EUGENE: My father was a big, big man and there was something about that bigness–especially if you’re a child in the south. I watched my father and men like my father. Black southern men seemed incredibly big–especially men who labored in heat or knew about that heat/sweat of Black men in the south/the sweat just dripping off their bodies/their big bodies–particularly darker/dark men. Man, there was something about that bigness that jet black bigness/that down home bigness/old-time stuff like John Henry or somebody’s Robert Johnson song–even though that was way before his time but not really before his time/John Henry/Robert Johnson and Hallelujah or moreover in my father’s vocabulary–“nigger-stuff–jet black niggerstuff.” (Pause) He was big, dark, handsome–my father? Oh yeah, my father was handsome. He didn’t know it–that he was handsome. Like many dark men who didn’t know they were handsome. (Beat)