sentences:  Rux subsequently adapted one section for stage performance, initially also under the title "Pagan Operetta", later as "The No Black Male Show".Loosely inspired by Homer's "Odyssey", the collection is structured as a poetic memoir.Rux begins the first section with reflections on his early childhood in foster care after the death of his grandmother, his biological mother's schizophrenia and institutionalization, questions regarding his father's identity, and his adoptive parents' spousal abuse, and concludes it with a surreal short story entitled "Asphalt" (which inspired his novel of the same name) about a boy walking through the ruins of an urban landscape as rose buds blossom from his skin.