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       Table of Contents

      ___________________

       Copyright & Credits

       one

       two

       three

       four

       five

       six

       seven

       eight

       nine

       ten

       eleven

       twelve

       thirteen

       fourteen

       fifteen

       sixteen

       seventeen

       eighteen

       nineteen

       twenty

       twenty-one

       twenty-two

       twenty-three

       twenty-four

       twenty-five

       twenty-six

       twenty-seven

       twenty-eight

       twenty-nine

       thirty

       thirty-one

       thirty-two

       thirty-three

       thirty-four

       thirty-five

       thirty-six

       thirty-seven

       thirty-eight

       thirty-nine

       forty

       forty-one

       forty-two

       afterwords

       acknowledgments

       about michael imperioli

       about akashic books

       to Victoria, for a love inconceivable

       to my children, for being my greatest teachers

      I’ve known you for years. Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you’re more beautiful now than then. Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged. —from Marguerite Duras, The Lover

      one

       On this, the 24th of July in the year 1977, in the Borough of Manhattan of the State of New York, being of sound mind and body, I . . .

      This was originally meant to be a last will and testament type of thing, maybe it still will be at some point. I don’t know. Right now I just want to get as much as I can down on paper. I have been praised for this effort and told that it may bring me some clarity. I was not aware I lacked clarity or that the events described here were unclear, but that is what I have been told by people who are supposed to know about such things.

      I have also been informed that this is a very difficult time in one’s life and it’s not uncommon for folks my age to find themselves in similar situations. This brings me no comfort, and I feel it is important for me to state that for the record. Even if the record is a shitty little ninety-nine-cent notebook.

      With this in mind, I would like to start at the most logical beginning. Although to be technical, dear sirs or madams, my birth would be the most formal or official beginning, and even further we could trace things back to my parents—how they met, their courtship and marriage, my conception . . . But I will spare you all those gory details and jump to the year when shit started to happen and people died and life as I knew it altered itself beyond recognition.

      My parents split up a few days after the new year began so my dad hit the road in his shit-brown ’72 Chrysler Newport. He had three garbage

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