You know, Cousin, it doesn’t take much to be nice to somebody, does it? Just a little human decency.

The last day of the month crawled by. It crawled like the afternoon sun crawled, a sun unseen but for its subtle siblings, an army of fleeting images, forming and fleeing along the tier of windshields in the cars parked in front of Taylor’s small store. Bright, far too bright, these beacons winked on and off, glaring at Taylor as he walked here and there in his store, going about his business, going about his attempts to avoid his business, going about his efforts to try and ignore the fact that there was no business.

The trick to reality is in learning how to fake it.

One small man, one large universe, one lousy Christmas for both…

Now … talk this way Hi, y’all! Welcome to Charleston, home of aristocracy by proxy and hubris by mail. We know you’ll like it here, in fact, we insist. If we let you in at all, that is. Here in the birth­place of the hamburger, the ice cream cone, the zeppelin and the unnecessary Caesarean …

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