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12 Sorrow What else to do with sorrow but to buy her a drink, walk it over to her table, set it down in front of her (Sorrow is a woman, always has been, always will), and say the only pick-up line you’ve ever heard that works, Drink this until I start to look handsome. She’ll look down at the drink, then up at you slowly, then down at the drink again, and say, in a voice that will make you feel that it’s all right to keep drowning, “It’s going to take more than that.” So you tell her you have an extra ticket to the game, and you know already that it’s going to be a good one, a long fly ball in the bottom of the ninth, and, surprisingly, she comes, and she knows her game too, saying of the runner stealing second, that he has a mad case of the quicks. And you realize for the first time, and with the finality that could be the basis for starting a religion, that sorrow is smarter than you are (always has been, always will be), and the best you can come back with is from basketball, that men who can dunk have mad ups. And still she comes home with you, stays for the night, standing barefoot on your lawn with you at 4:30 a.m., drinks in your hands, naming the stars, waiting for the birds to wake up so she can name them all too. And you know she’s moving in with you, that she’ll want all new curtains, that you’ll be known as Mr. Sorrow now, that you’re starting to look handsome, that you’ve got a mad case of the slows, that she’s yours now forever, always has been, always will be. ...

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