Cocaine's Son (2011)
“How did it go?
What was that horrible, gut-clenching couplet he used to recite in the middle of every argument, as if to show that no bit of wisdom could be contradicted if it had meter and cadence—as if to prove that nothing that rhymed could ever be wrong?
Was it this?
A man against himself convincedIs of the same opinion since.
No, that surely doesn’t sound like anything my father would say. But if that’s the wrong verse, why can’t I remember the right one? If I can retain everything from th...e complete lyrics of the Beatles to the opening stanzas of The Canterbury Tales, from the strange, synaptic wallpaper patterns in the hallway of my childhood apartment building to my complete history of telephone numbers, why can’t I keep track of two simple, stinking lines of superstitious poetry?
I convinced myself that I’d always remember them, which is another way of saying I assumed I’d never be rid of them. But when I thought I was holding on to the words themselves, I was only savoring the intensity of my annoyance with them, congratulating myself for how much shrewder I was than the man who spoke them.MoreLess
What was that horrible, gut-clenching couplet he used to recite in the middle of every argument, as if to show that no bit of wisdom could be contradicted if it had meter and cadence—as if to prove that nothing that rhymed could ever be wrong?
Was it this?
A man against himself convincedIs of the same opinion since.
No, that surely doesn’t sound like anything my father would say. But if that’s the wrong verse, why can’t I remember the right one? If I can retain everything from th...e complete lyrics of the Beatles to the opening stanzas of The Canterbury Tales, from the strange, synaptic wallpaper patterns in the hallway of my childhood apartment building to my complete history of telephone numbers, why can’t I keep track of two simple, stinking lines of superstitious poetry?
I convinced myself that I’d always remember them, which is another way of saying I assumed I’d never be rid of them. But when I thought I was holding on to the words themselves, I was only savoring the intensity of my annoyance with them, congratulating myself for how much shrewder I was than the man who spoke them.MoreLess
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