I do not know what it was about that boy but just looking at him, even I wanted to clout him on the head. It was a head that invited violence.

It is hard to find a friend,' I said. 'It is the hardest thing in this world,' he agreed.

Here is another miserable mental image I will have to catalog and make room for.

He is not bad, I don't think. Perhaps he is simply too lazy to be good.

I lay in the dark thinking about the difficulties of family, how crazy and crooked the stories of a bloodline can be.

Most people are chained to their own fear and stupidity and haven’t the sense to level a cold eye at just what is wrong with their lives. Most people will continue on, dissatisfied but never attempting to understand why, or how they might change things for the better, and they die with nothing in their hearts but dirt and old, thin blood - weak blood, diluted - and their memories aren’t worth a goddamned thing.

We can all of us be hurt, and no one is exclusively safe from worry and sadness.