"the ragin' cajun, and the sorry southerner"

I grew up in Cumming, GA a suburb of Atlanta. After high school I moved in with this beautiful artist from North Carolina. After, I think, three years of being together I properly and pretty methodically fucked it up for myself. Se la vi. Then I moved to Atlanta. It was something I had always wanted to do, which stems from my father. He came to me on the reservation in Cherokee, NC. I was fifteen. I hadn't seen him since I was too young to remember. All I knew was that he was Indian, and that he'd abused my mama. He woke me up and asked if I knew who he was. I didn't. He told me. I jumped down and (i was on the top bunk of my cousin's bunk beds) hugged him. I didn't know what else to do. I was terrified of him. I was uncomfortable around him. I didn't want him to go away. I wanted him to reveal something to me. I wanted him to turn me into something. Into anything but some awkward, confused half-breed. I drove around with him and his leather clad, chain-smoking white woman. We played basketball at the campgrounds with my Indian cousins. He told me many things, like that he was going to move near by and we'd see more of each other. If I wanted I could live with him in the Summer. I told him lies. Lies about my childhood, and how cool it was, how happy it was. We have that in common. I lie well. We also have great hair and intense eyes. We also read a lot. We also have problems settling down. (i have brothers and sisters I've never met. none of us have the same mothers. at that meeting i was the youngest of his offspring. i don't know if that has changed) One of the things he told me, after asking what I want to do after high school and after I told him I might like to live in Atlanta (me and my mother both share a love and admiration and comprehensive knowledge of Martin Luther King, Jr. ["do not follow in the footsteps of the masters, instead seek what they sought"]), was "Why do you want to that? I lived in Atlanta. It's nothing but a bunch of niggers and spics." He left the next day with the all around leathery white woman, and promised me a return. He gave me a choker and a medicine stick. He makes these things out of real, sacred material. He sells them to white tourists. I lost the gifts over time. I cherished and worshipped them. I have not seen him since. After high school, after the beautiful artist I moved to Atlanta.

For the next few years I made friends with many niggers, spics, and throw in some faggots, skater kids, graffiti artists, chinks, dykes, kieks--freaks. Good people. My people. I was a health nut for a while. A drunk, pill poppin, coke snortin, pussy gettin', book learnin'--name it, name it, name it--for a longer while. There was a stolen car, there were guns... There was a lot of fun and good proper trouble had. Add in a couple of nice, yet, still failed relationships.

Then the bug came. I needed a change. I love Atlanta, honest I do, but only when I'm not there or if a friend is in town and has never been to the ATL. I needed new adventures in strange lands. I went to New Orleans to become a better writer. Obviously I failed. There was no work to sustain myself, and the night life, well, it's New Orleans. The night didn't just call to you it showed up at your front door with drinks, pills, dirty rice, and powders. And a jazz band that only played "When the Saints Come Marching In", each time better than the last. But in the end you have to pay the price and tip the band.

I was broke. A cute little redheaded girl I knew from Atlanta wired me some money. I packed my things and left New Orleans with my tail between my legs, and my heart hung heavy with failure. And in turn I left with more baggage in tow than I had come with.

But if you go to N'awlins stay for more than two weeks, but don't go anywhere near Bourbon St during Mardi Gras. Unless you're a yuppie, frat boy, or an ugly chick it's just not worth it.
Back in GA I got a job bartending at Loco's Deli and Pub. It is a lame place, an unhappy place, but I made a lot of money. Which is exactly how much it took for me to wear their gay-ass t-shirts with a drunken moose logo on it. It's GA! Why a moose? Why a drunk, or retarded which is what it actually looked like, moose? I made enough to pay the redhead back and move to Athens with some very old and good friends of mine. Fun was had, and it was there that I decided to write the novel that I came here, to Sioux Falls, to complete.

A quick side note (as if all this weren't some big side note): It was also in this time I met Emily Windham, the only friend I shall name outright as she'll come up again and again. And for all practical reasoning I should be in love with her (not that I'm not[not that i am]), married with babies that would grow up to be awesome and strong and smart and have big eyes, perfect skin and curly hair. All my friends say this and I agree. But though I am a practical man I am not the most conventional.

In Athens I realized that I'm not getting any younger. I've spent years as an all-talk wannabe writer. Enough is enough. If it can be said that I let Emily get away it's because I knew (know) that I was (am) not worth it (of value, source of pride) for any girl, any woman outside of a casual relationship. This probably is one of the most mature understandings defining my adult life. And because of this realization there is another woman I let get away. Or rather I walked away from, rather I drove away from to come here. Remember at the end of any little stage you go through it eventually comes time to pay the price. And there's always that band to tip. More on Athens later.

tune in next time for "cute face, gorgeous titties: two things i thought i would never come to hate"