Sunday, January 20, 2013

I need four quotes/excerpts saying some juicy things from the novel, That Was Then, This Is Now.

1.  After hustling a couple of Texans out of $25 while shooting pool at Charlie's Bar, Bryon and Mark are cornered on a dark street by their unhappy opponents. They have a handgun, and things look desperate for the two teens.



    Just at that moment, somebody stepped into the other end of the alley and a voice said, "Drop the gun and freeze--I got a sawed-off shtgun here and I'd hate to scatter dirt all over this nice clean alley."
    It was Charlie. I never thought I'd be so glad to see anyone.



2.  Bryon and Cathy finally find M&M at the hippie house, where he has been tripping for several days.



    "I went to my stomach," M&M said in a high, unnatural voice. He was talking too fast. "I went down into my stomach and all these spiders come out. I never knew there were spiders in my stomach. I was there ten years, and all that time these spiders kept chewing on me. They were big spiders."
    "...I kept trying to get back, but the spiders held me down. Held me down and chewed on me and the colors went in and out. I listened to the colors and they were screaming too. Red and yellow screamed loudest. The spiders were eating them too."



3.  After finding Mark's drugs, Bryon calls the police. Mark returns home, but instead of beating a hasty retreat, he quietly waits for the police to come.



    Then a cop said, "Let's go, kid," and it seemed to dawn on Mark what was happening. He looked quickly from the cops to me and cried, "My God, Bryon, you're not gonna let them take me to jail?"
    Didn't he know I had just put him there? The cop jerked Mark around and shoved him out the door. Suddenly it was deadly quiet--just the distant siren and Mom's quiet sobbing.
    I went into the bathrom and threw up. I was sick. 



4.  When Bryon finally meets up with Mark in the reformatory, the reunion does not unite the two boys in friendship.



    "We were like brothers," I said, desperate. "You were my best friend--"
    He laughed then, and his eyes were the golden, hard, flat eyes of a jungle animal. "Like a friend once said to me, 'That was then, this is now.' "
    I broke out in a sweat and was suddenly glad of the walls and the guards and the bars. I think if he could have, Mark would have killed me.


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