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The door opens a crack, and in the spilled, triangular glow, a tall kid wearing a red bandana over his streaming brown hair slips out. He stops six feet away and bends slightly forward--almost a butler's bow--saying, Excuse me, Miss Karr. Mind if I join you?

Who is he? With his formal demeanor a…

[...] The three of us are walking toward the street when he says, Who made all this?

The park? Some nice liberals, I say.

No, this, he says, sweeping his upturned palm across the autumn landscape.

[...] I babble on about my long-held grudges against the god I don't believe in, saying, What kind of god would permit the holocaust?

To which Lux says, You're not in the holocaust.

In other words, what is the holocaust my business? When my own life is falling apart, he wants to know, why am …

I exhale a highway of smoke and stare down it, then say, Each day has just been about survival, just getting through, standing it.

Don't you see how savage that sounds? Like, that's the way men in prison yards think. You live in a rich suburb and teach literature.

Composition mostly, I say (L…

[...] One day at a time forces you to reckon with the instant you actually occupy, rather than living in fantasy la-la that never arrives.