"I never learned how to love. It wasn't taught to me like tying my shoes, combing my hair or driving a car; nor was it modeled or demonstrated for me by my parents, whom I could not imagine ever having possessed a passion for one another. In the world they seemed to inhabit, such a thing existed only in movies and the lyrics of popular songs-places far beyond the working class plainness of our home where existence itself appeared to be little more than an item on a hastily scrawled list of things to get done by the end of the week. And perhaps as a consequence of that vacancy at the center of our lives, the talent I most fully developed in my formative years was punching. Quick, explosive snaps from the shoulder that, when properly aimed and timed, landed with a force suand#64259; cient to render an adult man unconscious. But then, it is also possible this penchant for inand#64258; icting bodily harm bore no connection to the emotional deprivations of my childhood, since I have no clear recollection from that period of any sense of rage or need for retaliation. For in all the years I lived in that ramshackle house near the corner of Eighth and Harrison, physical violence was unknown. Ours was a family that rarely raised a voice, let alone a hand. We led a subdued, colorless existence. Quiet to the point of distraction. Repressed to the extent that, in family conand#64258; icts, disdain and indiand#64256; erence were the weapons of choice."