When I dropped out of graduate school to become a writer,
a professor told me, “Many are called but few are chosen—
a career takes 20 years.” That’s if you do it their way. If you do it
your way it takes 40. At least, it is taking me 40, and I’m not there
yet. I have a year and a half to go. I might not make it. I might
fall short. I might be weighed in the balance and found wanting.
By whom? What are they going to do—reject my books? Ha ha,
it is to laugh. I have been in sorrow’s kitchen and licked out all the pots.
Zore Neale Hurston said that. She worked as a maid. She worked as
a library aide. In a library that had her books. Cecil Taylor washed dishes
in a restaurant that had his records on the jukebox. I have never been in
a restaurant that had a jukebox with Cecil Taylor records on it.
The Bay Count Public Library has my novel. It’s classified
818.5203. Literature written between 1900-1945: Diaries, journals,
notebooks, reminiscences. Why won’t they call it a novel?
I don’t know. That’s their business. It’s their library.
In my first book Brenda had a job shooing lurks out of
the library. People who stay behind and masturbate
between the pages. They shit in the stacks.
They eat popcorn with their fingers.
How do you eat it? With a knife and fork?
Serviette, Miss Etiquette?
Eats pussy with a spoon.
Eat more possum.