Cherry

“It's not that I'm dumb to the beauty of things. I take all the beautiful things to heart, and they fuck my heart till I about die from it.”

“He said, “You look mentally ill.” I said, “I am. Let’s go.”

“This is how you find the one to break your heart.”

“And maybe if I had gotten killed I'd have always been good.”

“I'm as nice as they come and I'm a total piece of shit.”

“The drill sergeants were just pretending to be drill sergeants. We were pretending to be soldiers. The Army was pretending to be the Army.”

“People kept dying: in ones and twos, no heroes, no battles. Nothing. We were just the help, glorified scarecrows; just there to look busy, up the road and down the road, expensive as fuck, dumber than shit.”

“I was storing treasure in heaven, where no thief can get to it.”

“I don’t imagine that anyone goes in for robbery if they are not in some kind of desperation. Good or bad people has nothing to do with it; plenty of purely wicked motherfuckers won’t ever rob shit. With robbery it’s a matter of abasement. Are you abased? Careful then. You might rob something.”

“Her eyes—green—were bright, merciful, sometimes given to melancholy, not entirely guileless. And I’d listen to her tell me about the abandoned factories and the cemetery where she’d grown up, the places where she’d skinned her knees. And her voice took me over. This is how you find the one to break your heart.”

“THERE ARE countless women in the world. At times it’s more than I can bear to think about: that there should be so many and they all start out the way they do, with all the brightness and their own invisible worlds and secret languages and what else they have, and that we ruin everything. And I have been mangled by vicious killers in my time, but I haven’t ever doubted it was only that someone had killed them first. Someone like me.”

“It was fall and you could really feel that it was fall. There was that ache. You were crushed by the beauty of it all: all the bare trees and the black sky and the streetlights.”

“There was a fake river in San Antonio. It was like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride except instead of pirates and pirate ships you got fat drunks and chain restaurants.”

“There are countless women in the world. At times it’s more than I can bear to think about: that there should be so many and they all start out the way they do, with all the brightness and their own invisible worlds and secret languages and what else they have, and that we ruin everything.”

“There were oceans inside of me”

“Can you look back to when you met the one you loved the most and remember exactly how it was? Not as in where you were or what she was wearing or what you ate for lunch that day, but rather as in what you saw in her that made you say, Yes, this is what I came here for.”

“Sometimes I wonder if life was wasted on me.”

“He said, "You look mentally ill"I said "I am, Let's go”

“When you have been afraid for a long time, you see how fear will come and go. How fear will overtake you. How fear will subside. How fear guts you for a moment. How hope puts you back together, till the fear comes back. Then the hope. Then the fear. I was only ever afraid of one thing in my life, and that was heroin.”

“Can you look back to when you met the one you loved the most and remember exactly how it was? Not as in where you were or what she was wearing or what you ate for lunch that day, but rather as in what it is you saw in her that made you say, Yes, this is what I came here for.”

“No matter what else, I was unhappy.”

“He said, “WHY DON’T YOU EAT MEAT, PRIVATE? ARE YOU RICH?” He talked like a Chicano Macho Man Randy Savage. I said I wasn’t rich. He said, “I SAW A SHOW ON TV. IT SAID THAT PEOPLE WHO DON’T EAT MEAT HAVE WEAK MINDS. THEY ARE EASY TO BRAINWASH. THAT MEANS THAT YOU ARE EASY TO BRAINWASH.” “YES, DRILL SERGEANT.”

“You just had to remember it was all make-believe. The drill sergeants were just pretending to be drill sergeants. We were pretending to be soldiers. The Army was pretending to be the Army.”

“It was fall and you could really feel that it was fall. There was that ache.”

“I tried about everything iI could think of to get Megan to be the one to break up with me so as to spare her feelings. I acted batshit crazy; she liked it. I ignored her phone calls for days; she kept calling. I stopped paying for things; she paid for everything. I stuffed her socks in her mouth; she had an orgasm. Nothing worked.”

“And were the outcomes of all wars decided by push-ups and idle talk, America might never lose.”

“And the trees are nice. I mean, I think I’d like ‘em all. It’d have to be a pretty fucked-up tree for me not to like it. Sometimes I wonder if life was wasted on me. It’s not that I’m dumb to the beauty of things. I—I take all the beautiful things to heart, and then they fuck my heart till I about die from it. — Jessica Goldberg, from the screenplay Cherry, based on the novel by Nico Walker (AGBO, 2021)”

“Emily’s gone to take a shower. The room’s half-dark and I’m getting dressed, looking for a shirt with no blood on it, not having any luck.”