I was especially interesting to the valley boys because of my peculiar heritage.

Ordinarily I checked “Other” on any form requesting racial information, for what was I to say? I was probably more white than black, but given the roulette wheel of genetics there wasn’t any good way to guess. If I straightened my hair I could possibly pass for Caucasian, but most folks recognized on sight that I wasn’t of any Nordic strain. In fact, much to my irritation, men had a tendency to think of my appearance as a conversation starter, or more often than not, as a precursor to a lame pickup line.

Almost any given night I could expect to climb off the stage and have some good ol’ boy waiting for me, offering me a beverage I wouldn’t accept, because even simple politeness is more encouragement than they need.

“That was real good,” the evening’s Romeo always began. “So what are you, anyway?”

Ah, Dixie. Where even if they don’t care anymore, they can’t help but notice.

I might choose to play stupid and toy with him, to force him to ask the question the way he meant it. “I’m a student.” “I’m a poet.” ‘I’m a girl.” And I’d bat my eyelashes slowly and stupidly.

“No, I mean, like, what race are you?”

What was the point? Once on a day trip to Knoxville I bought a baby-doll T-shirt that said, “Not black, not white, HUMAN.” I wore it mostly on days that I didn’t feel like answering questions.

Another mixed-race girl worked the circuit with us, and she got the same crap as often as I did. Terry was some unlikely combination of disparate backgrounds—German and Indian, or African and Eskimo, or Mexican and Arabian, something along those lines. Something that left her not a shade darker than me but a touch more exotic.

As far as I was concerned, she was still a teary-eyed poser. Although I couldn’t stand her, Lu says I shouldn’t be so hard on her, and she’s probably right. In a roundabout way, it was my fault that she died.

It happened the night of my last slam. Terry took the stage and held it hostage with her typical set of four-minute diatribes on (1) the fascist Republican regime, (2) her confusing cultural heritage, and (3) her whiny, ongoing battle with an eating disorder that wasn’t working for her half so well as a balanced diet might have.

Despite Lulu’s warning that it’s cruel to speak ill of the dead, I wasn’t a fan of Terry’s work or her personality—and on that final night Terry was at her worst. She tromped up to the stage in a leather outfit that would have looked great on someone else, but was a most unflattering contraption on her bulky shape. When she turned around and faced the audience I could see she was sporting glitter eye shadow again, so the spotlights flashed and sparkled on her shiny form as she clutched the microphone and raised her eyes to the ceiling.