He often runs out of breath after long sentences, so he speaks in clipped, self-conscious bursts. This comes from his asthma, which, in addition to several long scars that run along his legs and stomach, is the result of a moment that defined his childhood: When John was 4 years old, his single mother decided that she couldn’t take care of him anymore, so she left him inside their apartment and set the building on fire. “She would wear a backpack and put stuff in it and have me walk out with it.”Īround this time, while John was in middle school, his grandfather died.
