A.Z's Bridge

I didn't give a proper testimonial to AZ, for her extraordinary illustration that will grace the bindings of The White Bridge. In the course of our professional relationship, we quibbled, we fought, we did everything but throw spears. I had a vision; she had a passion that matched mine. It took one conversation for me to take Ginger Lee to the nth dimension. But AZ clung stubbornly to the cables and the pylons and would not leave my bridge.
"We're talking about a quintessential American piece of ass in a godless universe," I said. "Get off my bridge."
She drew a pious "old world" woman. "If you want, you can fire me," she said.
By then, I was committed to the genius that I knew lurked behind euro-sensitivities. When she talked shop, she was in another universe, far from the wordy one that inhabits my brain. Insightful, right to the point, this young woman ran rings around my creation and put up with a vicious, old man bent on his own design.
"O.kay," it's time to cast Ginger Lee," she said. She guided me along until my vision was framed by the reality of what she saw. For Anya Zelenkova really saw what I dreamed and infused it with the breadth of life that for me was a still-life creation.
When you read The White Bridge, you will remember the Remagen Bridge and the pinwheel soldier who steered tanks over the crossing to become the first American troops in Nazi Germany. That man, in reality, was my own father of blessed memory. He would not give up that bridge. Nor would Anya, hers.
AZ is a pinwheel soldier and she did battle with me, for OUR creation: a story of racism and revenge. The bridge is now Anya's. Stand, AZ, with me, toward a newer, more profound vision of justice and America..