So many things in the world have happened before. But it's like they never did. Every new thing that happens to a person, it's a first... In that nig… - Louise Erdrich

To fly from one tree to another, the raven hangs itself, hawklike, on the air. I hang myself that same way in sleep, between one day and the next.

Father Travis leaned back. I glanced up at him. He was watching us from under his brow, his hands folded in his lap. His eyes had taken on that cyborg gleam. His cheekbones looked like they were going to break right through his skin. Not only did he own a copy of Alien, not only did he have an amazing and terrible wound, but he had called us humiliating names without actually resorting to the usual swear words. Besides that there was the deft speed with which he’d caught Angus, the free weights beside the television, the fancy Michelob. It was almost enough to make a boy want to be a Catholic.

Right and wrong were shades of meaning, not sides of a coin.