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  Dear Reader:

  Curtis Bunn’s Welcome to My World is an inspirational story, one shedding light on the plight of the country’s homeless.

  Readers follow the unlikely relationship of Rodney Bridges, a down-on-his-luck homeless man who spends nights on the streets of Atlanta, and Brenda Harris, who befriends him during her frequent stops at a downtown fast-food restaurant.

  Rodney perceives that she’s unhappy and lacks confidence while Brenda views him as only needing a boost to restart his life. The two create a bond supporting one another, eventually uplifting each other’s spirits and self-esteem. They struggle to cope with unfortunate events of their pasts, and open up to share them along their journey.

  Curtis’ novel blends their opposite worlds and shows how even the smallest gesture or conversation can evolve into a surprising and positive outcome.

  As always, thanks for supporting myself and the Strebor Books family. We strive to bring you the most cutting-edge, out-of-the-box material on the market. You can find me on Facebook @AuthorZane.

  Blessings,

  Publisher

  Strebor Books

  www.simonandschuster.com

  For America’s homeless and depressed, hoping they are inspired to welcome into their worlds agents of change.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  God is real. . . and powerful. . . and ever-present. How else can I explain the blessings I have received all my life?

  My blessings start with my family, including my late father, Edward Earl Bunn, Sr. and grandmother, Nettie Royster. I deeply miss them. I am blessed with my mother, Julia Bunn, the most caring and generous person I have ever known. My brothers, Billy and Eddie, and my sister, Tammy, have been blessings all my life.

  Meanwhile, my children, Curtis Jr. and Gwendolyn (Bunny) exist as my inspiration. My chest protrudes with pride for who they are as people.

  My wife, Felita, has been a blessing since the day we connected.

  My nephew, Gordon, has always been like a second son who has grown into a fine young man. And my niece, Tamayah (Bink Bink), and nephew, Eddie Jr. are blessings that I love so much. My cousins, Greg Agnew and Warren Eggleston, are like my brothers. And I am grateful for my Uncle Al and aunts Thelma and Barbara and Ms. Brenda Brown, who has been like an aunt/second mom much of my life, and cousin Carolyn Keener.

  My extended family means the world to me: Blake Rascoe, Shirley and Larry Jordan, Ted and Cecilia Baker, Tony, Erika and Eric Sisco, Ashley and Darius and Billings, Avant Baker, Zoe, Channing, Rain and Bell Baker.

  Again, Zane, Charmaine Roberts Parker and the entire Strebor Books/Atria/Simon & Schuster family have been great, and I am eternally grateful for you. I’m proud to be a part of the wonderful, talented Strebor family.

  I enjoy listing by name the supporters because you all mean so much to me: My ace, Trevor Nigel Lawrence, Keith (Blind) and Delores Gibson, Kerry Muldrow, Randy and Flecia Brown, Sam and Maureen Myers, Ronnie and Tarita Bagley, Tony and Rae Starks, Darryl Washington, Darryl (DJ) Johnson, Wanda Newman-Johnson, Lyle Harris, Sheila and Dwight Wilson, Bob and LaDetra White, Monya Battle, Karen Turner, Star Rice, Tony (Kilroy) Hall, Marc Davenport, Brad Corbin, Daphne Grissom, William Mitchell, J.B. Hill and Ericka Newsome-Hill, Clint Crawford, Earle Burke, Robert Diggs, Tony Hodge, Bob and La Detra White, Kent Davis, Wayne Ferguson, Tony & Erika Sisco, Betty Roby, Morechell and Bonita Pryer, Robin and Derrick Nottingham, Kathy Brown, Venus Chapman, Andre Johnson, Sheila Johnson Miller, Tara Ford, Kim Davis, Herman Atkins, Greg Willis, Al Whitney, Brian White, Ronnie Akers, Jacques Walden, Dennis Wade, Julian Jackson, Mark Webb, Kelvin Lloyd, Frank Nelson, Hayward Horton, Mark Bartlett, Marvin Burch, Derrick (Nick Lambert), Gerald Mason, Charles E. Johnson, Harry Sykes, Kim Mosley, Steve Nottingham, Rev. Hank Davis, Joi Edwards, Stacy Harden, Monica Cooper, Tim and Melanie Lewis, Linda Vestal, Christine Beatty, Ed (Bat) Lewis, Shelia Harrison, David A. Brown, Leslie LeGrande, Rev. Hank Davis, Shirley Mitchell Farrell, Kevin and Hope Jones, Susan Davis-Wigenton, Donna Richardson, Curtis West, Bruce Lee, Val Guilford, Natalie Crawford, Denise Brown Henderson, Nikki Adams, Cathy Migonet, Sherri Polite, Derek T. Dingle, Ramona Palmer, Melzetta Oliver, April Kidd, Warren Jones, Deberah (Sparkle) Williams, Leon H. Carter, Zack Withers, Kevin Davis, Sybil & Leroy Savage, Avis Easley, Demetress Graves, Anna Burch, Najah Aziz, George Hughes, Monica Harris Wade, Nikita Germaine, Mary Knatt, Serena Harris Knight, Denise Taylor, Dian Rhodes-Williams, Diana Joseph, Derrick (Tinee) Muldrow, Rick Eley, Marty McNeal, D.L. Cummings, Rob Parker, Cliff Brown, D. Orlando Ledbetter, Garry Howard, Stephen A. Smith, Clifford Benton, Kevin Rodgers, Leonard Burnett, Lesley Hanesworth, Billy Robinson, Sherline Tavenier, Jeri Byrom, Hadley Evans, Angela Tuck, E. Franklin Dudley, Skip Grimes, Carla Griffin, Jeff Stevenson, Angela Davis, Ralph Howard, Paul Spencer, Jai Wilson, Garry Raines, Glen Robinson, Dwayne Gray, Jessica Ferguson, Carolyn Glover, David R. Squires, Kim Royster, Keela Starr, Mike Dean, Veda McNeal, Dexter Santos, John Hughes, Mark Lassiter, Tony Carter, Kimberly Frelow, Michele Ship, Michelle Lemon, Zane, Tammy Thompson, Karen Shepherd, Barbara Hopkins, Carmen Carter, Erin Sherrod, Carrie Sherrod, Tawana Turner-Green, Sheryl Williams-Jones, Danny Anderson, Keisha Hutchinson, Olivia Alston, John Hollis, Dorothy (Dot) Harrell, Aggie Nteta, Ursula Renee, Carrie Haley, Anita Wilson, Tim Lewis, Sandra Velazquez, Angelle Owens, Patricia Hale, Pam Cooper, Regina Troy, Denise Thomas, Andre Aldridge, Brenda Charlie O’Bryant, Pargeet Wright, Laurie Hunt, Mike Christian, Sid Tutani, Barry Roosevelt, Tammy Grier, Roland Louis, April Tarver, Penny Payne, Cynthia Fields, Patricia Hale, LaToya Tokley, Dr. Yvonne Sanders-Butler, Anna Coleman, Alicia Guice, Alicia Walton, Clara LeRoy, Denise Bethea, Hadjii Hand, Kaira Akita, Petey Franklin, Shauna Tisdale and The Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin, King of Akyem Abuakwa Eastern Region of Ghana, West Africa.

  Special thanks and love to my great alma mater, Norfolk State University (Class of 1983); the brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha (especially the Notorious E Pi of Norfolk State) and Omicron Phi Lambda of south Atlanta; Ballou High School (especially the Class of ’79), ALL of Washington, D.C., especially Southeast.

  I am also grateful to all the readers and book clubs that have supported my work and the National Book Club Conference over the years and to my literary many friends Nick Chiles, Denene Millner, Nathan McCall, Carol Mackey, Linda Duggins, Terrie Williams, Kimberla Lawson Roby, Walter Mosley, Eric Jerome Dickey, Caesar Mason and Marcus Johnson.

  I’m sure I left off some names; I ask your forgiveness. If you know me, you know it is an error of the head and perhaps aging, not the heart. J I appreciate and I am grateful for you.

  Peace and blessings,

  CURTIS

  More than a half-million people in America are homeless, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Cities like Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland and others have declared a state of emergency over homelessness.

  The causes, besides not enough affordable housing in the U.S., are plenty: untreated mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and physical disabilities, to name a few.

  Meanwhile, depression is a “silent killer” in the African-American community, mental health advocate Terrie Williams wrote in her best-selling book, Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re Not Hurting. And that is true,
the book points out, because too often the troubled do not seek help.

  CHAPTER ONE: ME

  BRENDA

  I used to think the world owed me something, you know? I mean, seriously. If there really was something to that karma thing, then something good was due to come my way. And I was not talking about money. And I damn sure was not talking about a man. I could have used both—I wasn’t stupid—but for the first time in my life, I realized neither of them could have saved me.

  I had been in a place of . . . dissatisfaction and discontent and . . . displeasure. Very little pleased me. I received satisfaction in . . . well, very little. Except eating. I ate because my heart was discontent, and had been that way for far too long.

  Worst of all, I never saw that for myself. As a kid, I was fun and lively and laughed all the time and made people laugh. My sister often used to say, “Brenda, you’re so silly” in her high-pitched voice that I used to believe could break glass if she tried.

  Last time I remembered her saying anything was several months ago. It was the last time I saw my dear big sister Theresa awake and able. We were at a cookout at Stone Mountain Park outside of Atlanta with family and friends celebrating her son’s graduation from college. My nephew, Donnie, was a disappointment. A small, young man with small dreams, as it sadly turned out.

  Anyway, Theresa was carrying a cake from the car to the area we had sectioned off near the foot of the mountain. The go-go music—that’s a Washington, D.C. thing, where I’m from—played from somebody’s device. She bobbed her head to the beat, and I came up from behind her and tickled her.

  She dropped the cake—and I burst into laughter as it splattered onto the grass. Theresa couldn’t be mad. Doing something like that brought us back to our youth, which, truth be told, was the best time of our lives.

  Not too long after that, her son was busted for conspiracy to commit murder of his girlfriend’s husband. Yes, that’s what I said. Broke Theresa’s heart. She’d put so much into this kid—the best schools, ultimate devotion, relentless love. Seeing him in jail took something out of her. She wasn’t the same. And I believe that’s what caused the stroke she suffered a little while later that rendered her lifeless in the hospital.

  I visited her on most days. But I wondered if I should continue going. I couldn’t bring her any cheer. I didn’t have anything inspiring to talk about because nothing good was happening in my life. But I went and I talked about our upbringing in Southeast D.C. We were a family then, kids who only cared about the next opportunity to play.

  It was sad, though, to reminisce about those times when I was living in a personal dungeon. It was dark inside me, empty. I needed something to brighten my life, to feed me the nourishment that I knew came with a fulfilling life.

  I tried the church. Couldn’t go wrong with the church, right? Well, at my church, the pastor was caught dating women and men. I had never put my faith in man, but, boy, did that turn me away from church. And it disappointed me so much because if so-called anointed men of God couldn’t do right, what chance did the rest of us have?

  It added to my broken spirit and helped accelerate my descent into this emotional abyss. I liked words, and sometimes I would humor myself—if you can call it that—with literary flights of fancy like “descent into this emotional abyss.” It was sad that it became a way for me to generate fun in my life.

  Besides my sister falling into a coma, my nephew getting arrested and my pastor cheating with both sexes . . . my best and only real friend took a job in London, my job of sixteen years laid me off, I gained so much weight that I did not resemble the “super fine” Brenda of my younger days . . . and my husband left me.

  Stacked on top of one another, with all that occurring over about eighteen months, and it was an avalanche of a mess.

  And then it happened. I met the most unlikely life-changing people. I stopped at McDonald’s on Ponce de Leon Avenue, near downtown Atlanta. I stopped there almost every day on my way to work and on my way home to pick up one miserable thing or another—it was sort of my meal after breakfast and before dinner. That’s how I gained weight; I tried to feed my depression.

  For some reason, though, today the homeless man who always asked me for money accepted my counteroffer of a sandwich. He never had in the past. He’d just look at me. So, I almost didn’t hear him when he said, “Quarter Pounder with Cheese.”

  Made me feel good when I delivered it to him. I waited for him to say “thank you.” He didn’t.

  “Do something different,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Your life is shit,” he went on.

  “Excuse me,” I said, stunned.

  “The doctors say I’m bipolar, have some other paranoia disassociation something or other . . . and they might be right,” the man said. “But I ain’t crazy. I’d have to be crazy to look at you go in there and eat that garbage every single day and not know your life is shit.”

  I was so . . . so . . . shocked and appalled that I couldn’t even move, much less respond.

  “I’m not trying to be mean,” he added. “I’m just trying to make a point so you won’t leave here and say, ‘That bum didn’t know what he was talking about.’ You don’t ever blush. I saw a man tell you that you looked nice and you didn’t even blush.

  “Don’t you know that blushing is healthy?”

  I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

  “You mean smiling?” I asked. “Smiling is healthy?”

  “Did I say ‘smiling’?” the man snapped. “I’m talking about blushing. When you blush, that means you care about what others think of you. And when you care about what others think of you, you believe you matter. And if you believe you matter, then you feel like you’re alive . . . You don’t think you matter. That’s why you don’t blush. And that means you don’t feel alive. And if you don’t feel alive, then your life is shit.”

  I was shaken by his words. I was shaken because he was right—I didn’t feel like I mattered. I didn’t feel anything about myself. But he made me think. This bipolar, homeless man saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself, couldn’t see in myself . . . didn’t want to see in myself. Processing it made me believe I was wrong. The world didn’t owe me anything. I owed it to myself to save myself. I wanted to leave my personal dungeon. I wanted to matter. I wanted to blush.

  But I didn’t see a need to stay there and debate with a homeless man, so we stared at each other for a few seconds before I walked off. On the way to the car, I decided I would dismiss what he had said to me. He didn’t know me. He’d only seen me. Why should what he said matter anyway?

  I pulled out my two cheeseburgers and ate them as I drove down Ponce to my downtown Decatur apartment, pausing only to sip on my vanilla shake. I turned on the radio, but was disgusted as some conservative talk show host spewed lies and venom about how the Obama administration ruined the country. I quickly turned and found some nonsensical rap music that was silly but distracting.

  Finally, I turned off the radio and focused on my food. I was done before I was halfway home. And as much as I tried to ignore that homeless man, his words stayed with me.

  As I prepared dinner—fried pork chops, rice and corn—the image of him and the sharpness of his words resounded in my head. I was stumped as to why his words seemed to matter so much.

  But my mom used to say, “A hit dog will holla,” meaning if something was true, it would impact you.

  I woofed down my dinner and watch a little CNN. Nothing interested me, so I crawled into bed and I lay on my back in total darkness wondering about this man. Who was he? How did he end up on the streets? Why did what he said about me matter? It was true, but so what? He was the least significant person I had encountered.

  And yet, I was curious about him. I could not shake him from my mind. Worse, I was not sure how I could face him, what I would say, what I wouldn’t say, if I would say anything at all . . . if I saw him again.

  But I w
anted that moment to happen. I needed to tell him about himself and about me, and maybe I could get some sleep.

  My mother was once so mad at me that she told me, “Shut up and don’t call me until you get your attitude together.”

  That really bothered me. But I slept with no problems. And yet after this stranger insulted me, I had to turn on the light and pull out a book to read myself to sleep—all because of the harsh words of some bum I didn’t know?

  The reading worked. After about forty minutes, the words began to run together and I got drowsy. My last thoughts before I fell asleep were about that man and how I knew I had to say something to him in the morning.

  CHAPTER TWO: THE STREETS

  RODNEY

  The world didn’t owe me anything. If karma really was karma, I’d be dead. Instead, I was living on the streets, afraid to die and not deserving to live.

  That lady looked at me with an expression I couldn’t figure out. It was like I insulted hurt, hurt her feelings and made her angry at the same time. I wasn’t trying for any of that. I was just telling her the truth. People don’t like the truth.

  You lived on the streets long enough, you learned people. I knew who was going to give me money before I asked. I knew based on their body language, how they walked, how they made or didn’t make eye contact.

  I didn’t think people who said no or ignored me were mean or uncaring people. Most just didn’t like the homeless. They’d rather not be bothered. They thought we’re the scum of the earth. They thought we were lazy. They thought we were crazy. They thought we had wasted our lives. They thought if we could ask for money, then we could ask for a job. They thought we were filthy and didn’t want to be close to us. They thought we stunk, that we smelled of the streets, and they didn’t want their noses insulted.