I’d spent the best of the brisk evening at Camelot discussing art, literature, Detroit, and the direction of my novel with my good friend and confidante, (Ypsilanti poet) Nina Simmone. It was getting late and Nina opened another bottle of wine while I looked through her small collection of books, searching for something to soothe my dreary discontentment and pervading disillusionment that the Detroit lit scene would revive something resembling a serious literary movement. In these dark cupboards, I hoped there would be something worthwhile that would magically spring me back to where I had began nearly a year early, the hope and certainty that my literary life would not disintegrate to meaninglessness, that my love for words, thoughts, and reflection had not been a Sinatra-esque nightmare (“for all… for nothing at all”). “Something,” I murmured in between large gulps of cheap Villa Giada Moscato D’asti, “something in this cabinet must restore my faith.” (“Drunk talk”, Nina calls it.) I selected Wallace Thurman’s novel, Infants Of the Spring, and climbed into Nina’s king size Sleigh Bed with burning cigarette, refreshed wine, and Nina’s solemn promise that she would not disturb me. .…(cont.)
