motherhood stopped being about cleaning up dirty dishes and driving the carpool every morning and became a religion. It all meant more to her. But I sensed it was because she believed she was leaving us. That she was losing the fight. So, even as Lily changed into this calmer person, less frenetic, less bitchy, less difficult, we fought more than we ever had before.
Our relationship, for twenty years, had been built on acceptance. The last time we fought with regularity was at the height of the AIDS crisis. I had refused to get tested. And I had refused to use condoms.
After our friendship weathered that, life was still life. It threw us curveballs. I started my novel a dozen times, only to give up when the memories became too painful. I’m only on track with it now, two decades after the events that changed me. She was the one to get me to write about it.
“You never talk about the assault.”
I shrugged. “There’s not much to talk about.”
“Bullshit.”
“Look, you’re not a guy.”
“So because I don’t have a penis means I can’t understand?”
We were sitting in our favorite watering hole, talking about my latest round of writer’s block. I hate that she’s never had writer’s block. But was it any wonder? She was never at a loss for words. She always had something to say—whether I and the rest of the world wanted to hear it or not. And she had to have the last word.
“A penis would be helpful.”
“You are so full of crap.”
“I’m not. Look, what do you think guys talk about in the locker room?”
“Women.”
“I know. But in what way? How graphic?”
Lily pushed back a stray curl and raised her shoulders in an I-don’t-know gesture. “Tits. Ass. Who put out. I don’t know.”
“Well, it can get pretty intense in there. They talk about women in ways that make porno seem buttoned-up. Like they’re things. No—worse. Like they’re holes. A mouth, a…well, you get the idea. For insertion. And nothing more. And in this hypersexed locker room environment, there is nothing worse than a guy being gay. It’s unheard of. On the collegiate level—at the level I was playing, where some of those guys were drafted by the majors—it just was beyond unacceptable. It was a crime. It was like I committed an act of betrayal.”
Lily lifted her martini and sipped. Put it down and shook her head. “By you saying that, you are somehow justifying what they did to you, as if you did something so wrong you deserved that.”
“No. I’m not justifying it. I just guess I understand in a way.”
“You know, Michael, we spend a lot of time talking about being honest in our writing. A lot of time. And I think the reason you have writer’s block is that by not writing about what happened and locking it up inside—and instead writing about just hints of yourself—that you’re blocking your whole creative side.”
I raised my hand in the air. “Paging Dr. Freud…. What a load of pseudointellectual bull-crap.”
“It isn’t.”
“So are writers only meant to write memoirs?”
“No. Writing is like a hall of mirrors. There are pieces of you there, but it’s all distorted in the funhouse glass until readers don’t know what’s you and what’s fiction. But the emotions, the reality, the blood of what’s on the page, that has to come from you, Michael. And the longer you hide behind that locker room door, the longer you’ll be blocked.”
“You know nothing about my problems.”
“Suit yourself, Gay Boy. But I bet you know I’m right.”
Of course, she knew a lot more than I gave her credit for. I didn’t tell her—or my agent—but it hit me like a bolt of lightning that what Lily was telling me was Writing 101. My creative writing professors in college had always demanded something of you in the writing. Feelings. So I went back to the assault, and I started writing. And I found that writing about Sam freed me to really say what happened.
The whole novel is like
Our relationship, for twenty years, had been built on acceptance. The last time we fought with regularity was at the height of the AIDS crisis. I had refused to get tested. And I had refused to use condoms.
After our friendship weathered that, life was still life. It threw us curveballs. I started my novel a dozen times, only to give up when the memories became too painful. I’m only on track with it now, two decades after the events that changed me. She was the one to get me to write about it.
“You never talk about the assault.”
I shrugged. “There’s not much to talk about.”
“Bullshit.”
“Look, you’re not a guy.”
“So because I don’t have a penis means I can’t understand?”
We were sitting in our favorite watering hole, talking about my latest round of writer’s block. I hate that she’s never had writer’s block. But was it any wonder? She was never at a loss for words. She always had something to say—whether I and the rest of the world wanted to hear it or not. And she had to have the last word.
“A penis would be helpful.”
“You are so full of crap.”
“I’m not. Look, what do you think guys talk about in the locker room?”
“Women.”
“I know. But in what way? How graphic?”
Lily pushed back a stray curl and raised her shoulders in an I-don’t-know gesture. “Tits. Ass. Who put out. I don’t know.”
“Well, it can get pretty intense in there. They talk about women in ways that make porno seem buttoned-up. Like they’re things. No—worse. Like they’re holes. A mouth, a…well, you get the idea. For insertion. And nothing more. And in this hypersexed locker room environment, there is nothing worse than a guy being gay. It’s unheard of. On the collegiate level—at the level I was playing, where some of those guys were drafted by the majors—it just was beyond unacceptable. It was a crime. It was like I committed an act of betrayal.”
Lily lifted her martini and sipped. Put it down and shook her head. “By you saying that, you are somehow justifying what they did to you, as if you did something so wrong you deserved that.”
“No. I’m not justifying it. I just guess I understand in a way.”
“You know, Michael, we spend a lot of time talking about being honest in our writing. A lot of time. And I think the reason you have writer’s block is that by not writing about what happened and locking it up inside—and instead writing about just hints of yourself—that you’re blocking your whole creative side.”
I raised my hand in the air. “Paging Dr. Freud…. What a load of pseudointellectual bull-crap.”
“It isn’t.”
“So are writers only meant to write memoirs?”
“No. Writing is like a hall of mirrors. There are pieces of you there, but it’s all distorted in the funhouse glass until readers don’t know what’s you and what’s fiction. But the emotions, the reality, the blood of what’s on the page, that has to come from you, Michael. And the longer you hide behind that locker room door, the longer you’ll be blocked.”
“You know nothing about my problems.”
“Suit yourself, Gay Boy. But I bet you know I’m right.”
Of course, she knew a lot more than I gave her credit for. I didn’t tell her—or my agent—but it hit me like a bolt of lightning that what Lily was telling me was Writing 101. My creative writing professors in college had always demanded something of you in the writing. Feelings. So I went back to the assault, and I started writing. And I found that writing about Sam freed me to really say what happened.
The whole novel is like
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