“My mom would spy by satellite, turning down the air conditioning, colder and colder, with a tapping keystroke via her wireless connection, chilling that house, that one room, meat locker cold, ski-slope cold, spending a king's ransom on Freon and electric power, trying to make some doomed ten bucks' worth of pretty pink flowers last one more day.”

“Amber saw getting infected as the ultimate commitment. Like her and the guy would be doomed to be with each other. Looking back, she figured a brush with death would make her really enjoy her life. Like she would feel more alive.”

“The whole island was exactly what a kid growing up in some trailer park--say some dump like Tecumseh Lake, Georgia--would dream about. This kid would turn out all the lights in the trailer while her mom was at work. She'd lie down flat on her back, on the matted-down orange shag carpet in the living room. The carpet smelling like somebody stepped in a dog pile. The orange melted black in spots from cigarette burns. The ceiling was water-stained. she'd fold her arms across her chest, and she could picture life in this kind of place. It would be that time--late at night--when your ears reach out for any sound. When you can see more with your eyes closed than open. The fish skeleton. From the first time she held a crayon, that's what she'd draw.”

“The air will always be to filled with something. Your body too sore or tired. Your father too drunk. Your wife too cold. You will always have some excuse not to live your life.”

“One day the wickedness of the kings of the world would destroy us, oh sorrow, and armies of the world would march upon us, wailing, and the purest of the children of God would have to deliver themselves unto the Lord by their own hand.The Deliverance.”

“My mom says, "Do you know what the AIDS memorial quilt is all about?"Jump to how much I hate my brother at this moment.I bought this fabric because I thought it would make a nice panel for Shane," Mom says. "We just ran into some problems with what to sew on it."Give me amnesia.Flash.Give me new parents.Flash.Your mother didn't want to step on any toes," Dad says. He twists a drumstick off and starts scraping the meat onto a plate. "With gay stuff you have to be so careful since everything means something in secret code. I mean, we didn't want to give people the wrong idea."My Mom leans over to scoop yams onto my plate, and says, "Your father wanted a black border, but black on a field of blue would mean Shane was excited by leather sex, you know, bondage and discipline, sado and masochism." She says, "Really, those panels are to help the people left behind."Strangers are going to see us and see Shane's name," my dad says. "We didn't want them thinking things."The dishes all start their slow clockwise march around the table. The stuffing. The olives. The cranberry sauce. "I wanted pink triangles but all the panels have pink triangles," my mom says. "It's the Nazi symbol for homosexuals." She says,"Your father suggested black triangles, but that would mean Shane was a lesbian. It looks like female pubic hair. The black triangle does."My father says, "Then I wanted a green border, but it turns out that would mean Shane was a male prostitute."My mom says, "We almost chose a red border, but that would mean fisting. Brown would mean either scat or rimming, we couldn't figure which."Yellow," my father says, "means watersports."A lighter shade of blue," Mom says, "would mean just regular oral sex."Regular white," my father says, "would mean anal. White could also mean Shane was excited by men wearing underwear." He says, "I can't remember which."My mother passes me the quilted chicken with the rolls still warm inside.We're supposed to sit and eat with Shane dead all over the table in front of us.Finally we just gave up," my mom says, "and I made a nice tablecloth out of the material."Between the yams and the stuffing, Dad looks down at his plate and says, "Do you know about rimming?"I know it isn't table talk.And fisting?" my mom asks.I say, I know. I don't mention Manus and his vocational porno magazines.We sit there, all of us around a blue shroud with the turkey more like a big dead baked animal than ever, the stuffing chock full of organs you can still recognize, the heart and gizzard and liver, the gravy thick with cooked fat and blood. The flower centerpiece could be a casket spray.Would you pass the butter, please?" my mother says. To my father she says, "Do you know what felching is?”

“What stops you here is what stops your entire life."The air will always be too filled with something. Your body too sore or tired. Your father too drunk. Your wife too cold. You will always have some excuse not to live your life.”