No, Miss Wright didn't want to meet her kid. To her, that relationship was just as important, just as ideal and impossible as it would be to the child. She'd expect that young man to be perfect, smart, and talented, everything to compensate for all the mistakes that she'd made. The whole wasted, unhappy mess of her life.

Like the he-man movie stars who turn out to be queer . . . or the silent-film actors whose voices sound terrible recorded--the audience only wants a limited amount of honesty. [ellipses original]

Fathers. Mothers. With all their caring and attention. They will f--- you up, every time.

I had a choice. My instincts told me to hurry up and give the choking man the Heimlich maneuver. My brain told me to stay still until he expired and chalk this one up to divine intervention.

Some mysterious revenge of nature has seen to it that no poem in praise of drink or tobacco (or snuff, if any) can succeed.

Take a pinch of snuff, doctor, and acknowledge that I have scored over you in your example.