Status Updates From Trust Me

The conversation, too, serves a purpose of location, of locating the others on a continuum of happiness or its opposite, of satisfying the speakers that the others are within hailing distance in this our dark passage through life, with its mating and birthing, its getting and spending, its gathering and scattering. -- J.U.

The three women talk, touching their friends with their tongues not to harm them but to give themselves pleasure; little new can be offered—mere pinches or slivers added to the salad, tiny, almost meaningless remarks or glimpses that yet do enhance the flavor. -- J.U.

Above his head, on the swaybacked ceiling, footsteps scurry and rustle like those of giant rats. The children: he wants to go upstairs to check on the girls and tuck in the twins, but during these leaf-season weekends the children are invited to make their own society, and exist like a pack of shadows in the corners of the grownup fun. -- J.U.

[What was so funny?] Their all being here in Vermont, in this old farmhouse with its smells from another century, is in itself funny, and the Saturday-night meal of something so hearty and Western as chili and hot dogs is funny, and the half-gallons of cheap wine that replace themselves at the table, like successive generations of bulbous green dwarfs, are part of the delicate, hallucinatory joke. -- J.U.

The weariness of the long drive is still in her voice. Ruth’s words are like glass sandwiches that reflect back an obvious meaning on the first level, a less obvious one on the second, and so on, as deep as you want to look. “The poor child sat on the bench,” she adds. -- J.U.

This whole milieu and business of woodchopping is so exotic to him that his awareness flickers like a bad light bulb. Minutes of blankness —rural idiocy, Marx had called it— are suddenly illumined by a flash when the maul again sinks its murderous edge close to the tips of his city shoes; then the pebbles, the grit, the twigs are superillumined, vivid as the granules of paint in a Dubuffet... -- J.U.

The smells of the house are country smells—linoleum, ashes, split wood, plaster, a primeval cellar damp that rises through the floorboards and follows us up the steep, wear-rounded stairs to the second floor, where we see the children and their sleeping bags settled in the tangle of middle rooms. -- J.U.

And the leaves, whole valleys and mountains of them—the strident pinks and scarlets of the sugar and swamp maples, the clangorous gold of the hickories, the accompanying brasses of birch and beech, on both sides of the road, rise after rise, a heavenly tumult tied to our dull earth only by broad bands of evergreen and outcroppings of granite. We arrive feeling battered by natural glory [...]. -- J.U.

The Wallet: A grandfather’s hand on his grandson’s forehead; the boy looks up. The old man lowers his hand to the boy’s nose, extending his index and middle finger. A gesture superimposed onto a round face resembles what the old man fears most: a clock.

Getting into the Set: To join The Set, you must purchase the proper garments, wear intricate accessories that hang at all angles, manicure the lawn to 2 inches, and have an iphone 17 nestled in the cockpit of your mercedes. You've followed the instructions: celebrate. As you enter the restaurant you notice that The Set's table is full. So you wait at the bar, sipping at a martini -- waiting your turn.

Made in Heaven: Hold your breath and lean in; the choir has stopped. You think, She's Catholic; I'm free to love her. Why can't time move backward as she steps forward? You repeat, "Body of Christ." She touches your hand with her fingertips: they linger. The wafer drops to the ground. Yes, you think, we're free to love.

Poker Night: The poker table has nothing but sharks; late stage throat cancer has Eddie coughing up blood. The players are heedless, being three deep into their Old Fashioneds. Despite the blood on his hand, Eddie throws down a King-high Straight Flush: Suicide King -- winning the pot. Life is good.

Slippage: Men in coral castles sleep soundly as an earthquake rips through the borough below, dismantling wood hovels. A common man with a black beard -- speckled gray -- sees a woman before him. Her sharp jaw and curved body in a wrap dress silhouettes the sun. The earth trembles and begs. His tongue shakes, daring to speak what he always wanted to say. His lips part as the earth swallows him whole.

The Other: Melanie's index finger is missing: birth defect. She looks at a mirror; what stares back is not quite right. The hairline is deep and wide, parting in the center -- revealing a mole; her black hair is frail: lacking sheen. The eyes are red water; a nose is concave -- half moon nostrils slant. She turns and runs, the image follows, outstretching an arm -- waving goodbye.

One Last Interview: The Interviewer is dressed in a fresh cut tailored suit with black and white stripes. It fits perfectly; it will be a sin when smell necessitates the need to strip it from his body. He sees the Actor circling the Walmart parking lot and signals by flapping his arms. As the Actor's car approaches the Interviewer ruminates, "To get the right answers, ask the wrong questions."

on the sentence level, he never misses 😌

The Ideal Village: I inspect your ankles, blood spots run along your thighs, "Piranhas," I say. "No harm," you reply. Your legs fall from my lap, bringing your knees to your chin -- you give them a strong hug, pressing a cheek into your bicep. "We should go for a swim," you say playfully. I poke the fire with a stick, pushing the burning end into the sole of my boot and say, "Not tonight... paradise can wait."

Learn a Trade: Your great paps started it... gave it to my paps, who gave it to me, now it's yours boy. You'll carry well. Be it -- you do what I say. Now take it. Go on, take it. Right. Run, don't look back... no stoppin'. When the blood you carrin' is hot, drink from the bottle. But damn you, don't stop. Not until they find you.

More Stately Mansions: Updike outlines the raw nature of an extramarital affair. The pacing and writing have rhythm, and some of the quotes are cast-iron brands straight out of the fire.

Pygmalion: "Trade. Why be satisfied? Look. New man, new..." he pauses to adjust the notch on his belt, "Mr. J, you wonder, Is it a poor handler? Don't know, haven't driver. The system still brings bass, bone breaker, blast it: Doors and GNR. You want to; I know. I see. Don't hesitate. Trust me. What you're getting = same, but now... the engine laughs: no yawning aloud."