know the place and share the feeling

Copertini considered himself a better rider, but it was Copertini who had been going too fast in the dense woods and slammed head-first into a tree. His bike frame was mangled, but his headlight bulb had an unfractured filament, which now weakly illuminated a patch of dirt and stiff grasses. Copertini’s motorcycle was a different model than Valera’s, but they used the same lamp bulb. Valera wanted a spare. A spare would be handy.

Postscript 1868 There are things which happen and leave no discernible trace, are not spoken or written of, though it would be very wrong to say that subsequent events go in indifferently, all the same, as though such things had never been. Two people met, on a hot May day, and never later mentioned their meeting. This is how it was.

There’s a woman in the room that you trust about as far as you’d trust a snake. But like all snakes, she can be charmed. * You’re just drunk enough to tell the truth, and she’s just drunk enough to like it. * You’re loudly criticizing a dangerous man, and he respects you for it. You don’t believe her story or her money, but you believe those legs. All both of them, top to bottom, and any other direction they care to go in, too. * You’re part of the darkness now, and the darkness is a part of you. Sunshine and a fresh shave can’t clean it off, and you know it. Razors are for other men’s throats, not for yours. * You were willing to love her, but she wanted you to love her more than you loved that first drink in the morning, and so she had to go. * You live on the same street as Violence, just around the corner from Taking It Like A Man, and you’re not afraid to walk home alone. * Somewhere, a sap is playing the piano. * You wake up in Singapore. There’s a man in the bed next to you, but at least he’s dead, so you don’t have to worry about making small talk.