The moon is nearing full. I can see it outside my bedroom window. Clear sky. Cold. Back in Detroit. Back home. Who would believe that shit?
Look down upon me, Jesus. This city is in the toilet. Is that the way it should be?
Seen fire. Seen rain. Detroit in the toilet? Yeah, kind of saw that coming. Happy about it? Maybe once upon a time ago I might have given it a thirty second laugh. Now? Not so much.
Detroit is a grand old lady brought low by greed and avarice. There are great people here. People who stayed because they had to. People who stayed because they wanted to. And those of us few who returned because we love this dirty old town, this wheel-spoke layout of a city that refuses to die despite those who stab it at every turn.
My stories roam from town to town, state to state, country to country but all have their roots here. Danny Samsel, hero, thief, protagonist of Stealing the Marbles? An old, brief, friend in an old neighborhood that died and remains dark and forbidding as I write this. Strange as it may be, his house is one of the few still viable on that street, a street I spent my entire kidhood on. He died across the street from where I grew up.
Miss you, Danny. You’d get a kick out of this shit.
Teller? Protagonist of Meter Maids Eat Their Young? The story may well be, roughly, set in Mt. Clemens, but Cat was born and raised west of Burt Road, South of 5 mile.
Spike, a temporary name to be sure, protag of my current WIP, was born and raise there.
All writers have a well from which they dredge the flotsam they decorate their stories with. Detroit is my well, my deep deep well. All my pain is here. All my joy.
Gonna clear this shit up. Write it.
Have at it Detroit. I’m ready.
