MY MEMOIR
douglas watson
I was born in 1971, as though to compensate the world for its loss of the Beatles. In 1975, the year Saigon fell, I fell, too, and cracked my head open on the corner of a brick fireplace. I bled but did not die. There followed a long period of continued non-death. Soon enough, there I was, sprawled (but still not dead) on the lawn in front of the college library, dreaming of mangoes. I wooed my ennui. It didn't notice.
I got a haircut, a B.A. in anthropology, and a job delivering coffee beans.
Time passed, as was its habit back then. In 1999, the year nobody knew what to do, I went to the university whose name is the answer to the question "What color is shit?" and read a lot of books other people had written about what still other people had done to themselves and others.
A woman rescued me and took me to Boston, where love died. Drinking took me up, but its heart wasn't in it. I disassembled my personality, sold the parts on eBay, and used the proceeds to buy a blank slate, which I named after myself.
I wanted to learn how to be written on.