IJ study archive

The White Flag AA meeting (Maps and Territory)

quote

Everybody, but everybody Comes In dead-eyed and puke-white and with their face hanging down around their knees and with a well-thumbed firearm-and-ordnance mail-order catalogue kept safe and available at home, map-wise, for when this last desperate resort of hugs and clichés turns out to be just happy horseshit, for you.

Context

The tough old-timer's line about how nobody Comes In because things were going well. "Map-wise" does the work of a whole suicide plan: the ordnance catalogue kept at home is the map-elimination option held in reserve, the fork's dark tine kept warm while you try the hugs and clichés. The idiom has become an adverb.

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