True Story

by Gabriella Belfiglio

I have coffee with Richard Wright: he rushes across the length of the café to where I am sitting in the corner. Pushing off his hat and gloves, he lands right next to me, as if I’d been waiting for him starts talking immediately. Tells me in one breath about his friend Zeus (who thinks himself a god) and Zeus’ family: sister Carmen (the wild one), a second Portia (a gift from Shakespeare), his brother Apollo (the good son), and the youngest, Eunice. Richard chuckles as he suggests she was named after The Carol Burnett Show. Eunice. Without missing a beat Richard describes for me his last apartment, before he moved back to DC, to nurse his failing father. It was in upper Manhattan:

           tiny room      no heat
     the old man a wall away
           banging with each cough.