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Piece of Cake© is a stark and passionate, extrasensory memoir of the relationship between a decorated U.S. Marine and a Canadian woman with whom he shared his deepest, often tortured, thoughts and secrets. He disclosed the merciless acts of duty that haunt him, an abusive early childhood as a self-described “cripple” in Washington, DC, and his years as a young black man growing up on the unforgiving streets of Philadelphia.
​During rare departures from his staunch and rigid personality, the retired U.S. Marine Corps Master Sergeant shared the stories of the torture he endured, the shocking and unimaginable acts he perpetrated, and his early life as a vulnerable child hiding in a laundry sack to escape the abuse at the hands of his Marine father. He revealed his secret loves and pleasures, and his life after his service as a successful national security executive, dressed in tailored suits and living a penthouse lifestyle.
Their discussions took place while he waged war on his most formidable enemy to date – cancer.
To fully experience the conversation as it originally unfolded, the presentation of this memoir is in the same conversational format that it occurred – typing and grammatical errors included. (It is edited in parts for the sake of brevity and continuity.)
​Yes, I am that Canadian woman, and by pure luck or fate, I met him and had the honour of getting to know him.
He called himself “Quasi”, because it was how he viewed himself -- half man/half monster. The details of his life may have been hard to hear at times, but I would soon discover that despite those unpleasant times, he emerged to be an amazing, highly intelligent man, who shared my quirky, dry sense of humour, and hypersexual and sensuous nature. Sometimes I laughed, many times I cried, and often I was horrified by the things he’d admittedly done. But during this time, my love grew for this mysterious, stern, and loving man, who had some incredible and engaging stories to tell.
But were they just that -- “stories”? Or were they exaggerations rooted in truth? What haunts me the most is not knowing if he was really the person he claimed to be. There were moments when I had my doubts, but most of his accounts were far too detailed to have been born out of his imagination, or part of an elaborate scheme to fool me. And he never asked me for anything, other than companionship, and my love.
It is my hope that the information I provide will be familiar to someone who can identify him, and I will find out the truth about the person who so enraptured and enamored me that I became emotionally and physically addicted to him.
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There are some clues to his identity, including minor details about the places where he lived and the first names of family members with whom he no longer kept in contact. There are only a few photos of him, including one with Russians and in Iraq, and his professional business photo where you can see the effects of his broken fingers and thumbs. The Mona Lisa-like photo shows no discernible smile or reveals any clue to his thoughts or feelings.
“No emotions”, as he often said.
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Even today, when I look at that photo of him, his face and eyes still grip me. In them I see not only a man of immense bravery and conviction, but also the presence of a boy. Perhaps, a sad, uncertain boy, still hiding in a laundry sack.
Semper fi, my Love
