To Leave For Departure

To Leave For Departure

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­­___Hi, I’m Duncan. Still a grateful recovering addict. To begin my auto-biography, I must start out by summing up the story of my life from birth to 2013, and then go on to explain everything I’ve gone thru from 2013 where I left off last time, onto today, in 2015.

___I was born in Oakland, California, U.S.A., in a Naval Hospital on February 23rd. 1978. My father was a veteran of Vietnam. He met my mother when he was stationed in The Philippines, back in the 70’s. My mother already had 4 children. 2 of which shared a birthfather, and thee other 2, separate fathers each. My mother, Maria, used to go by the name Erlinda, up until the day she found out her real name was Maria by the time she married my father. My father, David, was the son of Lochiel Wendell Cannon. Lochiel was a Scottish man, who’s birth father was unknown. His mother married an Irishman, which is how we got an Irish last name. My grandmother was Swedish. Her birth name was Helen May Harmon. My mother had a previous marriage with 2 of my half siblings’ birth father, William Walker, who conceived John-John, and Jennifer. My father adopted Jenifer, along with William, and Jasmine, but left John-John in The P.I., due to complications with getting him on the plain.

___William was named after William Walker, John-John, and Jennifer’s birth father, because William Walker believed he was his son, but doubted that John-John was his. Though he knew Jennifer was his daughter.

___My mother and father dated on and off thru-out the 70’s, and I was in the womb when they got married in The P.I.. I stayed in the womb for at least a week longer than I should have, and had to be forced out. I was born normal, and said to look like a fine president. Only one problem that wasn’t noticed until later, I was born with the gene of being prone to become Schizophrenic under stress, if I ever grew up with too much of it. And God was there a LOT of stress growing up. I was pressured to become something great. I had no idea how, but I was supposed to be rich if I was to make it alive. Being exposed to sex at a young age, I remember my mother touched me inappropriately, and my half sister, Jennifer had incest with me. I was the youngest, and she was the middle child. Needless to say, she grew up neglected, so she felt. I never understood why she was my first kiss, and why I was on top of her at my age of 3, and her age of 8. I blocked out the memory ‘til Jr. high, and it came back to me while I was doing dishes, as if I knew it all along, but was denying the memory, but it could not be shoved into my unconscious anymore. I kept it a secret. But I remembered the signs first. How mom was once Scorning Jen for telling her that she was pregnant by me. I ended up with my first arousal by thee age of 6. I remember, because I planned to lose my virginity at my 7th. Birthday party, to the girl I had a crush on since kindergarten, Sky Lang. I invited her, but whether she showed up or not was not something I think I’ll ever ever be able to recollect. But I always believed that something traumatic happened at that birthday party that I just can’t remember it anymore.

___I don’t know how it happened but I ended up with Child Schizophrenia. I had imaginary friends, which started off, that was until I needed to multiply, either to keep me company, or to live a triple life, so far. I had an elder personality. One who I had to learn wisdom from, because he was some one I could believe in. Some one, who in reality was only mature in his and my world though. Names he rejected all, but MacEnitre.

___MacEntire, for short, me and my funny side, who went by many names, would jokingly, with me, call MacEntire, “Mack, Entirely.” These were funny, and psychotic times. In the back yard, when the sky was gray, me, and the funny me, who just kept on having to find new names for, existed. But only to me, at first. Then came Jr. High, where I began to notice that me, and the funny me, who still did not ever land on a name, had separate rolls in my life. Strangely, we shared a life, and when the sky was gray, as always, then came along MacEnitre. But he was too distinguished to believe that was his real name. He wanted my name. He wanted to replace me. I was confused. I did not know how he was going to do it. I did not know if I was ready to just hand my world over to his care, and be him, permanently. But I guess I wanted that too.

___Yet, growing up with 3 personalities, as they called it, which was not a fair term, I thought, they used to describe me. I knew it was impossible. I always returned to being me. The host. Who knew he was more than one person. Period. Not a person with 3 so-called “personalities,” but 3 people, with 3 different souls, who shared a body.

___But there was always drama. Time after time, I kept getting traumatized, and having my world ripped to shreds. It wasn’t just the sun coming out. It were little things here and there, that always enhanced doom over my life. For instance, growing up with no means nor ways to get a girlfriend. That alone, in itself was a depressing topic. I wanted to die so bad, because all thru childhood until Jr. high, since my 7th. Birthday party, I had to deny that I even liked girls, and go along with thee whole “girls-got-cooties” saga, because I did not know how to admit, that I wanted to find a woman who will be mine. I was attracted to my teacher, at 6th. grade. Which I should have been in the 7th. grade by then, but was so learning disabled, that I flunked the first grade all together, the first time taking it. Yet, this 6th. grade teacher of mine, Mrs. Snyder, was well out of my league. I knew it. The funny me knew I, and “Mack, Entirely”, could not, would not, and should not even mack on her, at all.

___I had nobody to blame, but God. For making me too young for women, yet making me love women, in very lovey-dovey-feelings sort of ways, which set a very huge exaggeration of how old I wanted MacEntire to be. He was supposed to be 30 years old. But nobody, not even one of my friends knew, or saw him that way, except for me, who only merrily wanted him to be, but whenever I came home from school, I would just be me. An 8 year old boy, in a 13 year old’s body. I was really unconfident about being 13 in grade school. Even ashamed that I didn’t go to Jr. high at age 12 like everybody else.

___So I knew SOMETHING was wrong with me. It was obvious when I was by myself I would talk to myself. Of course, the funny me was who my friends knew, and “Duncan” was what they would call him anyways, though it was my name. The name my family knew me by, who only treated me like there was no funny me, nor an elder me. I hated both sides. My friends, and my family.

___Later on into the summer of between Jr. High, and high school, when I was finished with my first summer school, it became obvious, that the funny me should be out of the picture. And so, without further notice, I only had to be thee elder me, at school, and then myself at home. The plan was to find love. I obviously expected that to be thee elder me, since I am only 8 years old, in a 15 year old’s body. I really didn’t consider 15 to be manly enough for a potential girlfriend, who would obviously be a year younger than me if I stuck with girls who were classmates. Then all of a sudden, high school started, and MacEntire lost his name. He used my name. There was a girl. She was 14. Her name was Elizabeth Joy Cassidy. We always thought she was named after the lake in our park we lived by, and so that she was supposed to be “the one.” The usual stupid Freshmen belief that us guys have, I believed it.

___We realized that funny me was, well, dead. And that, I was now just a split personality. But I kept that a secret. I courted this girl, like I never courted any one before. Or, tried to. It failed, by thee end of the semester, during Christmas break. I asked her out, and denied the fact that it was because I liked her. But “like” was a weak word. I “loved” her. So I kept it a secret, and said “no.” So she said “no.” The next summer we drifted apart, since that failure of a ‘phone call that broke both of my hearts. I later came to notice after Valentine’s Day, which was about 3 weeks after her 15th. birthday, and a week before my 16th. birthday, that thee elder me was missing. I was quite confused. I didn’t understand how there could not be an elder me anymore, and how I could not change. The weather would go gray, and, nothing!

___Then out of the middle of what seemed like nowhere, the funny me was trying to come out again. I didn’t want to believe it. “How could it be?” I didn’t want it to be so. I shoved him back inside, and tried to move on. But, I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried, I would always have these Freudian slips out of my mouth while doing homework. I thankfully made it thru how far I went in high school without letting him take over during classes. But, he was back, at home, and with my friends again, whether I chose to believe it or not. That summer, I called Liz, and spoke to her about what I’ve been experiencing. Though I never could get back my feelings for her, no matter how hard I tried. It was like I forgot all about her.

___Which, so I believe, was thee honest truth. I thought of myself as coming out of a Dissociative Fugue. Even though I clamed I could not except that. That whole other missing identity had to be MORE, than just a fugue. So I played it off like I had amnesia, came clean to my friends about it, and asked my best friend if me smoking weed, or doing acid was thee answer. And since me being a recovering drug addict by now, I guess you should know what his answer was. But it was not thee answer. Not just yet. I started off with weed, and my world was gone. I found myself lost in a dream. And a bad dream, it was. But I was content with it. I learned to accept things as they were. Even realizing that the sky will never look the same again. I wondered “how come I couldn’t snap out of it?” But like I said…..”I just couldn’t.” I believed I was perma-stoned. That summer school later, I began to notice that I opened up. I wasn’t just me, or the funny me anymore.  I remembered how when I first went back to school after that weekend of taking my first hit of bammer weed from a bong with dirty bong water in it, that I actually did spark up conversations with women.

___But that’s all they were. Conversations. I went in and out of realizing I had a narrator between me and the funny me. And the dead elder me, that we just could not revive? Well, this, new me just did not have a name, at all. Not at that time, yet. We took Psychology by the time I was a Junior, but was actually a demoted Sophomore, because of the summer school in between, I had a conversation with a girl I liked, that I said I wanted to go to a “mental rehab’.” Needless to say, I never got enough classes retaken that summer, and was not deemed for a start of Junior year, at Kennedy High, even though it was my 3rd. year of high school. So there was my confidence. Out the window. I couldn’t do ANY homework, that year. I knew I did not want to get high again. And that’s what I told my friends. And I was alright with that. I had a drivers’ license, that I got over the summer, and a mini-van, but no insurance. So I parked off campus. I had one elective that I was passing with flying colors. Thee only class I actually wanted to do work in.

___But, then came thee accident. Now, I don’t know which one of me was driving, but I had a job to do after my last period. Which was a double period. My last class of the day. An off campus class for adult enrichment training for careers, or whatever. They called it “R.O.P..” “Regional Occupation Program.” And that job was to pick up my mother from work who couldn’t drive. Had I not gotten into this accident, and forced out of school, by the court for killing thee other driver with my car as it hit her car by accident, I probably would have a job in the Printing Graphics field by now. But I was sentenced, and ordered to move to a group home, and attend school there.

___I was one of thee oldest teenager there by the time I got in. I was actually even of age. But I was still trialed as a miner, because I was 17 at the time of the crash. I felt like I was finally free to be the funny me there if I wanted to be. And I could. Though, I dissociated him completely. I had a new elder in my body. The narrator. He wasn’t much, but he was it. Then suddenly “she walked in.” My “first real relationship.” Her name was Melissa Sue Hammaker. Her real name was Missy though. But that was a secret. She became my “secret girlfriend.” Of course, I never thought much of us as an item yet, but always knew she had potential. I just thought that I was not confident to think I had potential for her. She courted me, actually. And as naturally, I pushed her away. I told her my big deal about my dead older self, but that only made her cry, that if he ever came back to life, I would forget all about her. So, I did what any other good boyfriend would do, and asked the campus psychiatrist if there was any way to bring my dead elder personality back to life to prove to her, that he is a part of me, and does love her, even more. He agreed to try to put me on an anti-psychotic, saying that “maybe, just maybe,” I “just have Schizophrenia, and” my “life will go back to normal.” I thought about all those times in my childhood, my sisters said I had “Child Schizophrenia,” and believed him.

___Well, he was right……sorta’. It turns out that thee elder me from my past, at least, was Schizophrenic, and he did come back to life, and I know he did, but he had a Dissociative Amnesia, really bad. I brought up my whereabouts of this breakthrough with my therapist, and then to Melissa, and it became weird. Melissa was not understanding to me having Amnesia, and I did not know how to describe that there was something about myself that I was forgetting, but did not know what it was. She was mad that I went undergo some anti-psychotic, and that I got put on S.S.I.. She told me I will live with the stigma and cheated on me, then left me for the man she went out on me with.

___So that was that. The love of my life, terminated, over a very complex technicality. Then came the separation. It was found out that I was in her bedroom messing around with her. That’s what ran her off to thee other guy. Me not A.W.A.L.ing with her. I completely blocked her out of my memory as well, now. All those sweet romantic times with her…..gone. The most magical season of my life, a total wipe out from my consciousness.

___Before the breakup I got stoned one more time though. I actually came down though that time. I told her about it when we were still going steady, because she had gotten high on her home pass before me. We had a mutual understanding that we were both potheads, even though I had a lot to go to get to that point yet. Since it was a much worser trip this time, being that the sky was gray when I was high that day, I noticed that I desecrated my old Seasonal Affective Disorder. Heaven help me, I knew I just did not like weed. I felt shameful. Which was why I had another bad trip.

___The next school year, I lacked the me-and-Melissa days, very much so. So much, that, she was all I could think about, yet, still not much to remember, other than it was over. I wanted her back, “but how could I get her back?” She ruined my life. I wanted to die. I didn’t want to kill myself, ‘cause I knew I would go to Hell, but I didn’t want to live without her. The nights were magical still. In a new light all on their own. I was free. But being free, meant that I was trapped. Trapped to my singlehood. I was alone. Even with my new friends. I admit that I made new memories, but as soon as I was discharged, I regressed into a child-like state, and there was no more original elder me. There was basically a narrator, but there was without a doubt, a funny me, and the real me. We were 2 boys, plus what appeared to be a teenage narrator headed for his 20’s. It was devastating. All that year in Fred Finch Youth Center, and now nothing to remember it by.

___I lived with my sister I once had incest with when I was 3, and she was 8. Now I was 19, and she was going on 24. Her and her boyfriend had a townhouse, and my brother’s wife divorced my brother, whom they had 2 kids with already, left me a room. I was told not to go back to mom and dad’s, but I didn’t mind that. I ended up having my first drink there. It was white wine before my 19th birthday, before I moved in from the group home. Then I was time served, and had my restitution paid off that I owed, by my S.S.I., and Jennifer, was my payee. Then it became me. Then I was introduced to stronger weed. “chronic,” as they called it. The year was 1997, and God I was in Heaven. I was sold immediately. No bad trips this time. But the comedowns were too much. It eventually made me want to quit again. So I did. It later became to be thee only weed available in the bay area.

___My best friend, Jeffrey Roberts Sommers, and his best friend, Eitan Breen, in replace of me, always had bammer still, at the time, and only occasionally could get the sticky green. Sometimes purple. I was proud to call them my friends. My other 2 friends, Jason Brown Weiland, and Jimmy Koliopoulos, that I was friends with when I wasn’t around Jeff, went to different Jr. highs, and high schools. We trailed off. I flipped around friend circles like this, but it was normal. So I believed. Jimmy introduced me to graffiti. I don’t know why I never saw much of Jason during high school years. I remember he moved to Florida some time, but he came back. I ended up seeing him on one of my group home passes. He brought me around weed, but I stayed abstinent. Then again after I was released, but still, I was abstinent.

___Now the year was 1998, and Jeff had a premature daughter. I became friends with his girlfriend. She gave birth, 4 months early, and the baby had to be in an incubator for 3 more months. During which I was going thru a psychotic melt down. I was not functional. I did not know what was wrong with me. I remember spending Valentine’s doing laundry, then the next thing I know, their daughter was being born the day after Liz Cassidy’s 19th. birthday. Currently, I was trying to rekindle my past with her, needless to say, that Jeff’s girlfriend was named Elizabeth, as well. But that’s not all. I had a pen pal when I was in high school named Elizabeth, and a teacher in that group home was named Elizabeth as well. I was in love with all 4 of them. And I was in the friend zone with all. Especially with Jeff’s Elizabeth. I dropped out of Jr. College. I recently got a B in English, and a Satisfactory in Career Planning. But by the second semester, I was diagnosed with full blown Schizophrenia, and I did not know who had it, who I was, or anything. I just remember there were 3 of me, and then there was a 4th.(thee original elder) for one night, but that’s all it was. One night. I was lost. Stuck in psychosis after psychosis. I had to be hospitalized.

___I was hospitalized as a miner only once. Right first thing in the morning after thee accident. Now as an adult I had to go against my will. I was given Haldol, orally. It worked. I noticed it was already March, and that my head was clear, but that there were only 3 of me. Me, the funny me, and the narrator. I came upon acceptance about the fact my original older self was dead again, and so I was released.

___Then, me, Jeff, and his Elizabeth, and the baby got an apartment. The baby was released on 4-20. They named her Arianna Rose Sommers. They were engaged. Then I got sick of not having a bedroom of my own. I decided to hospitalize myself, and be released to my parents. During at which I noticed, since I was living at Jeff and Liz 4’s that I could write poetry. So that’s what I did.

___I remember writing a lot in the group home, even though most of it was word salad. But as I wrote a poem to Liz 1 in December the year before, it made complete sense. It was in my journal writing that my poetry really took off, and then suddenly while living with Jeff, I began writing about me, and me and Liz 4. That’s when I realized I could actually make sense. And I’ve always made sense ever since, besides the times I was doing word salad on purpose. I burned the journals, but kept some of my valuable pieces. Sometimes I would come out with lyrics, but unable to combine it with my guitar playing that I picked up since high school. I remember my first electric guitar. A sunburst colored Lotus Stratocaster. I bought it while living with my sister, and her boyfriend’s apartment still, but sold it for a bicycle when I was back at mom and dad’s. Jeff, and his fiancée, their baby and their new roommate, Sidney Davis, ran into me riding it at the park, and hated on me, saying I moved out for the money. I really moved out in fear for my safety, and that I could not afford to eat enough there, but maybe, all in all, I just wanted to spend my check, and make a few investments, so maybe they were right. Maybe it’s why I wanted to kill myself. They seem to know me better than I did. Just not all of me. So I was depressed. I began a friendship with Sidney. Sid had all the green bud, so I copped from him. I then began taking Prozac. That’s when the danger slipped into my life. Prozac and weed was so much fun, but it became not enough. I kept on chasing after my first chronic high. I never could catch it. But I laughed my ass off anyway when I was lit off my ass, down at the park at night, all alone. The weed to myself now.

___Then came the nights that I wanted something else. Something that could FIX me! I was mad. Mad that I was back at home. Mad that I was me, a narrator, and a funny me, but no original elder me. So I started the journey to acid. I first chased paper sheets in Berkeley, on Telegraph, then Sid had some colored sheets of acid. I was usually just put to sleep by it all, after typing up 10 to 20 page poetry on my dad’s computer every night. But I just could not trip. I had to get off my anti-psychotic. I just had to. It was the sure only way to explore my unconscious. The place MacEntire was hidden. I wanted to be him, and more. I wanted to hallucinate. And I did just that.

___During my wait, after having returned to college, I sat next to the most beautiful girl, I have ever laid eyes on. Her name? Tracy Thorsen. Tracy had the most beautiful eyes. Gray…..I found myself in love…..instantly…..I wrote about her…..talked about her…..but, could never seem to talk to her. I guess being only on Prozac, and no anti-psychotic, I just was a different person. I was the narrator personality at class with her. Afraid I was gonna blow it, if I ever said a word. “I didn’t wanna ruin true love,” I thought. One day in class, I showed up stoned, and had to sit on thee other side of the room. I didn’t want her to see me stoned, nor smell my high. After that day, I went along like it never happened.

___Weeks or months went by, and I found myself ready. Ready for liquid L.S.D., without any medz, but my Prozac. I was sure it was gonna work this time. And it did. I took all the money I had, flew up to Telegraph, found a dealer, made the purchase, along with my watch, and walked down to the 7-11, bought a bottle of orange juice, found a dark place where nobody could see me, dropped it all on my tongue, the whole 60 plus dollars worth of it, and while on the U.C. campus on the way to B.A.R.T., my trip was already starting. I indeed was seeing the world in 3-D. for the first time, as if I never saw the world before.

___Once again, I found my drug of choice. This time it was for real. I was the happiest man on the planet! So alive. I could see! The lights all around were so mesmerizing! I began to fixate on light fixture after light fixture. Then the trail led me to a place, I now call “Fry Bench!” I sat down. Took some orange juice, and began smoking my cigarette…..then, all of a sudden…..I couldn’t move.  My legs began to be stiff. I was one with the bench…..but I was loving it! I didn’t care that students were all passing by, pointing, staring, and laughing at me. I was FREE!!!!! It seemed like there could have been some folks there actually talking to me, but I don’t remember. Then, I began to hear a loud female voice in my ears…..”Where is Duncan?! WHERE IS DUNCAN?!?!?!?!?!”, getting louder, and louder, until it was thee only sound in the world! I had an outer body experience…..I saw myself…..dead on the floor…..somewhere else. I began to think, “was the voice in my head, Tracy?” I was on the ground outside my house, and it was like high school. So I thought. But I knew I was in 1998. I had to be. ‘Cause I was supposed to be at U.C.B., frying on a bench at midnight, the crossover of November 6th. to November 7th.. Then I imagined I must have bled to death, and have died, and that it was the future, And Tracy was my wife, and thee only woman in the world. But then…..I saw a bright light. “Was this it?” No. it was a maglight, being shown in my eyes. Both of them. I guess some one called thee ambulance, or something. The man told me that if I don’t move, and get on the gurney, that I was gonna die. I wanted to stay, but my body automatically seemingly got up and placed myself into thee ambulance bed.

___I kept on hallucinating while being taken to Alta Bates Summit Hospital. The hospital Arianna was born. I had no idea, but they said they shot me up with 4 CC.s of Haldol. I was asleep…..and then awake. I came out of my trip. Didn’t remember much about it except me being on a gurney, talking about the light trails, calling them homo rainbows, very unamusingly, with a bored voice. When I awoke, they were talking to my parents outside the hall. My father waved my mother into the direction of my bed.

___I was traumatized. My mother kept asking me where I got the drugs. I repeatedly told her, over and over again, that I got it from a guy named “G..” She still kept questioning me. It was their first time knowing I was on anything. They never even saw me drunk before. After a strenuous effort to calm her down, I was taken home. It was a long quiet drive back on Highway 13. My father let me smoke on the passenger seat. I was humiliated. Embarrassed. Ruined. I remember in my trip, Mathew Perry was telling me that I killed my writing. My books were going nowhere now, he kept telling me, and that I was done for. I remember not understanding why he was saying those things.

___After about a month of being grounded, my anti-psychotic began to wear off, and I started a long 5 months of continuous acid flashbacks. Every night I would hallucinate. Somedays I would be with Sid. He would get me stoned…..and then there was the Christmas party…..at Jen’s. I was wasted off of Margaritas. I guess acid flashbacks and tequila didn’t mix. I confessed about my sister having sex with me when I was 3, and my mom touching me when I was 2. Nobody believed me. Not Jennifer, not mom, Nobody. Or, maybe, just, not them 2. Shock and anger now filled my life, and the C.O.P.s, and my mother showed up. I didn’t know what was going on. The police just told me to keep my mother under control, and left me to be yelled at by her. The next morning my brother, Wil took me, and his kids on a snow trip.

___During all this time since 1992 ‘til 1998, my other brother, John-John was reunited with our family. Him and me never got along since I first tried to hit him while I was in Jr. high. John lived with mom and dad, and at his girlfriend’s back and forth at the time.

___I continued to get stoned with Sid, and was just beginning to notice that I was 5 people. Saddy (me), Shakey (the narrator), Stilly (thee original elder), and Laughy (the funny me), and to top it all off, a 5th. named Sexy. Who knows if that was even a real other me, or just some type of product that acid brought out.

___Over the course of my time on all these acid flashback nights, my Dr. told me he won’t medicate me with all thee acid in my system. So that was that. The 5 of me would become one at night. Stilly. Just Stilly. Stilly didn’t even speak. Not even to us. It was like we did not exist. But in the day, I was Duncan again. (Or Saddy). I began to obsess over my trip. Wanting to refry just to come out of this bad ending. But I didn’t. I just walked into my Dr.'s office and told him that life just seemed too empty being one person now. I wanted it to change, but knew the world around me wasn’t suitable to me. I was hinting I wanted to try to fry again, but he took it as a suicide threat instead, and shot me up with 2 more CCs. Of Haldol. Said I’d get thee other 2 CCs. When I come back.

___I was out of the trip completely this time. I didn’t want to be, but I was. I noticed I was only 2 people. Duncan, and Laughy. So I did what I always did to get Shaky back. I smoked more weed with Sid. That worked. There just wasn’t a Stilly anymore. My addiction to weed was out of control. I wanted to fry again. Even tried mushrooms, but could not get off the shots of anti-psychotics. I was now, an official lab rat. It was no longer my choice to be medicated.

___Due to my addiction I was threatened to go into treatment, or not go back home when I went back to the mental hospital. So with no home to go to I decided to call Liz 4. Liz 4 was living with her ex boyfriend in the central north valley. She had taken her daughter, and left Jeff for him. Jeff had refused to be my friend anymore after he found out that I told Liz 4 that I loved her. I don’t even know why I told her. I honestly didn’t. I was just horny, and confused as to why she still wanted to be my friend. I called her and asked if I could move in with her. Little did I know she hates my guts, and would make me a slave, with the help of her racist ex boyfriend, Mike G.. Which is exactly what happened.

___I was called “nigger” by the 2 of them on the daily. Had to give her all my money, and babysit for them while they were at work. We ended up in a 4 bedroom low income apartment. Her, him, the baby, and the baby’s step grandmother, Mike’s mom. I stayed with them for over 2 full years. My only friend was Mike’s best friend. Ironically, A black man. His name was Parnell Anthony Terrell Sr.. But we called him “Anthony.” He was Schizophrenic, and took medz, but they all told me he was "just lactose intolerant." Liz didn’t smoke weed. Mike and Anthony, and I did though. It was what we did to escape the bitch, Liz. During the turning of the millennium, I shaved off my fu manchew, and Mike gave me a tattoo. My initials. He let me design it. I was miserable. Lost. Incomplete. So incomplete. I had to clean, and sit, and could not shop. At one point I tried to jump off the tallest building in Stockton. Thank God for fear of heights, or I would have. That suicide attempt was before we got that 4 bedroom apartment.

___After we got that 4 bedroom apartment I remember seeing a psychic, who told me to make 2 wishes. I wished for the truth, and for a girlfriend. She told me I would get what I want. A year passed, and I was smoking weed out somewhere at night, and the C.O.P.s were called and I was admitted to the county mental hospital. I fell in love there. Her name was Tonya Halfmon. I was courted by her. She tried to convince my parents that she planned to get to know me, and hopefully marry me. I was released before her, and waited for her to get out, and went to thee address she said she was going to, but she never was there. I felt like I was tricked.

___Meanwhile I tried to retrieve my books I wrote from my friend’s locker at the town community college, and he told me he lost them. I had no writing anymore. I already lost all I wrote in the bay, and now this. A stunning blow to my career. It was a big loss. But I picked up right where I left off again, wrote more, and more, as Mike lost his job, and we got evicted from thee apartment. We squatted from Stockton, to Escalon, where her mother was, then to Elk Grove, where her grandparents were, and then to her birthfather’s in Sacramento, and finally we landed in a motel in North Highlands after burning all their bridges. I began experimenting with cocaine with Mike, and smoked crack once during. By this time I was at thee end of my rope.

___Mike and Anthony were talking outside while I was still on one, and I came out to get stoned with them. They were talking about Anthony being murdered in the future. I didn’t know why. I was fed up with it. I decided it was time for me to just run away. So one day when Liz and Mike were not home when I woke up, I grabbed as much of my clothes as I could wear, left my books, and walked to a gas station, and collect called my parents to pick me up, since they already wanted me back home by then. They came and got me, and I made it out of slavery. Finally.

___But the ride was not over. 2 months later, Mike came to collect my final 2 weeks rent. I happily gave it to him. Wasn’t like I was paying rent with it anyways where I was now. Then later on that month on January 25th., 2002, he came back one night. Lying to me, that Anthony was being murdered in San Francisco. I believed him. Little did I know it was really just the day after Arianna’s birthday, and Mike just wanted money for weed for him, and his step dad. But I was broke. I believed that Anthony died that night. I believed that it was my fault. Eventually I got over my recovery from marijuana dependence, and relapsed back to weed. I kept going to get stoned with Sidney. Then I got arrested for beating up a liquor store clerk who accused me of stealing a Snapple bottle that I brought into the store with me, on a blunt run for Sid. This was just for Sid to get high this time. I was trying to kick, ‘cause of a time his friend laced weed we smoked with meth, and landed me in a mental hospital.

___I remember that day I was taken there. The policewoman who took me in was my real first girlfriend from back when I was in elementary school, over one summer. Her name was Sheila. I forgot all about her. I remember keeping her a secret from Melissa. Melissa, I just seen after that hospital stay, on the day of my first day at work at Burger King. She had me meet her before work. I did. That was the last time I saw her. She wanted money from me. I could not give, ‘cause my parents were in charge of my finances. Now she will now never speak to me again. Never an understanding woman. She just hated on me for being a pothead for free, and said because of me, her husband who has been kidnapped cannot be set free. I guessed she still had ties with the mafia. So she claimed. She was a red headed Italian. She instilled into my mind that I had fucked things up bad, and she cut me out of her life.

___While in jail for something I did not do, I used my one ‘phone call to ask to be bailed out on thee account that I did not pull a 211 like they said. I had my same lawyer from my accident. He was able to prove to the judge with help of the surveillance camera, that the Snapple bottle was mine. I was sentenced to 3 months in an adult group home.

___While on the wait between court dates I ended up buying Sid’s under aged neighbor some alcohol and doing some graffiti with him on the street, and was on a bench warrant by the time I was already doing time. When I went to my court date, I was arrested at the courthouse, I served my 3rd. day in jail, and was released back to thee adult group home to finish my original sentence. I kept going in and out of the mental hospital. For once I was sent to the hospital for attempted murder but was put back in the group home because I really was just trying to scare my roommate who stole my lighter. Then another time When I overdosed on Thorazine. I was high off a pill that just looked like Thorazine that I picked up off the street. Well, a parking lot.

___To back track, before I started my sentence, I was on a 5150 at a mental hospital where I fell in love with an older woman again. Older than Tonya. She was 32. I was 24. I got released, and she got transferred to mental rehab. From there I visited her, and finally lost my virginity on our conjugal visits (Sex passes). That’s how my original elder personality came back to life. This time with Amnesia again, but this time, just as immortal as the funny me, and the narrator. Her name was Rebecca Ann Saunift. We got engaged before she got transferred from the mental hospital to mental rehab, but she left me for another man in that mental rehab. It was about a 3 month relationship, me and her. 1 month shy of being as long as me an Melissa.

___By the time my sentence was up I was back at the mental hospital for overdosing on my anti-psychotic, Thorazine. But I was first taken to a medical hospital to detox. Which of course was not enough time for me to. I stayed locked up for telling a police officer that I waned to kill myself. I didn’t just take what was on the ground ether, I overdosed on my own medication too. I was diagnosed catatonic. I don’t know why. When I was released, I was on mood stabilizers that I guess I was not taking right, because it had me up at night. I thought it was an anti-psychotic, so I took it a night instead of the morning like I was told. I was also on medication to get medication out of my system. That, I did not understand.

___I had lost the job at Burger king for being arrested, lost my fiancée, lost my mind, lost reality, lost my friends, and felt like a virgin again, almost, except losing my virginity brought all 4 of me back together again. By the time I was released I really was not well, at all. I was in a state of catatonia from O.D.ing, but extremely paranoid, and having physical panic attacks all day and night. I eventually had to switch my mood stabilizer, and go back on an anti-psychotic as well, and stop detoxing. I finished anger management, and had a mental relapse. For 90 hours I could not sleep. It was as if I were on something. Maybe I had insomnia. I passed out finally. But one night I miss placed my keys. I called the C.O.P.s to report it. They found them for me, on my fence. I could not sleep that night. The next morning I heard some one outside, while I was in the bathroom. I came outside, and began verbally confronting the man. He drove off as I noticed he had a kid in the car and I stopped. I called the police on myself this time. I thought he was gonna come back and kill me. I was hospitalized for not taking my medz the night before. I told thee officer it was because I did not sleep yet, so was waiting for me to go to bed. He did not care. I was 5150’d anyway.

___While on this 5150 It got turned into a 5250, as always, then I got placed on a 5350, and I went to mental rehab. I was at this mental rehab before, when I was being put back on anti-psychotics before my mental relapse. This time it was against my will. I met up with the woman that Rebecca had long ago tried to set me up with at the time of breaking up with her. Needless to say I was turned down. This time I met her husband. Not by law, but by gang. We became friends. He is actually now my best friend. I did not know at the time, but this woman, his wife, Birdegette, had feelings for me. The man, who’s name is Jader Tadefa, was away from the woman, down the hall, and another man seemed to be bothering her. I stepped in and started striking at the man, and yelling at him. The man’s name was Ivan. I was pulled off, by the wardens, and kicked out of the mental rehab, but not before I got Jader’s number, and he, mine. I was shipped back to the mental hospital. There, I had another fight with a man that I thought was calling me a “jerk off.” I clocked him one, and was restrained. I didn’t understand why I was being locked up for standing up for myself. Fights like this happened all of the time.

___One day in that hospital, while in the bathroom, I had a seizure/stroke, fell on the floor, and the door opened. I thought I was dying. I was taken to a medical hospital. While passing out along the way, I had my life flash before my eyes, and finally became excepting to my whole life, and the way things were, and knew everything was gonna be O.K..

___I woke up with my brother, William standing over me, at this medical hospital. I obviously was alive. I was taken back to the mental hospital, and I didn’t know it yet, but I was cured. I was released, finally, and never went back.

___The day was December 5th., 2003. I was finally home. Finally free. I was lucky to get out. If I ever went back they would be taking me to the state hospital. So I never got picked up again. I made a vow never to return. I never went crazy again. I was my normal 4 selves again, minus thee elder me still had Amnesia. Sure, the narrator had Bi-Polar Disorder Type 1, the funny me had a Schizotyple Personality Disorder, I had P.T.S.D., and my oldest me had Chronic Paranoid Schizophrenia, and Depersonalization Disorder and Dissociative Amnesia, but we were all there. Sure, we heard voices, but it was only each other, minus the voices that thee elder hears, but there were no more psychotic breaks, no way around the depressive life we lived, and was back on the track to getting high again, but it wasn’t that bad. A year or so more , I was already smoking weed again, and I got my license back, because I retook drivers’ ed’. Jader and I ran into each other on a B.A.R.T. train, and he called me shortly after. I already began giving him clothes I didn’t wear anymore, so we were good friends. He was still in the whole in-and-out-of-the-psych’-ward routine, but he was older than me. I just happened to get the miracle. The right medz!

___Eventually it became 2005, and I was at the bar, and met a girl named Becky. This one was Becky 4. Thee other Becky who took my virginity was Becky 3, because Becky 1 was a girl that liked me in the group home when I was a teenager, and Becky 2 was Jason’s Becky.

___This Becky’s full name was Rebekah Joy Meyer. She was an adopted Italian Irish red head who’s adopted parents were also Italian Irish. I was in love with her, but she was always taken. One day while I took her in from being homeless, she called my mom a “bitch”, and left. I stayed friends with her, but knew we could never be serious since she treated my mother that way. She did not like me, let alone love me. She was Bi-Polar, only, so she claims, but all my friends said she was a psycho bitch herself. I just thought she had a personality disorder. But she was a bitch. I fell so deeply in love with her, and tried to get in her pants. I wanted to get a place with her, and marry her, but she just never wanted to be mine. She kept sleeping around and around the town, and having me set her up with men I knew, and she got pregnant. Thankfully not by a man I set her up with. She went to rehab. We still saw each other though. But with her calling my mom a “bitch,” and her not liking me back, we could just never be. I eventually got rid of her. Cut her out of my life.

___Then one day, Jader called and asked me to find Bridegette for him. So I did. I tracked her down, because he had given me her address. I was already dating a girl named Linda Doulit. But Linda would not have sex with me. She just would not put out. I ended up cheating on her with Bridegette. Then Linda found out, and it was over between me and Linda. But then Jader found out, and surprisingly, he was glad. So he claimed. It seemed like she was dating the both of us, but I seemed sure that she was only fucking me.

___One day she ran away from her group home, and ended up hospitalized. We broke up. I tried to get back with Linda, but she told me she didn’t want to be some one’s “second choice,” so I was single again. My life drew me back to Becky 4. Then one night, after I left the bar on the birthday of this friend of mine I set her up with, I left the scene. Me and him did not have of a bond ever since she accused him of being the father of her baby when she found out she was knocked up. So being as how I already bought him weed for his birthday, got high with him, and left, I was pretty much done for the night. I went to the park, and sat on the swings, and there was a bunch of youngsters hanging out, twacked on Ecstasy. I had tried ecstasy before after coming home from slavery.

___I remember that trip. It came with an acid triangle tab. Yup. 2 Blue Dolphins, and a White Border triangle tab. I took both pills, and put the tab in a bandana around my head. I was trippin’ for 3 weeks, because I was off medz since I came home from slavery. I was so sick that I saw another psychic, and the psychic said she was gonna kill my friend. The friend was Anthony. When mike came over asking for money, I had thought she really did kill him. Instead he was really murdered in 2005 after I became friends with Becky 4.

___Anyways, back to 2006, I was at the park, and became close friends with all these teenagers, and a couple of early 20’s folks, who were all hanging out at this playground where I went to swing on the swingset. I bought some ecstasy from one of the girls who’s name was Stephany Hagans, but every one called her “Rock.” She was 18, and I was falling in love with her that night. I was stoned, so the first pill didn’t work. She took us to her apartment. There I had a bright idea. I called my weed dealer, and asked if he had any ecstasy, since Rock was all out. We drove to meet him. Among all these new friends, there was Mike M., who back then called himself “Dumbass,”age 19, and then Sean, age 20, and his brother Steve, age 20, Makalu, Steve’s girlfriend I don’t remember how old, Zack, who was only 19, Jackie, who was 15, and Jessica, age 18.  There were all bad kids. Then when I finally got my next pill, I thizzled hard. It was a lot like being drunk, and sort of like being how I was when I took the 2 Blue Dolphins in early December of 2001. It got me high. To top it all off I didn’t feel like smoking weed anymore. I found another drug of choice. Ecstasy was the next best thing that ever happened to me, next to acid. Then I came down. Rock’s roommate came home. Nicole Henderson. Nicole was known as a slut. She was 18, but did not like me, so I did not like her. The next morning I knew I did not want to smoke any weed anymore. I was worried that ecstasy was going to be hard to find, and expensive for me to obtain, but I was willing to go to any lengths to roll. I became a raver. They named the narrator “GAWN!!!!!”, originally, but it in the later years got changed to “G.A.W.N.” which stands for “Gone And Went Nowhere.” He’s not a Cannon, ‘cause he was originally born when I was 17, the first time I got high. The funny me I decided to just officially call him “Laughy” again, and thee original elder me, was already known as “Dun,” named by Bridegette, so I let him keep that name.

___As my love for Rock grew, and my whereabouts about finding out that she was Sean’s girlfriend hit me hard, I realized we could only be friends, and I was O.K. with that. I loved her. As a friend. Yet, when I was alone, I wrote about her, obsessively.

___Sean, and Steve, and Makalu, left Rock, for thee east coast. So I had Rock, all to myself. So I thought. She shown no interest in me. I tried my best to court her, but she used me instead. To her, I was just a chauffeur. Then, Becky 4 came back from rehab, and lived with a relative or a friend, or some one’s, and we became friends again. Then when I crashed the bottom of my car over a curb in the rain, trying to pick up my friends who I tried to ditch at a concert to pick up Rock from work, I stopped hanging out at Rock’s place. I fell out of love with her slowly, and moved on. I didn’t even rave anymore

___I saw Mike M. at the mall, and was invited to be his friend again. Then I got put on social security from my father’s earning’s and was rich, at first, because I got a huge lump sum. I bought a new bike, and I moved into Jader’s group home.

___I became a pot head again. Then I decided to kick so I could go back to college. It worked out. I got an A in Abnormal Psychology. It was long and hard strenuous work. I was doing homework 7 days a week, even though the class only met twice a week. I somehow found my roommates smoking crack in the kitchen, and took a hit. I actually felt it this time. I did not want to become and addict, and ruin my school work, so I smoked a little weed to balance my high out. I continued with my homework, as if nothing ever happened. After class was finished, and finals were over, I became a crack head. Then I got my grade. It was an A. I was happy, but at the same time ashamed, that I have got hooked on crack. I never went back to college. I stayed hooked on crack, and one day was on one, plus stoned, and got my bike stolen. I took cash advances to replace it, and moved back home for a month to pay back my loans. During at which, I was kicking.

___I white knuckled it until I woke up from a dream of getting crack with my sister, but woke up before I could smoke it. So I took a trip to the dealer in that other town, brought it back with me to my hometown, and went to the park with my very own dime bag of crack. The sky was gray, but that didn’t stop me. I got so high, that I passed out from smoking resin, far longer than the rock itself even lasted. I woke up unaware that I was out cold, I just kept smoking it. That high did not do the trick for me.

___When the month was done, I moved back to Jader’s group home. I tried to stay clean, but couldn’t. I took out advances against next month’s check, and believed my roommates would pay me back so I would still have rent money next month, but deiced to not count on that, and made the decision that I had no choice but to move back home to mom and dad’s. I was devastated.

___I stayed clean for a year and a half. That seemed to always be my magic number. Well, maybe 2 times in total was I ever clean for 18 months, but this time I found myself in my friend’s friend’s garage, watching them smoke meth. I ended up smoking meth that night. The next morning I had to go to my volunteer job that I had evening shifts doing twice a week. After work, I came back to that house, and bought some weed to stop me from going into a meth addiction. It worked, but I was hooked on weed again. I couldn’t get off. I got stoned every day again, and even after work nights, and after I would pray for thee end of abortion with the church, on Thursdays, strange as that sounds.

___Finally one night a girl came over to see me. She called me, asking if I could get her some mushrooms. I was completely unable to, and my friend, Ben Moris, came over too. This girl’s name was Jordan. She ended up spending the night after my friend left. I woke up in the middle of the night, and tried to have sex with her. But when she finally got undressed she was so fat that I could not get it up. So she went home. I went a couple of weeks without smoking weed, and suddenly felt that I did not really need weed anymore.

___That lasted thru-out my next relationship with a girl named May Hannah Fendell. May was a university Senior. We broke up from a 2 and ½ month serious relationship. I ended up friends with Becky 4 again. Becky had her own apartment now, with 2 kids living with her, but her oldest kid that she had before we met was still not living with her. One day she asked if I had any friends in my circle that likes to smoke weed, and would be willing to get high with her. I introduced her to Robert Matoya, except he goes by the name “Peanut.” They became lovers, and got drunk on Cinco De Mayo, 2010 Weekend. It was in the day time, and I felt stoned, so decided to get stoned. That was my last run. The run was long, and memorable though. I met a girl my age on my websites where I share my poetry. Her name was Kelly Jean Rice. She lived in the next county. So we met in person, and got stoned together, but did not click. Laughy, who’s name changed to “Puppet,” in 2008 when I was in Jader’s group home, where he was named by him, was clucking like a chicken, while stoned in her car. For some reason, Kelly wanted me to wear my watch on my right arm that day. I never saw her again. We stayed friends online, and would get stoned simultaneously with her over the ‘phone thru texting her whenever I was at the place at a park I call “Stoners’ Field.” Stoners’ Field was thee original place where Jeff, and Eiton smoked Chronic with me for my first time. The time I had my best high. I’m not sure if Sidney was there. Anyways, I would go to try and chase my first chronic high, and text Kelly, if she wanted to smoke simultaneously me. I thought it was funny.

___Then, my father got really sick. I came home from Becky’s and found the house empty. I got a ‘phone call from my family, saying dad went to the hospital, and that it was serious. I don’t remember if I was stoned earlier that day or not. That day was July 19th., 2010. The next day was my clean date off of substances, other than alcohol. On July 25th., 2010 I had my last drink with my sisters. The next day was my clean date off of everything. The day after that, my father died in his coma. I managed to recite the first poem I ever wrote him, but whether or not he could hear me before he passed on is a wonder.

___So my father was gone. My dad being in Heaven was what was always gonna be thee only thing that could get me clean. I always knew that if my father was watching me from above I would definitely not want him to see me doing drugs. I told my weed man that. And it became true. I ended all drug use, and drinking, except cigarettes, so far. I got a big raze from Social Security. Enough money to pay my debts, and I moved to another place Jader was living. A halfway house, for both addicts, and mentally ill men. I left my mother, and cat, and moved to Berkeley with a month clean into this halfway house. Berkeley was thee only place on Earth that could feel like Earth to me. I missed my father though, and missed my cat, but every weekend I would come down to see my mother, and cat, and my friends, Mike M., Nate, Kenny F., Max, and Curt. Besides Nate, we were a tagging krew. The Hell Katz-9 lives. We got rags of our own colors, and tattoos of the number 9 on our left biceps. The closest place to our hearts that was visible. The 5 of us were a non territorial gang, and then Chris who moved to Sacramento with a girl whom he met at a rave, joined, and max dropped out.

___Then Jader went into a transitional Housing place in North Berkeley. I shortly fallowed. I started going to N.A.. Narcotics Anonymous. I got a sponsor, a service commitment, a home group, a support group, and started working the steps. I noticed my Amnesia lifted, and my Depersonalizaiton Disorder remitted, and got into a semi-long distant relationship. Then it got serious. My new Dr. started to wean me off of sleeping pills, and I was against the decision ‘cause Ambien was what got rid of the voices, but it had to be done for legal matters of the clinic’s rules.

___So time passed, and I already had a new volunteer job that I began the day before my intake date at this transitional housing, called Bonita House. I volunteered for thee Alameda County Food Bank in Oakland. Before, I had been layed off from Thee American Red Cross-Blood Center in Oakland, where I volunteered for 3 years, until they downsized our department of telerecruiting. Now I was working with food, so it wasn’t a sit down job anymore. I volunteered morning shift, and swing shift, but eventually when I started to go to meetings at N.A. everyday I had to just attend the swing shift, even though I wasn’t supposed to. I just could not wake up on time anymore. I finished DLCannon Reprise, and shortly after, the website spilt up into 2. Booksie, and Booksie Silk. Now there are 4 of my websites, because I already originally had 2 accounts. DLCannon and DLCannon Reprise. I had to put everything I have written from before I came to Booksie on DLCannon Reprise to go in order, and not go back and forth from the past to the present on DLCannon. Right after DLCannon Reprise was complete. I got involved with the woman I was serious with. Her name was Rubina Dias. She was Indian, and thought she was white, and was neighbors at my mother’s new apartment complex that she got into after her house foreclosed, a year after dad’s passing. I graduated Bonita House, which I nicked named “The Pee Pi-A House FraternaSorority,” When I got an apartment on my own, and my mom and Chloey, the cat, moved to Tracy with Jasmine, my sister. This was in 2013. Then I got diagnosed with pre-diabetes. I suffer now. I can no longer pig out on anything sweet.

___A year flew by living both on my own, half the time, and thee other half of the time at Rubina’s. Then we broke up. I lost all my feelings for her because when she went to the mental hospital she fell in love with an inmate. We were very dysfunctional. We went thru everything. My first N.A. campout, my first anniversary, I even bought her a bicycle. But then I went bankrupt. I thought I was getting a red light ‘photo ticket in the mail, because Rubina said she saw it flash on us. So I got my last credit card to pay the supposed upcoming ticket. The ticket never came, so I spent credit card. But then I could not manage the minimum payments anymore. We had no money for ourselves every month. I had to file bankruptcy if I was ever going to afford to marry her, so I began paying lawyer fees. But then I quit smoking, and started vaping, and then we broke up when she expressed infidelity in the mental hospital she was admitted into. I visited her until she told me about this incident. Then I broke up with her.

|___Then we were friends again a couple of months later. I would come over only on Fridays, but not spend the night, but we would have sex still, so we became bed buddies. But, still, I would not stay the night.

___Then Chloey, the cat, passed away. She died of a blood clot. And at first I could of sworn Elisa Rehn killed her, but was told that you can’t give a cat a blood clot. I never made it on time to see Chloey in the pet hospital before she passed on. I regretted not missing a meeting simply to do so. I will regret that for the rest of my life. Also In 2012, 2 of my friends died. One from an overdose, and thee other by a freak accident. And then, in 2013, 2 more died. An older woman and former roommate that I was in love with before Rubina, named Julie Tomatis Marcus, died of natural causes, and on the same day of her funeral, my favorite teacher from Kennedy High, Coach Webb, got ran over by a hit and run.

___I fell in love with women after women after Rubina and I broke up. Even became friends with Kelly again on Facebook, along with Jane, whom I thought liked me, and maybe at one point she did, but I originally ruined it by jealously unfriending her over her baby-daddy. Eventually I found another woman, on my websites, who I became friends with over the ‘phone, and calls became daily from the start. I felt content with her friendship, and not willing to have sexual relations with Rubina anymore. Her name is Ifeoma Loltia Mokolo. She lives in Texas, and writes erotica, like Puppet, mostly, but she has both an account on Booksie, and on Booksie Silk.

___I am now off of Ambien, completely, and am using thee N.A. meetings to quiet down Dun’s voices. It’s kind of like a magic trick. I don’t know how it works. Dun no longer has Amnesia, but now we are on Metformin. A diabetic-becoming blocking medication. I finally got put on it when my A-1c shot up to a 6.0. Which was just recently. I still think about my father, and miss him dearly. I dream about him. If there’s anything I could say to my father I would tell him how sorry I am for secretly being a drug addict when he was alive.

___The future is looking better. I plan to go back to work. I don’t know if I ever will, or if I’ll ever be fully self supporting, but I know I can never try to fully self support myself, cause I could lose everything in the process. I have a wonderful mountain bike, Storm Bucket, that I got with a previous credit card. I just wish I could have paid it off, and feel so guilty about going into bankruptcy. But Rubina gave me a stuffed animal chicken with an attached stuffed animal chickie last year, and I sleep with the chicken and chickie every night. I’ll always have a history with Rubina, but I want some one better for me. Some one who can be faithful, and who rides a bike, like me, but you never know. Some men just die single. I don’t doubt that I could be one of those men, but at least I have my own place. I live in Oakland, and I’ll die out here. Whether it be with or without any one else. I was thinking of making my 59th. book my last book before I at least slow down for work, but I have a feeling I’ll survive to write more. Maybe even just as fast. I don’t know right now. “A writer writes. Always,” but I wanna work. Someday. My cat past away, last year I know someday I’ll see her and my dad in Heaven. For now I just have Ify, and my hens. And I love them very much. And that will never change.

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05-24-’15

D. L. Cannon