We didn’t talk about it, but we knew we’d never amount to anything, no matter what we did. No matter how celebrated the accomplishment, no matter how big the fiction and the audience buying it, nothing could ever fill those holes deep down inside us, though we’d never relent, whistling past boneyards and shooting the breeze full of furious patter. We were, as my friend Joey once called us—The Dirtbags of the Universe. I’m not sure what prompted him to say it, probably just one of those acidic outbursts that we, kids from Brooklyn, specialized in—and after he said it, I looked at him, said nothing, maybe smiled, but the term immediately burrowed into one of those deep down holes and became an echo, gathering dark, before splintering and sharpening into an insight. Joey was right. We were the Dirtbags of the Universe. We felt ourselves to be so, which amounted to something far more powerful than truth—collectively, we possessed the character of a single raindrop, skidding toward an open sewer, just because.
John Biscello 
John, I’m reading two of your books from the Taos library. I love your writing style. I’m glad I came across your site!
It reminds me of being back in NYC living on the lower east side and when I lived in Bay Ridge, and off Coney Island Ave and ave T.
The library shouldn’t have charged me for the small coffee spills on them! As you said, the coffee added to the character of the books!
Thanks, Liz Dreams
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Thanks, Liz, for both diving into my work and for your comments. Glad the writing is transporting you back to old New York. Soon I will donate a few other of my books to the library catalog, one titled No Man’s Brooklyn is set in Bensonhurst. All the best!
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And, yes, coffee stains are excellent for character-building!
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