Saturday's Storyteller: "I never said I was a smart man."
by Belinda Roddie I never said I was a smart man. I never said I knew how to make proper executive decisions. The life I left behind was gilded, and I was tired of gold and silver. Now I realize how little I learned when it came to fending for myself once I pulled the pearl-handled spoon out of my mouth. I wanted pewter. I wanted tin and aluminum and just plain plastic. I surrounded myself with silicon to get it. And then I lost everything. The tower I was attempting to build was already a sloppy leaning mess of shrapnel. It collapsed like paper. I couldn't construct anything of my own without holding my father's withering, white hand. A hand that had reached rigor mortis fifteen years ago. I found my boyfriend in the dirty loins of a city that treated its denizens like tramps. He wore flannel, and he could have been carrying a bindle on a stick. I brought him back to the apartment I could barely pay for and nursed him back to health with ramen and tap water. He said he h