The Second Step, Lo' Steppin'

Paul starts out by showing a fat, aggressive black woman the door, someone who was supposedly a gift or token, as it were, for all the injustice inflicted upon him by dealers during his crack days like, for example the ruination of his car, bad dope proffered, not to mention a general roughing of his fragile white self. Actually, the book starts with a foreshadowing as Paul pleas to society to look for him in the newsstands as he's at the end of his rope.

The following is a sequence of desperate bouts with AA, the family and the job market. It deals with expressions such as 'economy of thought', 'a loving human being', and 'birthday wish', 'role playing'. and 'reeducation camp'. Supposedly, they mean something.

His one friend, Brandy, provides him some intellectual material which he rephrases. Such as divestiture and out of body experience.

He winds up hanging himself unsuccessfully.

But he does make one fatal mistake. He consorts with an underage person of color, a cashier at Winn Dixie, who has his number, gets sued by her, and winds up behind bars, where we find him in the end free at last.