And if, by chance, you asked him if he thought that girl was hot, he wouldn’t give you a clear answer one way or another. He would just rush on to th… - Saeed Jones

America was going to hate me for being black and gay, then I might as well make a weapon out of myself.

A joke I used to repeat in those days was: Why be happy when you can be interesting? I knew how to be interesting. There was power in being a spectacle, even a miserable spectacle. The punch and the line. Interesting: sentences like serrated blades, laughter like machine-gun rounds, a drink in one hand, a borrowed cigarette in the other. If you could draw enough glances, any room could orbit around you.

He turned it facedown on the nightstand then set upon me like the sunlight itself.