The holy, youthful days of being vivaciously independent and reckless are looked to again and again from the vantage point of later disappointments. Tester's language saves this from becoming elevated whining. First we drank, then we sat and had coffee. Around us, defeated old people like candle nubs, nothing-eyed, prayed to their cups in the diner. Men and women fare poorly in these stories.
Sex is a connection, mute and powerful, but fleeting.
The individual in isolation is the focus here and there is a sense of Faulkner's world, of people left in a land where God was palpably just there, but isn't anymore. I think God has turned his back on all us bugs. But we're safe. Our heater roars below, and something else. I can hear it, the blood rushing inside of us.