How I recall that all her friends were "enormously gifted" and "exceedingly bright." I was a dim bulb. Perhaps I knew a "gifted thief." This was implied As she was of the Social Register of NY And I was from Cal-i-for-Nigh-ay, and we were, unfortunately, Back East. I'm serious! I'm serious as a heart attack, my train-riding-addict-hobo boyfriend used to say, too often. Woops, oops, I proved her case. Her aforementioned friends were working on committees for political reform and election to public office And I was of a lower class, yes, indeed-arriviste: lower, really, than the working class, with all our Pretentious collecting, Belief in merit, college degrees, and not birth, Belief in profits, not savings Bestowed on each succeeding generation like the sky and the earth.
Unlike her, though, I liked my boyfriends really, really low, I liked the criminal class, I liked the suffering and the drinking, I liked the violence, the big shrieking, And the jail time, and the thinking.
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