You Were Never Really Here

Joe knew that all human beings are the star of their own very important film, a film in which they are both camera and actor; a film in which they are always playing the fearful and lonely hero who gets up each day hoping to finally strike upon the life they are meant to lead, though they never do.

The “big sister” was usually a prostitute in her early thirties, who, trying to hang on near the end of her career, makes herself useful by chaperoning and befriending the young ones—training them, shopping for them, and feeding them a steady diet of Vicodin, Klonopin, Xanax, and Oxycontin, all of which kept the girls on the playground pliant and docile.

Blackmail was another good source of revenue.

A hammer doesn’t ask why it strikes.

No more women, no more sex, no more companionship of any kind.

Still, at his core, Joe was a Marine, and he had been well trained, as their motto went, to adapt, improvise, and overcome.