Contemporaneous: Chapters 70 – 72
70. Once we get to the strippers, I moderate my drinking so I retain a better sense of self – I used to be good at this when I was younger. While everybody else was getting insensibly drunk, I’d take it easy, or even pour the beer out when people weren’t looking. It probably comes from a lifetime of anxiety – while drinking gives me a buzz and relaxes me, I don’t want to lose control. Stan pays for several lap dances – I can’t remember if it’s in the same order he did last time. But there’re a lot of different dances, like he’s determined to sample as many…
Contemporaneous: Chapters 42 – 44
42. The phone rings. I almost don’t answer it, because I think it’ll be Lana, launching another salvo – part of me worries she’ll show up on my doorstep to continue this, although she’s only ever done that when she incontrovertibly knows she’s the one who’s fucked up, and wants to be conciliatory. You can place those visits along with Halley’s Comet. And my head’s raw. My ears are raw. I’m raw. Like I’m recoiling in expectation of some inexorable, scathing deconstruction of all my inadequacies. I wonder if this is how tortured prisoners, where the expectation now is just as horrifying as the experience itself. Fuck that. What I…