There Will Be No Miracles Here: A Memoir

by Casey Gerald

Everything was good, all good. I took it all in stride, or silence, whatever. I saved my tears for bathroom faucets. I worked the muscles of my face so it looked as if I smiled. I was good to the program. Whatever the program was, I was good to it. Tried to be, at least. I kept my ass low and kept my eyes open and ran for my life, I really did, just kept on running, threw my hats away and switched my jeans and changed my voice again so nobody needed a translator on the practice field. Fixed my résumé and bought new dress shirts and acted like a lawyer, like a banker, did that well enough, learned my story, told my story, got the right perspective on it all, I was grateful, I moved on, I got over it—stayed up late, ran away from men in nightmares, worked to be the best and brightest, be the president, be somebody AT THE TOP. It had taken nearly every day to turn the boy that I had been into the man that I became, a dead man. That, in the final analysis, or my best analysis now, is what I realized that night: I had strived to win this world and won my death instead.