The Riviera sunset is flooding the lobby and bathing us all in warm light, but as it catches that world-famous mouth, there is a glint I know to examine more closely.
Even in the world of don’t-offend parenting, I got as far as I did because I tell the fucking truth. I might have the only parenting book to regularly drop the f-bomb. My entire brand is built on being not-blend-in-able.
Bailey’s driving like a maniac while I sit in the back, smoking a cigarette, ecstatic. Engines rev, lights flash, tires squeal — suddenly your life and a movie converge.
The children missing shoes, the young men preyed on by John Wayne Gacy, the drunks confined to their fire escape — all these lost souls, they had nowhere to run.
Without even intending it, I start to walk away from my religion. It is not a pleasant journey. I feel alone. I can’t tell anyone because everyone I know believes in God. I am an outcast. I am an X-Man.
Maybe that’s where I belonged after all. Oh, how this journey had fallen apart. A night that had once sparkled, and now, here I was, sliding into the backseat of a squad car.
