about the joy and pain of that moment, something about the excruciating contrast, made me feel that no matter what happens now, my life has been worth it. What a ride.
Chris CrutcherWe get crazy when we can't make things be like the world tells us they are". She looked back out the window. "It was that way for me and your brother, I think. I mean, how could I have loved him that last year? I didn't even know who he was. He was way more attracted to drugs and bikers and that whole lifestyle than he was to me. But somebody told me that if you really loved somebody,you stayed with him no matter what. You had to fight for him." She laughe. "Hell, I was convinced.
Chris CrutcherI figure if Doc is right about the time I have left,I should wrap up my adolescence in the next few days, get into my early productive stages about the third week of school, go through my midlife crisis during Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, redouble my efforts at productivity and think about my legacy, say, Easter, and start cashing in my 401(k)s a couple weeks before Memorial Day.
Chris Crutcher