Either my standards are too high, or my highs are too standard, Ruby Louise said to me in a moment of lucidity. Another thing she said was, I remember there was a corner bar on the street where I grew up. It had a flashing crimson neon sign claiming they served the World's Worst Steaks. Parking lot was always full. Expectations can break minds, and kick asses into high gear. And one day can change everything. Walking across a baked heatwave hallucination of a parking lot, ambulating toward a shade tree oasis in deepest summertime, stepping into a sanctuary or strolling to oblivion. They’ve all been on the menu at one time or another. It’s kindness we all want, I suppose. Reels and reels of memory-pictures from way back when unspool in my mind. One day it all changed. People got put away, and never came back. Or, became someone else while locked up in that unspeakable place. I’ve met a lot of people lately who are losing their minds. Stealing from a family member is lower than the curve of a snake’s belly, Bobby Balukas spat out from somewhere deep inside his guts, as seven of us walked across Central Park after the late shift, past midnight – something we were never crazy enough to do again. When your highs are too standard, it’s time to raise your standards, I said to Ruby Louise, while we sat in the backseat of a rusting-out Buick in a Winn-Dixie parking lot, during a car window-rattling summer thunderstorm. She passed me a bottle of chain drugstore Burgundy wine in a paper bag, and said, where’d you hear that from?
Thank you! This was utterly beguiling. Gorgeous read. Whoa.
So great, Russell. Smooth writing and vivid images. This is going to resonate with everyone I've been working with for the past 30 years--the high standards people. They stick to their standards and struggle with episodes of imposter syndrome.