That's gonna last until next year you're gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood, talkin' about, you know, the pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization. Then you're going to be talking about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist way back in 1740. You're gonna be convinced of that 'till next month when you get to James Lemon. You're a first-year grad student you just got finished reading some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison probably. My contention is that prior to the Revolutionary War, the economic modalities, especially in the southern colonies, could be most aptly described as agrarian pre-capitalist. I was just hoping you might give me some insight into the evolution of the market economy in the southern colonies. I didn't know Pudge was gonna hit a homer. Woulda been nice to catch that game, though. And I sure as hell don't regret missin' the damn game. And I don't regret the last years when she got really sick. I don't regret the six years I had to give up counseling when she got sick. I don't regret the 18 years I was married to Nancy. That's why I'm not talkin' right now about some girl I saw at a bar twenty years ago and how I always regretted not going over and talking to her. That's what you said? And they let you get away with that? I just slid my ticket across the table, and I said, "Sorry, guys I gotta see about a girl." Oh my God and who are these fuckin' friends of yours, they let you get away with that? I don't care if Helen of Troy walks in the room, that's Game 6! So, uh, what is it, like, Will has an attachment disorder? Is it all that stuff?įear of abandonment? Is that why I broke up with Skylar? He used to just put a belt, a stick, and a wrench on the table. Interesting nights were when he wore his rings. So I'd provoke him, so he wouldn't go after my mother and little brother. He'd come home hammered, looking to whale on somebody. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some fuckin' book. You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. I don't see an intelligent, confident man. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you.
But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling seen that. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. You're just a kid, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talkin' about. fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and haven't thought about you since.
Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting.