PREVIEW "The Death of Ethan Blue".

 PREVIEW "The Death of Ethan Blue".

"I'll tell you something else, the goddamn academics and the good magazines, some of them knew how good my shit was. A lot of those guys loved my stuff, read it and loved it. They all cockblocked me - some of them jealous but most afraid of me. If I had been full of shit, some Bukowski wannabe, faking it, pretending then they'd have loved me. I kept it 100, when I get drunk, I get all the way drunk. When I tell about the smell of the barracks after breakfast in prison when the punks stayed back, its because I saw them motherfuckers falling in love with each other ... and god bless 'em. All I ever watched was my timecard , that was what was subject to change. People helped me, so what?  I lived with women and let them buy my drinks and dinner. I wasn't a hustler, I didn't lie to those girls I loved them all. I was a Grinder, I went and got mine but those bastards were afraid the emperor had no clothes. That I had bullshitted them so much that I made them love my poetry. That somehow it was a trick. Oh and god forbid they be the first to like something great, something new. The cocksuckers. No man can be a prophet around here, haters is all. I'm a goddamn genius. Well, I guess I'm close as we got now."

"I think you're tired Ethan, why don't you just lay down on the couch. I'll get you a blanket."
 Before she got back with the blanket he was passed out, she picked up his bottle put it in the kitchen, came back and pulled his boots off. She kissed his forehead, turned and wiping away a tear went to bed.