You won’t believe what happened last night at Brooklyn Reading Works? The writer, Adarro Minton, didn’t show up. Can you believe it?

At 7:45, after I set up the reading on the first level of the Old Stone House because Adarro is wheel-chair bound, I got concerned. Usually the writers show up early.

Then I got worried. I called my friend Red Eft who knows Adarro. She’d heard from him on Wednesday that he was going down to Brooklyn for the reading. She gave me his phone number and at 8:10 or so called him at home. Imagine my surprise when he answered the phone.

I almost fell over. Well, as you know Adarro isn’t in the best of health. He said he was sick yesterday and on a respirator. So he forgot. It slipped his mind.

But why didn’t he call. What time exactly did he remember? Questions. Questions. Here’s what he said happened: he  asked his friend to check his email (at what time exactly?) and his friend told him there were two emails, one from Brooklyn Reading Works and one from Red Eft.

OH NO. OOPS. OMIGOD. He must have thought or said (at least I hope so). Still why didn’t he call or email? That’s the part I don’t understand.

Lord knows, we’ve all forgotten to do things: remembered something in the morning but forgotten about it in the afternoon. Then you get a call from the friend you’re supposed to have coffee with. The people at the meeting you scheduled. The doctor’s office you were supposed to be in.

Who hasn’t done that? You look at your calendar that evening and…Omigod. I can’t believe I forgot. Truth is, it happens very rarely for me I am glad to report. But it has happened.

And I always call when I realize my mistake.

Suffice it to say, Adarro is a really nice person and very charming and he was sincerely apologetic. "This is so not like me," he said. "I never do things like this." He was sick yesterday. On a respirator. I completely understood that part of it.

But you coulda called.

Still, I am pissed and hurt. Initially, I felt diminished and unimportant. It played into all my insecurities. Why am I  doing BRW if it’s not even important enough for the author to show up?

That’s what I was thinking when I went to bed. It’s hard enough doing the publicity and getting people to show up. Boo hoo. I felt tired and worn down. My spirit was flagging.

I want to thank Brooklyn Record, Until Monday, Gowanus Lounge and others for blogging the event. That meant a lot to me.

NOW I’m just annoyed. I’ve done about twenty BRW readings and I usually have two, three or more  readers. And in all the readings (and that’s 40 to 50 writers) I have NEVER had anyone forget. Thankfully, that just doesn’t happen.

So here’s my BRW resolution: communicate with all writers the day of the event and always have more than one person per reading.

Adarro Minton didn’t get to read from his collection of short stories, Gay, Black, Crippled, Fat.  If you want to buy the book, go to  Amazon. If this blurb is any indication, it might have been an interesting evening.

"I survived mescaline, blotter acid, cocaine, freebase
cocaine, crack, danger sex in subway bathrooms, hunger, homelessness,
and three serious suicide attempts. In 1999, I lost the use of my arms
and legs to a mysterious, and still undiagnosed form of myositis.
Thanks to 12 steps, and the love of K.D. Haynes, I got up (so to speak)
off of my clinically depressed ass, and in the year 2000, I began to
forage through a lifetime of stories circling my soul. This collection
represents the first set of them."