I will change all names to protect the innocent and not-so. I will take great care to choose the names appropriately. As astounding and beyond-belief the goings-on to be detailed are, the names will be the only fictions.

Beyond the act of communication, sharing my story and experience and life, exploring fear and fate and the supernatural (for lack of a better word) and the unknown universe big and small, vulnerable confessions, and base gossip (Truman Capote and the nonfiction novel this is not), perhaps a lame excuse or two for lifelong disappointments and why I am and where I will be, the purpose is hope. Hope that one reader or one thousand and one readers might empathize with the “why” behind the poor decisions I made, make, and most certainly will make.

I assume you intended for me to find this. Maybe that’s a lot for me to assume. Maybe it’s not. I mean, you left it on your cluttered desk with a literal yellow bow tied around the manuscript. Holy shit, I bet I’ll have a lot to say about this book based on the opening chapter.

Art Barbara. Jesus, dude.

I promise my commentary will be as honest as you are claiming to be. That sentence by itself makes it sound like I am already accusing you of lying. I don’t mean to. We’ve had our ups and downs, but I’ve always considered you to be one of my dearest, oldest friends, and I hope you feel similarly.

Frankly, I’m a little scared to read more, to find out what you really think of me.

Based on the title, I don’t think it’s vanity to assume I’ll play a large role in this, um, memoir.

Memory is a fucked-up thing, especially as time passes, stretches, and yawns. Your comparison of time to a shuffled deck of cards comes close to the truth, or a truth. I think time is better represented as a house of cards, an unimaginably large castle of cards, one in which rooms and entire wings collapse and are endlessly rebuilt. Those collapsed rooms and wings hold memories, both personal and collective. That card house is forever haunted by the lost memories and by the ones that are retained but changed.

Sorry, I know this is your book, not mine.

It occurs to me if our memories of certain events differ, that doesn’t necessarily mean one or both of us are lying, certainly not lying on purpose.

I’ll attempt to keep my comments solely to after each chapter. I will read and comment as I go without skipping ahead. I can’t promise that I won’t mark stuff up within the manuscript though. As you know, I’ve always been a bit impulsive.

Looking forward to reading what name you’ll give me, Mr. Art Barbara.

New Day Rising

NEW DAY RISING

(October 1988)