Blind Submission by Debra Ginsberg Read Free Book Online

rich in opaqueness the color of coffee. He thought she was beautiful so he didn’t notice that as they exited the restaurant he stepped right over an important Clue to what would become the greatest act of subversion and to-
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TWO

    Lucy Fiamma
    Lucy Fiamma Literary Agency
    RE: PARCO LAMBRO (book proposal)
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    Dear Ms. Fiamma,
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    I am a well known Italian pastry chef living in San Francisco. I have been in this country since the age of 22 and I have taught myself English from reading books. The best books I have read are represented by you, especially
Cold!
by Karanuk. That book made a very big impression on me and it also made me realize that one man’s story can be understood and felt by many, even if the experience of the man is new to most people. I, too, have a story to tell and this is why I am writing to you. I was a heroin addict for many years before I left my country. Heroin was a very big problem for young people in Italy in the 1970s and it probably still is. I had a group of friends I spent time with during these years and we hung out together in a park called Parco Lambro in Milano. I was able to quit, but I had to leave my home to do so. My friends were not so lucky. Many bad things have happened to them since then. My story is about the years I spent in the Parco Lambro and about my friends. It is also about how I managed to give up the drug and become successful here in America. It is a memoir. I am enclosing some pages from the book for you to read. I have never written anything before, but this story is from my heart. I have come to you because I know what good work you do and because Fiamma is an Italian name. I know that you will understand what I am trying to say.
    Sincerely,
Damiano Vero
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    PARCO LAMBRO
    By Damiano Vero
    Everywhere there are lemons. Yellow rinds of lemons, old and new, rotting and fresh. Yellow pulp of lemons shining brightly on the green grass of the park. We need this fruit to clean our stuff. We only use the juice. Sometimes tourists come here and walk around, lost. They come with cameras in their hands and new shoes on their feet, looking for a photograph. They are confused by all the half-lemons squeezed out and left in the sun. If they look closer, they see more. Drinking fountains stained red with blood and the crunch of needles under feet, poking through the grass like an apocalyptic crop. This is when they leave the park, and maybe Italy too.
    â€œWe had a terrible time in that city,” they will say when they return home. “It was not at all like the travel brochures say. You can’t imagine what we found in this park.”
    There are no strangers in the park today. We are here today as we are every day. We are sitting and standing and lying where we fall. Now we are gathered together in a loose knot, looking over the still body of a young man who has collapsed on the ground. We’ve dragged him to a shady place under a tree and he lies there, unconscious. His face is beginning to turn the blue color of death. He is Luigi, our friend. We whisper over him and sway a little. Our voices swim slowly through the air, coming up from the bottom of a narcotic lake. We are trying to decide if Luigi wants to be saved. Soon he will be dead.
    Soon is a changing concept in the park. Time is stretched differently here. It is elastic and free with a carnival shape. I have to sit down. The wet summer air is heavy with the sharp smell of lemons and it washes me down to the ground. I see someone moving towards Luigi, giving him something. But my eyes are closing and everything is moving very slowly. I can’t tell what is happening. The sun is red and yellow behind my lids. I am warm for the first time in days.
    When I open my eyes again, Luigi is sitting up, awake and angry. He wants to know who has come to his rescue and why?
    â€œYou ruined my high,” he says. “Do you know how expensive that stuff was?”
    Nobody speaks. The colors