Grace After Midnight_ A Memoir - Felicia Pearson [0]
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First eBook Edition: November 2007
ISBN: 978-0-446-50098-2
Contents
Also by David Ritz
Copyright
BABY GIRL
THE CLOSET
COLD-BLOODED KILLER
THE SMURFS
KNIGHT RIDER
KEN AND BARBIE
EVERYTHING MOVES OFF MONEY
UNCLE
NINE-MILLIMETER
BOW AND ARROW
“YOU BAD”
AIN’T NO AVERAGE DAYS
“SHE MY DAUGHTER.”
GODMOTHER
HE’S THINKING, SHE TURNED YOU OFF. I’M THINKING, SHE TURNED ME OUT.
DEATH UP CLOSE
“YOU A BOY”
“YOU A GIRL”
BONKERS
LEAD BAT
MURDER WAS THE CASE
MORE THAN A MINUTE
23/1
THE STRIP
“TUPAC SHAKUR SHOT IN LAS VEGAS.”
THE BEST DEAL
A DIFFERENT WORLD
“I COULDN’T HELP IT. THE MAN JUST HATED KIDS.”
“THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT GRANDMA’S HOUSE.”
GG
DILDOS FOR SALE
THE TRIP
CO
BITCH
BRAIN DEAD
LOOKING UP
THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE
LOSING IT
DOUBLE WHAMMY
GRACE AFTER MIDNIGHT
HOME STRETCH
THE DAY OF DAYS
LOVE, INSIDE AND OUT
BOYS DON’T CRY
UP
THE LINE
IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED . . .
LUCKED UP OR FUCKED UP?
CAR WASH
LIFE AIN’T NO MOVIE
DICKHEAD
“I’LL BUST YOU WITH THIS BRICK!”
COP SAYS, “CRACK YOUR ASS CHEEKS SO I CAN LOOK UP IN THERE.”
“NO, NIGGA. I HIT THE BLOCK.”
FLIPPING THE SCRIPT
NEW SNOOP
Also by David Ritz
BIOGRAPHY
Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye
Faith in Time: The Life of Jimmy Scott
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Brother Ray (with Ray Charles)
Inside My Life (with Smokey Robinson)
The Rhythm and the Blues (with Jerry Wexler)
Rage to Survive (with Etta James)
Blues All Around Me (with B. B. King)
Guide to Life (with Sinbad)
From These Roots (with Aretha Franklin)
The Brothers (with the Neville Brothers)
Reach (with Laila Ali)
Guillaume (with Robert Guillaume)
Howling at the Moon (with Walter Yetnikoff)
Elvis by the Presleys (editor)
Messengers: Portraits of African American Ministers
What I Know for Sure (with Tavis Smiley)
Rickles’ Book (with Don Rickles)
NOVELS
Search for Happiness
The Man Who Brought the Dodgers Back to Brooklyn
Dreams
Blue Notes Under a Green Felt Hat
Barbells and Saxophones
Family Blood
Passion Flowers
Sanctified Blues (with Mable John)
Stay Out of the Kitchen (with Mable John)
THIS BOOK IS FOR ARNOLD LONLY,
THE MAN I CALL UNCLE
R.I.P.
I’m not making excuses, and I’m not feeling sorry for myself. Don’t expect you to feel sorry for me either.
Just want to tell my story while it’s fresh.
Just want to make sure other people know my story, especially the kids on the streets and the kids working the corners.
Just want to let them know that you can get over without killing people and selling packs.
I did all that. Fact is, I was still doing it up till a couple of years ago.
Then something happened.
This book is about what happened.
BABY GIRL
I was born in Baltimore twenty-seven years ago, and then I died—twice. I died both times because my mother was filled with drugs and so was I. Crack babies are messed-up babies, and, according to what the doctors were saying, I didn’t have a prayer.
But they brought me back from death’s door. Someone or something keeps bringing me back from death’s door.
I don’t understand it, but maybe writing this book will help me see who I was and who I became.
Sometimes I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and imagine myself back then:
A little-bitty baby small enough to fit into the palm of the doctor’s hand, no bigger than a puppy or kitten; a baby who has to be fed with an eye dropper ’cause her mouth is too small for the nipple of a bottle; a baby born cross-eyed due to the drugs running through her system.
A baby born to die.
But that same doomed-to-die baby finds