He was so in love with his own good luck, and...
He was so in love with his own good luck, and they hated him for itOnce we were all up at his place for Thanksgiving, the Dwyer mother, Dawn's kid brother Danny, Danny's wife, all the Levovs, our kids, everybody, and Seymour got up to make a toast and he said, 'I'm not a religious man, but when I look around this table, I know that something is shining down on me' It was him they were really out to getThe bomb might as well have gone off in their living roomThe violence done to his life was awfulNever in his life had occasion to ask himself, 'Why are things the way they are?' Why should he bother, when the way they were was always perfect? Why are things the way they are? The question to which there is no answer, and up till then he was so blessed he didn't even know the question existed
Had Jerry ever before been so full of his brother's life and his chloe paddington handbag brother's story? It did not strike me that all the despotic determination concentrated in that strange head could ever have allowed him to divide his attention into very many partsNot that death ordinarily impinges upon the majesty of self-obsession; generally it intensifies it: "What about me? What if this happens to me?"
"He told you it was horrible?"
"OnceOnly once," Jerry replied"No, Seymour just took it and took itYou could stay on this guy and stay on this guy and he'd just keep making the effort," Jerry said bitterly"Poor son of a bitch, that was his fate--built for bearing burdens and taking shit," and with his saying this, I remembered those scrimmage pileups from which the Swede would extricate himself, always still clutching the ball, and how seriously I'd fallen in love with him on that late-autumn afternoon long ago when he'd transformed my balenciaga handbags motorcycle ten-year-old existence by selecting me to enter the fantasy of Swede Levov's life--when for a moment it had seemed that I, too, had been called to great things and that nothing in the world could ever obstruct my way now that our god's benign countenance had shed its light on me alone"Basketball was never like this, Skip How captivatingly that innocence spoke to my ownThe significance he had given meIt was everything a boy could have wanted in 1943Remember, when we were kids, he joined the marines to fight the Japs? Well, he was a goddamn marineCaved in only once, down in Florida," Jerry said"It just got to be too much for himHe'd brought the whole family down to visit us, the boys and the second superbly selfish MrsThat was two years agoWe all went to this stone-crab placeTwelve of us for dinnerLots of noise, the kids all showing off and laughingThe whole handsome motorcycle balenciaga family there, life just the way it's supposed to beBut when the pie and coffee came he got up from the table, and when he didn't come back right away I went out and found himI'd never seen him like thatHe said, 'I miss my daughter' I said, 'Where is she?' I knew he always knew where she wasHe'd been going to see her in hiding for yearsI believe he saw her frequentlyHe said, 'She's dead, Jerry' I didn't believe him at firstIt was to throw me off the track, I thoughtI thought he must have just seen her somewhereI thought, He's still going to wherever she is and treating this killer like his own child--this killer who is now in her forties while everybody she killed is still killedBut then he threw his arms around me and he just let go, and I thought, Is it true, the family's fucking monster's really dead? But why is he crying if she's dead? If he had half a chanel cc logo earrings brain, he would have realized that it was just too extraordinary to have a child like that--if he had half a brain, he would have been enraged by this kid and estranged from this kid long agoLong ago he would have torn her out of his guts and let her goThe angry kid who gets nuttier and nuttier--and the sanctified cause to hang her craziness onCrying like that--for her? No, I couldn't buy itI said to him, 'I don't know whether you're lying to me or you're telling me the truthBut if you're telling me the truth, that she's dead, it's the best news I ever heardNobody else is going to say this to youEverybody else is going to commiserateBut I grew up with youI talk straight to youThe best thing for you is for her to be deadShe did not belong to youShe did not belong to anything that you wereShe did not belong to anything anyone isYou played ball--there was a field of black chanel quilted pl