Point and Shoot, Florida (YU)--That was 35 years ago. How had things changed?

Well, they were about the same.

Heap and Brenda lived in a modest house. Brenda worked and Heap was at the house, writing.

Brenda kept a garden and raised chickens.

They read books and watched rented movies on the TV.

They ate well. Heap did most of the cooking.

Heap no longer drank.

They had friends.

In New Orleans, they spent every weekend with Larry and Hazel.

Now, they spent every weekend at The Red Bar.

Their friends were painters, musicians, actors. Waitstaff people, chefs, bartenders.

No writers, but Heap had readers who sent him email, and he responded to their comments in his books. He went to writing events, like writers conferences, book fairs, poetry readings, book-signings.

He had a reputation.

America's greatest living unpublished, or underpublished writer, perhaps the greatest unpublished, or underpublished American writer ever.

His year was running out, and he'd have to go back to work again, when the money ran out.

But there'd be other years.

He could write and work both.

He'd done it for a long time now.

New York could go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.

The State of Florida could go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.

They didn't help him, he didn't need their help.

They tried to shut him up. They failed. It can't be faked and it will not be denied.

Heap would have his day.

"Don't change a word," Henry Miller told Lawrence Durrell. "They'll shit on you anyway--you might as well have your say."

Heap would have his say.