NEW ORLEANS — His voice quivers and his words crawl. He rubs his chin. He pauses six...seven...eight seconds at a time, thinking of the perfect words to use. Once those words float into the air, they're vague and overly sanitized.
The last thing Michael Thomas wants to talk about is Michael Thomas.
There will be no digging deep into his upbringing, no reliving childhood trauma that molded him into who he is. "I'll write that story," Thomas says, sternly, only briefly touching on the back-to-back deaths of a grandmother and great aunt. When asked what traits those two sisters passed on to him, Thomas fidgets in his chair and refuses to go there.