In the words of Jean-Yves LeFouet, the novel's antihero...
"After studying a little chemistry in college, I start distilling ersatz Calvados on the side. My family has some land with apple trees in the country and we used to produce gallons of apple cider every year. With the benefit of higher education, I decide to put some cider in a barrel off to the side and let it ferment. It doesn’t take long. Then I run it through my homemade still, et voilà, I’m bottling apple brandy. As you may notice, I’m lowering my voice. I don’t want to go to jail, which is why I’m speaking easy.
"I make the mistake of offering my colleagues a taste and they aren’t amused. Lucky for me, they decide I have a knack for distillation, and add it to my official duties. They start calling me Johnny Still, and then just Still. The joke is that it’s kind of a big surprise that I’m still working for them. That I’m still alive, in fact, horning in on their business like that. Distilling by day and driving by night, I’m making money and losing sleep. Running on adrenalin mostly.
"I’m trying to live exclusively in the present anyway. I find it’s a fine discipline—to drive too fast over back roads in the dark. Everything else is beside the point except the matter at hand. Not skidding off roads that only I can see..."
--Richard Voorhees, Shooting Genji
"After studying a little chemistry in college, I start distilling ersatz Calvados on the side. My family has some land with apple trees in the country and we used to produce gallons of apple cider every year. With the benefit of higher education, I decide to put some cider in a barrel off to the side and let it ferment. It doesn’t take long. Then I run it through my homemade still, et voilà, I’m bottling apple brandy. As you may notice, I’m lowering my voice. I don’t want to go to jail, which is why I’m speaking easy.
"I make the mistake of offering my colleagues a taste and they aren’t amused. Lucky for me, they decide I have a knack for distillation, and add it to my official duties. They start calling me Johnny Still, and then just Still. The joke is that it’s kind of a big surprise that I’m still working for them. That I’m still alive, in fact, horning in on their business like that. Distilling by day and driving by night, I’m making money and losing sleep. Running on adrenalin mostly.
"I’m trying to live exclusively in the present anyway. I find it’s a fine discipline—to drive too fast over back roads in the dark. Everything else is beside the point except the matter at hand. Not skidding off roads that only I can see..."
--Richard Voorhees, Shooting Genji
