Excerpted Intimations of Divine Order from Youthful Memories

...Weekends like that force us to ask ourselves whether we are really bound by our predetermined fates or only by the limits of our imaginations. Was it long written in the stars that I was supposed to run headlong into that salad bar? Was it just an understandable misstep punctuating a night of fancy? Did the dark one in his fondness for chicanery move it closer with a wicked hand? Is there some grand design that choreographed the weaving blows that Gentleman Johnny and I exchanged like a skilled seamstress? Was it for the sake of dramatic flourish that he waited until our second round to put molten lava in my veins and steely death in my eyes? Why did he not do the same for Gentleman Johnny , instead deciding that he should be stopped--knowing, no doubt, that whomever weeped for Gentleman Johnny, weeped for treachery and deceit? Will we ever know? Well, it seems like an awful coincidence if I weren't put on this earth to have told Jerry Joe that his dance, rehearsed as it was, looked like a clipped goose trying to take flight ...