To the reader, (both of you):
Every single character in this story is fictitious; nothing more than cartoon-like actors from a very low budget “B” type movie. Some of them are, however, based on real people interviewed over the years while researching this hodge-podge of meaningless events.
Some of the names of places where this story takes place are real. Once again, the places I did not make up came mostly from the input of others. I managed to disguise some of them through meticulous note taking. My lack of any organization simply prevents me from keeping my information in its proper order, place in time, or where I last put those scraps of paper.
The events that will soon unfold before you were made up from newspaper stories; articles from magazines and a couple of people who only told me dirty stories.
There are a lot of people; some of them were friends, which deserve special thanks. This shall serve as testimony that your help, patience and unrelenting support made it possible to continue when life’s distractions prevented diligent forward progress. However, until a couple of more witnesses die of old age, (some are already dead from other than natural causes and you know who you are), I will continue to protect your identity with my silence as promised.
The only exception to this shall be to Linda Lee. A woman who opened my eyes to the worlds of art, Bob Dylan, music and how to maintain the elusion of a double life; which, by the way, my sister discovered years later during a holiday in San Francisco that Linda was deftly good at it. What an inspiration.