I’ve wanted to write seriously about Chesnutt for years. I hoped one day to do a long interview with him for Verbicide. I figured that now that I was back in Georgia the opportunities to talk to his friends and family might present themselves and I could do an even longer piece. Why not? Even with his personal life in turmoil, his career was on an extraordinary trajectory.

It was around 3 a.m. when the rain started. At first it was just a fine mist beading up on the cracked windshield. But by the time we hit I-77 in deepest, darkest part of West Virginia it was coming down in steady black sheets. There was an ill-wind blowing and our little car, weighed down with life’s possessions, swayed ominously with each gust.

Originally published in Verbicide issue #25
In the fall of 1979 I was an angst-ridden college freshman struggling to find a place in a university culture that felt truly alien to me. I was experiencing the usual growing pains — I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I sure as hell wasn’t [...]

Originally published in Verbicide issue #24
Winter 1984. I’d been living in the Washington, DC area for about five months. To be specific, I was living in a shitty little apartment down the street from the Dischord House in Arlington, Virginia. It’s hard for me to describe how excited I was to finally be in the [...]

Originally published in Verbicide issue #23
The phone rang at 5:30 in the morning and unfortunately I was already awake to answer it. In fact, I’d been more or less conscious for 72 hours, riding out the effects of a Human Growth Hormone/Viagra cocktail. Hey, I’ll try anything twice. I couldn’t find my pants. There appeared [...]

I dreamt I saw Al Gore last night. And in my dream Al Gore was wearing his Nobel Prize medal and it was magic. It gave him the power of flight. Yes, Al Gore could fly in my dream and he was flying around the world saving the human race from itself. He smote the evil SUVs, and when the people were confused he showed them his PowerPoint and they were satisfied.