The Book of Goodbyes Read Online Free PDF

what bone cancer means. She was ten years old. And, if she is still alive, she is still ten years old.

    â€œZahra was last seen in her bed at 2:30 a.m. on Saturday morning according to her stepmother.” —Fox News

    â€œI am gothic and proud.” —Stepmother’s MySpace page.

    â€œMr. Coffey, you like being in control now who is in control we have your daughter no cops.” —Ransom Note

    Her leg was found in the woods. They matched the serial number from leg to medical records. This is how it begins. Serial numbers on our parts. Only our doctors can tell you who we are.

    What am I doing with my life?

    The commercial starts with a celebrity. The celebrity turns into a potbellied man with a missing leg surrounded by empty beer bottles. “Be thee amputated, drunk and alone? Play Rock Star.”

    In the spring issue of
Pony Swoon
, Nadine Neeze has a poem titled “Lame Sonnet.” Hugh sent the issue. What am I going to do about it? Tell Hugh the word
lame
is offensive? Do I actually care or is this another of my baseless campaigns?

    â€œYou used the word lame on the phone the other day,” Josh says. “Sometimes I use it just to see how it makes me feel,” I say.

    In regards to the song “Pretty Boy Swag” by Soulja Boy: It is about a lame boy who goes to the club and because of his limp, which is called “swag,” all the women want him.

    I am watching
Pawn Stars
. It is about how much something is worth.

    How much would you pay me to say the name of the condition I have? Would I just need to say the name or would you require an examination? How much for the box of legs in the attic?

    I start calling myself a cyborg.

    I find a website called
Gimps Gone Wild
. “I could make a lot of money selling photo sets,” I tell Josh. “Probably a hundred dollars for a set.”

    â€œDon’t do that,” he says. “I would never do that,” I say even though I’m not sure if I would do it or not.

    â€œHave you seen the Suicide Girls?” I ask Josh. He says, “No. What’s that?” It seems impossible that he has not seen the Suicide Girls. “It’s porn but the girls are really different with tattoos, librarian glasses, emo, indie, that kind of thing. If the girls on
Gimps Gone Wild
were pretty like the Suicide Girls then maybe.”

    What is pretty?

    I read the novel
Fay
by Larry Brown. I read it fast and pretend Fay has a fake leg. This is a recurring approach I take.

    Zahra Baker’s stepmother has been arrested for 1) assault with a deadly weapon 2) failure to return rental property 3) writing worthless checks and 4) some other charges not reported. Her father has been released after posting bond.

    In the Netherlands, if you are disabled, the government gives you 12 free sessions with a prostitute each year. “For women too?” Josh asks.

    A man at a coffee shop. I thought he had a condition that caused him to shake uncontrollably. Later, the emails roll in. “I got turned-on seeing you walk to the stage. I bought your book. Do you like making love?”

    The emails got so bad I had to forward them to my professor. He would read them and let me know if I needed a restraining order. Or a gun.

    If I enrolled on
Gimps Gone Wild
, I would wear a wig. I would dress up in a ball gown. Employ various speakers. Is it any different than poetry?

    Zahra: Here’s the drill. There have been so many laws against us. Laws that say we can’t go out in public and we can’t marry. Laws that mandate the splicing of our wombs and parts of our brains. I was going to lay it out for you in poetry, all the laws against us, but there were just too many.

    On the cover of the book Josh is reading: BEST BLACK WRITER. Josh says, “Bet that pisses him off.”

    Zahra Baker is still missing. I better write some more notes to her before she’s dead.

    It is weird that I have all these