--Please, V says. Scribble. James opens his notebook and writes, The island was a separate place, situated partway between America and the moon. Some clear nights out with the telescope--moon full or gibbous--I felt about equidistant between the sharp-edged craters and the sparkling lights of America across the harbor. I knew that off the island very particular rules and laws and customs about skin color and blood degree applied, that the entire stretch of country from ocean to ocean was a strange place with a very strict borderline, and that I didn't exactly fit on either side of it. Then across the bottom of the page--in a larger, more swooping hand--he writes: The island felt like home to a degree I've never experienced before or since.