הבן היחיד שלך | Life & Times .... A MEMOIR written by Greg Troy

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L'Absinthe 1875–6, Musée d’Orsay, Paris by Edgar Degas Photo RMN H. Lewandowski

השניים בציור המפורסם דומים מאוד להורי

I was seventeen years old, stretched out on my bed and reading the following passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses:

.... “There are sins or (let us call them as the world calls them) evil memories which are hidden away by man in the darkest places of the heart but they abide there and wait. He may suffer their memory to grow dim, let them be as though they had not been and all but persuade himself that they were not or at least were otherwise. Yet a chance word will call them forth suddenly and they will rise up to confront him in the most various circumstances, a vision or a dream, or while timbrel and harp soothe his senses or amid the cool silver tranquility of the evening or at the feast, at midnight, when he is now filled with wine. Not to insult over him will the vision come as over one that lies under her wrath, not for vengeance to cut him off from the living but shrouded in the piteous vesture of the past, silent, remote, reproachful. ….” ....

And that’s exactly when I heard my drunken dad scream at my mother, “You’re just a fuckin’ Jew.”
My bedroom was situated just above the kitchen. I heard my mother slam her coffee mug on the glass-top eating table. She was more than just furious.

“What the fuck did you just fucking call me, you shithead Catholic?”

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Shh! … This is a family secret.

There was dead, heavy silence.
In a much weaker voice, my dad asked my mother, “Where’s my bottle of Chivas Regal?”
“Up your fuckin’ asshole,” my mother screamed back.
Once again there was tense silence.
My father laughed first; then my mother began to laugh until both of their voices blended together like a loving caress.
I lowered my eyes to continue reading while my subconscious wondered who I was and why I existed. ....

הבן היחיד שלך

Timothy Abram McManus

Greenwich Village, NYC

(quoted from Eat Your Parents,written by Timothy McManus)

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