nonautobiography (1)

There are things you never tell anyone.  It's not that they are dark wine secret, but that they are central, and difficult to see.  And more difficult to articulate.  Listen:  put your head on the cool side of the pillow and Hear: the stories in the blues, the ache, the boozy smoke--you hear the same themes over and over again, and these are the themes of this story, too.  These are the themes of Bukowski, Nabokov, Kundera, and grit.  This is a story about the dust-to-mud side of the street.  You know of it even if you haven't walked it, because by now you've certainly heard the music--swelling rainstorms of love, scorn, and lonely nights when you feel as significant as a figment of imagination.  This is that. 

This is a story of growing up. 

Some people imagine growing up to be something that occurs between the ages of 0 and 18, say...though we are keeping our kids 'Kids" longer and longer now.  At any rate, growing up is supposed to be a phenomenon that happens to us and ends sometime shortly after puberty, when we stop growing physically.  And that is growing up; true.  But I didn't grow up, then.  I grew up when I realized that I'd literally sold myself into slavery, and at such a low price, for just the promise of white respectability.  Well, even that didn't cause me to grow up--that happened when I realized I had a choice right now:  stay in hell, or start walking.  I chose walking.  I'm still walking.  It's a long, hot, fucking armpit of a miserable walk out of this joint, let me tell you.  My name is Irrelevant.  I am you--the good choice girl, or the bad choice girl.  The one a mama invited to dinner, or snapped at on the telephone. 

Who decides who is good choice and who is bad?  Ah.  Thars the rub, as they say.  "They" are pirates.  An honest lot, pirates.   With a pirate, you know where you stand.