Come with me into the world and reclaim your independence. You stand to gain so much, and riches are the least of it.

I sighed. ‘It doesn’t matter what we do. Money comes and goes.’ I shook my head. ‘It doesn’t matter and you know it doesn’t.

Mayfield said, "You asked what I was thinking. Well, I will tell you. I was thinking that a man like myself, after suffering such a blow as you men have struck on this day, has two distinct paths he might travel in his life. He might walk out into the world with a wounded heart, intent on sharing his mad hatred with every person he passes; or, he might start out anew with an empty heart, and he should take care to fill it up with only proud things from then on, so as to nourish his desolate mind-set and cultivate something positive or new.

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

Where is your mother, Charlie asked. Dead. I’m sorry to hear that Thank you. But she was always dead.

It is true, I thought. I am living a life.

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.