- A lotta people would say that was like mad romance.
There was a violinist, words written with accent marks and all! Wine, roses. Classic romance. Bet!
- a statue that was hard to identify but might have been a goat in a bathtub and which may have had a feminist bent
How he snuck up to Avery in a minimalist hotel lobby, with nothing to hide behind except six uncomfortable chairs, ten dead-eyed staff and a goat-in-a-bathtub’s worth of feminism, Avery will never figure out.
- Ain’t lettin’ no brothah go on that ecstasy trip
Ain’t nothin’ proper about happy hardcore, whatevuh kinda kinky BDSM nonsense that is.
- Blackbeard thought he was just importing rum and exporting dead sailors.
Him and Big John did watch a lacrosse game a couple weeks back, when they was bored. It was free on the internet, which goes to show you how much money the lacrosse niggas thought there was in it (none, or they’d charge for it).
- Drink when it floods, nigga!
In prison, Steel saw a documentary, and it turned out lizards drink mad water, like desert lizards when it floods, they be guzzling that! Lizards is wise motherfuckers.
- Every time like a watch.
Steel was still letting the demon of alcoholism haunt his brain, so he ain’t even conisder saying no. Addiction gonna put you in that position every single time.
- Fallen soldiers
Well, that metaphor was outta control — outta control like a drunk! Or a war!
- His friends were still meditating on crystal balls and promising themselves a glorious future
. His friends swore that positive visualization and crystal energy would get him into a more exciting, successful life.
- I sees it wit’ my ever-belovin’ eyeballs
“Bottles all ovuh, hallelujah! Only Jaysus can pick up aftuh me! Oh Lord hallelujah! Lord gimme strength to see! With eyes of knowin’!”
- Like a fish denying water is real
He flapped his hands at his ears — presumably his impression of a fish’s gills — Avery suspected Steel did not know what gills were.
- Mundanity über alles
He had seen everything the family business had to offer. It was a salad of humdrumity, plated on tedium and dressed in a viscous layer of ennui: databases and disputes about payroll software and paycheck garnishments, property tax abatements, negotiations over long-haul trucking and container ships at ...
- Occupational conventions are the devil’s pot roast
Steel said he had to come along because “occupational conventions are the devil’s pot roast”. Avery had never thought about pot roast like that.
- On units of measure
He expected Buck to calculate how many quarters-of-a-half-gallon could be combined with some number of five-eighths-of-a-liter to result in a fourteen-liter total volume.
- She talks like a professor, but a professor who only studies things that don’t matter.
Pam seemed to spend her days coming up with tasks and complaints. Last night, she made Wojo take her to a Bonita Casita in downtown Amarillo. That was a home goods store. She wanted curtains. What was wrong with the existing curtains in the trailer? She couldn’t ...
- So come-to-me-bro turned to come-at-me-brah, and he and him switched from brothers in Christ to niggas in crisis
Lotta niggas enter the halfway home thinking they’s on the pretend about following the straight and narrow. But things you pretend are true have a way of coming true, so Steel let that lie lie.
Or he let it lay. He done lain it to lie. Whatever, Steel ...
- Steel lost the thread of this metaphor.
The best way to fight addiction is to do it before it starts. Nibble it in the butt!
- Straight-up drunk as a trunk!
Steel be making good comparisons, you’re impressed by them.
- that difference was the most important fact that was largely unknown and unspoken of
Rudeness didn’t bother Rob. Meanness did. Some people had forgotten there was a difference. Rob thought that difference was the most important fact that was largely unknown and unspoken of.
- That’s how they get ya, for every definition of “they” and “get” and “ya”
Anyway again, he did it again, and then again, cuz Whiteness pressured him into doing it a third time. And then Steel knew he was in a bad place. That’s how they get ya, for every definition of “they” and “get” and “ya”. A nigga be purporting ...
- The fence-post of your brain-yard
“That metaphor got away from me, Avery, sorry ’bout that. But I can help you wit’ any of them succumbations.”
- The fourdained road
That’s yo’ addiction layin’ its toll on yo’ mind, like a toll road on yo’ mind, chargin’ a toll… in yo’ mind. Yo’ mind is both the road and the destination. And the toll.
- The niggas ain’t do that when Steel was young. They just popped they collars and occasionally robbed a bodega.
But Rico and them, the kitkats, came to church cuz they committed aheada time and cuz Steel and Big John woulda tracked ’em down with fist-shape kisses if they ain’t show up or if they left partway through the night.
- The skate park of sobriety
On the skateboard of sobriety, I’mma be yo’, uh… wheels, I guess — I dunno how skateboards work.
- They shoulda sent a poet, y’all!
He been clean as a fiend for nine months. A female could birth a baby in that time. All it takes is a lady, a dingdong and the good Lord above! And health insurance and a midwife and at least one Asian…
- Trivia ante momentum
Trivia ante momentum is the motto of womanhood, after all, and garden parties were the height of feminimity.
- Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink
He hid that notion under his domey-doodle though.
- Whine like wine
Drunkie-doorights stay complaining! The only cure for that is more sobriety!
- Wine is how the devil corrupts the grape
“You as dis’ppointing as that movie — that dumb one, wit’ the wine — got that Asian chick who look like a horse — you ever see that one? — Nevermind, I can’t remember — you done dis’ppoint me, son.”
- you google it
Steel wanna dip his dingdong in that bitch like she the spicy mustard from McDonald’s.
- You know Steel stays listening to Some Nigga
Some nigga said the whole rig was counted as a boat under the law, so any alcohol was tantamount to boating under the influence, and you know Steel stays listening to Some Nigga.
