The "Blog: Literature of the Self"

Phoenix Vice: A Love Story

2008-12-14T23:12:00.000-08:00

My first encounter with a girl fight was at the bus stop in high school. It was only a hop away from my front porch, though the trek to make it on time usually involved me sprinting with wet hair and an armful of books come 6:30 A.M. I knew things went down after school, but I never knew why. Some girl called another girl a bitch, I figured, or tried to hook up with someone’s prom date. I had never fought anyone so what the hell did I know? My best friend, Nikki, on the other hand, sometimes liked to instigate. Turns out one day she instigated her way into an all-out brawl involving a mutual friend, Lauren.

We were all on the bus when Nikki and Lauren started going at it. Lauren didn’t say much, but Nikki kept cracking jokes about how she smelled—petty stuff, really; trivial to the max. But as soon as the bus screeched to a stop and let us off, it got a little more serious. Nikki was in Lauren’s face, challenging her to do something by increasing the trash talking and shoving her a little. With a face as hard as stone, Lauren walked past her until something snapped in all its mysterious fury. I had been walking ahead of the girls the whole time, telling Nikki to cut it out while the neighborhood boys acted like idiots, hungry to see a ripped shirt or exposed boob.

Truth be told I was afraid well before the first punch landed. I had never been trained in the arena of ass-kick-a-thons, and certainly never had a friend who counted on me to literally have her back. So once I heard loud “Oh’s!” from the group of testosterone-driven boys, I immediately started walking faster. Torn between helping my friend and avoiding the possibility of getting beat up myself, I decided it was Nikki who started it, so damnit Nikki was going to finish it.

She called me when she got home, and joked about how she won before bursting into tears in true best-friend fashion. I’ll never forget the words she said to me that tense, blazing hot Arizona day—

“Where did you go?”

“Uh, I just...I had to get home,” I lied.

No words I used to justify the situation in my head fifteen minutes earlier would have sufficed at that particular moment. I didn’t tell her that I was angry at her for starting something she never wanted to finish. I didn’t tell her I was scared. At fifteen I didn’t know how to take a punch unless it was at the hand of my brothers. I obviously knew very little about loyalty as well, and would be reminded of it well after Nikki’s bruises healed.

*****

Almost a decade has passed since I failed to rescue my friend from her self-induced cat fight, and for many years I figured I was in the clear. If I had successfully made it to my twenties avoiding a fight—something I prided myself on—there was no way I would ever get into one. Right?

My boyfriend, Josh, had a weekly DJ gig at Homme Lounge in downtown Phoenix every Friday night. There were two parties going on at the venue—Josh’s night, dubbed fuBAR, which was held upstairs, and French Kiss downstairs. French Kiss and fuBAR worked hand in hand for a while, but the guys who ran French Kiss had a few out-of-town DJs fly in for a Miami Vice style party one particular Friday night. This ultimately meant that fuBAR got the temporary boot to a smaller room downstairs to make room for the guest talent.

Homme was originally a gay bar, but has slowly started catering to a mixed crowd in recent years with the introduction of various weekly events. It’s actually a house turned club which is obvious upon first entry off Camelback and 1st Avenue. Upon walking into the club, if you veer immediately to the right you’ll run into a winding staircase and a small room with a pool table and dim lighting. This is where the smokers escape to a covered patio that’s only inviting if you want the benefits of lung cancer without the inconvenience of actually lighting up. I can personally stand about thirty seconds of it before I start gagging and resenting the fact that I will have to wash my hair the next day unless I want to smell like my Grandpa.

Before the upstairs area (conveniently named “Upstairs Bar”) was considered a violation of fire code and shut down by the city, club goers could enjoy the intimacy of one of Phoenix’s coolest spots. The tight walk upstairs (quite hazardous when you’re drunk and in heels, I must say) was littered with flyers for future events—plastered to its confining walls and strewn about on the steps. The top of the staircase immediately opened into a small room that housed fuBAR for eight straight months. The wallflowers usually congregated there, lounging about the plush furniture and making out on bar stools.

I happened to be off work for the Miami Vice party, so Josh and I went to Savers beforehand to search for the perfect tacky outfits to wear. I settled on a foul smelling black sequined dress that fit me like a pair of nylons and an over sized fur coat with a rip in the armpit. I finally had an excuse to wear my new, obnoxious glitter-threaded pumps that wouldn’t have worked with any other ensemble. Top that off with pink and purple makeup, curled hair, granny hosiery, and a cocktail and you have yourself a classy Heather.

Josh picked a number I couldn’t have imagined in my worst 80s nightmare. In one single trip he managed to find a white blazer, white pants, a hot pink tee (off of which he ripped the sleeves), and white faux gator shoes for an absolutely golden Crockett impersonation. After slicking his long hair back with Mega Mega Hold LA Looks gel and throwing on a pair of aviators, we were ready to go.

I should have known it was going to be a dangerous night when I uttered the self-fulfilling prophetic last words: “This is going to be a dangerous night.” It must be a sixth sense, but whenever I feel the night is going to go downhill fast, it usually does for one reason or another. But always up for drunken challenges (hey, you’re only twenty three once) I grabbed my clutch, had a pre-game drink, and was out the door faster than Crockett can say, “Watch it, pal.”

Josh was already at the club, early as always, to set up his equipment and generally run his portion of the party, so my roommate, Matt, and his girlfriend, Jess, drove me downtown. The night started innocently enough. The three of us picked a cozy spot upstairs since I was always happier getting drinks from fuBAR’s main bartender, Pablo. It was easier than trying to fight the downstairs crowd for a fifteen minute cocktail that would end up weak anyway.

Josh’s friends, Justin and Mikey, wandered upstairs eventually along with my favorite duo, Manny and Denis. We sat around for a while as one vodka cranberry turned into four, then casually made our way downstairs to see Josh spin only to return back upstairs to our table. All in all it was a successful night, though I think my group dressed most appropriately to the theme. Who dances in a fur coat for God’s sake? I was burning alive.

True to my psychic foreshadowing, I went from zero to sixty before the batting of eyelashes and grabbed Jess for a drunken stumble into the bathroom. That’s when the night’s true calling—my repayment to Nikki circa sophomore year of high school—reared its ugly head. And by ugly, I mean that in all respects.

There are exactly three stalls total in Homme’s entire layout. There is a single men’s and lady’s room downstairs and one unisex bathroom at the Upstairs Bar. We’re talking three toilets for an entire club of drunks. Naturally, there is a line for each of these restrooms with the seasoned club-goers heading upstairs in hopes of relieving themselves sooner. For whatever reason, the upstairs bathroom was wide open when I turned the corner from the bar. This was obvious if only for the fact that its light shines into an otherwise pitch black room more blinding than a hungover sunrise.

I went toward that light.

Jess touched up her makeup as I hovered over the toilet, imagining I was back in seventh grade and making a futile attempt at passing the wall-sit test during volleyball tryouts. I’m not any better at the hover than I was back then, but my focused effort to avoid peeing on my leg was rudely interrupted with a sudden banging on the bathroom door.

“Be out in a minute,” Jess politely answered.

“Oh hell no,” I snapped.

The banging continued followed by a string of obscenities from the mouths of women who sounded like they were trying to rip through the door to get to our throats. I was confused. Then angry.

“Who the fuck do they think they are banging on the door? Obviously someone’s in here!” I said. Jess was certainly the more collected one between the two of us.

When I finally got the nylons back up and traded places with her so I could wash my hands, the banging became increasing more violent and the door handle started to rattle. With an unfamiliar rage that took about a millisecond to get from my gut to my mouth, I twisted the lock, yanked open the door, shouted obscenities only sailors would be proud of, and then slammed it back in their faces. It happened so quickly I didn’t even get to see who I was facing, but I didn’t care. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I quickly locked the door once again and steadied my shaking hand for a pink lipstick touch up. After intentionally waiting a moment or two longer, we decided to let the crazies do the line of coke they obviously couldn’t wait for. Quite honestly the dumbest thing I think I’ve ever done was open the door and walk right into those girls, but what else was I to do? Jess pushed one of them out of her way before heading downstairs. Much like my biweekly paycheck, she just fucking disappeared. BOOM! Like that.

I actually made it about five full strides toward my table before one of them grabbed my hair. She was wearing a shiny leotard with jean shorts and flats and her messy blonde hair was stuck in place by a hipster headband. I didn’t get a good look at her equally cliché friend for I was on the ground before I knew what was going on.

This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. That was all I could think from the floor as this girl was thrashing at my head. She wasn’t hitting me so much as she was pulling my hair. Typical, really, but I was still surprised. I would think that if you’re going to get ballsy enough to fight someone, you should at least give them a shiner or something. But no. In retaliation of all the hair pulling I grabbed at her neck and hung on for dear life. And it wasn’t just the one girl but her door-banging partner in crime and her boyfriend. Of course my friends were nowhere to be found. Perfect. The music was still going. The lights were still off. Pablo was still serving drinks. Someone pulled us off each other. Even mid-fight I couldn’t help but think of how I looked. Here I am in a Saver’s ensemble, fur coat still intact, flinging my nylon-bound legs around like I’m the main attraction at a strip club for the elderly. I must have been a horrendous sight—luckily the mirror that ran along one side of the room didn’t extend to the floor. When I was pulled to my feet by Oscar, the bouncer, I was immediately met by the owner of Upstairs Bar.

“What happened? Who started it? What did they say to you?” he asked.

Adrenaline rushed through me at speeds I didn’t know were possible as I rambled off an incoherent explanation for what had just happened. Suddenly the girl’s boyfriend, a heavyset man of the Hispanic persuasion—we’ll call him D. Bag—charged at me with a verbal, nearly physical, assault for merely defending myself against his tacky girl. To my horror, he made a sound that only guys can make before expelling his spit onto my face. With my rage at a new height since the initial incident, I screamed at him, too shocked to do anything else, repeating the same question over and over—

“What the fuck kind of man are you? Huh? What the fuck kind of man are you?”

Meanwhile, someone had notified a quite-disbelieving Josh that his girlfriend was throwing down, and he quickly went outside to find me. In a New York minute I went from hysterical hot mess to pavement warrior as Oscar dragged me out the door to finish my business sans the liability that comes with homicide. He held me back from starting round two.

“Is that your girl?” D asked, pupils dilated beyond the point of an obvious high.

“Yeah, what the hell’s going on?” Josh replied.

And without a moment’s notice, D punched Josh square in the forehead. I watched Josh stagger back before he lunged at D, pulled his shirt over his head, and hit him back.

“You fucking bitches!” I yelled to the girls. Oscar told me to let it go.

“Fuck that!” I told him. “They started it, I’m gonna finish it!” Oscar and I were friends and I knew he wanted me to kick their asses, but he also had to do his job. He stopped holding on so tightly. I tore past him and flung my fists at whoever I could hit first. It was still essentially two (three if you count the one trying to kill my innocent, extremely confused boyfriend) against one.

My knees were bleeding as we rolled around on the pavement swearing at each other while the girls tore at my hair some more.

Again, we were pulled off each other and all three of them made their way back into the club. I still don’t know why we were the ones who left when fuBAR was Josh’s gig, but as I would come to find out later, little miss hair-pull and her roid rage boyfriend were actually the guest DJs from El Paso invited by none other than the French Kiss crew. They didn’t know where or how to set up their equipment when they got to the bar so Josh, not even responsible for tweedle dee and tweedle douche but being the nice guy he is, showed them the ropes and generally took care of them. If you didn’t catch all that, let’s recap.

Two coke-addicted DJs and their friend from El Paso come to Phoenix as guests in someone else’s venue, and, eager to get another bump, start static with the girlfriend of the man who helped them set up in the very spot he runs on a weekly basis. To say they had no tact would be an understatement.

Jess suddenly appeared outside with Matt, Mickey, and Justin. As for Manny and Denis—well, they were dancing the entire time, completely oblivious to the situation. That left Josh and me, still in my fur coat with bloody knees and a missing clutch, hobbling around on one heel. Days later I heard that D had grabbed my Coach bag (which cost more than all our outfits combined) and chucked it as far as he could across Camelback because, you know, when you can’t hit a girl you spit in her face, steal her stuff, and attack her boyfriend.

Josh walked me to Justin’s car and told me to wait while he went inside to get his stuff. Mikey, always hilarious, had apparently just smoked and was in dire need of a drink. So there I was, bloody, shoeless, still shaking with rage, and he asked if I had any water.

“I have unbelievable cottonmouth,” he said.

“Sorry to hear that, Mickey.”

“Are you sure you don’t have any water?” he asked pacing.

“I don’t have any fucking water, Mickey!” I shouted.

The rest of the night was an embarrassing blur—much worse than the morning after when you’re trying to recap a night of drunken debauchery. Over and over and over I thought, I can’t believe that just happened.

We all congregated briefly at Justin’s as I sat to myself and Josh jumped from friend to friend trying to get the story. He sat with me for a while, but my ever-present adrenaline prevented me from speaking until I finally stammered—“You don’t care about me!”

Uh oh. I still don't know why I said it.

“Are you serious?! I just took a punch for you!” he said, but he knew I was still drunk and angry so he let it go.

Josh eventually took me home, kissed me, and put me to bed—smeared 80’s makeup and all. He told me he thought it was kind of hot the way I went after the girls in the parking lot, but with ripped pantyhose and missing hair follicles I felt anything but.

*****

“You got a new bike?” my mother asked over the phone the next day.

“No, ma, I got in a fight.”

“Were you drunk?” Obviously, mom. Then, “Did you get any hits in?”

“I don’t remember,” I answered. “Everyone told me I choked the hell out of her though.”

Turns out How-To-Fight-Like-A-Girl 101 was well worth the girls’ money because they had successfully managed to rip a perfect chunk of hair from the center of my skull, really only noticeable to people several feet taller than me though I was self-conscious about it for months to come. My co-workers joked it would never grow back. But it did, and nine months later it’s currently in the Alfalfa stage where it takes about two palms worth of hair putty to prevent it from just popping right up out of nowhere.

I suppose there are some valuable morals to this story. First and foremost, enjoy your recreational drugs in moderation, ahem, Texans. Also, there is an unspoken code of conduct that states when a woman is peeing, trying to hold a drunken stance like it’s an Olympic sport, you quietly wait your turn outside the door. Similarly, if you’re the bathroom occupant and a hysterical broad is trying to break through the door, clearly ignoring said rule, it's best to take a deep breath and let it go. Telling someone to calm the fuck down and slamming a door in their face has never successfully diffused a brewing situation in the history of DrunkbitchLand.

And lastly, if there’s ever a possibility of engaging in post-cocktail battle, please—I urge you—leave the nylons at home, kick the heels off before the fact, and for God’s sake don’t count on your friends.

Where Does the Good Go?

2008-12-12T18:05:00.000-08:00

Where Does the Good Go?: A Portfolio of Life Changing Experiences

By Megan Lipkes
ENG 412

December 10, 2008

Table of Contents
Introduction: From Start to Finish……………………………………………………………..3
Chapter 1: Autobiographies
Breaking Up with a Best Friend……………………………………………………………..6

Man with the Brown Plaid Shirt…………………………………………………………….20
Chapter 2: Feature

Sex, Lies, and Sodomy: The Mistake that Changed a Life…………………………………25

Chapter 3: Biography

Hiking Back Up From the Road to Nowhere……………………………………………….33

Chapter 4: Fiction

The Secret in the Ballerina Box…………………………………………………………….40

Appendix……………………………………………………………………………………….45

From Start to Finish
When I started this course, I had only written fictional stories. I was very nervous as to what kind of writing I would do, but I assumed that the majority would be autobiographical essays. I was definitely wrong in making such an assumption because this class explored every avenue of creative nonfiction and really pushed my writing limits to the test. Throughout the semester, I really feel as though I have grown as a writer, not just in creative nonfiction, but also in all aspects of writing. Whether the assignment is a feature, a biography, or an autobiographical event, I feel like I can write them all with confidence and style.
Writing is such an important element in my life because it has been a vice through good and bad times. As a writer, my professional goal is to invoke some sort of emotion from my reader. I always choose the topics of my stories carefully because I want my readers to react to the theme of the piece in some way. As a nonfiction writer, my job is to stay as true to the facts as possible, which makes summoning emotional reactions from readers much more difficult. I want my readers to learn lessons from my pieces and to see how each experience changed a life in one way or another. I know that throughout this semester, my ability to tell a story has improved, as well as my technique. I always try to include some sort of humor into my pieces, regardless of the story. At the beginning of the semester, my humor may have seemed trite, but now I feel that I can interweave my sarcasm into a piece and the reader understands its necessity. It is very difficult to lay your talent, emotions, and memories on the line for strangers to critique, but I’m glad that I have because I have learned so much about myself.
There have been many difficult moments during this class; the most difficult for me was the first big assignment. When I was asked to write an autobiography on an event in my life, I immediately thought of the robbery I went through. I had never really talked or written about getting robbed, but as a writer, I felt like I owed to the readers to be honest and take chances. I really had to describe time, place, setting, and characters, which is the most difficult part of writing for me; I assume it is like that for many writers as well. As a result, I felt a liberating sense of freedom from my own small box of comfort. The first autobiography really forced me to jump right in to my creativity that carried on through the duration of the semester.
The hardest piece that I have had to write so far that made the biggest impression on me was the biography because that was the piece that pushed me to my limits. I have never written a biography before and I didn’t really know how I was going to approach the topic. I knew exactly who I wanted to write about and I knew a few details of the story from previous conversations, but it was really interesting trying to get someone to talk in detail about a horrible event from their past. I like that I got to use my interview skills and techniques because I learned what questions to ask in order to get to the heart of the story. The biography was definitely the most difficult piece for me to write because I really had to be objective and stay out of the story. After I wrote the biography, I felt so accomplished with myself that I really thought that maybe this was an avenue of writing that I should learn more about and expand on.
Although the biography made a big impression on me as a writer, the feature made the least impression. I felt more like a journalist than a writer, which I didn’t like because I felt like my creativity was hindered. There was a lot of research that went into my piece, as well as interviews. The interviews were quite beneficial for me as a writer because I fine-tuned how to talk to people about difficult situations, which is a skill that is essential for any good writer. Despite the long hours spent on the feature, I did learn a new style of writing and I am confident that I could write another feature.
As a student of English 412, I am very sad that this class is almost over. I have learned so much about myself as a writer and a person. I have let skeletons out of the closet that have been collecting dust for years, and it is great that those experiences are now on paper. Every aspect of this class has helped develop my skill and technique, which I will always appreciate. I have always been a fan of creative nonfiction, but after taking this class, I have turned into a groupie. There is nothing about this class that I regret or wish had been different because I was pushed to my limits and forced to face the writer within.

Breaking Up with a Best Friend

It was been two years since we had last seen each other, and now I was waiting for Sara in the parking lot of a small vegetarian café. I didn’t know if she would still be driving that old maroon Ford Taurus with the missing rearview mirror and broken left turning signal, so every car that pulled into the lot sent spurts of stomach acid into my throat. I had been waiting for nearly 30 minutes, but by the small mound of Camel Light cigarette butts at my feet, it seemed that I had been there for hours. My pack was nearly empty and I rifled through my purse to make sure I had backups. I saw I had another pack and grabbed a new cigarette and lit it, my lighter still warm from the last ignition. I looked down at my outfit that I had carefully put together just for this occasion. No matter how hard I tried not to, I still cared about what Sara thought of me. I had worn my best jeans, the ones we had stolen together from the mall three years earlier, a black CBGB’s shirt with aqua camisole underneath, and black converse flip flops. I double checked my hair and makeup in the side mirror of my Corolla and blew smoke at my reflection. Getting a little antsy, I checked my cell phone for missed calls, questioning whether or not I should just go home and assume that Sara didn’t want to reconnect after all.
Just as I was about to grab my car keys and leave, I heard Mr. Bungle blaring over speakers, and knew that Sara was pulling into the lot. She was driving a used white Volvo that was covered in band and bumper stickers, and she could barely see over the steering wheel as she pulled into the open spot next to me. My heart starting pounding and my stomach churned just hard enough to be considered nauseating. Hands slightly shaking, I inhaled one last time before crushing my cigarette butt onto the asphalt with the bottom of my shoe. Her door squeaked open and she stood up, looking at me as if nothing had happened between us and we were meeting for a usual afternoon tea. Trying to be as friendly and polite as possible, I said hello and we walked into the café.
Sara and I met when we were in high school. I had lived in Poway, California, a small suburb of San Diego for my entire life, so new faces at my high school were hard to ignore. I hung out with the “punk rock” kids, not the kind that wear all black and trench coats and walk around talking about starting a revolution against conformity, but the kids that sat around a boom box at lunch listening to music and talking about what show was coming to town that weekend. We all liked to jump around to different groups of people because we were the class clowns and everyone liked a good laugh.
At the end of freshman year, my best friend Sterling could not stop talking about this new girl named Sara who had just moved to Poway from Avondale, Arizona. Sterling’s band was practicing in my garage after school everyday, and he invited Sara to come along and check them out. TBD wasn’t a good band, despite their rigorous practice schedule, so I knew that Sara and I would talk most of the afternoon.
When school finally let out, Sterling walked over to me at the bus stop and introduced me to her. She had a mousy looking face with light freckles that traveled over the bridge of her petite nose. Her dyed red hair was short and spiky, and her bangs covered the majority of her left green eye. She was definitely Irish and I could tell that she had a very spunky personality just by looking at her. We didn’t say much to each other until we got to my house and the band started playing. I grabbed us some drinks and we sat in my driveway, trying to escape the unbearable noise that echoed within the walls of my garage. We exchanged simple introductions and asked each other the usual questions: Where are you from? Do you like it here? What do you like to do for fun? By the end, I asked her to spend the night so that we could continue getting to know one another and we instantly became inseparable.
Sara’s personality was so perfectly matched to mine that people either thought we were sisters or lovers, and what she lacked, I had and vice-versa. We loved the same music, movies, food, and clothes, so it was never difficult to enjoy each other’s company. The things that I hated, she hated, even down to the way a stranger chewed their food. We never fought because we always agreed and during a time when I needed a friend most, she was there. A lot of our friends were shocked when we went to an event alone because they considered us Siamese twins, two sarcastic girls who didn’t need anyone but each other to be happy.
My quality of life during high school was poor. My mother is a Brooklyn Jew and my father is a short Israeli that has an uncanny resemblance to Joe Pesci and an even bigger Napoleon complex. My parents were a match made in Hell from the start, and only married each other because of the untimely pregnancy of my older sister, Erika. When my parents divorced, I was nothing short of ecstatic. My father was an abusive man, who would find any excuse to beat his children. He would work long hours and when he came home, he would crack open a 12-pack of MGD and finish it off with a bottle of wine or two before he passed out topless in his bed. My mother just stood by and cried while he hit us, claiming that we shouldn’t have provoked him. I didn’t realize that breathing or being alive was enough to cause physical harm, but my father seemed to think so. After my father left, she started dating a string of men that seemed neither competent nor a step up from my dear old daddy. When they weren’t trying to sleep with her, they were trying to impress my sisters and me with money or bad jokes. One man even tried to slip his hand down the back of pants during dinner, and when I told my mom, she said I must have misunderstood his gesture.
In an effort to escape, I slept at Sara’s house most nights, which was just a doublewide mobile home next to a hamburger restaurant that stunk of burning coals and stale French fries.
We would talk about my family, how my older sister was sleeping with any man that gave a first look, my younger sister’s overeating, and my mom’s unnecessary complaints on how I didn’t respect how hard she worked and that I needed to take my shoes off when I stepped on the new carpet because we couldn’t afford anything now that my dad was gone. I tried not to let anything bother me because I saw how anything out of the ordinary sent my mother on a raging tangent and I didn’t want to end up another screaming banshee.
Sara saw how unhealthy my living situation was and knew that I needed to get out. She went with me to therapy and helped build my life back up to the point where I was okay in my own skin. It was a struggle for Sara to help me because we always guarded our emotions behind jokes and sarcasm, and I knew that Sara was just as depressed as I was, only she became aggressive instead of starved. She would fly off the handle, not at me, but at other people for any little thing that she considered an annoyance. She was always defensive, and I tried to see everything from her point of view when it wasn’t directed towards me, and I forgave her when it was. I didn’t judge her because I wasn’t any better. Her life sucked, my life sucked, so we leaned on each other for comfort and joked that we were the poster children for anger management.
***
After high school, I moved to Arizona with my boyfriend Brian to start Scottsdale Community College. I figured that Arizona was still close to California, but far enough away to enjoy long-awaited personal freedom. Sara had moved to Utah with her family, but we tried to talk on the phone as much as possible. It was hard because I was working nightshifts at Jamba Juice smoothie shop and Sara had gotten a job at a Wild Oats grocery store. It was the middle of December ’05 when Sara called me crying.
“Hey, Sara. What’s up?” I asked concerned.
Sara usually rambled on about work when she called, but I didn’t mind. She usually made me laugh when she would tell me what some man or woman complained about during the day that made her look down upon them, and explaining to her the nature of an angry customer was useless among her constant need to view everyone as disrespectful.
“I’m sick of this shit,” her voice shaky, “I can’t live with my mom anymore. She is driving me fucking nuts and I’m sick of it. She went too far today. Do you know what she called me? She told me that I was ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag. Can you fucking believe that?”
“Why would she say that kind of stuff to you?” I couldn’t help but ask, even though I knew she would have explained without the question. “I mean I know she can be a little hurtful sometimes, but that is just crazy.”
“I told her husband that I wasn’t going to make him dinner. He has hands, he can cook for himself.” She cleared her throat and sniffed again. “Well, I guess my mom figures that he has to be my responsibility too, even though she married him. So, I told both of them to get off their fat asses and make their own damn food.”
“Well, why would you say it like that?” I asked. “You know your mom is over dramatic.”
“Because, I am sick of their shit. I am not their mom, they need to do things for themselves; instead of relying on me to prepare their fucking potatoes.” Sara was breathing so hard into the receiver that I could almost smell the patchouli oil that permanently fermented on her skin. “I want to move out.”
On September 30, we signed our lease for a two-bedroom two-bathroom apartment. We were so excited about renting our own place that we hadn’t even unpacked when we went to IKEA to buy furniture. We couldn’t really afford that much because our rent was a little over $900 a month, but the apartment was over 1,000 square feet and the bedrooms were fairly large. The walls were made of thick cement and the light pink linoleum on the floors was cracked. The beige carpet was supposedly brand new, although I did find a candle wax stain by the edge of the wall while putting together a futon. Our kitchen counters were also new and there was more cabinet space then I had items to fill them. Attached to the kitchen was a gated patio, which was perfect for my Puggle, MJ. I got the master bedroom because I agreed to pay more rent, and we both helped decorate each other’s rooms with band posters and pictures of past friends. Brian had come over to help unload furniture and it was after he left that I noticed something odd about Sara’s behavior.
Sara sat on the futon with her arms crossed, a smug look on her face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as I sat down next to her.
“What’s wrong is that if Brian is going to be over here all the time, he has to pay rent.”
Caught completely off guard, I stared at her confused as though she had just spoken Chinese.
“You heard me. I didn’t move in here so that you could have Brian over all the time. That isn’t what I signed up for,” she said.
“Um…okay. He just came over here to help unload our…” I didn’t even get to finish my sentence before she walked into her bedroom and slammed the door, shaking the front window.
I tried to forget about Sara’s comment, but I was irritated at her lack of appreciation for Brian. Brian had taken his day off from work to help us, which he didn’t have to do and she could have cared less. I couldn’t believe that she was talking about rent when I paid most of the rent. I’ve never really had a problem with financial responsibility, but Sara was awful. She refused to store her money in a bank because she thought they would steal it. Sara was convinced that the tellers would keep your account number and then go to another bank with your information, pretending to be you. They would claim they lost their bankcards, but, fortunately for them, had every identifying piece of information. Slowly, but surely, dollars a month would be stolen from your account, until there was nothing left. So, instead, she kept her money in a coffee can.
“No one robbing a house would look inside a coffee can,” she would say when I brought up how insane it was to trust tin. As long as she was paying rent, I didn’t care where she kept her money.
Over the next few months, everything seemed to be running smoothly. I had put Brian on hold so that Sara could get adjusted to her new living situation, which he understood. He knew that Sara was important to me and that I needed to help her adjust like she had helped me through all of my hard times. She had transferred to a new Wild Oats in Phoenix and had met a nice quiet girl named Marty who spent the majority of her free time with us. I was able to spend a little more time at Brian’s now that Marty was around, which was a relief because the only real time I had spend with Brian was when he let me use his washer and dryer.
Soon after getting Sara settled, Brian and I decided to go see the band HIM at a local venue and I told Sara that she was invited to come. She claimed she would be a third wheel and that she would spend the night hanging out with Marty. The show ended at 11:30 p.m. and Brian and I decided to go to Denny’s for milkshakes. I hadn’t even looked at the menu before my phone started ringing. I looked at the caller ID and it was Sara.
“Hey, the show just got out. What are you up to?” I asked.
“Liar. It is nearly midnight, the show wouldn’t have gone that long,” Sara retorted.
“Okay, well it did and I’m at Denny’s. What is your problem?”
“I don’t want you staying out so late. You need to be home by 11 from now on because I didn’t move here to live alone.”
Hanging up the phone, I rubbed my forehead. I told Brian that she called to ask me to bring home milk and that MJ had relieved herself in the house and that was why she was upset. I didn’t want him to know that my supposed best friend had given me a curfew after I had put off my boyfriend for months like he was an old pair of shoes that sat rotting in the back of my closet. Something wasn’t right with Sara and I knew that. After high school, my misery and depression slowly died, as did my hatred for people, but Sara still seemed to be running strong in that department. She banned me from inviting people over that she didn’t know, and if I did, she would make fun of them or me until they were so uncomfortable that they left. Most of the friends that I had made at college didn’t even want to come over because of her, but my loyalty lay with Sara and I felt obligated to uphold that.
When she was in a good mood, our friendship was great. We would laugh about old times, shop, and take the air out of my air mattresses just enough to where we would fly into the air when one of us jumped full force on the opposite end. However, no matter how hard I was trying to keep our friendship the same and not get annoyed with Sara’s constant paranoia and anger, I was starting to lose it.
I thought that it might be a good idea to invite her boyfriend Daniel out from Poway. I had been his friend for only a short while in high school, but he and Sara had seemed to be going strong and he hadn’t seen her in months. I called him and we set up a surprise visit for Christmas time when I knew Sara might be feeling lonely because she couldn’t afford to fly to Utah to be with her family. Daniel drove 350 miles from Poway, but when he arrived at my apartment, he was furious. He had tried to surprise Sara at work, but instead of a hello kiss and warm embrace, he caught Sara kissing what looked to be another boy. I tried to explain to him that it must have been a misunderstanding, but then I realized that it wasn’t a boy that Sara was kissing, it was Marty. The trip was a bust, and so was their relationship.
After Christmas, Marty started coming over to our apartment more and more. This was the first woman that Sara had ever had sexual or intimate feelings for and it came as a shock to everyone. It wasn’t that I was upset that she was with a woman because I just wanted her to be happy, but every time I would ask her if she was gay, she would explode.
“I’m not gay. I’m just confused. If Marty and I don’t work out, I will never be with another woman again,” she would scream.
I understood that it was a difficult time for her and that she may have well been confused, but tensions rose even more when Marty’s belongings mysteriously ended up at the apartment. At first, it was just a duffle bag of clothes and her toothbrush, but slowly her photo albums, CDs, and nostalgic trinkets piled up in a corner of Sara’s room. It took more energy to argue than it did to just accept Sara’s lifestyle and decisions, so I never said a word about Marty’s moving in. I was actually glad to have a new face around because it distracted Sara from complaining about how I was becoming a bad friend because I wanted to spend more time with Brian. I was trying to balance and prioritize, but my time was running thin and so was my ability to deal with Sara.
Shortly after all of Marty’s stuff was moved in, Sara and Marty got fired from their jobs at Wild Oats for tardiness. The rent was due soon and I had been covering most of the bills, which was hard because I was making a little over minimum wage at Jamba Juice. I paid for the measly amount of groceries that barely filled our refrigerator from nightly tips, and the rest came from care packages from my mother. We were living on a strict diet of strawberry Pop-Tarts, Gatorade, and Albertsons brand macaroni and cheese. We couldn’t afford Internet or cable, so I did most of my homework at school when I wasn’t working my normal 35 hours a week. I was trying to subsidize the rent that Sara couldn’t afford and the large phone bills packed with hour-long calls to Utah. When I would ask Sara to cut down her talking time, she told me to fuck myself, which was a normal response and I just stopped asking. Instead, I kept quiet, paid the bills on time, and tried to give Sara some space. I thought she was going through a rough patch because of her newfound unemployment, but the days only became longer and the time I was home became more unbearable.
Marty was no help to our living situation; in fact, she only made Sara lazier. On a typical night after going from school to work, I would come home to find Sara and Marty drunk, spitting sunflower seed shells onto the carpet. I tried to clean up as best as possible and even designated a cup for their shells, but when the cup filled, they would dump the contents onto the floor without so much as an “oops.” The dishes would be piled up in the sink, sometimes covered in ants because Sara wouldn’t do them, and when I came home, she would assume it was my job. The bleach in the Jamba Juice sinks had given me a bad arm rash and our dish soap burned my skin, but Sara never offered to help, even when tears would fill my eyes and roll down my cheeks from the pain. There were only few times when I actually asked for help, but Sara would claim she was tired, even though she would sleep well past noon. I swallowed my irritations and spent most of my time in my room, blaring music so I wouldn’t hear their nightly moans echoing through my wall or their drunken laughter about how stupid I was or how I was coming in between their relationship.
It was February of 2006 before I decided to secretly move my things to Brian’s apartment. At first, it was just my guitar and bass, but then it was clothes and posters. I caught Sara screaming into my dog’s ear because my dog ate a CD case and Sara tried to convince me to sell her, but I just moved the dog too and shut my mouth. I knew that I needed to tell Sara that I didn’t want to live with her anymore because I was afraid our friendship would be over, but I was more afraid of a fight and I was exhausted from trying to avoid them. I invited Brian over for the first time in months toward the end of February, hoping that it would calm my nerves and I could explain the situation to Sara. We all sat down to watch Uncle Buck and Brian poured himself a glass of milk. Halfway through John Candy’s infamous scene with the enormous stack of birthday pancakes, Brian and I left for a cigarette break. Before I had a chance to take a third drag, Sara swung open the door and threw the contents of the glass into the bushes that lined our front window and slammed the door in Brian’s face. Normally, Brian is extremely levelheaded, but he couldn’t stomach as much disrespect as I could and he opened the door and met Sara’s eyes with a glare.
“Um, excuse me, I was drinking that,” Brian snapped. I stood behind him rigorously biting what was left of my nails and avoided any glances that Sara or Marty threw my direction.
“You wasted a whole glass of milk by letting it sit on the table. I didn’t work for you to waste my milk,” Sara said through clenched teeth.
“You didn’t fucking pay for that milk. You don’t even have a job.”
“GET OUT! I DON’T TAKE DISRESPECT IN MY OWN HOME,” Sara screamed. Brian turned and shook his head and slammed the door. I ran into the parking lot stunned and tried to stop him from getting into his car, but before I could, Sara was right behind me screaming.
“Don’t come back to my fucking house you fucking loser!”
“This isn’t your house if Megan pays all the rent,” Brian said without turning around.
“You’re an asshole!”
“I try,” Brian retorted, and with that, Brian left.
Too amazed to cry or speak, I just kept my head down and lit another cigarette. I tried to block out Sara’s deafening shrieks of how horrible Brian was and how I was a terrible person for letting him disrespect her like he had. I didn’t see him as disrespectful, but as a man who was willing to stand up for his convictions like I should have. By the time I had rolled the scalding tobacco out of my cigarette with my fingers, Sara had stated the one thing I had been trying to say, we needed to move away from each other. After everything Sara did for me in high school, I just couldn’t tolerate her negativity any longer. She was no longer my crutch, but the person breaking my legs.
She moved out with Marty in the middle of March and I moved in with Brian a few weeks later. The new tenants were reluctant to take the apartment because Sara had caused damage to her closet by smashing beer bottles against the walls to curb her anger, so I promised to leave them my futon and bookcase that my mother had bought me as a gift. I threw away most of the furniture that I had acquired and only took with me what was necessary. Before I dropped my keys off with the landlord, I took one final look around. The apartment that I had thought would be full of fun nights of laughter, jokes, and drunken 80’s dance parties, was now a cement prison. The smell of old beer stains and food on the carpet loitered in the air and mixed with lemon Pine-Sol, bringing tears to my eyes and nausea to my stomach. I quietly shut the door, smoked one more cigarette out front, and left for the last time.
***
We sit outside of the café eating spinach leaves with watery ranch dressing. I had preferred to go to a chain, but Sara was convinced that big corporate restaurant employees would poison her food, and even though we hadn’t talked in years, I was still intimidated by her. After a few minutes of awkward silence, I told Sara about my life, how my family was doing, and how my relationship with Brian was going, and she told me about hers. She was still with Marty and they were engaged with plans to move to Oregon. My hands shook nervously every time I lit a cigarette, and I assumed Sara could tell because she would glance at my hands and grin to herself. When lunch was finished, we stood and walked to our cars, caught up in conversation over her dad’s three-legged cat that he had adopted. I grabbed my keys out of my purse and ran my index finger over the ridges of my car key, thinking of what to say next.
“What happened to us?” I asked.
“Honestly? I stopped finding you funny,” she said without blinking.
“Well I guess that’s it then. At least we gave it a try.” I knew it was a stupid response, but I didn’t know what to say. Our entire friendship was based on jokes, and if she didn’t find me funny, we had nothing.
“I love you,” she said and hugged me. “I just want you to know that.” She pulled out her keys and opened her door. I stood there, swallowing against the will of my cottonmouth, and watched her back out of the lot and turn onto the main road. We hadn’t exchanged phone numbers or e-mails, but there was no need. She said everything she needed to say, and after two years, I was okay with letting go. We haven’t talked since and we probably wont, but there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of her and wonder what she is doing at that moment or if she is thinking of me. If our paths every do cross again, I hope that we can smile to each other and crack a joke, but we’ll probably keep our heads down and pretend we only saw a flicker of a memory.

Man in the Brown Plaid Shirt
It was cold that January day, but for some reason I shunned the thought of a jacket. I knew I would be working up a sweat, so a jacket seemed somewhat unnecessary. The New Year had just passed and I was looking forward to whatever lay ahead. Managing a team of five high school girls is no easy task, especially during the night shift at Jamba Juice. The evening was routine as normal. By 7 p.m., the machines were cleaned. Taken apart, cleaned with cleaner that caused horrible rashes and smelled like citrus cough medicine, sprayed, dumped, scrubbed, picked, and put back together. The rest was a simple wash and mop and we were usually out by 8:30.
My year mark had just passed and with it came a promotion to manager. Winter months were our slow time, and I was happy to be living in Arizona, but Scottsdale was still so new and intimidating. Everything in Scottsdale is so spread out with no real sense of community compared to my small San Diego hometown. I was barely 18 and I had never moved before. I wasn’t a sheltered child by any means; in fact, I wasn’t sheltered at all. I was used to spending my summers in New York, so I knew the feel of a big city.
On most days, I would man the register. Now that I was a manager, I got the password to the alarm system and the code to open the register without a purchase; it was a small win in my corner and I was proud. One of my co-workers, Molly, was ill and begged me not to send her home, so I let her ring up customers instead. Molly usually gave me rides home, so I owed her a big one. Normally, I was supposed to make several daily deposits of cash to a small gray safe underneath the counter. I never knew the combination, nor did I want to for fear of temptation. Our tip jar sat above it, separated by imitation wood that splintered all the same and peeled at the edges. It’s funny how a small cylinder piece of plastic can determine whether or not you can afford a pack of cigarettes that night, or if you would search for half smoked butts in the coffee table ashtray.
There wasn’t a bell on the door like in other Jamba Juices. The whir of blenders and loud 20 on 20 pop hits would have drowned it out anyway, as it did the same to most customer conversations. I had to look up every few seconds to make sure I wasn’t ignoring someone dying for a Strawberries Wild. The black required visors we wore always blocked my view, so I would break the rules and hide it by the bags of extra cups. I usually stashed it behind the power size because 32 ounces of frozen fruit wasn’t that popular in cold months, or ever really. It was more like 32 ounces of nausea with a couple of banana slices and a peach. Surprisingly, we had sold an abundance of smoothies that day and my hands were raw from the ice cream scoop and the chemicals in the blender cleaner had split the bends in a few of my fingers. By 8, Molly felt a little better and needed sustenance. She hadn’t eaten all day, and even though we only had 30 minutes left on our shift, I sent her to the Subway next door to get some food.
The last on my list of chores before close was to clean the blender stands. I already had two of the five finished when I looked up to see a man standing at the register. He was in his early 50’s, white, wearing a green and brown plaid long sleeve shirt that needed a good wash. I apologized for the wait and told him I would be with him in a minute. He stared at the menu posted above the registers and asked what kind of juice we sold, which was a bizarre question for a customer, even if it was his first time in the store. It seemed irregular that a new customer would come into the store so late, but I figured that he must have been a curious strip mall shopper.
I screwed the third blender into place and walked towards the register. I rubbed the exhaustion from my eyes, and when I looked up, I saw a gun. His crusted fingernails were curled around the trigger and the gun was pointed at my gut. I could feel my stomach acids rising into my throat, burning my esophagus. My heart ached and it crumbled away underneath my breastbone, almost as if I had already been shot.
“GIVE ME THE FUCKING MONEY! NOW! OPEN THE FUCKING REGISTER AND GIVE ME THE FUCKING MONEY OR I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU,” he screamed.
All I kept repeating was okay, okay, okay, okay. My hands trembled at such a magnitude they could have been deemed a 10 on the Richter scale. Everything’s fine, I thought, just open the register.
I apprehensively keyed in the code and the drawer popped open, but everything seemed to be moving so slow. Like when you try to run in a dream and waves of unhalting pressure force you back, and no matter how fast you run, you just can’t catch up. I tried to grab the cash as fast as I could, but he reached over and started grabbing the bills out of my limp grasp. He forced the money into his jean pockets and then reached back over the counter. It took me a few seconds to realize that he had his left fingers interweaved with mine, and the other hand was still clasped around the gun that was now pointed at my left temple. I looked up, and our eyes finally met. I never could have guessed that the devil would have blue eyes with small red veins that twisted and curled like a bucket of worms, skinned to reveal the muscle underneath. He stared at me for a while, and still holding my hand tight, he started to smile. Disintegrating yellow teeth paraded themselves under his pink cracked lips. His skin, covered in small chickenpox craters, had a thin film of dirt and worsened along his scruffy chin.
I blinked and saw something that wasn’t human. He looked like an evil character from a bad graphic novel. His small teeth turned into sharp prongs and his lips became squiggles. I forced my eyes closed and reopened them determined to study his face, memorize it. Every eyelash and every blackhead in his small bubble nose had to become part of my long-term memory. I had watched enough Court TV to know what the police would ask me if I survived. My mouth was so dry; I could have spit the film that had cemented over my taste buds. I subtly tried to move my jaw so it wouldn’t lock into place, and make me unable to scream if he came around into the kitchen.
“IS THAT ALL OF IT BITCH?” he yelled through semi-clenched teeth.
I shook my head yes and he leaned in closer.
“IF YOU MOVE, I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU.”
And with that, he turned and briskly walked out of the store, almost as if he was a normal customer with a drink in his hand.
I stood there for a few moments and stared at the reflection of myself in the glass. All the fluids in my body seemed to be at a standstill, along with my heartbeat and ability to move. I couldn’t see if he had driven away, so I stood there for a few moments until two chuckling women opened the door. I ran to them and fell into their arms, sobbing something about robbery and gun, and one of the women quickly ran next door.
The police showed up and Molly came running back to the store hysterical that she hadn’t been there to help me. The total amount stolen: $796. The most that was ever in the register at one time in my entire career as a smoothie maker and thank God he hadn’t known about the safe in front of my feet.
The man’s name is Aaron Michael Hess, and he was eventually arrested because of my picture identification. I never went to his court case; I didn’t need to see him in person again. His image is burned into my brain in every sense of the word burned. Although he never shot me, I died that night; my trust in people died that night, and my love for humanity died that night. My ability to go outside at night died and now I feel nauseous every time I think of him. All for a measly $800 to buy drugs. In a way, I feel bad for him because I think of how bad he must have been addicted to the heroine the police told me about. I think of whether or not he has a daughter and how she must feel and I wonder if he ever thinks of me. He is serving a sentence of 12 years in Florence, and he is no stranger to the system. I’m not sure if I will ever feel justice for what he did to me that night. He is probably sitting in his cell, going over his case, hoping to get out on good behavior. Lying to the parole board, telling them that he wants to rebuild his life and that he can change. He will never change and he will probably never rebuild. But, there is one thing that I can change and that I can rebuild that he can’t, and that is empathy.

Sex, Lies, and Sodomy: The Mistake that Changed a Life

It was March 27, 2008, and Colleen Szpekowski had just gotten home from work at IKEA in Chandler, Arizona. She was tired and looking forward to watching reruns of “Sex and the City” from her new DVD season box set. She had seen all the episodes before, but she started up a season one episode anyway. Colleen picked up her phone to check in on her new fiancé, Craig, but it went straight to voicemail. Figuring that he was at work, she pressed play on a night of Carrie Bradshaw’s sex and fashion antics. Halfway through the opening credits, Colleen’s “Oochie Wally” ring tone made her heart jump into her throat and she reached down to see who could be calling. It was her old roommate, Amy, from her freshman year of college who she never got to talk to because of their conflicting schedules. Now that they were both 21, they had wanted to get together for their first legal drink, so naturally Colleen assumed that Amy’s call was more so an invitation. When she answered, the voice on the other end sounded panicked.
Amy had been bored at work and some of the girls decided to look up the criminals of the week on the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office website. Amy was known to have unusual friends, so the girls were joking around about how one of Amy’s friends was sure to have an arrest photo on the website. After searching through homicide and DUI mugshots, they decided to make their way to the more horrific of crimes and clicked onto the sex offender section. Scrolling down half a page, there it was in color for all public eyes to see, Craig’s morose face in front of a turquoise background with a felony charge listed below. Amy grabbed her cell phone while her confused co-workers cracked up laughing at the idea that Amy didn’t just know someone on the website, but knew a registered sex offender. Running into the parking lot, Amy dialed Colleen while thinking over how she should approach the situation. On the second ring, Colleen answered in her usual friendly tone, and Amy asked how long it had been since she had talked to Craig. It had only been a day since Colleen had last checked in with him, and the question surprised her considering that Amy and Craig were more of acquaintances than friends. Amy told Colleen that she better sit down, which she already had been, but the request was quite unnerving.
“She told me that she saw Craig’s mugshot on the police website for a felony to fail to register as a sex offender charge,” Colleen said with a sigh. “I didn’t know what to say, so I just asked her to give me the web address so I could see for myself. She did, and I hung up without so much as a goodbye.”
Colleen ran to her computer and typed in the address. Scrolling down as Amy had, Colleen’s eyes started to burn with tears as she saw her beloved’s face staring back at her. The look in his eyes screamed embarrassment, as did her face that reflected off the computer screen. Not knowing what to do, she wrote down his booking number and called the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. They relayed the information that his arraignment was set for sometime in the next few weeks and that he would be able to make phone calls once he was past the booking stages.
Colleen took the next day off work in case Craig got the chance to call and it was late in the night when he finally did. His voice was shaky with anger and sadness and he claimed he wanted to explain how he had been arrested in the first place. He didn’t need to call a lawyer considering that a public defender had been put on his case, so his attention was set on explaining to Colleen why he was sitting in a jail cell in Phoenix.
Craig had grown up in Salem, Oregon and turned 18 during his senior year of high school. Some of the senior boys decided to plan a camping trip one weekend and invite some girls who would lie to their parents and say they were staying at each other’s houses. When the weekend came, the group drove up into the forest and set up camp. Like many unsupervised high school camping trips, there was a plethora of alcohol and soon the boys and girls started pairing up into couples. Craig started talking to this girl (whose name was asked not to be printed) who came with one of the seniors and they really hit it off. The conversation was flowing and they decided to take their hang out into the more personal quarters of Craig’s tent. They started kissing and the girl unzipped Craig’s pants and gave him oral sex. She was drunk, as was Craig, so he went along with the unexpected good time. After the private tent party, the girl left Craig to go sleep in another tent with some of the other girls.
When they returned home from the camping trip, Craig went back to school with the boys and never really thought about the girl again, until he was summoned out of class a few weeks later. The girl had only been 16-years-old and one of her friends had snitched to the girl’s parents after the girl had divulged all the dirty details. Regardless of the fact that the girl had performed oral sex on him, the family was highly religious and pressed charges against Craig. Despite his best efforts and arguments, he was an adult, and was charged with sodomy in the third degree. Since it was his first offense, he had been put on two years probation, and when it was up he moved with his family to Phoenix. Now at 24, Craig was once again up for charges because he had failed to register himself as a sex offender in the state of Arizona. Pulled over for speeding in a residential neighborhood, Craig now faced serious time behind bars.
Colleen listened politely and said, “I love you” when Craig said he had to hang up. She couldn’t believe that she had been with him for a year and he had never mentioned such an important event as this. Did he think this was something he would keep to himself until he died? What if he is lying about his story? Am I sleeping with a pedophile? These thoughts raced through Colleen’s mind as she held her hands to her stomach, hoping not to vomit on her new black and white checkered IKEA bedroom rug. She wanted to believe his story, but she had to check for herself and set out on a mission to find as much information about Craig’s past in Oregon as she could. She went to the Salem Police Department website and typed his name into the criminal case search engine. His name popped up, along with his charges and sentence time. He hadn’t lied about his story, and for that she was relieved. Colleen could handle an angry parent pressing charges on behalf of their daughter’s promiscuity, but what she didn’t know how to handle was the consequences of failing to register.
Arizona has a very strict policy on sex offenders. Craig was initially charged as a level-one sex offender, but had been bumped to a level two with an immediate risk. Sex offenders are divided into three levels. The level one sex offender is considered not dangerous to his or her surroundings and his or her information is not released to the public. A person could be charged as a level one sex offender for urinating in public, but the court system feels that they pose no real threat to the community. Level three offenders are considered extremely dangerous and serve serious prison sentences. However, as a level two sex offender, Craig would be forced into notifying the area surrounding his residence, area schools, appropriate community groups, and prospective employers. The notification would be given out as a flyer with his picture, address, and list of charges. A statement would also be sent to local print and electronic media, in order to make the information a fact of public record. Craig would even have to obtain a special license from the MVD that showed his status as a sex offender. Even though level two offenders are considered a low to moderate risk, Craig would be treated like a serious convict and would be branded with a stigma for the rest of his life. Colleen was devastated at the thought of what this would do to her future with her prospective husband.
After four months, Craig was released from jail with four years probation. He was not allowed to go to any family events where children would be present, including restaurants, community events, or any child oriented building. Craig couldn’t even go out to a bar to celebrate his release because he wouldn’t be allowed to drink for the next four years. If he chose to give up the four years probation, it would mean a mandatory sentence of two years in jail. After his probation was up, Craig would still be a registered sex offender, despite the fact that he had served his time.
“Colleen has been very understanding of the entire situation. I am so lucky to have found her because there are other women who would just have assumed that I molested some little kid, even though that is not the case at all,” said Craig, squeezing Colleen’s knee as she fidgeted in the chair next to his.
Colleen plans on being a designer for the Walt Disney Company, but with Craig as a registered sex offender, she worries about whether or not he can be a part of her career.
“If I have an event at one of the Disney parks, an unveiling of rides that I designed let’s say, he can’t come and that makes me kind of sad. I feel like he might miss out on a lot of what will become important to me,” Colleen said.
Colleen does find solace in the stories of other wives and girlfriends of sex offenders that she reads on the Internet. She reads stories on www.stopitnow.org of other families who have gone through treatment with their husbands, fathers, or relatives who have committed sexual offenses. Some are worse than others, but all provide a different perspective. The one that helps her most is from a wife whose husband molested their granddaughters. Although this is a much more heinous offense than Craig’s, the wife talks about how she dealt with the initial shock and pain of finding out the truth and how a person can seek treatment. Craig reads the stories along with her because many of the accused have tried to commit suicide, and Craig is no stranger to trying to take his own life.
Soon after Craig was released from jail, he was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, which heavily affects moods and can lead to sever mania or depression. After a few rounds of daily medication, he tried to finish the bottle in one sitting, but was found passed out on the floor by his parents. He was admitted to the hospital for observation for a week, but was released with options for outpatient treatment, which he currently goes to. Colleen sat by his side throughout the entire episode, begging Craig to stay alive for the sake of her sanity. She understands why, and all she can do is sit and hope that he can overcome his demons.
“All I can do is reassure him that I am not going anywhere. I understand that he made a mistake by not registering and that the girl in Oregon screwed up his life. But, it isn’t his fault that he got drunk and got a blowjob. It happens to the best of us,” Colleen said with a smile.
Craig feels that he is finally on the road to personal recovery, which he hasn’t felt in years. The hardest part of his life to date is finding a job because he is required to tell employers that he is a registered sex offender with a felony charge. So far, he has had no luck finding work and is waiting to apply for whatever construction jobs that open up. However, after his four-year probation sentence is up, he hopes to have better luck. Until then, all he can do is wait and do odds jobs for his parents and friends.
“If I could take that one stupid night back, I would,” Craig says as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m checking ID’s from now on to make sure that people’s ages are legit.”
As Craig and Colleen plan a date for their wedding, they are glad that there are no young children in their family that would have to be excluded from the guest list. Colleen’s small diamond ring sits neatly on her finger and she wonders about the other 14,500 Arizona registered sex offenders and whether or not their wives were going through something similar. All she can do is smile and pray that the worse in their relationship is over.
“Finding out about Craig was enough secrets to last me a lifetime. And to think, all I wanted to do was watch Sex and the City. What would Carrie Bradshaw say about this situation?”

Works Cited
Arizona Megan’s Law. Megan’s Law, Sex Offenders Nationwide. 13 Nov. 2008.
Craig. Personal Interview. 11 Nov. 2008.
Sex Offender Infocenter. 12 Nov. 2008. State of Arizona Department of Public Safety. 13 Nov. 2008.
Stories of Hope. Stop it Now! 13 Nov. 2008.
Szpekowski, Colleen. Personal Interview. 11 Nov. 2008.

Hiking Back Up From the Road to Nowhere

Caption: Brittany is on the left in the black jacket, I’m in the flower shirt.
Preface

I first met Brittany after I started going out with her stepbrother, Brian. Brian and I had been dating for a year when we drove up to his dad Steve’s house. Brittany was a junior in high school and we didn’t really talk the entire time I was there. After three more years of dating Brian, we invited Brittany to come to a New Year’s Eve party at our home in Phoenix. She drove from UC Riverside, where she was a freshman, and stayed the weekend at our house. She had just broken up with her long-term boyfriend and wasn’t doing well in school. We offered her our spare bedroom under the conditions that she transfer to college in Phoenix and maintain decent grades, a C average at a minimum. She agreed and moved in the summer of 2008. On one of her first nights, Brittany and I sat outside talking and I asked her what it was like to grow up with my boyfriend’s father. I had always known Steve to be a fun standup guy, but she recounted a different Steve entirely. Her story was so moving that I felt compelled to write about it for this biographical piece. Brittany is a woman of strength and compassion, and her ability to learn from her mistakes is what separates her from the rest of the women her age that I have met in my life. Although this is just one event in her life, it has affected her deeply and made her the wonderful person that she is today.
***
The cheer “M-U-R-R-I-E-T-A, Murrieta (clap clap clap) all the way!” echoed off the walls of the Vista Murrieta High School gym. The gym was empty, except for the sixteen girls standing in formation, practicing for the big Friday night game. Two rows of eight blue, gold, and white clad cheerleaders, ready for their captain’s orders, blended into the navy blue and white painted walls. The waxed wood floor beneath their feet squeaked with each sneaker movement. Retired framed jerseys reflected the neon florescence that beamed from the lights above the squad. Each number represented a member of a team that played hard for the Broncos and were worthy of lifelong recognition. Brittany Wilburn stood patiently in the front line on the right side of the captain. She hadn’t always been a cheerleader; it was her first year in fact. It was 2004, Brittany’s second semester as a sophomore and first semester on her way back up from a year’s worth of depression.
Brittany lived in a newly built community just south of Riverside County in California. Her mother, Kim, met her stepfather Steve in St. Louis, Missouri when Brittany was four, and they moved to Murrieta so that Steve could be closer to his two sons who lived in San Diego. Murrieta is a nice suburb, full of copycat houses built on similar floor plans, and a metropolis of fast food joints. The school system is ranked fairly high, which was great for Kim who had changed her profession from computer programmer to second grade teacher. Brittany’s real father, Bryan, stayed in St. Louis, and they saw each other only two weeks out of the year. Bryan was not involved in her life, other than the phone calls she received a week before and after her annual trips. She had grown to accept that he would never be the father she wanted, but had found solace in Steve. Steve treated her as if she was his own daughter, practically taking over the financial and parenting responsibilities since Brittany was five. A little too over protective, Steve made sure that he always had tabs on Brittany’s whereabouts. Curfews were set in stone with no option for discussion, as well as maintaining the perfect life that Steve had been working so hard to build. Steve was the Vice President of a metal company and a man of rules, with guidelines that were strict and had to be followed. Kim was more of a free spirit, in that she never really had any restrictions for Brittany. After all, Brittany was her one and only child.
When Brittany started her freshman year at Vista Murrieta, Kim and Steve’s relationship had started to turn. They had idiotic fights over what to eat for dinner, or where to take Brittany if there was a celebration in order. If Brittany or Kim weren’t at the front door to meet Steve when he came home from work, a fight would ensue and continue until Brittany locked herself in her bedroom.
“It was ridiculous,” Brittany recounted. “He would get so upset over the dumbest things. When I would try to point out his ridiculous behavior, he would argue with my mom that I had a bad attitude and needed to be disciplined.”
Her bedroom became her temple, her sanctuary; a place she could go to hide away from the pieces of the life she had become so accustom to that were collapsing around her feet. She would lie on her bed for hours, sleeping, writing poems, listening to music, or just crying to the sound of her parents screaming at each other over who touched the remote last. Brittany tried to muffle the noise on most nights, hiding her head underneath her purple pillowcases and cheetah print comforter. Her blue tattered notebook sat open next to her with a pen wedged inside the spiral. The pages that actually remained in the book were full of doodles of hearts and stars, while the actual writings were tucked neatly into a shoebox that she hid in a plastic storage bin in her closet. The writings, which were sometimes poems or long unorganized rants, spoke of a life she remembered where her parents kissed because they meant it and their conversations had a purpose. She dreamt of the life that she had once been proud to display, but now drowned in hidden tequila and rum bottles and numbed with whatever medication she could siphon from her mother’s personal pharmacy. Brittany usually took Zoloft and Xanax, until her best friend Cassie started offering her harder painkillers. Cassie’s method of self-medication consisted of the regular Vicodin and Loritab, but Oxycontin was taken for what she told Brittany were particularly “bad headaches.”
Cassie was a popular girl that Brittany had dumped many of her old friends to hang out with. They were inseparable at best, and since Steve knew Cassie from when Cassie was younger, he saw no problems with Brittany and her friendship. They would drink on most hangouts, including the classes that they had together. Brittany would snatch the alcohol from her mother, who was no stranger to several stiff drinks and even stiffer hangovers. Her mother never noticed, and if she did, she never mentioned anything about the absence. Steve worked an hour and a half north of Murrieta, so he wasn’t there to grab the reigns most of the time. Cassie and Brittany would meet up before school, smiles on their faces to deflect any parental suspicions, and fill half-empty Gatorade or water bottles with the stolen goods. Brittany knew that one campus security guard had probably caught on to her frequent intoxications due to him catching her on several occasions just wandering the halls, Brittany giggling all the while. He never reported her to school officials, for which she was thankful, but not thankful enough to stop. Her GPA, which had been fairly high, had started to diminish because she spent more time trying to fit in with Cassie than focusing on her future. Brittany needed Cassie, she needed someone to take her mind off of her home life, and someone she could party with and rely on for a good time. Anything less would have meant spending more time at home, which was unacceptable for a girl so desperate to experience a life that didn’t so closely resemble her own.
Kim and Steve soon stopped fighting about dinners and celebrations, and moved their quarrels specifically to issues regarding Brittany’s attitude and behavior. Steve felt that Brittany needed to seek professional help for her hobbit-like behaviors at home, and forcefully sent her to therapy against Kim’s wishes. Kim saw Brittany as a direct reflection of herself, and if Brittany had a problem, it meant that Kim had a problem, which she would never admit. Brittany went to the therapist on occasions, rarely telling the truth about her situation at home or her personal life. At times when she did tell the therapist that she would lie in bed and cry, the therapist claimed that her falsified depression was for attention or that she was just tired. No one could believe that a pretty blonde popular girl couldn’t deal with what they thought were a few arguments over spilled milk.
“I guess looking back on the situation, maybe I hoped that they would notice I was depressed. I wasn’t doing anything for immediate attention, but every child just wants their parents to see they’re upset and deal with the problem first hand,” Brittany said.
After a few sessions with the therapist, Brittany called Cassie to talk about how pointless these meetings were. The therapist didn’t believe Brittany even when she did tell the truth, and even though Cassie was wrapped up in her own world most of the time, she told Brittany her way of dealing with unbearable situations. Cassie just told her to burn herself, somewhere that she could hide and somewhere the skin was sensitive enough to feel the pain. Brittany had never really considered this as an option for release, but it seemed reasonable, especially if Cassie was telling her that she did it herself.
It was shortly after 9 p.m., when Brittany heard the stairs creak just outside her bedroom door. It was a house rule that she wasn’t allowed to talk on her phone after 9, so she quickly hid the phone underneath her pillow with Cassie still on the line as Steve kicked the door in, the handle smashing through the drywall. He picked up the nearest thing he could find, a big platform sneaker, and threw it at Brittany’s face. It hit her straight on the right eye, and she grabbed her face as her eyes burned hot with tears. Steve ran up and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her and screaming to get off the phone, spit droplets landing on her flushed cheeks. His breath stank of Camel Light cigarettes that he had sworn he had quit smoking and his eyes were bloodshot with frustration. He never actually saw the phone, regardless of Brittany’s eyes that kept darting to the spot under the pillow where she could hear Cassie’s muffled voice screaming “Hello? Hello? Brittany?” Steve released his grip as Brittany’s tears started flowing more freely and gasps of breath begged for her asthma inhaler. He turned to walk out the door, but before he did, he screamed, “ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED!”
The door slammed and Brittany quickly hung up the phone; Cassie’s voice no longer on the other end. Tears streaming down her cheeks, Brittany sucked at her inhaler, hoping to regain her breath. Breathing in deep, she stared at the hole in her wall. Looking around for something, anything, to cover it up, she tore down an Eminem poster and tacked it back up over the hole.
“I knew that putting an Eminem poster low on the wall behind the door was stupid and suspicious, but what else was I supposed to do? I didn’t want people thinking that I put a hole in my wall and I didn’t really feel like answering any questions about it.”
Peering out the doorway, she saw the hall was clear and quickly ran into the bathroom two doors down. She grabbed a tissue to remove the mascara that had collected underneath her puffy eyes, and searched through her makeup bag that sat on the marble countertop for some makeup remover. A red lighter that her stepbrother had given her sat on top of her MAC eye shadow case and she warily grabbed it out of the bag. She held it in her hands for a few moments, staring at the fluid that sloshed within the plastic. Brittany flicked the lighter over and over again, staring at the flame before placing it to her left wrist. The heat felt good against her clammy skin, and she kept it there until she couldn’t tell if the tears were for Steve or pain from the burn. For the first time, Brittany felt in control of something, in control of her pain. She was able to pinpoint where it hurt and why, and could easily cover up any burn marks with a bracelet or long-sleeve shirt. She did this to herself and it felt good, her parents too wrapped up in arguments over Brittany’s attitude to notice any newfound scars.
On February 29, 2004, Steve decided to move out a few blocks away into a newly developed apartment complex and no one was sad to see him go. The house seemed a little quieter, but Brittany appreciated the peace.
“For once, there wasn’t any fighting over whether or not I was coming home before curfew or some other idiotic reason. I was just glad to see him go. I love him, don’t get me wrong, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. If he hadn’t left, I was afraid I was going to take my depression to the next level, and I don’t even want to think about what that might have been.”
The burns on her wrist had scabbed and healed in just enough time to try out for cheerleading. Some of her friends had tried out and made it, and as normal, Brittany wanted to follow suit. Dressed in a VMHS t-shirt and workout pants, Brittany entered the gym where the tryouts were being held. There were only a few spots left on the team, but Brittany was confidant that she would make it due to previous gymnastics experience. Her friends had already taught her several cheers, and she didn’t miss a beat in front of the panel, including her back tuck. The team captain offered her a position almost immediately and placed her in the front line during practice. She focused all of her energy on performing, the crowds at the football games and competitions cheering her on. She was getting the attention that she needed, regardless of the fact that it was from total strangers. Her parents never went to see her cheer anyway, but it didn’t matter. This was something that Brittany chose to help herself in rebuilding what she had wanted to become, a good student, a good person, and a healthy teenage girl with more to live for than alcohol and butane.

The Secret in the Ballerina Box

The heat waves hovered over the rocky sea of beige, whites, and pinks. The Phoenix summer temperature had peaked and it was a ripe 105 degrees. The windows fogged behind me as my two Boxers peered through the blinds like peeping toms, panting hard against the glass. I sat amongst the rocks next to a cactus that looked like a premature tomato pincushion that my mother used when she sewed. Last summer, I had fallen into the cactus. It took hours of painful plucking to get all of the needles out of my back and my father tells me my scars make me look like a shaven porcupine. I’ve never seen one, but I’ll take his word for it.
I had brought out a red plastic cup when I started my exploration, but now it was full. Full of rock and mineral treasures that seemed fit for a pirate and worthy of fighting over. The shiny flecks in the striations had to be gold because not every rock had them. These were special. My father had watched a show on the History channel about mining for gold and how many men moved to California during the gold rush. Why would they move when all of the gold was right here under their noses?
I wiped my hands off on my dress and retreated inside. I cold air hit my face like fire and every pore stung. The sweat on my neck chilled to below room temperature and I shivered despite the heat resonating off my sun stained cheeks. Rudy and Winnie licked my fingers, their stumpy tails wagging as fast as wind resistance would allow.
“Good puppies,” I said, standing on tiptoes to kiss their soft heads.
“Maggie, is that you?” I heard my mother call from inside the bathroom. The door was slightly ajar and the faint familiar smell of Jean Natae floated down the hallway.
“Momma, I have to show you what I found!” I wanted to make sure that everything was in place for my big surprise. These rocks were not just regular rocks like the ones that lined the flower garden in front of the school. These had gold in them, the same gold I saw everyday on mom’s wedding band.
I ran into the kitchen and set my cup on the coffee table. The dogs were wrestling over a rope in the other room, so I knew they wouldn’t curiously come sniffing around my newfound wealth. I poured the contents out and started to line them up by size. I counted fifteen when I was done, and I made sure the best gold spots were showing for a bigger dramatic effect. I went over my future Christmas list in my head, upgrading everything due to the increased wealth my mother was about to come in to. I expected eight gifts this year, instead of the normal seven. I stood beside the table pointing to the rocks like a young Vanna White as I heard my mother’s footsteps creaking on the wood floor.
“Surprise,” I screamed, all teeth and smiles. My heart fluttered as I waited for her hug and slather of kisses.
“Oh my God, Maggie! Look at your dress! We have to be at the wedding in half an hour and you’re covered in dirt!”
“But mom, look at the rocks,” I said. “They have gold in them.”
“How are we supposed to get you cleaned up and ready in time?” She asked as she grabbed my hand and led me into my bedroom.
“Mom, the gold, the gold!” I shrieked, but she wasn’t paying attention. She flipped on the light and started searching through my closet, pulling dresses off the rack and holding them up against me.
“No, this one isn’t good,” she said holding up another one. “And this one is too small. Oh, why did you do this Maggie? We can’t be late to my own sister’s wedding.”
“Mom, but we have gold now. We can give some to Aunt Susan. She will be happy,” I said, knowing that this would calm my mother down and force her to pay attention.
“Enough Maggie. We need to find a dress. It is too late to wash the one you have on.”
She was talking to herself. Her forehead wrinkled beneath her fingertips as they pinched the bridge of her nose. She checked her watch and pulled down a box from atop my closet. The lid flew off and hit her upper lip.
“SHIT!” she shrieked as she pressed her index finger against the fresh cut. “Well this is just great. Susie will never forgive me for this.”
My mother grabbed a tissue from my dresser and pressed it firmly against her lip to stop whatever blood had begun to escape. My eyes started to sting as uncontrollable tears welled up in my eyes. I hadn’t meant to ruin Aunt Susan’s wedding, I just wanted to show my mom the gold I had found. I just wanted to help. The tears continued to build until they spilled out and over my cheeks. I grabbed my face, hoping to hide behind my dirt-covered hands.
“Oh, honey, it’s okay. Mommy’s okay, she just had an accident,” she said, finally pulling me into a long awaited hug. Only I wished the hug were for my discovery, instead of my tears.
“I…didn’t…mean…to…mommy. I…just…wanted…to…show…you…the…gold…I…found.” My words were broken with sobs and quivers.
“Okay, okay, calm down baby. Go show momma the gold.”
I wiped the tears from my now reddened eyes and sniffled the snot that had started to drain. I grabbed only the best rocks to make sure my mom was impressed, and then she wouldn’t care how dirty I was. We would be able to afford a new dress and everything would be fine. I walked into my pink bunny covered room and opened my hands. Two rigid rocks sat shining in the light of the sun that streamed through the crack in the curtains. God was trying to spy. He wanted a peak on my findings too, but I couldn’t blame him.
“Wow, honey. That is some amazing gold you found. I’m so proud of you,” my mother said as she picked up one of the valuables. “Hold on a minute, I have something for you.”
She stood up and walked out of the room, returning seconds later with a box. It was as blue as the color of her eyes and smelled of dust. There was a ballerina in mid leap on the lid.
“I want you to put your treasures in here. Your grandmother gave this to me when I was your age for all of my secrets. As long as you put your gold in here, no one will find it.”
“Really?” I asked as though I had just been handed the key to the gate of Candyland.
“Now hurry and put them away. We don’t want to keep Susie waiting now do we? She needs her flower girl there more than anything.”
I hurriedly opened the lid and placed the rocks softly into their new hiding spot. I opened the right drawer of my white vanity chest and safely placed the box inside. I put a rubber band on top of the lip as a security measure and turned to change into a dress that my mother had finally found suitable.
* * *
When I returned home from the wedding, I ran into my room and opened the drawer. The box lay hibernating with the rubber band still on top, exactly where I had left it. I slightly lifted the lid and my rocks were still there. My secret was safe, at least for now.

Appendix
Nancy: My First Face……………………………………………………………………………46
Different Times, Different Settings……………………………………………………………...48
Rocks of Riches on Summerfield Lane………………………………………………………….53
Arguments Over Betty Page……………………………………………………………………..55
Interview with Colleen Szpekowski and Craig………………………………………………….58
Interview with Brittany Wilburn………………………………………………………………...60
From Jacko to Wacko: The Story of Michael Jackson…………………………………………..68
“Delivering Lily” by Phillip Lopate: Review……………………………………………………71
“Leaving Babylon: A Walk Through the Jewish Divorce Ceremony” by Judyth Har-Even: Review…………………………………………………………………………………………...72

Nancy: My First Face
I remember the way Nancy’s freckles subtly bridge across her nose from cheek to cheek. They may have been bold at one time, but the sun has faded her skin with age and replaced with some liver spots. Back in the 60s, they didn’t tan with suntan lotion. Baby oil was the tanner of choice, which Nancy claimed to regret later. Her pointed nose comes to a small, flattened plateau at the tip. She has a line across the part in her bridge where the skeletal structure ends and the cartilage begins. It almost looks as if it had been broken at some point by one or both of her brothers. She is a middle child like me, so her skin reflects youth and age that only a middle child has because of constant sibling rivalries, caught in between a paradox of staying young and growing old. She has a small chickenpox scar on her right cheek close to her nose and she picks at it sometimes and reminisces on how her skin used to look.
Her mouth is the most fascinating because her teeth are a bit quirky. They are not bad teeth, she definitely kept up on her dental care, but they are separated. There are the tiniest spaces in between the first few teeth on the top row, but you could only really see them when she smiled. Her tongue constantly rubbed against the back of her bottom teeth, which I later found out was due to heavy methamphetamine use. One of the times I remember her babysitting for me, she was so angry with my sister and my behavior that her tongue moved so fast behind her teeth, I thought it would rip in half.
Her face was very thin then, although she always had a very strong jaw line. Her face was still beautifully natural, despite the sunken black circles around her eyes from lack of sleep, which actually made her eyes stand out more. Royal and baby blue specks perfectly mixed on an iris palette. Her eyes are very gentle, even when she is irritated and her thin bangs always hung over her eyelids and it felt like kitten fur. It is the kind of hair a child loves to weave their fingers through just to feel the tickle as it slides back into its soft and silky place. The rest of her light caramel colored hair lay flat against her back, always past shoulder length.
When she laughs, she laughs with her whole face. Cheeks scrunched to the point where you can see every wrinkle in her almost wrinkleless face. It is this that made me feel so comfortable and it is this that saved my life as I got older. I have never felt more comfortable with a person, and I don’t think I ever will. Her face is more remembered than my mothers because, in a way, Nancy is my mother. She is my best friend, my confidant, my teacher, my unconditional love, my psychologist, my mentor, and my vice. I don’t have a future without Nancy. I don’t have anything without Nancy. She gave me the will to live when there was none, and for that, I owe her everything.

Different Times, Different Settings
Hillcrest, California. “The Near Death Experience”
I was born in Hillcrest. It is the gay community in San Diego. My mother told me that the epidural shot was suffocating me and a random doctor had to do an emergency C-section. I don’t remember much of anything at this point.
Poway, California. “White House on Summerfield”
For 16 years of my life, I grew up in a white house on Summerfield Lane, but it wasn’t always white. My dad painted the house this horrible brown and white color, which my mom despised. It was an ugly two-tone pattern and the neighborhood snickered at our pathetic taste in paint schemes. Hell, I snickered at our taste because the inside and the outside of our house never matched. We had one room that wasn’t even nice that my mother deemed as the “room no one can go into.” Why have a room that no one can sit in? It kind of defeats the purpose of having an extra room all together. Our family room had couches and chairs that never matched, and still don’t. We always had at least two computer desks against the wall, even though we had a computer room with a computer in it on another desk. The miscellaneous desks were used to store papers from classes neither my sisters nor I remember taking. There were also random keys in a dirty cup you may get in Las Vegas when you hit the jackpot in nickels. I bet there is a very upset janitor somewhere in the world.
There were always markers pens that were inkless, and lucky enough, they all sat by the telephone. The house always smelled like warm towels washed in Tide. I used to open the washing machine and inhale the Tide fumes to the point of hyperventilating. I shared a room with my younger sister and my older sister had her own room. Eventually, my younger sister started sleeping in my mom’s bed once my parents got a divorce. I loved having my own room. I painted all of my walls black once it was mine and pushed beer bottle caps into the popcorn ceiling. My mother always felt like I lived in a dungeon, but I just thought it looked cool.
My mother did have a fourth child, her carpet. She was obsessed with the carpet. She would envision spots that weren’t there and would scrub the stains until her hands were raw. One time she said that I ruined her life because of a drop of paint. The house was better after my father was kicked out. He was and is a monster of a man. The screen door always creaked and would catch on her heels and cut your skin, which made sneaking out really hard.
In the morning, the grass always smelled of rain, and on very cold mornings there would be frost. Sometimes, I would grab as much frost as possible and try to flick it at my sisters like a snowball, but it usually melted before it hit them. The air was always foggy, and no matter how dry my clothes was, I always felt wet. When my father lived at home, there was always blackness to the house. It never felt like home and I could always feel the tension the minute I walked up the driveway. Never knowing exactly what kind of man you would meet on the other end. It all depended really on how much he had to drink that night. Most nights I would find him passed out in bed with his shirt off. Some nights, however, I would meet a stranger in a familiar body. I spent most of my life locked away in my room, and eventually, I did install a lock on my door. The town I grew up in was a town that if you didn’t leave right after high school, you never did. So, I left.
Tempe, Arizona. “Let the Good Times Roll”
My apartment in Tempe was disgustingly awesome. I was 16-years-old and in a new state. My boyfriend moved with me and the apartment was on the third floor and had four bedrooms and two bathrooms already furnished. I shared a bathroom with a girl named Amy, who to this day is one of my best friends. I didn’t know my roommates when I moved in because they were student apartments. I just jotted down some hobbies and interests on my lease and BOOM, I had three roommates who were supposedly like me. They weren’t, with the exception Amy. I had band posters from wall to wall and guitars and amps. There was this ugly built in desk against the wall where my computer sat, stealing Internet from other computers within a mile radius. Four boys had lived there before me and there was a crusted booger on the wall next to my bed that I noticed when putting on my sheets. The carpet was dirty and navy blue and it may have felt like a real carpet at one time, but years of trampling shoes matted it down. The apartment smelled like mothballs and dust, even after we did a thorough cleaning.
I drank a lot that year. I smoked cigarettes in my room too, which didn’t help the original aroma. My roommate Colleen started smoking too. I bought a dog a year with part of my financial aid money. There were no pets allowed, but I felt I needed a dog, so I got a puggle named Mary-Jane. The police officers that patrolled the complex at night used to walk her for me. So much for no pets allowed. They also taught me how to roll my own cigarettes, although I think they thought I was going to use the knowledge for rolling joints. Who wouldn’t think that about a young college student from San Diego who likes to play music and surf? I never got my security deposit back because we drew on our couch with sharpie.
Scottsdale, Arizona. “Worse Mistake Ever”
After I left Tempe, I moved in with my best friend from high school. She had moved from Arizona, to San Diego, to Utah, and back to Arizona. Our apartment was on the first floor across from Scottsdale Fashion Square and it was loud all the time. The walls were made of concrete and there was black mold on the ceiling of the bathrooms. The place was huge, and looked even bigger due to the fact that we had no furniture. We didn’t have Internet or cable either, so most nights were spent watching movies or The Bernie Mac show. We slept on air mattresses from Walmart, and when they would spring a leak, we would jump on them. Then, we would return them to Walmart and say we bought them that way. You can do that if you keep the box. Well, karma is a bitch and I eventually got arrested at a Walmart. But, that is another story for a different time.
My roommate Sara was the devil, literally, the antichrist. I had a curfew of 11, even though I paid most of the rent. She hated my boyfriend and they would get into screaming matches in the parking lot over milk left on the table. Eventually, she left her boyfriend for a woman who also moved in with us and her girlfriend was even worse than her. They would eat sunflower seeds and spit the shells onto the carpet. I gave them a cup to spit into, and when it got full, they would dump the contents onto the floor. We adopted two black cats that were more annoying than Sara and her girlfriend and there were cockroaches in every orifice on the apartment. Sara and I decided to call it quits on our friendship halfway through our lease, and I sublet the apartment to someone on craiglist. Our last meal together was Baja Fresh, which gave me heartburn, almost as much heartburn as our friendship. I’m surprised she even ate the food because she was a paranoid bipolar lunatic who thought people poisoned her food. I wasn’t sad to see her go.
Paradise Valley, Arizona. “It’s Getting Better All the Time”
I now live in with my boyfriend, his brother, and his sister. We share a house together and it is great. We got another dog, a pitbull named Danny. His sister and I are always redecorating the house because we get bored easily. My room is still covered in band posters, mostly Bob Marley. I have no blinds on the window because my dog broke them, so there is a makeshift curtain that I purchased at the Renaissance Festival last year. It matches the random décor, so I’m not upset. Our house is highly technological because my boyfriend’s brother is a compulsive electronics buyer. Our living room is a maze of cables and wires. Good thing they make wireless Guitar Hero guitars. This house also smells like dust and we are all too busy to clean it, at least until we actually realize how disgusting it is over the weekends. We all watch television and eat together, and for a first time in a long time, I feel like a family. This home feels comfortable and lived in. The air in this house feels like a warm comforter and I have no problem falling asleep on the couch, plus, it reclines. There is no way of knowing how long I will be here, I guess until my boyfriend and I finally tie the knot, but, maybe we will stay. After all, it can only get better from here.

Rocks of Riches on Summerfield Lane

Avocados hung over the driveway and would hit the car roofs as they pulled up onto the cement. The grass and dirt in front of the medium-sized tree flooded from a broken sprinkler head that sat in front of it on a daily basis. The pink and purple flowers remained small due to constant drowning. The grass was sparse in all other parts of the yard, a yard big enough to flick a penny from one side to the other. Seven perfectly cemented squares curved in an L-shape to the white screen door. It wasn’t always white, but the black screen door would catch on heels and draw blood. Rollie pollies crawled along the squares, while fat pale green slugs sat waiting for a purpose. The air smelled of rain, although most days were sunny and humid and slight breezes slid dead leaves and pine needles around the street like an unpracticed waltz. Assorted frog statues sat on either side of a frog patterned welcome mat, waiting to greet guests like underpaid Walmart workers. Bird-of-Paradise arced over the walkway and snagged the shirts or skin of passersby. The house that sat behind was one story, off-white with a loose black mailbox in the front left corner of the driveway. The street was always quiet, except for a few neighborhood dogs on a nightly walk. Even then, it was only the clicking of rough toenails catching the cracks of the sidewalk. Every yard was clean and well trimmed. White picket fences lined the front of some, while others had large bushes that blocked the view of their neighbor. Mine was open for the whole block to see.
When I was a child, I would go to the corner of my front yard where the house to my left met with mine. There were small pink and white rocks hidden beneath a long pine bush. The white ones wrote on the sidewalk like chalk and I would write my name, marking my territory against the other neighborhood children. The rocks had small silver glints within their striations and I thought I had struck it rich. Finding all this silver in rocks? It must have meant something big. My mother’s jewelry was made of silver, and I knew that jewelry wasn’t cheap. No matter how many pennies’ I saved, I couldn’t seem to afford anything from the jewelry department at Target. Now that I had found these rocks, I could finally buy something decent to show off at school besides the stick-on earrings that fell off after five minutes of recess. A necklace with a heart pendant that had small cubic zirconia diamonds like the silver in my rocks would suffice. I hid them in my Levi’s and went searching for more. Two doors down was a rock garden full of pink. My eye’s widened as if summer vacation had been extended to twelve months; a full year to navigate the silver mines.
An hour later and pockets stuffed like Thanksgiving turkeys, I opened the beige front door and headed for the kitchen. My mother was sitting at the kitchen table, a coffee cup ring stained on the plastic frog tablecloth. I pulled out the rocks and set them on top of the stain. I knew she would be so proud, especially now that we would be able to afford the necessities we needed. But, the look on her face said otherwise. She asked me to take the rocks back outside where they belonged. Confused, I explained that the rocks had silver chips imbedded in their topcoat, and if we chiseled them out, we would be financially set. She smiled dully and pulled me up onto her lap. Breath bitter with decaf instant Folgers, she explained that the silver was just a pretty design, lost in the rock forever. Figuring that she lied in order to steal my goods, I ran into my room crying and hid them away in a drawer among Yo-yos, Barbie shoes, and other miscellaneous items deemed necessary for a six-year-old.
I left those rocks in that drawer for seven years. After a day of spring-cleaning, I came upon them and chuckled. Collecting for disposal, I stared at them. Remembering my excitement, my potential wealth, and how much time I spent looking for only these, I put them back in the drawer.

Arguments Over Betty Page
“Gross, Jim. Stop staring at those drunk sluts,” exclaimed Beth half joking.
“I’m not staring at them. It’s Girls Gone Wild. All they show is boobs, which is only cool for like five minutes,” Jim explained.
“You wouldn’t be happy if I was on one of these commercials for nasty old men to see.”
“No, that’d be hot.”
“You better not be serious! That’s disgusting!”
“I’m kidding! I’m kidding! Relax you are so uptight. I was just looking at that last chick’s tattoo.”
“Oh so that’s what they’re calling it these days, a tattoo. I wish my tattoos were double-Ds.” Beth looked down at her size B breasts and frowned.
“Riiiiggghhht. Actually, I was looking at an actual tattoo. That girl had a pinup girl on her shoulder, one of those all black ones. You know, like the kind Rose McGowan has on her shoulder in Jawbreaker.”
Beth looked up curiously from her neckline.
“I think they are kind of tacky. That girl is going to be old and saggy someday and that wont look like a pinup girl anymore. It will probably look like some giant liver spot,” Beth chuckled.
“Well, I think it’s sexy.”
“You do, do you?”
“I think it would be sexiest on your shoulder.”
“Um, no. I don’t want some Betty Page look alike on my body forever. Plus, I heard they hurt like hell and I’m not a fan of needles. You should know that after I fainted at the ear-piercing place, which by the way, my cartilage still aches.”
“Jesus, it was just an idea. You never seem to complain about my tattoos. I just thought that maybe you would want one too. We could even get one together,” Jim said, hoping to avoid an argument on his day off.
“I like the look of some tattoos, just not on me. I don’t want something like that showing in my wedding photos.”
“Who said we are getting married?”
“I wasn’t talking about you! I was talking in general. For the day I DO get married.”
“Okay, okay. Can we not argue right now? I was just saying. You don’t have to get shit if you don’t want to. I was just having what normal couples would call a conversation. You know, small talk.”
Beth sighed and cleared her throat. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to attack you. I just had a bad day I guess.”
“It’s okay. I just thought you might want to try something new.”
“Are you serious? That isn’t trying something new. That is putting something permanent on your body. I’m glad you like your tattoos; I like them too. I just don’t want them on me!”
“You’re cute when you flare your nostrils.”
“Shut up and stop trying to make me laugh! I’m trying to make a point.”
“Okay well point, set, and match.”
“I hate you.”
“No you don’t. You love me,” sighed Jim as he got up from the couch and kissed Beth on the forehead.”
“I can’t help it. But trust me, I’m trying to.”
“I love you too. But, I would love you more if you got a tattoo,” Jim yelled from inside the refrigerator.
“Shut up and get me a drink.”
“Yes, ma’am.”

Interview with Colleen Szpekowski and Craig

I interviewed Colleen Szpekowski and her fiancée Craig (last name asked not to be printed). When I asked for the interview, Colleen was more comfortable with it than Craig, but he obliged and we met at my house in North Phoenix. I had five main questions, leaving an infinite amount of room for follow-up questions and answers. We sat outside on my patio so that Colleen and Craig could smoke cigarettes to ease the tension. Every time I asked a hard question such as, “How did you become a registered sex offender?” Craig would light up a new cigarette. At time, he became irritated, claiming that he was embarrassed of himself and that he felt like a loser. Colleen sat quiet most of the time while he talked, making sure to look into his eyes and reassure him that she was his support system. He spoke quickly, breaking away in tangents from time to time, but he always came back to the point. He nervously laughed through some of my questions, including what happened after he was released from jail. Craig explained his mental problems, including suicide attempts. It was here that I switched the conversation over to Colleen, who explained to me how she intends to plan her future with Craig.
Colleen wants to work for Disney as a designer, which will inevitably be affected by Craig’s current felony charge. Colleen and I talked about how she plans to have a family, as well as small details of her current life. I asked her when they go out to restaurants, where Craig can or can’t go, how long his probation will last, how she deals with his past and present, and other small details of her daily life that are affected by being with a sex offender. I also spoke with them about their fears, especially when it came to Craig finding a job and having to write that he is a felon on job applications. I have never done such a personal interview with anyone, and I was glad that Colleen and Craig were open enough to discuss their situation. After the interview, I gave Colleen and a hug while Craig walked to the car because it takes a lot of heart and dedication to stick with a felon, much less a registered sex offender.

Interview with Brittany Wilburn
When Brittany Wilburn finally sat down with me, she was very nervous. She is not one to talk about her emotions, especially emotions that have been stored away for years. I sat down at my computer and she sat next to me because she wanted to be able to read what I was typing. She felt it would help her pretend that it wasn’t really her telling the story, almost as if she was assisting me in creating a work of fiction. I tried to ask her easy questions at first, questions that I wouldn’t have to dig deep to have answered. When I started asking Brittany how different aspects of her parents divorce made her feel, she was apprehensive to release all of the skeletons in her closet. She made less and less eye contact and responded with “I don’t remember” or “I don’t know.” Eventually, she eased into our conversation and opened up, although it took a few of my best jokes to help her relax. Less than half way through my interview, I stopped letting her look at the computer. I spoke directly to her and kept eye contact, while she bit her nails to the nubs. When I asked more in depth questions, ones that required stories, she paused to take long deep breaths in between sentences. I think she was afraid that if her story got out that it would cement her past. All of her insecurities and actions surrounding the divorce would be put on paper for the first time. This wasn’t just an interview between friends; this was a chance for Brittany to deal with some of her suppressed anger and emotions. Anger that Brittany has carried around for years and has never known how to deal with. This was a breakthrough for her and I hope that by writing her story, she will be able to forgive her own past, as well as her parents.

Me: How old were you when your step-dad and mom decided to separate?
Brittany: When I was 15, they decided to separate. Steve didn’t decide to move out until I was almost 16. I had been going to therapy at the end of eighth grade until the beginning of my sophomore year when I was 15. I didn’t go regularly though. Steve raised me since I was 5, so I don’t really consider him my step-dad.
Me: Why did you go to therapy?
Brittany: My parents wanted to make sure that I was okay and understood everything that was going on. Steve also thought that I was depressed and had eating disorders.
Me: Were you depressed?
Brittany: Yes. Well, there are two answers to that. One, I was 14-year-old girl fresh into high school and I didn’t know where I fit. I didn’t make the cheer team and my friends did. Second, the therapist thought that it was because I wanted attention. I thought that what was going on between my parents was my fault. Steve told me it was my fault all the time.
Me: What would he say?
Brittany: He would literally say that it was my fault. He would get in my face and say that this was what I wanted. He would say, “Are you happy now?”
Me: Why do you think he said those things?
Brittany: Really, he knew that his marriage was failing and that it was his fault. What to better to place the blame on the 14-year-old girl that thought the world was revolving around her.
Me: How did this negative attention affect you?
Brittany: I started drinking a lot in school and out of school. I went from A’s to C’s and I thought I was failing. I clung close to certain friends and stopped being a social butterfly. I clung to one person and my friendships died. I clung to my friend Rachel a lot. I started popping pills and burning myself too.
Me: What did you think this was going to solve?
Brittany: Numbness or that I could control where the pain went. When I was burning, I liked the pain. I think a part of me feels like I was kind of doing it for attention. I wanted them to see that they were hurting me or if they didn’t fix everything that I would continue to hurt myself. I wasn’t crying out for attention or anything, but I hoped that they would see the burns. They never did. They were consumed in their own problems.
Me: Where would you burn yourself?
Brittany: My left wrist and left thigh.
Me: Any significant reason why you chose the left side?
Brittany: I’m right handed. There was no real significance.
Me: What were your parents fighting about during this time?
Brittany: Money, me, little shit mostly. They always fought about what to have for dinner or comments that Steve made about my grades, my brother Brian’s grades. Steve complained about my attitude a lot. When I was 14, I was in my room constantly and he thought that I was acting out. My mom told him it was normal. They fought a lot on how to punish me because my mom is liberal and doesn’t really punish or give rules. He always wanted to punish me or set rules. He always wanted to spank me or slap me, but my mom was against that. When I used to talk on my cell phone or house phone after 9, he used to get ridiculously mad. He would get really upset and stomp around the house and kick and throw things. He would just scream in my face. I remember one time, I hid because he heard me on the phone and I hid the phone under my pillow. He kicked in the door and made a massive hole and picked up my big platform sneakers and threw it at me. It gave me a black eye and I started crying. He was in my face and his spit was flying in my face and I was freaking out because I could hear my friend on the phone saying, “Hello? Hello? Brittany?” I thought it might hear the phone, but he didn’t. He finally left and I put a poster of Eminem over the hole. My mom made him buy me a new door.
Me: Did anyone question the black eye?
Brittany: My friend Cassie knew, but I just said a shelf fell on me. I had floating shelves and I just said that I jumped on my bed and it fell and hit me in the eye.
Me: So, when did you really start drinking and doing pills?
Brittany: August-September of 2002. My freshman year mostly. I didn’t quit the pills until March or April of 2003 when I met Isidro. I still drank a lot when I was with Isidro though. The drinking shifted from me getting drunk alone to constant partying. Before Isidro, I dated a lot. I just felt a constant need for male attention. Once I got bored, I would move on. Once they separated, I just stayed with Isidro because he had heard a lot about my past and he had been there to listen.
Me: What kind of pills would you take?
Brittany: I took literally anything. One time I accidentally took Oxycontin because I told Cassie that I had a headache. She gave me the pill and said it would make me feel better. I usually took Zoloft that I got from my mom.
Me: Why was your mom taking pills?
Brittany: She was diagnosed with anxiety and depression when I was in eighth grade.
Me: How did that affect her mood and personality?
Brittany: She was always sleeping on the couch. It made me really frustrated that she wasn’t a part of my life. I was jealous that she got to be openly medicated, when I had to hide it. She went from being “Mrs. Mom” to not being in my life at all. Steve was on pills too for obsessive-compulsive disorder. I think that is why they started fighting a lot too. With him, I didn’t really see much of a difference when he started taking medicine.
Me: Tell me about your relationship with Cassie.
Brittany: Cassie and I met in middle school and we got really close at the end of eighth grade. She was kind of popular and she kind of took me under her wing. She started asking me to hang out and we were inseparable. We were always together. She always tried to help people because she was really gullible. She always had an ulterior motive for helping you though. She used her popularity against me all the time and would make me do whatever she wanted me to do. That is why I would take whatever pill she told me to take. I think I did it because I was afraid of losing her as a friend.
Me: Why were you afraid of losing her?
Brittany: I would have had to pick between friends and I didn’t want to do that. High school would have been really uncomfortable because I wouldn’t have fit in anymore. I was depressed and Cassie fed into it. She never tried to make me better; she kind of went depressed with me. We would write poems and she would cut herself. She was in a bad place, but I think she had a clear head about it. I didn’t.
Me: You said you would drink at school, did you ever get caught?
Brittany: No. I used to put the alcohol in water and Gatorade bottles. This one campus security guard I think knew because I would wander the school during class. He never really said anything though other than to get my head straight.
Me: What would you drink?
Brittany: Wine, tequila, or Bicardi. Sometimes we would mix it with the Gatorade already in the bottle. I used a lot of gum and perfume.
Me: How often would you drink at school?
Brittany: During the last half of my first semester, I was drinking at school everyday.
Me: Your parents never caught on?
Brittany: One time my mom was home when I got drunk in the garage. I came in and said that I needed water. Brian went and got me water and gulped this whole glass and I puked all over my ex-boyfriend. I puked again going up the stairs and my mom asked what we were doing. Brian bullshitted some story. Steve was asleep and my mom just didn’t care about the situation.
Me: What would you do when you stayed in your room all the time?
Brittany: I wrote poems, slept, talked on the phone.
Me: Did any of this help you?
Brittany: No, I burned myself when I was in my room a lot. I was talking to friends who weren’t helping me at all. I was a healthy girl, so I shouldn’t have been sleeping all the time. Nothing I tried was effective.
Me: When did you come out of this depression?
Brittany: The day Steve moved out until about a month after, I felt great. He moved on February 29, 2004. Pretty much until the end of eighth grade to the beginning of the first semester of my sophomore year, I was a mess. A month after he moved out, I got into cheer and my mom kind of disappeared out of my life.
Me: What was she doing?
Brittany: She was out getting drunk with her friends, or god only knows what. She never told me.
Me: How did this make you feel?
Brittany: Pissed. She was verbally abusive when she was drunk. One time she scratched up her car and couldn’t remember how it happened. One time, my mom was driving to a friend’s house to drink and I was in the car. I was about to get my learner’s permit, and wanted to drive down this hill. She said no and started driving down the hill. She control halfway down and we started spinning three or four times. We hit a stop sign, and when I stopped screaming, I saw that our front end was almost hanging off this slope that overlooked a canyon. I locked myself in my room after that.
Me: Did cheer help you through your mom’s newfound singleness?
Brittany: Yeah, I consumed myself with cheer 24/7. I was always there early and volunteered for any cheer events. I had been going out with Isidro for a little while at this point, so I wasn’t as frustrated. I found other ways of venting other than burning and taking pills. I stopped because I other things to occupy my time. I didn’t have time to think about the divorce and I was gone all the time doing activities. The best part was that I put myself in activities, so it wasn’t like they forced me to be in activities. My grades improved a lot and I focused a lot of my attention on school.
Me: How is your relationship with your parents now?
Brittany: I think all three of us have suppressed everything and we just live in the now. Steve is my father and my mother is my friend.
Me: Does that ever bother you?
Brittany: No because where he lacks, she thrives. Where she lacks, he thrives, so they balance out. He lacks emotional support and she gives it to me. She lacks guidance and stability, and he has all of that.
Me: What did your real dad do during all of this?
Brittany: My real dad wasn’t there ever. I only saw him twice a year and I didn’t care that he wasn’t there. Steve was always my dad, regardless of the fact that he wasn’t my real dad. My real dad, Bryan, was a Disneyland dad. He was fun when I saw him but he was really flaky. Bryan would call the week before and after I came to visit him, and that was it. He played no part in my life and still plays no part in my life. He has the “real dad” title, but has never done anything to fulfill that title.
Me: What happened to Cassie?
Brittany: Cassie told my boyfriend at the time that she was in love with him, so we just stopped being friends. Cassie was still popping pills and I wasn’t into that anymore when I started cheer. I just came to realize that she was crazy.

From Jacko to Wacko: The Story of Michael Jackson
I read the biography of Michael Jackson entitled “Michael Jackson: The Man Behind the Mask” by Bob Jones. When I began reading this captivating story about the King of Pop, I knew from different media outlets that he had a strong connection with young boys. This uncomfortable and inappropriate infatuation with staying a child and accompanying young boys ages seven to thirteen was only further detailed in this biography. I went into this book with no expectations because Michael Jackson is the oddest character of a man that I have ever seen. I feel even more strongly about this fact after reading this story.
The timeline of this book starts in 1973, when the Jackson Five were hitting it big. Bob Jones was asked to sign onto Michael Jackson’s company, MJJ Communications and Production Company, once he started his solo career. With the release of “Thriller” in 1982, Jackson’s personality and looks started to change. He underwent his first of many nose jobs, explaining that it was to help him breathe better and reach higher notes. He started lightening his skin, telling Oprah Winfrey in an interview that he had a skin condition called Vitiligo. Jones told countless stories about why Jackson decided to undergo plastic surgery and skin bleaching. Michael Jackson is racist. When Jackson moved into the infamous Neverland Ranch, which he named as a tribute to Peter Pan, he refused to see his older sister’s children because they were darker skinned. He told Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan to publicly denounce all of his Jewish friends, and released “They Don’t Care About Us,” which featured the lyrics “Jew me/sue me/everybody do me.” Jones also stated that Jackson rarely had African American employees work for him. Jones went on to discuss Jackson’s failed marriages to Lisa Marie Presley and Debbie Rowe, only marrying Presley to gain access to her father’s estate. Throughout the book, Jackson is viewed as a manipulating man-child who was constantly seen with young boys. He would take boys on tour with him, keeping their parents entertained with shopping sprees and sightseeing, while he would lock himself away in his bedroom with the boys. In his 2004 trial, the police found a secret bedroom hidden behind his closet that was decorated in Peter Pan garb and pictures of babies. Jackson started spending more money than he had and owed hundred of millions in lawsuits for overdue bills. He even had to close his MJJ offices because he couldn’t pay the rent.
When Jackson was first accused of child molestation in1993, he was caught licking the accusers head, holding his hand, and kissing him on the cheek. Jackson even admitted that “If all the children in the world died, I would jump off a balcony.” He claimed that the world would be peaceful if everyone just slept in the same bed as children. The biggest mistake that Jackson made to his career was when he started faking injuries to get out of contracts and gigs. In 2001, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but faked a broken leg so he wouldn’t have to perform. He had been lip-synching his past performances and didn’t want to do such a thing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He claimed to be doing benefit tours, while secretly being paid under the table. Jones told stories of how Jackson would never do anything for me and there was always an ulterior motive to his actions. Every public appearance had to be a media event that he planned. According to Jones, some of Jackson’s entourage even collected local kids to come to his appearances so it looked like he had uncontrollable fans. The book ends with his 2004 court case, which he was acquitted of all charges.
I think that Bob Jones wrote this book because he had worked closely with Jackson for over thirty years. After he was fired (Michael sent him a note saying that his services were no longer needed) and Jackson was taken into custody for the second molestation charge, journalists were calling him constantly for his story. Jones figured that he would rather write his story his way, and I think he did a really good job of it. He laid out all the details of Jackson’s life after his career started to slip away and it was quite interesting. I wish that there were more information on Jackson’s parents. Jones included a lot of information on Jackson’s brothers and sisters, whom Jackson shunned later in life. There was mention of Joe Jackson’s, Michael’s father, marital affairs and the child that he fathered outside of his marriage. Jones also discussed Joe’s bad temper and how he used to beat his wife and children. There wasn’t much discussion of Michael Jackson’s childhood either, which has been kept somewhat secret. All in all, I felt that this was a great depiction of Michael once he purchased Neverland Ranch. The book mainly focused on the scandals, which Jackson has many and they are all equally interesting. I highly recommend this biography to anyone who is interested in hearing an insider’s tale of the King of Pop.

“Delivering Lily” By Philip Lopate: Review
Phillip Lopate’s piece “Delivering Lily,” is my favorite nonfiction reading this semester. As a woman, I am terrified to go through childbirth. Of course, Lopate made it sound as painful as I thought it would be, if not more. However, he did it in a comical way that reassured me that everything would be all right when my time came to push out half of myself. “All that anguish and grief and triumph just to extract a writhing jumbo shrimp-it was comical” (436). Lopate really gets into the meat of what a new father feels in the delivery room. I found myself shaking my head in agreement when he spoke of Lamaze classes and the ridiculous counting the teachers tell you to do. I started feeling so bad for Cheryl as she kept pushing and pushing to no avail. I wanted to yell, “Give her the epidural already!”
I really liked the images that Lopate used to describe certain situations. “We sat like useless tourists who arrive in an economy hotel after a long trip, too tired to attempt the streets of a foreign city, yet too hemmed in by the unlovely room to enjoy a siesta” (424). I honestly can’t think of a better way to describe a woman in labor in an unforgiving hospital room. I loved how Lopate started his story with what he and Cheryl planned on doing once her water broke. First time parents always plan everything, but once the contractions really start, all hell breaks loose and the plans are just as useless as the husband (no offense guys).
Another excellent aspect of this story was how Lopate described all of the nurses and doctors that were involved. “Dr. Arita had a clinical terseness, never taking five words to say what four could accomplish” (425). These small descriptions really helped me picture what type of people Cheryl and Phillip were dealing with. In a way, there experience seemed like an episode of Seinfeld, two helpless people put into a planned situation where everything goes wrong.
“Leaving Babylon: A Walk Through the Jewish Divorce Ceremony”
by Judyth Har-Even: Review
“Leaving Babylon: A Walk Through the Jewish Divorce Ceremony” by Judyth Har-Even is an incredible description of traditional Jewish culture. When I started reading this story, I had to laugh because my father is from Israel, and my parents are divorced. Judyth’s descriptions of her experience hit close to home because they are traditions that I have been taught throughout my life. As a reader, I can see how painful her experience was, yet how wonderful the liberation is.
Judyth does a wonderful job of describing these traditions in such a way that allows non-Jewish readers to picture her situation with ease. The terms are described in a clear manner, and her writing flows so well that I almost forgot I was reading about religious traditions. “He is a short man wearing a white shirt with a frayed collar and black skullcap placed on his bald head like a dot over an i" (276). This line offers great description on traditional Jewish religious garb. As the reader, I can picture the character that she is talking about and what he is wearing to really give us the state of her surroundings. Of course, any Jewish person knows that this black skullcap is called a yarmulke.
I love how Judyth separated her story into acts, almost as if she was writing a play. The reader gets to see a breakdown of events, and her flashbacks to her marriage really help the reader understand where her marriage went wrong. “I hope he won’t explode this week, when the wine spills on the tablecloth” (283). My father is the same way as Judyth’s ex-husband. During Shabbat dinner and prayer, he would become furious if anything was spilled. Not because of tradition, but because that is when we all got together, and that is the kind of man he is.
Another aspect of Judyth’s writing that I loved was how she brought God and traditional wedding objects into the story as people. When she is describing her wedding she says, “Then he opens his lips slightly, just slightly, and takes a sip. God is crossing His fingers” (281). In her last line she says, “When a man divorces the wife of his youth, even the altar sheds tears” (285). We can see that Judyth is relieved to be divorced, but the strong Jewish traditions that she hangs on to causes her to cry at the idea of a failed marriage. In the Jewish tradition, it is not looked well upon to get a divorce. A marriage is a blessing of God, and like Judyth said, God is not around in a divorce ceremony.

When Life Throws You Lemons...Make Tequila Sunrises

2008-12-11T12:04:00.000-08:00

FOUND
by Josephine Lovell

2006
I was sitting opening up my e-mail just like any other day. The junk mail section is scanned just to make sure there is nothing of importance. Then my eyes hit upon something that I recognized immediately. My heart stopped still and I could hardly breathe. The title said it all. I would be the only person who would understand that message. It would have no meaning for anyone else. That was the point though: to catch my attention completely; to not accidentally erase in a foul swoop of the delete button.
“Leroy James Lovell, December 22, 1972”
That’s all it said. That’s all that was needed. I knew he had finally found me.

1972
“Damn! This was not supposed to happen” I told the doctor sitting before me. “I can’t go through with this.”
The news of my pregnancy was a shock. I had just gotten over having hepatitis after a bad needle in the hospital from having my tonsils removed. I had thought my morning sickness was still from the effects of the recovery process of hepatitis (they say it takes over a year to recover fully). Now, at the age of twenty, I was told that I was eleven weeks pregnant.
Suddenly the room became stifling, my heart rate increased and I felt faint. This was not the effect of the pregnancy: this was the realization of what my mother was going to say!
Fortunately, she took it in her usual stride of forgiveness and practicality of, now what. My twin sister, Geraldine, was ecstatic. She already had a one-year old and was looking forward to him having a playmate in the family. My older and younger sisters accepted, as sisters do.
“Don’t tell Geraldine you’re thinking of giving the baby up for adoption” Mum warned me.
“She needs to know. I don’t want you to go through what she has put you through with her child. It’s not fair on you, Mum” I rebutted.
“I know, but I really don’t mind. Little Crispian is my grandson and I couldn’t leave him to your sister’s thoughtless acts. Not that she would hurt him, but he needs more than she is willing to give up.”
“Precisely, Mum” I interjected, “I won’t put you through it for a second time.”
“I doubt that you would. You’re not like Geraldine. You may be twins, but you’re so different. She won’t understand your reasons. She’ll fight you all the way, you know how she is, and she’ll not stop until she’s driven you to the wall. Her view is the right one and nothing anyone else says counts. Don’t tell her.”
The decision to keep the baby or adopt was foremost in my mind, and I had to make a decision soon. I had watched my twin dump her child on to our mother to baby sit while she went off with her boyfriend to the movies or the local pub every weekend. Mum didn’t have a life. I saw how our mum would spend what little money she had on baby clothes, food and toys when my sister was spending money on enjoyment. Mum hadn’t bought a new dress in ages. I heard the arguments Mum had with Geraldine over these things and of my twin’s responsibilities she was shunning off onto our mum. I heard my mum’s heartache and sadness when my sister yelled at her for not helping out when she wanted to go out yet again and Mum refusing and then giving in because the baby would end up suffering. Mum hadn’t been out to enjoy herself for so long. What if I did the same thoughtless things? What if I ended up hurting my mother like that? I knew mum felt I wouldn’t, but the ‘what ifs’ kept smothering me. Abusing mum was something I was not prepared to even contemplate doing. Count one for adoption.
I had been living at home after our father decided to leave my mum in peace from his ramblings with other women. They had separated and my mum had bought a small four-bedroom cottage in Manly, Australia. I had settled down from a couple of wild years on my free-living life of a hippy. Living back at home with Mum and my sisters was sobering and, I guess, good for me. I was working back in engineering once more and had begun to get used to the routines of a mundane life. Three months (or close enough) ago I had bumped into an old party buddy, and … well you know the story: one too many drinks, some cool magic mushrooms and a bit of needed flattery was all it took to get me in the sack. Three months later I was deciding what to do with an unwanted pregnancy. Ian had offered to marry me. Hell, no! We were old buddies nothing more. I still don’t know why we ended up where we did (maybe the mix of drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll had something to do with it). So count two for adoption.

2006
I could not bring my shaking hand to open that letter. I just stared in amazement at the name and date. I was terrified and excited at the same time. I felt paralyzed, mesmerized, and drawn completely out of my own body. I wanted my hand to click it open and yet my body didn’t belong to me just yet. Slowly I was able to get control of myself and opened the mail.
“Yes. Yes, thank God! It is my son” I sighed as I read the first few lines. Strangely enough, I remember thinking how good a writer he is; how well written the sentences were and how thoughtful their structure was. I could tell that he had spent a long time in composing this letter. It had to be perfect. It had to be just right the first time. There might not be another chance. My heart flew to him and what this must have taken to put on paper. Awesome, miraculous, I kept thinking to myself.

Dear Josephine,
Writing this e-mail is one of the hardest things I have done in my life to date, but also one I have wished and hoped I was able to for a long time. Having spent many years on and off searching for my birth mother I have (hopefully) found her/you!Now I don't know how you will react to this but I deeply hope you have maybe one day been expecting such a letter and that you are overjoyed. But also it will be a big emotional roller coaster as I know how I would feel if the shoe was on the other foot. I wasn't sure as what to put in the title and still working on it as I would hate you to have thought it was a junk email but I think it is appropriate as I have just thought of it.I think life is too short not to have taken the time to track you down and write this email as am aware that your father has only just passed away 3 years ago and I hope you will reply sooner than later as I look forward to checking my inbox on a daily basis for your reply or phone call.

After reading, I ran to my son, Francisco, whom I had given birth to thirteen years after giving up Leroy, to tell him the fabulous news. We had had no secrets between us, so he knew about my other son. Francisco understood my reasons and had never judged me for my decision to give Leroy up. He never judged me for keeping him and I as a single parent family all these years either. I so missed my first son and knew that one day becoming a mother would have the right time. At thirty-three I felt ready to be a mum and with the body’s clock ticking, I decided to get pregnant. I was not looking to be a wife, just be a mother. Francisco brought all that I had expected and so much more. He was now ready to welcome a half brother into his life.
The letter had given my son’s adopted name as Daniel Lambert and left a phone number to call if I wished to. I immediately grabbed the phone and dialed. I had no idea what to say and didn’t worry about it. I wanted only to let him know that I wanted to know him and that it was the most wonderful letter I had ever received in my life.
“Hello?” a very sleepy female voice answered the call.
“Hello. Is Daniel there?”
“Yes, just a minute. Who’s calling?”
“This is Josephine from Arizona” I answered breathlessly waiting for his voice.
“Hello?” another very sleepy male voice croaked from the earpiece. “Do you know that it is 4:30 in the morning?”
Oh my God! I had been so excited in calling that I had not even thought about the time difference in phoning Australia. I apologized profusely and said I would call back later. The voice agreed. The connection was broken. What an idiot I had been. I was now shaking with emotion. The adrenalin wouldn’t stop pumping and now it had turned from excitement to panic. What if he didn’t want to talk to me after waking him up?

1972
My waters broke; the waiting was over. It was December 22. They whisked me to the delivery room and within minutes they placed a mask over my face to put me out. I struggled at first, but soon everything disappeared to oblivion. The next thing I remembered was waking up in the maternity ward and no pot belly. I called a nurse to ask about my baby and why I had been knocked out for the delivery. I was told that because I had decided to have the baby adopted I was not allowed to see the child at any time, so the delivery was done by forceps and the baby taken without my knowledge. I was told it is the only way these things could be done. She told me she could not answer anything to do with the baby. I was sickened to my stomach but understood their reasons. The emotional turmoil of giving birth to a child you have carried around for nine months would be tipped to an unbearable level if you were able to see, touch or hold the baby, but surely just knowing some news would have been okay? They wouldn’t even tell me the baby’s sex and if it was healthy. I never asked again. I hid my head under the blankets and refused to talk to any of the other mothers. I felt so ashamed.
The mothers were torture for me. Their babies would be brought in for their feeding every now and then. Each mother held and cooed at their child. They talked, laughed and clucked at each other’s children. I hid myself deeper inside the covers and tried to block out their happy voices. However, they didn’t come close to the tortures my twin sister inflicted on me on a daily basis. She was so upset about not having a playmate for her son and also felt that people who gave up their children were despicable.
Geraldine was a nurse and happened to work at the hospital. She had access to all the wards at any time and once she found out that I had decided on the adoption, war was declared on me. She would come in on her breaks, before work started and after work ended. She would tease me cruelly with words that cut my heart and soul to shreds. She told me that my baby was a boy and that he was the only child who cried. She would say that he cried so much because he knew that his mother didn’t want him; that his mother didn’t love him or care about him. My soul screamed in agony and my heart broke down.
After four days I could not take any more torture. She won and I lost the battle. She said that she was quitting her job to stay home and look after her son so one more would not hurt. She had an answer to all my excuses. I could not fight her in my fragile emotional state. I gave in and within minutes my baby was in my arms. What a blessing he was. Love was overwhelming.

2006
My emotions were overwhelming, but I didn’t dare call back. I decided to wait to hear from him. I sent him my phone number in an e-mail, so the nail-biting began. He called a few hours later. To tell the truth I hardly remember what was said in the twenty minutes we spoke. It was so dream-like, so unreal, so wonderful. I remember his voice. How musical it sounded – a deep rich tone with a broad twang of the Aussie accent upturning the last syllable of his sentences. He laughed at how American I sounded. His laugh was as rich as his baritone voice. He pulled at my heart strings as I floated somewhere between the floor and the ceiling of my dining room.
We hung up with promises to call again and write. We spoke often over the next few weeks and wrote several times, sending pictures. I only had two photos of Daniel: both were from the day we came home from the hospital. He was tall and slim with a head of thin dark brown hair and large chocolate eyes that twinkled from a beautiful olive skinned face. However, what struck everyone who saw him were his hands. They were so elegantly long. I thought that maybe he would be a pianist. I was so grateful that Daniel sent me photos of when he was still a baby and others of when he was growing up. Nothing could fill the void, but this sure helped in picturing him for real instead of trying to imagine what he was like. I had thought about it a million times over the years: wondering what he looked like, how tall, how handsome. I often wondered if I would recognize him if he sat opposite me on a bus or passed me on a street. I was always scared that I would not.

1973
I soon fell into a routine: take Leroy to my sister’s, drive to the city to work the day, return to pick Leroy up and then home. But something was not right. I could feel the tension each time I went to pick Leroy up. Her boyfriend, Lenny, would be drunk or close to it and started to complain that there was not enough money now that Geraldine was no longer working at the hospital. He blamed me and Leroy. I was afraid he would hurt my baby.
I decided that things were not going the correct way and that I had made a mistake in keeping Leroy. I knew that I was not prepared emotionally to handle the tremendous responsibilities of motherhood on top of being single. I had my own dreams and so would Leroy and how were either of us going to accomplish them if I could not handle the enormous psychological and emotional traumas that life threw at us on a daily basis? I was immature and not ready to do this. It was not fair on this innocent life to start him off with my troubling life. I couldn’t subject him to my lack of strength. He needed a mature commitment, not one that lacked direction, in order to give him the best in life, to give him the best chance to get through life, to give him what every child deserves: stability as well as love. I was not lacking in love – that was given freely, abundantly and willingly. Stability was my concern. I could not promise that at any stage of his life. He deserved better. He deserved that chance. I decided to look into the process of adoption.
I have blocked out so much of the next steps to his adoption. These weeks have been erased as too traumatic for my mind to cope with. When I told my family of my final decision to give Leroy up, I was virtually thrown out. Nobody spoke to me and when anyone did, it was to throw insults at me.
“You don’t love him” my sisters told me.
“You don’t understand me. It is because I love him so much that I am doing this.”
But nobody listened to me and nobody helped me through my pain and sorrow. They loved him almost as much as I did and could not contemplate giving him up now. I know they didn’t really mean to be nasty to me, but I needed their understanding and support not their pain and anger.
The day finally came: March 7, 1973 at the Child Welfare Department in Crows Nest, Sydney. I took him in his crib along with his toys and clothes. I was interviewed for hours. They needed to know absolutely everything about my family, my grandparents, the father’s family and his grandparents. Descriptions of physical traits and a history of health had to be painstakingly recorded. I don’t know how I got through those hours. They told me that if they could get as much history of the family backgrounds then finding a ‘match’ for the baby would be easier. They try to place them with a family that has similar traits and coloring. The only thing I asked them was to promise me that he would be placed in a foster home until an adoption was decided on and not in an orphanage. He had been used to us as his family. I couldn’t bear to think of him as one of many waiting for the right family to come along. They promised. I left the place in a daze.
I got in my little Mini Cooper (the original Morris ones) and began my drive back to the house in Manly. I could not think clearly. I hated myself. I was so angry and frightened. I cried uncontrollably. I wasn’t driving fast. I could hardly see where I was going much of the time. Part of the journey home winds up a mountain and is pretty hairy at night on some of the ninety-degree bends. One of those bends was especially dangerous and had been nicknamed ‘dead man’s curve’ because so many had gone over the edge and plunged to their deaths in the gully below. Nobody had ever survived the fall. I now came along that stretch towards dead man’s curve. I have no idea why I felt a peculiar need to study the tree-line ahead of me, but I saw the bend where the road just disappeared and the horizon was full of green-grey gum trees that loomed silently on all sides. They seemed to close in on me. They did not judge my actions. They did not yell at me for doing the dreadful thing I had just done. They felt inviting, felt understanding. I wanted to stop the feeling of hatred I felt for myself, I wanted to cease the disgust I had for my actions, I wanted to die. And here the trees were inviting me to come to them, to end it with their strength. I knew in an instant that I would die here if I could drive my car over the edge and I would be at peace – a penance would be paid for giving my child away.

2006
Daniel called one morning and asked me if it would be alright if he could come visit me and Francisco. Are you kidding?
“My dad is going to give me my ticket. He said that I deserve to meet you in person seeing as though it has taken so long to find you,” Daniel explained. “After the private detective we hired found your address he told me that if you were willing to meet me we’d find a way.”
“I can’t wait to meet you. Please thank your dad for me” was all I could think to say. My numbing mind was in mayhem. Daniel would come for two months at the end of May. He told me he would like to see the Grand Canyon, and Universal Studios. Anything else was up to me.
“You can relax and I will cook for you” he told me. “I am a chef.”

1973
The dark grey road stretched on before being lost to the trees waiting about two hundred yards in front of me. I knew the road curved to the right. The beige earth of the cutaway mountain side rose on my right following the road. That too disappeared up ahead. To my left I could almost see down the sides of the gully, but the trees blocked the view to the bottom. The bush was thick and lush as it was natural forest land so no development had penetrated this far. Ideal for a suicide as car wrecks were only found by the occasional hiker who happened to stumble upon a wreck; that is if nobody saw the car topple over from above or burst into flames to draw attention with the billowing smoke.
I pressed my foot to the accelerator and jammed it to the floor. Immediately the car flew forward rapidly. I stiffened my arms straight out and squeezed the wheel with both hands tightly. The car could only go straight forward. The car would have to go over the edge once the road turned the corner. I closed my wet eyes and prayed to end it quickly.
To this day, I do not know why I am still alive. I should have died off that lonely stretch of mountainside. When I opened my eyes, my hands were still gripping the steering wheel tightly and my foot was still pressed firmly on the floor over the accelerator pedal. However, the engine was silent and dust was everywhere. I began to cough. I could not see where I was as I could not see through the cloud of dust swirling around the car. I appeared to be upright and unhurt. The whiteness that the dust was creating from the sun made the atmosphere glow serenely. There was silence. Then I realized what I had tried to do and I thought that maybe I was dead and that this was the dream-state between life and death. I took my hands off the wheel and peered through the dusty windows. I began to make out some forms outside.
The car was standing on the right side of the road parallel to the mountain’s side wall of earth as if I had calmly driven over and parked it there. It was no longer facing the gully edge, but was around the bend. How did I get there? How did my car get around a ninety-degree curve that I had intended not to go around? I knew I was not dead and this was no dream-state; I was very much alive. I began to shake uncontrollably. How stupid I had been. I got out of my car once the trembling had subsided somewhat. I walked over to the edge of the gully and then followed the curve back around to where I last remembered driving down. There were no skid marks, no signs of anything wrong. The trees whispered there song to me, but of life this time – no longer beckoning me to join them in the gully.
I went back to my car and slowly, very slowly drove the rest of the way back home. I was not greeted well by my family. They didn’t understand me. I never told them what I had just tried to do. It was many years before I could retell that to anyone. Time heals, so they say, and I guess they are right.

2006
The day had finally arrived. I had to go to work, but I told my students and asked them if I could leave class early that morning to pick Daniel up at Phoenix airport. They were delighted to oblige. I had called The Arizona Republic that morning and left a message on a reporter’s voice mail with a brief explanation of the story. If he were interested he could call me, but the plane was due in at eleven. Within ten minutes the reporter phoned and said that he was very interested in my story and could he and a photographer come to the airport to record the meeting and interview us both. I welcomed them both. We arranged to meet at the gate Daniel would be arriving at fifteen minutes before his landing.
I nervously waited. A tall man in his mid-thirties asked if I were Josephine. We sat down to do a quick interview. The photographer snapped away. It was now after eleven and nobody was arriving. My phone rang with an unidentified number showing.
“Hello” I answered it.
“Josephine, it’s Daniel”
“Hey where are you?”
“My flight from Sydney was delayed so I missed my flight to Phoenix from LA.”
“Oh no! When will you make it?”
“I can be there at about three.”
“Okay. I will see you then” I hung up.
I had to break the news to the reporter. I apologized. They told me not to worry and they would be back at three. They really wanted the story. They asked me if I would leave or stay. I told them I wasn’t budging an inch. I had waited thirty-three years for this moment so a few more hours would be nothing. They left.
I wandered the airport and settled down with a crossword puzzle book I bought at one of the stores. At about twelve fifteen my phone rang again. It was Daniel.
“Hey mate, I’m here!”
“You’re where, exactly?” I asked, shocked.
“In Phoenix” he said, “I’m waiting to pick up my luggage. I was able to get on an earlier flight with a different airline company.”
I was in a panic as I really wanted the photographer to capture that first meeting. I phoned the reporter and told him what had happened. I didn’t expect them to drop everything and get to the airport in time. They told me they were only ten minutes away and would meet me at the same place as before. I was hoping that Daniel would not get through baggage claim and customs before we were set up.
Fortunately, for once anyway, I was glad that customs took so long in their processing. The reporter and photographer arrived and we were able to set up. We waited what seemed an eternity. My phone rang yet again.
“Where are you?’ Daniel asked.
“I am outside the gate” I replied. “Where are you?”
“I am at the gate and I don’t see anyone resembling you. I have studied your picture and so I don’t think I missed seeing you.”
“Me too, I couldn’t miss you if I saw you and I haven’t. I know I haven’t” I answered now worried that we were in the wrong terminal.
“I am at gate seventeen C.”
“Ah,” I cried. “I am at B so just walk down the long passageway, past all the restaurants and shops” I told him, relieved that this was finally going to happen.
Then I saw him. He was tall and suntanned, with dark curly hair thickly framing a handsome face. He wore a red shirt that covered a tiny hint of beer belly. He was effortlessly wheeling a trolley piled with luggage. I told the reporter who he was and the photographer readied his camera.
“I’ll stand back and just listen in if you don’t mind” the reporter said stepping away from my side.
Daniel saw me and we just stared into each other’s eyes for those last few feet of distance that lay between us. We quickly closed the gap and hugged each other tightly. I can hardly describe my emotion. It was so intense. It was also awkward to some degree. This man before me, this man in my arms, this man was a virtual stranger. My feelings were racing every which way. I wanted to yell that I had always loved him, but I felt shamed too. I didn’t know his heart and he didn’t know mine. I could feel his awkwardness too. We were of the same blood yet this intimacy was too difficult to grasp fully. It is the strangest feeling: the wanting to hold him until your arms dropped off and yet trying to be reserved because he was a full-grown man and we were strangers. We stepped back. We settled into laughing and talking about nothing in particular. The reporter asked him for an interview which he granted.
“What are you going to call your birth mother?” the reporter asked.
“Jay-lo” he replied, “If that’s okay with her.”
“Where do you hope this will lead to?”
“To a second family that lasts forever” Daniel said as he smiled over at me.

Living in the Aftermath of Four Bounty Hunters: My Personal Toilet Fountain

2008-10-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

My toilet was spraying a steady blaze of water from the tank comparable to the Fountain Hills fountain when I exited the shower this morning. The blast was so great I couldn’t get behind the bowl to turn off the water valve, so I awakened the MacGuyver gene that lies dormant in me for situations like this. I jury rigged the float to the handle with dental floss. I dammed up the door using a variety of towels (including the one I had been wearing when I stepped out of the shower). Wet, naked, and sprayed with a mist of toilet tank water (compliments of my own personal Yosemite geyser), I stepped back into the shower to re-start my day.

Something Beautiful

2008-09-26T00:51:00.000-07:00

I wrote this as an attempt to find a reprieve from the gloom of my grandfather's funeral earlier this month. I'm hoping to make it part of a larger chronical of the experience.

Each raindrop fell tonight because it had to. They fall… and they fall together.

What it must be like to be one of them! Hiding in a cloud, waiting to dance on the wind and fulfill a glorious destiny of death and rebirth. To alone be meaningless, but to share the confidence of billions who are ready to cause such beautiful chaos. To be given a powerfully soothing melody to play upon the shoulders of poor lost souls below. To make instruments of even the most mundane of surfaces! To celebrate victory in sodden pavement beds… and to march defiantly through the gutters, where it is said nothing beautiful belongs. To come to a satisfied and peaceful rest awaiting the return of the sun to raise his children back up to the sky above.I can only sigh, letting the air they have helped make cool and crisp into my lungs.

Oh, to be a drop of rain.

The Big Day!

2008-09-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

There is a long narrow hallway off to the left of the sanctuary’s main entrance. The first room on your right is guarded by a plain unpolished brown wooden door but this is not a normal door. The top half opens separately from the bottom; locking children inside while adults can look out. It is a nursery room. The room is small, square and white. The smell of animal crackers, fruit juice and urine wafts towards your nose from the blue carpet. Although the room is air conditioned, the Arizona July heat still seeps into the room; creating a stifling atmosphere. At the very back of the room is another door. This one is heavier than the entrance door and it opens into a tiny tiled bathroom; a shared bathroom with the next room. The smell of urine attacks your nose as you enter; too many years of children missing the toilet. Looking to your left you notice a sink counter covered in the essentials. There is a curling iron, hairspray, foundation, mascara and eye liner splayed all over the counter. The mirror above is not incredibly clean but it serves its purpose.

Back in the nursery room the crowd is overwhelming. There are people and toys everywhere. In one corner stands a dilapidated doll house surrounded by stuffed animals and building blocks; amazingly there are no dolls in sight. Little tables and chairs fill the empty space not swarmed with toys; no adult could fit in these chairs and none would want to. The chairs are a multitude of colors and not because they were manufactured that way. There are crayon markings littering every piece of furniture so the people in the room elect to stand. The room is filled with four women and one man. Three of the women are young and dressed identically in champagne colored dresses with matching shoes. There is one older woman dressed in a white and black sparkly skirt suit. She is smiling and shedding glitter every time she moves. The lone man in the room seems large in comparison; he is over six-feet tall and the owner of a rather large beer belly. He is dressed in a black tux complemented by a platinum vest. He is also smiling but moving nervously from foot-to-foot.

I stand looking around the room, nervous but confident. The nursery at my church is not the ideal place to prepare for my walk down the aisle but I have told myself that I cannot be picky, not today. Most of my attention is focused on attempting to put myself back together after standing outside for hours on the fifteenth of July. I don't know how brilliant I was to take wedding pictures in 115 degree temperature but I staunchly refused to take all my pictures against a dull painted wall. Looking at myself in the mirror I see how much work still needs to be done and call over my Mom and Maid of Honor to help. I ask them to help re-curl my hair while I work on makeup. I quickly re-apply foundation and mascara to give myself a fresh look; no bride wants to look like she has been melting for hours.

I am starting to get slightly jittery. My hand does not move as smoothly as I would like when I start applying a thin strip of brown eye-liner on my upper lid. I decided to do my own make-up on my wedding day because I knew I would have to re-apply almost everything and I wanted to look like myself on the big day. Who wants to look at pictures of someone so made up it barely looks like them? Slowly everything gets done and I step out of the bathroom back into the nursery. Unfortunately, the eyeliner is still in my hand as I am walking and it slips while attempting to place the plastic cap on. Before I can think or move, the brown pencil is falling down the front of my white lace dress creating a zig-zagging brown line from bodice to train. I look at my mom’s face and her mouth is open in horror. She immediately looks at me to see my reaction.

“Now don’t panic Kelly. I have shout wipes we can get it out,” my mom says, attempting to soothe away any worries.

Surprisingly I am calm. I remember the countless spills and accidents I have encountered in my life - I am something of a klutz – so I immediately know what I have to do. I grab a few packets of wipes and immediately start rubbing out the stain.

“Don’t rub, BLOT,” my mom yells.

“Mom, don’t worry. I know how to get out stains,” I say, while looking down at my dress. “See, it is already coming out.”

I can’t quite believe how calm I am and I can tell that everyone else is surprised too. I am not screaming or crying, I am just calmly yet determinedly working on each and every spot; digging through the lace to get to the brown stain underneath. I now have all bridesmaids and my mom hovering around my dress; digging into the stains while staring at me as if at any moment I will crack.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” I say, as I try to reassure my worried loved ones.

It doesn’t take long for the stain to all but disappear; there is still a faint trace of brown underneath the white but it is barely noticeable. As soon as the last trace is gone the door opens and I look up.

“Everyone is here. We should get started,” the coordinator states, while herding everyone towards the door. “Sheree you walk down the aisle with Ryan first, so let’s line up and get going.”

My mom walks to the front and heads out to find my brother, her walking partner. I grab my Dad’s arm and line up at the very end. In the distance I hear the music begin to play. Taking some deep breaths I walk with my Dad out of the nursery and towards the doors that signify my future.

The War of All Against All: The Ellen Show as a State of Nature

2008-09-25T10:50:00.001-07:00

If I could describe the Ellen Show as a state of nature, I would say it was most like Hobbes' theory. The "riff-raff" room at the Ellen Show turned into a chaotic state of war and absence of order. It was every man/woman/child for themselves: "we want what you have, and we will take what we can get, and if we take it by force all the better."

So how does this:

Turn into this:

It's simple. Selective Give-Aways.

I have seen the worst of humanity--and it is middle-aged women fighting with security guards over Pantene Pro-V Shampoo and forcefully scrounging for free T-shirts and CDs of C-list music artists. I have gone to hell and back, and it is The Ellen Show Riff-Raff room (an area where, much like uncharted waters in the ocean, there is lack of order and you have to watch your back or you might get stabbed and plundered for a Christmas with the Kranks soundtrack).

How to Create a State of Chaos in your Studio Audience

A Case Study on The Ellen Show

Step 1: Feed half of them false information.

Assure your audience that they only need to arrive at 9 a.m. to have prime seating. However, make sure you tell at least half of them to come much earlier (like 4 a.m.) to camp out. This will help cause a feeling of resentment between the "chosen ones" and the rest of the studio audience.

Step 2: After making the distinction between the chosen ones and the non-chosen ones, be sure to make both parties come at the same time (3 hours too early).

This is so the non-chosen ones have ample time to verbally tear apart the characters of the chosen ones. This is also so that those on the border of being chosen can feel even more betrayed when the line is cut off right in front of them after waiting in the hot sun for 3 hours.

Step 3: Employ the "Musical Chairs" tactic.

It is key to make sure there is never enough seating or shade outside for more than half of your studio audience. This worked in elementary school to create division in children and the same concept applies to adults.

Step 4: Now that your studio audience is on the verge of breaking down, it is necessary to give them a glimmer of hope. After all, you don't want chaos to ensue until after they are all safely in their designated areas.

Let the Riff-Raff room know that Ellen will, indeed, be dancing through their room. Let them know that they are allowed to do something the chosen audience cannot: dance on the furniture. Hopefully this small victory will satiate them long enough to achieve your ultimate goal of chaos.

Step 5: After you lift them up, take them right back down again. It is important to treat your studio audience like an emotional yo-yo.

Make sure they know that the chosen audience is going to get presents, and they are not. But make sure they know that they will get something, just not the "same thing" as the chosen audience. This is a timeless tactic that has been in use for centuries. It was most popular during that whole "slavery thing." Separate but not quite equal.

Step 6: After you line up and parade all of the chosen audience into The Ellen Show while the non-chosen audience (who should still not have quite enough seats so that some of them can be more angry than others), let your now sufficiently aggravated non-chosen audience into their separate room.

Make sure the room also does not have enough seats, that it is just a huge room with a few T.V. screens so they can still see the chosen audience they have come to hate having fun. Make sure it is the kind of room where, if something goes wrong, you could just shut a single door and set the room on fire Holocaust-style.

Step 7: Your audience may be a little too aggravated by now, so you need to start out with anything good you have for them so things can only get worse.

Let T.V. personality Ellen loose in the room for 3 or so minutes (not TOO long, we don't want a prolonged state of glee in the non-chosen audience). Throw some T-shirts out to specific people and encourage dancing. Endorphins will begin to flow and your non-chosen studio audience will be lulled into a false sense of security.

Step 8: Now that you have brought your audience to the peak of their euphoria, make sure you bring them down with a bang.

In the first five minutes of the show, make sure the chosen audience is gifted a $500 DVD-recording camcorder. This is the good part because all you have to do is sit back and wait for it to dawn on the non-chosen audience that they will not receive this gift. The expression change on the faces is worth all the trouble you've gone to so far to insight chaos in your audience.

Step 9: Belittle your non-chosen audience by handing out CDs by artists that no one has heard of, and giving everyone a shirt.

This one is really good because now the people who felt special because they caught a shirt are even angrier than those who received pity shirts. Also, CD trading amongst the non-chosen audience encourages them to interact with each other and fuel each other's anger.

Step 10: After you've sufficiently belittled your non-chosen audience, put a little icing on this violent cake by giving the chosen audience something smaller that the non-chosen audience normally would not get angry over, but in their heightened state of aggression become enraged about.

Make sure you give them something really inconsequential, like Pantene Pro-V Shampoo and Conditioner, so that when the non-studio audience gets enraged, steams about it for days, and calms down later they can feel really ridiculous for verbally abusing a security guard over a shampoo that makes your hair fall out anyway.

Congratulations! You now have an outraged studio audience. The kind of audience that will be sending you enraged letters for weeks that you can show to your friends and bring out at parties! Just let your audience simmer for a little while longer and they'll be ready to go out and commit road rage.

Author's Side Note: I truly believed that if I had sent a secret message around on an Angie Show CD during the trade-amongst-yourselves time (something along the lines of: "Let's all rise up and storm the studio, they can't catch all of us! We'll steal the cameras from backstage, there will be enough for all of us! See you in the promised Land a.k.a. The Ellen Show Main Room--Through the curtains and on to victory!") I could have started a revolution.

The only thing that held me back was that I didn't feel like getting arrested for instigating public action at the time. I had a long drive home.

"Bye Daddy. I Love You. Be Careful."

2008-09-25T10:18:00.000-07:00

I wear a black band on my badge today;

"Bye Daddy. I love you. Be careful." Those are the first words I remember speaking. I don't know if I remember because I always knew those words mattered or if I remember because those words were repeated every weekday of my life, well into my teen years. Perhaps I remember because it wasn't the only time we talked about Daddy's safety. At night, Mommy would say my prayers with me. My prayer always ended, "And bring my daddy home safely tonight. In Jesus name we pray, Amen."

A man I didn't know took a tumble down,

"Daddy was shot, but he is okay," my mom said in a hushed voice with tears in her eyes. It was well after midnight; I was seven and woke up to Wally, a police officer friend of my dad's, sitting in the living room in uniform.

"Is he coming home?" I asked.

"Yes," my mom answered. I laid my head in her lap and watched the fish swim up and down in our tank, the one my daddy bought me after the goldfish I won at the fair died.

Looking up, I pray it will all be okay.

That is what I remember. This is what I know. My dad was at a domestic violence call, at the back corner of the house. Two other officers were at the front and broke the door down, announcing that Phoenix police was entering the duplex. As they did that, my dad saw the man exit through the back of the duplex. He backed up along the side of the house. The man who'd climbed out the back followed, and they started shooting. One of the two officers who'd knocked the front door down came to the side of the building and shot; he wound up hitting my dad. The story goes that after it happened, my dad walked over to a friend of his.

"Tim, I think I've been shot."

"Turn around…Oh my God! Danny's been shot!" Tim Hallahan, one of very few I've ever heard call my father anything less formal than Dan, said before getting on his radio.

He was shot in his left shoulder. The bullet went straight through, but they still worried about fragments reaching his heart. He did come home from the hospital that night.

Tomorrow the dust of a fallen hero may

That was the night I learned my daddy wasn't invincible. And not only that, but it wasn't just the "bad guys" who could hurt him. But he was still my hero. He was back at work within the month.

be what's left of my life in this town;

My mother was the one who was left to pry me off his leg, which I started wrapping myself around when he was supposed to go to work. She was left to teach me the mantra once again.

"Bye Daddy. I love you. Be careful."
I found the order had become fascinating to me. Logically, bye is a closing, not a beginning. Most everyday circumstances make I love you a priority, at the beginning of a statement. Be careful could be lumped into the middle, an insignificant extra in showing care. In my mind, it'd make sense to say, "I love you. Be careful. Bye Daddy." But that isn't what Mommy taught me.

I wear a black band on my badge today.

Mommy knew that telling him to be careful was her final say in whatever he had to do that day, her last course of action. But she had to lump it in with the rest and a calm demeanor to hold onto her poise. Poise: the ability to keep your dignity when the chance that you will lose what matters most becomes a constant, obvious possibility…or a reality.

Chasing words, the reporter captures what to say;

I once found myself following my parents down a white stretch of hallway.

"He looks bad, but he's doing much better," Cindy Stahl said, trying to reassure us before we'd even seen.

I went into a hospital room to find a man I'd been camping and four-wheeling with in a bed, well-covered in bumps, bruises and road rash.

Bill Stahl was writing a ticket when some car plowed into the back of the motorcycle he'd left parked behind the other car. The motorcycle went flying. It landed on top of him.

He and my dad joked and talked. We didn't stay long. But Cindy stayed.

For the camera, kids too young smile wide as clowns.

Lindsey Hallahan was in a room at Gainey Ranch, dressed in white and waiting for her father, Tim, to walk her down the aisle. I was sitting in a too-small white chair, looking over a golf course. We hadn't said two words to each other in years, but we are both police officers' daughters, and that, I suppose, is what brought me there.

Brenda Campbell showed up. Her hair and make-up were done; her dress flowed down to her ankles. She walked down one side of the aisle and up the other, pausing to say hi to people she knew. I watched, in awe of the confidence she exuded.

She walked up to my parents.

My mom asked, "How are you doing?"

I forget her answer, but I think I saw water flash across her eye.

"Come sit with us," my mom invited.

"My family is here," she waved a hand flippantly in their direction and dismissed herself to go to them.

I watched her stride regally back up the aisle, head held high. But if I'm not mistaken, there was a moment that she faltered. Not that I blame her. About a month ago, Lee Campbell was pronounced dead after a heart attack. Another police officer down. Brenda's husband of so many years.

Looking up, I pray they will be okay.

About a year ago, my mother told me the story of my dad being hired on the department. A wife of another officer pulled her aside and told her, "You have to just think of it as him going to any other job. If you think of anything else, it will drive you crazy."

And that is what these women learn to do. They learn to pretend, to have everything under control, even when they don't.

He wasn't: shot on duty, a message difficult to relay.

My father is a motor officer for the city of Phoenix. There are 115 of them. Five are women. My mother is a stay-at-home mom and the wife of a police officer. They epitomize gender roles that most of society is trying to break down. My dad goes out, makes the money, pushes the limits. My mom stays in, does everything, stays calm and collected.

I put on the uniform that will bring me renown;

In some ways, by simply living these roles, they've taught me to break them. For instance, I never want to be a stay-at-home mom. Quite frankly, I don't think I have what it takes. I think I'd lose my mind. And watching my dad push the limits has made me want to. I like the idea of adventure, too, not just waiting for the one taking the risk to come home.

I wear a black band on my badge today.

But I've learned to keep them too. Not that I succeed as well as those I have observed, but I try. I try to be that woman who can hold herself together when things aren't perfect; I try to have that poise that is so evident in these women I can't help but admire. It is my gender role to play out, after all.

My buddies dam up the tears, the feelings they refuse to convey.

Nightmare monsters creep into reality, draw a frown.

Looking up, I pray we will be okay.

The cauldron of fire stirred in my heart will lay

The groundwork for connection to the one who went down.

I wear a black band on my badge today.

Looking up, I pray it will all be okay.

Not to mention, I've learned the words well.

"Bye Daddy. I love you. Be careful."

*This is a piece I started awhile ago and decided just to post here to see what anyone thinks. Opinions?

2008-02-06T15:52:00.000-08:00

What Is Memoir?

by guest author Judith Barrington

When I was young, famous men-usually retired generals, Shakespearean actors, or the disillusioned relatives of such people-wrote "their memoirs." I never read them but imagined them to be the boring ramblings of old fogies puffing themselves up. "So-and-so is writing his memoirs" was a phrase I might have heard occasionally. "So what?" would be my unspoken response as I turned back to my favorite reading: long, exciting novels with complicated plots and a cast of characters that required concentration.

Like many people today, I confused "the memoir" with "memoirs." It was easy to do back then, when the literary memoir was not basking in the popularity it currently enjoys. The term memoirs was used to describe something closer to autobiography than the essaylike literary memoir. These famous-person memoirs rarely stuck to one theme or selected out one aspect of a life to explore in depth, as the memoir does. More often, "memoirs" (always preceded by a possessive pronoun: "my memoirs," "his memoirs") were a kind of scrapbook in which pieces of a life were pasted. Of course, the boundary between these genres was not-and still is not-as clearly delineated as I have made it sound. Sometimes a book will be subtitled "a memoir" when it would seem really to belong more appropriately under the heading of memoirs or autobiography. Ned Rorem's Knowing When to Stop: A Memoir-which contains excerpts from journals and a variety of styles that, however fluent and interesting, do not form a shapely whole- is an example of such a book.
In my early reading days the memoir was in short supply. Looking back, I see that certain writers were paving the way for the contemporary literary memoir-Virginia Woolf, for instance, laid the groundwork for the frankly personal writing that would later become widespread. At the time, however, the library seemed to offer only fiction or essay. Essays were hard work, and I grumbled when, at twelve or thirteen, my English teachers made me read authors such as Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt. Now that I am writing my own stories, I have come to realize that the modern memoir belongs to the same family as those essays. Phillip Lopate, in his illuminating writings about the essay, includes the memoir (along with rumination, anecdote, diatribe, scholarship, fantasy, and moral philosophy) under the general heading of "the informal or familiar essay." It is not any particular form, he says, that distinguishes this kind of essay, but the author's voice.

The great essayist Montaigne understood "that, in an essay, the track of a person's thoughts struggling to achieve some understanding of a problem is the plot, is the adventure." Rather than simply telling a story from her life, the memoirist both tells the story and muses upon it, trying to unravel what it means in the light of her current knowledge. (One place where this musing voice was not possible was in the African-American slave narratives that nevertheless form a part of the modern American memoir's history. Trying to appear "objective"- to narrate simply the facts of her life without interpretation or judgment-the author of a slave narrative was all too aware of potential accusations of being inflammatory or of exaggerating the facts of the story.) The contemporary memoir includes retrospection as an essential part of the story. Your reader has to be willing to be both entertained by the story itself and interested in how you now, looking back on it, understand it.

On Voice
Barbara Drake, writing about poetry says: "Voice is the medium and instrument of poetry, whether that poetry is spoken aloud or read silently. Voice is also the mark of the individual poet." This definition is also true for prose writing. We tend to think of voice as being something we hear; it can be squeaky or mellow, loud or soft. But in writing, voice is what we hear in our head: the medium.

A writer's voice is usually considered to be developed when it becomes recognizable. This may seem odd, given that the writer will sometimes assume the persona of another character or another aspect of herself. The fiction writer may speak through many very different characters, yet voice is something like the fingerprint of the writer-not the persona on the page but the writer with her own particular linguistic quirks, sentence rhythms, and recurring images. The memoirist needs to have this fingerprint too, even if she only speaks as herself.

In order for the reader to care about what you make of your life, there has to be an engaging voice in the writing-a voice that captures a personality. In all kinds of informal essays, including the memoir, the voice is conversational. One modern relative of the informal essayist is the newspaper columnist, whose chatty style is immediately recognizable in contrast to the impersonal, expository style of the formal essay or of the journalism found elsewhere in the newspaper. Memoir, like column writing, requires that the reader feel spoken to. In earlier days, this conversational quality included direct address from the writer to the reader ("Gentle reader"), but this faded from view after the heyday of the memoir in the mid-nineteenth century. Still, even without the direct address, modern memoirs aim to speak intimately to their readers, and those readers like to experience them as if they were sitting in a comfortable chair listening to a series of confidences.

Although the roots of the memoir lie in the realm of personal essay, the modern literary memoir also has many of the characteristics of fiction. Moving both backward and forward in time, re-creating believable dialogue, switching back and forth between scene and summary, and controlling the pace and tension of the story, the memoirist keeps her reader engaged by being an adept storyteller. So, memoir is really a kind of hybrid form with elements of both fiction and essay, in which the author's voice, musing conversationally on a true story, is all important.

First Person
(Because so many of you never had this in school.)

When we say something is written "in first person," we mean "first person singular." We mean that the narrator uses "I."

First person (singular):I---I woke up this morning.

Second person (singular):You---You woke up this morning.

Third person (singular):He/she/it---He woke up this morning. Susan woke up this morning. The cat woke up this morning.

First Person (plural): We---We woke up this morning.

Second person (plural): You---All of you woke up this morning.

Third person (plural): They---They woke up this morning. Susan and Jill woke up. The whole family, including the cat, woke up this morning.

Sometimes when I teach the memoir, a student will ask: "But how is the memoir different from autobiography?" Certainly some memoirs are booklength and therefore contain as much material as many autobiographies. But a memoir is different, and the difference has to do with the choice of subject matter.

An autobiography is the story of a life: the name implies that the writer will somehow attempt to capture all the essential elements of that life. A writer's autobiography, for example, is not expected to deal merely with the author's growth and career as a writer but also with the facts and emotions connected to family life, education, relationships, sexuality, travels, and inner struggles of all kinds. An autobiography is sometimes limited by dates (as in Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography to 1949 by Doris Lessing), but not obviously by theme.

Memoir, on the other hand, makes no pretense of replicating a whole life. Indeed, one of the important skills of memoir writing is the selection of the theme or themes that will bind the work together. Thus we discover, on setting out to read Patricia Hampl's Virgin Time, that her chosen theme is the Catholicism she grew up with and her later struggle to find a place for it in her adult spiritual life. With a theme such as this laid down, the author resists the temptation to digress into stories that have no immediate bearing on the subject, and indeed Hampl's book tells nothing about many other aspects of her life, although it abounds in good stories. Vivian Gornick's memoir Fierce Attachments sets as its theme the story of the author's relationship with her mother. By setting boundaries, the writer can keep the focus on one aspect of a life and offer the reader an in-depth exploration.

When you select the material for a memoir, you will be keeping other material for later. Most people only ever write one autobiography, but you may write many memoirs over time. Mary Clearman Blew compares this process with the making of a quilt:

Remember that you have all colors to choose from; and while choosing one color means forgoing others, remind yourself that your coffee can of pieces will fill again. There will be another quilt at the back of your mind while you are piecing, quilting, and binding this one, which perhaps you will give to one of your daughters.

Another way of looking at the difference between memoir and autobiography is expressed by Gore Vidal in his memoir Palimpsest. "A memoir is how one remembers one's own life," he says, "while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked." Although some memoirs do, in fact, call for research, the verifiable facts are not generally as important as they are in autobiography, where the author includes much that is beyond the realm of memory.

The Narrator
The narrator is the protagonist of your memoir. It's a term also used in fiction and poetry, and refers to whomever is telling the story.

When thinking about your memoir or discussing it with your writing group (if you have one), you should always refer to the character who is you in the story as "the narrator," not as "I."

Similarly, your friends or colleagues should refer to the protagonist of your story as "the narrator" and not as "you."

Although you are both the writer of the memoir and the central character of the story, they should be treated as two distinct entities. Thus, a friend could appropriately ask: "why did you [the writer] describe the narrator [protagonist] as a mouse on page three?" (Not: "Why did you describe yourself as a mouse on page three?")

Separating yourself as writer from yourself as protagonist will help give you the necessary perspective to craft the memoir as a story. It will also decrease the degree to which you feel exposed as others critique your work. (The information you reveal about yourself is the same no matter what terminology is used, but it can be less uncomfortable to hear others speak of "the narrator's" intimate experience than of "your" intimate experience.)

A word here about travel writing, which is an example of how fluid are the boundaries we have put around various types of writing. While often discussed as a separate genre, travel writing often overlaps with memoir. Sybille Bedford's A Visit to Don Otavio: A Traveller's Tale from Mexico is just one example of how nonfiction writing that gives information about a place can also accommodate the personal travel story that reads like memoir. Alice Adams's stories of Mexico have some of the same qualities.

Not every author of true stories chooses to label her work memoir, even if it has many characteristics of that genre. Dwellings by Linda Hogan and Never in a Hurry by Naomi Shihab Nye both contain stories that could be called memoirs. Nye's book is subtitled "Essays on People and Places," locating the book in the larger category of personal essay, though the writings abound with the kind of stories we often think of as memoir. Hogan's collection is subtitled, rather more mysteriously as far as genre is concerned, "A Spiritual History of the Living World," but the jacket copy tells us that this is a work of nonfiction, and the personal storytelling certainly hints at memoir.

Students often struggle to define the boundary between memoir and autobiography, or memoir and travel writing, and sometimes wonder which personal essays are memoirs, but they rarely ask about the difference between memoir and fiction, perhaps because it seems obvious that one is true and the other made up. But the more I think about memoir, and thus about truth, the less obvious--and the more important--that distinction becomes. After all, not everything in a memoir is true: who can remember the exact dialogue that took place at breakfast forty years ago? And if you can make up dialogue, change the name and hair color of a character to protect the privacy of the living, or even--as some memoirists do-re--order events to make the story work better, how is that different from fiction?

In memoir, the author stands behind her story saying to the world: this happened; this is true. What is important about this assertion is that it has an effect on the reader-he reads it believing it to be a true story, which in turn requires the writer to be an unflinchingly reliable narrator. In fiction, a story may be skillfully designed to sound like a true story told in the first person by a fictional character (who may be a quite unreliable narrator), but if the writer presents it as fiction, the reader will usually perceive it as fiction. Readers tend to look for, even to assume, the autobiographical in fiction, but they also recognize the writer's attempt to fictionalize, just as they recognize in memoir the central commitment not to fictionalize.

In this way, when you name what you write memoir or fiction, you enter into a contract with the reader. You say "this is true," or you say "this is imaginary." And if you are going to honor that contract, your raw material as a memoirist can only be what you have actually experienced. It is up to you to decide how imaginatively you transform the known facts- exactly how far you allow yourself to go to fill in the memory gaps. But whatever you decide about that, you must remain limited by your experience, unless you turn to fiction, in which you can, of course, embrace people, places, and events you have never personally known. While imagination certainly plays a role in both kinds of writing, the application of it in memoir is circumscribed by the facts, while in fiction it is circumscribed by what the reader will believe. These very different stages for the imagination allow recognizably different plays to be acted out on them.

You may interpret this contract with the reader differently from other writers, perhaps feeling freer to tamper with the details or choosing to invent more of the dialogue. Some memoirists, like Fern Kupfer in Before and After Zachariah, conflate several characters into one composite character and acknowledge in the book what they have done. Others reorder events into a different chronology or, like Deborah Tall in The Island of the White Cow, compress several years into one. (For some reason, I feel freer to mess with time than with people.) But although there is room for disagreement about many of these choices, you will gain little of value if you end up abusing the reader's trust. Making up a "better ending" to your story, while presenting it as true, or, worse still, inventing a whole piece of your life because it makes a good memoir, will often backfire. Readers may initially believe you if your deceptions are clever, but the more successful you are as a writer, the more likely it is that you will eventually be caught. Lillian Hellman's acclaimed "memoir," Pentimento, (later made into the film Julia) caught the public's imagination and was highly acclaimed, but later turned out to be more or less untrue: Hellman had never even met the real-life Julia. Had she lived to produce more memoirs, her disillusioned readers would have been less willing to place their trust in her words. In any case, her reputation undoubtedly suffered.

Even if no one ever finds out that you tampered with the facts, your memoir will suffer if you are dishonest. It is very difficult to be both candid and deceptive at the same time, and a memoir does need to be candid. Tampering with the truth will lead you to writing a bit too carefully-which in turn will rob your style of the ease that goes with honesty. Dishonest writing is very often mediocre writing. Especially when written in the first person, purporting to be true, it has a faint odor of prevarication about it. It's the kind of writing that leaves some of its readers with a nagging doubt: What exactly was it I didn't believe?

Of course, none of this should prevent you from speculating about the facts. Readers easily recognize the honesty of your desire to make sense of whatever few facts you may have. Musing on what might have been behind that old photograph of your grandmother, or telling the reader how you've always imagined your parents' early lives, is not the same as presenting your speculations as facts.

One last characteristic of the memoir that is important to recognize is one which also applies to essays, and which Georg Lukacs described as "the process of judging." This may seem problematic to some aspiring writers, since so many of us have been influenced, through various therapeutic or self-help philosophies, to believe that judgment is bad. We connect it with "judgmental," often used nowadays as a derogatory word. But the kind of judgment necessary to the good personal essay, or to the memoir, is not that nasty tendency to oversimplify and dismiss other people out of hand but rather the willingness to form and express complex opinions, both positive and negative.

If the charm of memoir is that we, the readers, see the author struggling to understand her past, then we must also see the author trying out opinions she may later shoot down, only to try out others as she takes a position about the meaning of her story. The memoirist need not necessarily know what she thinks about her subject but she must be trying to find out; she may never arrive at a definitive verdict, but she must be willing to share her intellectual and emotional quest for answers. Without this attempt to make a judgment, the voice lacks interest, the stories, becalmed in the doldrums of neutrality, become neither fiction nor memoir, and the reader loses respect for the writer who claims the privilege of being the hero in her own story without meeting her responsibility to pursue meaning. Self-revelation without analysis or understanding becomes merely an embarrassment to both reader and writer.

* * *

When you sit down to begin working on a memoir:

First, remind yourself that you are not writing your autobiography: You do not have to write your entire life. So begin thinking in terms of theme and focus.

Second, get into an opinionated, or at least questioning, frame of mind.

Third, go to the library and check out a few good memoirs to read.

And finally, above all, remember that it's essential to find your voice. You can begin practicing right away.

*

From "Chapter One: What Is Memoir?" reprinted from Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art by Judith Barrington © 1997 by Judith Barrington. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from the author.

Complete Introduction to "Autobiography I"

2008-01-27T19:05:00.000-08:00

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY QUESTION

IS REALLY NOT, I think …

Should I Write A Memoir?

Because, the answer to that, and I know you’ve asked it, is -- I’m telling you -- “Sure. Hell yes. Why not? Write it! I’ll read it!” Perhaps this will sound like a light pat on the head and swift soft kick in the dumper to you, as you’re suspicious of too much patent encouragement, but it’s not meant to be: everyone has a great story to tell. Absolutely everyone really does. And lots of them. Plenty of folks out there are really happy to read your stories, too. They are hungry for them. They may need them.

You may assume they do, in fact. Need them.

*
Prologue: The Stories of Our Lives: Who Needs ‘Em? And Making the Centipede Dance

A life – any life – the travails of a baby centipede, for example, born into a dry bathtub drain (I have centipedes on the brain lately – forgive me – it will pass), exists as a salient moment in a universe of salient moments … our universe pulses with life, our lives, the lives of others, apparently the insect lives I’ve included here as well … the lives of those gone, and those coming. Even all nonexistent, or fictional, life is borne of our lives. Life is relevant. And what’s the key to its relevance? I believe it is in the telling of it.

Life is relevant, but as a universal, it is common. In the pedestrian world, the data-based and “reported” world, human (and centipede) lives are usually summarized, set into columns and grids, referred to as very large groups of non-individuals, set in a time and space that is denuded of detail, spared the elements of drama and circumstances, passion and consequence, and most bare-essentially, of moments. So in order to expose the relevancy of a life, and hopefully, its essence and its memorability, we need to be able to create a story about it that is totally fortified and characterized by its individuality, its detail, its drama, and its moments. With any luck there’s a deliciousness factor. Even without that, with moments, we have story.

A life sets itself apart when it emerges in contrast to other lives: most notably among the lives of those who are being told the story. In other words, my story about the newborn centipede must set itself apart from your story about a newborn centipede. It will be my job and my art to make you consider that the telling of the birth of a centipede in my bath tub drain this past weekend will somehow be engaging to you and that it will enlighten you; it will in some mysterious way (it could be a “good” way or a “bad” way) make your own centipede’s birth last weekend more meaningful to you; a dimension or lens or level or pane of understanding will be added to your own experience of newborn centipedes. This is the understanding between the storyteller and the listener. This is the trust, too, I as the storyteller need to build between us … so that you the listener will be engaged, and you will remember, and you will find it meaningful. Even if it pisses you off. Even if you don’t believe me. (We’ll talk about telling “the truth” later.) It will still matter. You will still trust my story.

Otherwise … who cares? There are too many frickin’ centipedes being born in too many dry bath tubs drains in the world, right? Who needs to hear about one more? Ew! I’m trying to enjoy my dinner, here! Please!

All right, the centipede example is a little pencil-drawn, but let’s conclude this introduction to the notion of memoir-writing, or the autobiography: the anecdote, the keystone of creative non-fiction writing. The question is NOT, in fact, SHOULD I write my memoirs? Because the answer, again, is sure, write them, write them like crazy, and just tell a good story that is relevant, distinct, memorable and meaningful – and make that centipede dance.

Hence the actual questions are, in fact: why, then, write the memoir? And … when write the memoir? And … and hopefully this is why you’re taking a class in this genre, or snooping in on one, thus thinking about really putting in the effort to write your own memoir … how does one write a memoir?

*

Part I: So WHY write the memoir?

To prepare for teaching this course this semester I did a few things.

One, I pulled my notes from various formerly-taught courses I’ve taught in prose and narrative writing over the years, regarding both fiction and non-fiction. I wanted to find out if I still believed in all the things I’ve said I’ve believed in, over all this time, about the nature of narrative and the nature of “truth” or if I was just mouthing old notions nobody’s every really argued with me about much. (Not that I mind mouthing old notions, if the notions, old as they are, indeed bear my mouthing. I’ve found that I rather enjoy the arguing – the dialogue is tremendously engaging, and so many great narrative writers and readers have so many interesting things to say …much more interesting than I do. I intend to let others speak out much more.)

I found there was PLENTY to re-consider. New meditations abound! I am still growing. When you’re a writer all your life, you develop a belief system, and that system becomes part of your artistic anatomy … and such a system is bound, surely, to flex as you grow. It should, anyway. Otherwise you are doomed, atrophied. You already know this, yes? Creative nonfiction is still very much a developing genre, intensifying in its popularity and scope, so there is a great deal new to think about and toss out there. To you.

Second, I read and re-read a ton of truly assorted autobiographies and biographies and other types of shorter creative nonfiction. Basically I picked through the library here in my house as if shopping for produce and either devoured or nibbled on everything I found over a three-month period. Among them, the published partial life-stories of Miles Davis, Pablo Picasso, Picasso’s last wife Jacqueline, Eric Clapton, Mark Rothko, Phil Spector, Steve Martin, and jazz saxophonist Art Pepper; I also read the autobiographical work (although not necessarily “life stories”) of Paul Theroux, Camille Paglia, Sandra Day O’Connor, Howard Stern, Quincy Jones, the woman whose name I forget who wrote “Eat, Pray, Love,” and Montgomery Clift. I also read a whole bunch of splendid memoirs and anecdotal essays written by students over the past few years that I’ve kept and admired. (I read quite a bit of poetry, too, but that belongs in another discussion.)

I studied our text, Lee Gutkind’s “In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction” and read up on him (he’s got a nice little bit on YouTube, too with Jon Stewart. Apparently he published a big book about robots). I enjoy handling a book that has the audacity to call itself the best of anything: I also usually dig up the most recent volumes of “Best American Essays” and “Best American Travel Writing” although at this writing, I have yet to procure the newest editions of both. Anyhow this may serve as something of a short bibliography for you if you’re wandering your own bookstore, and you may find me referring to moments and gestures I found memorable in some of these recent readings.

Third, I spent a nifty bunch of time in the company of someone whom I admire hugely whose memoirs I plan to help write relatively soon. This singular “field experience” had and is having a huge impact on me as a writer and a teacher, a poet and a human being, and as someone obsessed with the nature and layers of story and the telling of story, of truth and trust and the territories explored and not-explored within. I am discovering something very unexpected about the process of researching biography: it is a personal journey as well. When I discuss the memories and milestones of a man’s life with that man, my own memories and milestones are brought into a relevant light, and the patterns of the merging and divergence of remembered experience create a veritable textile of superior conversation. So I guess in a sense, this third “thing” I’ve done to prepare for this class is to dial in on the life of someone I care about, and a story I care about, and thereby live my own life with a new consciousness. Such a consciousness is surely what some folks call “learning.” For me it’s learning by living, and leaning a lot.

I approached all three activities: the culling of the notes, the reading of the models, and the position of potential biographer, with the same question in mind – why?

*

In my next section I refer to a fifteen-year-old girl named T., who is tormented by her own body, mind, circumstances, consequences and endless unknowable and unreckonable dramatic details.

T. will render herself to us as someone who feels the desire to be, above all things, understood. The desire to be understood is understandable. To have one’s actions be perceived as commensurate with the circumstances presented to them is something my puppy, Kamali, communicates passionately: Hey, man, there are some dogs barking down the street, can’t you hear them, I can, and it could be a cat running or a bunch of wild turkeys walking together or a guy delivering the mail and I don’t know but BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK! See?!!!! Hear me????? I’m barking!!!! I’m barking too!!!! I have to!!! You NEED me to!!!! Understand????” He dances and runs and looks behind him to make sure I’m watching and heeding and commending and he continues to bark. It’s an emotional cause-and-effect situation that I, as a writer, totally understand. Hey, my heart is beating, here! Hey, my lungs are drawing air! Oh my God! I’m here! You’re here! We’re surviving this!!! Look, I wrote this poem! Look, I ate this peanut-butter sandwich! Look, the cable’s gone out! Look, my parents committed suicide in my own bed together!! Look, I’m in love with a beautiful woman! Look, I killed this terrible man!!! I’m having a baby! I’m not having a baby! Hey!!!

It’s that simple. After all the stuff I’ve read and written and taught and thrown in and thrown out, and the folks I’ve talked to and danced with and sued and slept with and took aim at and cooked for, I think we write about our lives because we want to understand our life. And the only why we can make any sense out of it is if it makes sense to somebody else.

Oh and I did some other stuff. I went to some hot yoga classes on Maui, subsisted on spinach, fresh fish (and experimented with sauces), cheese, wheatnuts and white wine, subscribed to Showtime on Demand, and a had a lien attached to my bank account for owing child support. I have never had any children, so. That was weird. But that was my autumn, thinking about you.

*

Part II: WHEN write the memoir?

I’ve been teaching creative writing alongside rhetorical writing all of my professional life and I can’t tell you the number of, and character of, all the fully clashing tenets of writing embraced by the two branches of pedagogy and classroom experience. We could walk across thousands of miles of barely-read dissertations floating on an Ocean of The Irresolute Educator to the Island of Hung-over, Precaffeinated Adjunct English Composition Instructors sitting in a ragged dejected circle at another “mandatory” committee meeting. And here they all hoooooo like coyotes, practically in unison, they agree so unanimously and woefully: “How can my students, who are eighteen years old, write a personal essay about something meaningful that has happened to them? They haven’t done anything! They haven’t been anywhere! Nothing has changed them yet! And they don’t care about anything!” Oh, oh oh oh oh. The pain of this nothing-to-say-thus-write-about-themselvesness!

I have lived and worked on this Island for years myself and have lots of empathy for these nice, tired people but I have empathy as a listener only. I agree that badly-told stories about oneself are a drain … oh I can, and I do, tune out swiftly if a story told about oneself is told badly (… I object to hearing about most people’s dreams, in fact and for example, unless they really know how to tell a dream-story like a good story. Do you know what I mean? Dream-stories can just go on and on and on and they can be so stupid and meaningless, which is why the brain “shitcans” our dreams so quickly after we have them).

So the personal essay, the lukewarm-at-best daily oatmeal as the breakfast of introductory college courses, can be wholly impalatable to everyone for a very long time if that’s what’s accepted, and it generally is. (I have certainly experienced that, on both sides of the sea. I wrote some real yawners way back when, myself, absolutely.)

What I disagree with wholeheartedly, with my shoes on or off, in sunshine or in rain, as a reader and as a writer and a breathing human being, is that an eighteen-year-old has no story to tell. In fact that’s crazy. Who among us can deny the polar private supercomplex hells and heavens of their own adolescent experience? Of their own childhood experience? The unparalleled discoveries, secrets, obsessions, terrors, cruelties, challenges, strangenesses, comforts, victories, abject kindnesses and disappointments? The masturbation alone, oh my GOD! The unbridled, unedited, uncensored, sensational, sensual life we led before we became fettered and checked and civilized (or “civilizationized”)? Adultified? (Notice I sidestepped the clearly applicable “adulterated.”) (Thanks, I’m glad too.)

*

The Stories of T. and B.

I’m currently struggling with a friendship I’m trying to manage with a fifteen-year-old girl here in Kona, T., who is not related to me, but with whom I am, due to circumstances, expected to get along. It is going very badly; worse every day it seems, and recently I overheard myself categorize the nexus of her conflict with me to be borne of “garden-variety teenagerhood” which includes frequent screaming, outrageous clothing, truancy, cigarette smoking, and a shitty attitude toward me and “whatever it is I represent.”

Well there’s some of that beautiful summary and hideous generalization I’ve offered up that turns a complex, very alive human being like T. into a blob of a non-character in her non-biography: the non-heroine of her difficult adolescent non-life, told by me, the unrelatable, the uninformed, nonpresent, purely subjective and judgmental non-narrator of her non-story. Whoa!

What a poisonous storyteller I am on the subject of T, the fifteen-year-old human being! I was a fifteen-year-old human being myself once, in the seventies, in Flagstaff, Arizona. I remember that as a time when I could make five new friends in a day if I wanted to, thereby inviting five new characters of potential consequence into the very rich and action-packed story of my life (I think we all have an eye for great characters in the narrative of our lives when we are younger – differently so, as we get older, and our filters become engageable: comparisons are made between the new characters that walk on, versus the older ones we already know and to whom we have assigned qualities). So: great setting, great characters, plenty of “plot,” such as we understand it. Plenty of story potential here.

And story I had: at this age I participated with great verve in forty-five dramas a day: drama at home, drama on the way to and from school, complex relationships in each of my classes with my teachers, fellow students, the subjects at hand – those I abhorred and those I adored; the textbooks I was defiling, whatever was happening outside the window, my period, the clubs and plays I was in, the locker combinations I was memorizing, the paper I was writing, the newspaper I was editing, the underground newspaper I was publishing, the twelve crushes I had and the big love I really had that day, the rock stars I worshipped, the movies I wasn’t allowed to go see, the football games I could or couldn’t attend (usually couldn’t), the clothes and shoes I was wearing and the ones I wanted, the missing dog, the pregnant cats, the bad grades, the experimental hairstyles and mortifyingly bad haircuts, the ears I was piercing, the pimples that horrified me, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Mounds bars and chili dogs I was eating, the pot my friends were smoking, the cheap paraphernalia I was hiding, the sugar-and-cream-loaded pizza-parlor coffee I was drinking, the shoplifting for which I was caught and eternally paying, the cigarettes I was buying, sneaking at school in the toilet stalls and getting caught and getting into very serious trouble smoking;, the diaries my dad was reading, the kisses I was counting, the venereal disease about which I was learning and frightened to death of acquiring, the college I was not planning on attending, the way I decorated my room, the paranoia of wanted versus unwanted people in my room, the midnight-sneaking-out-of-window-and-crunching-across-the-snowcovered-backyard-to-somebody’s-house-and-back, the driving of cars and ratty old trucks I was learning, the sense of humor I was cultivating, the fear of death and dying I was developing, the great novels by Sylvia Plath, Tolstoy, and Kosinski that I was reading, the … life, such as it was I was, and had always been, leading.

I could tell you a story or fifty about any of the dramas listed above and hundreds more; I could link many or most of them together; I could draw forth the agony and the thrills, the hilarity and grief inherent in all of them, and I could and would misremember, embellish and generally over-tell them all. I would enjoy remembering and sharing all the stories with you if I thought you would enjoy hearing them, and if I thought there was any point in doing so, and I can tell you that I would have a point, and that point is: you’ve been there, too.

Or depending on who you are: you will be there, or you’re there right now. You might not be female, or from Flagstaff; you may never have been busted sneaking a cigarette in the bathroom by a male math substitute teacher whom you’d previously thought was kind of cute while ditching anthro on your birthday, but somehow, I’ll take you there. (And I’ll take us out of there, too – that’s also my job and my art. More on that later.)

Furthermore, previous to being fifteen, and an adolescent, I was at some point thirteen and a pre-adolescent; before that I was a child, before that, an infant, etc. Stories, stories, and more stories. I wish I could remember a thousandth of the stories of my life. Even the story of my birth interests me. Do you know the story of yours? Surely you were eager to hear it. Perhaps you’ve asked to hear it over and over. Perhaps it has taken over mythological proportions, on some level, in your head. It should.

*

Notice how the earlier story of T. became the story of me. Such is the luxurious conceit of the listener, becoming the subject of the story being told. This is in a large sense how autobiography works … thus it is the gift of the autobiographer … “my” story really becomes “your” story, by virtue of its parallels and divergences. The listener is called upon by drawing on common experience, yet is asked to make sense of their own experience by remembering what is singular – hence meaningful – about that experience. In a sense we are sitting at the same great dinner table, converging our stories. Marveling at the contrasts and commonalities. Wondering what the fuck it all means. Smiling at that together, perhaps grimacing, maybe gasping, or choking! Experiencing an amazement, of sorts. Together.

The point in reflecting on T.’s and my own teenagerhood is that the story exists for the adolescent: past, present and future: and for the child, and the newborn, and the “pre-story” of one’s life (we talk about this in “chronology,” later, when we discuss narrative elements, too). I am as guilty as anyone else of judging the summary of a teenager’s life such as I wish to tell it, for in naming T. and T’s qualities I am really telling my own story, not hers; this is something we do. Who knows how she would name her own qualities? Who knows of the actual biography, or autobiography: the life: the drama: the circumstances, the consequences, the details, the moments, that which is finally memorable thus finally meaningful about T’s rich, original, singular, fifteen-year-old life? The truth about her life?

Only her. I can only summarize what I percieve to be her life, and color it with my own adjectives and choices of representative scenes in her life (if I’m even generous enough to do that). As her sometime “unauthorized biographer” here, I am strictly and almost criminally exterior. Only T. can really tell the interior story of T. T. can put the “auto” in “autobiography” if … and only if … and again, this will seem, at first, too simple, perhaps, but if … she decided it were time to do so.

And when would T. decide it was time to write her autobiography? She would decide when, when she figured out why, to write it.

The question of when has less to do with age or circumstance or level of drama as motive. You, as I, as autobiographers, as the narrators and heroes and anti-heroes of the stories of our own lives, have to decide to tell our stories. Frankly, it’s usually the same answer. I can tell you it would be for T., for I have heard her lament far into the night … I hear her crying, sometimes crying very very hard, to her mother, to her friends, to her dog, and inadvertently, and very meaningfully, to me, and now to you … which is the conception of and motivation behind an awful lot of art:

…but you just … don’t … understand …!

It becomes time to tell your story when it becomes time for your listener to understand.

*

Part III: So HOW is a memoir written?

Oh, NOW we’re getting to it!

We’ve moved past the worrisome questions of why and when, which are essentially very personal questions. And it’s appropriate that they are personal, because writing one’s memoirs, or any autobiographical writing, is arguably the most personal writing out there. We agree that “personal” to us in this instance is synonymous with “meaningful.” To the extent that it can be meaningful only if it is “truthful,” we must establish a certain type of trust with our reader.

Establishing trust can be daunting: I know as a poet it is hard sometimes to feel trusted by my audience, because poetry is so essentially license-bound and acceptably experimental -- more so than with many other literary forms. In other words you get the feeling your reader is at any time sitting at home saying, “Oh look at this wacky poet doing her wacky poetry-writing thing! Ha-ha! Whooooooo, what a ride! I don’t get it, but who cares? Whoooooooeee! All right, who stole my Danielle Steele?” I guess that’s a little bit mean – I do love my readers quite deeply, really. But I often feel like they just must … feel sorry for me, sometimes. Anyway!

I’ll make some trouble now. Ahem. Like many poets I found that trust was more attainable the more narrative I was, as storytelling and its elements are considered something of the fundament of life and logic, at least within what’s called “western culture,” and I’m scared to write this, because this is just so arguable and even offensive to some folks. But I’ve taken the plunge: there’s no turning back. (“Narrative” can be synonymous with “accessible” in the minds of many poets and readers, and accessibility is never agreed upon as being “desirable” by poets. But. Sigh.)

To press on and hopefully postpone virulent opposition to the notion that western culture is built on an essentially universal agreement on the established chronological order of birth-life-death and the construct of “left-to-right” motion of time through space, we will operate with the idea upon that ‘agreement,’ for the moment, as a given, and thus we provide ourselves with the seeds of our “narrative.”

*

Narrative elements; narrative development.

For we are writing our memoirs as narrative writers. According to Mother Goose, Bob Dylan, Aristotle, the Aesop Brothers, the Doobie Brothers, Stephen Dobyns, Miles Davis, and a real great big host of others, narrative includes the following elements at their barest, most essential: 1) character(s), 2) setting (placement in time and place), and a 3) sequence of salient moments, or selected events.

Developments of narrative elements include a number of interesting and eminently arguable aspects. Narrative that is infused with rhetorical writing (the personal essay, for example) necessitates theme and possibly thesis as well as tone. Non-narrative and narrative rhetorical writing is expected to be “persuasive.” Narrative writing that embraces a poetic aspect or language-rich aesthetic recommends a distinction between -- and exploration of -- figurative and literal language. Dramatic narrative writing – according to God -- requires the presence of a protagonist, an antagonist, both primary and secondary characters, perhaps peripheral characters, ordinary action threatened by conflict resulting in extraordinary action that must be resolved by extraordinary means, further pinpointed by the plot dots of introduction, rising action, climactic moments, dénouement, and conclusion. (Dramatic narrative also asks for a sense of an “elevated life” after the story has been told, hence the “reason” the story is told. This is also clearly a rhetorical writer’s goal as well: to establish a point, to validate the existence of the writing, to achieve, to “prove.”) Dramatic narrative is restrictive of its use of point of view; it also enjoys the development of character through dialogue. The development of characters and setting may evolve through the selection of salient (meaningful) detail. The development of sequence, or chronology, may be developed through the selection of salient, or meaningful, moments. Furthermore, a solid understanding of developed dramatic narrative includes the recognition that the story began a long time before it started, and that the story continues in another dimension as an extrapolation, after the story ends.

At this point we’re just interested in the elements. 1), 2), 3). Character, setting, chronology. We accept that “I got up. I went to the refrigerator. I ate a hamburger. I went back to bed” is a complete narrative, replete with required elements: the “I” is the character, “refrigerator” is indicative of a room the character entered and exited before emerging from, then returning to, bed, so there’s a sense of setting – place and time – there. The typical western linear sense of beginning, middle and end takes place as we get up, eat, then go to bed rather than the confusing sequence of “I ate a hamburger. I got up. I went back to bed. I went to the refrigerator.” We may “play” with sequence by saying “I went to bed and was suddenly in front of my refrigerator six weeks before, eating a hamburger” but we are still manipulating sequence in a palatable manner for the reader accustomed to the paradigm of linear storytelling – of conventional narrative.

Is ‘I got up. I went to the refrigerator …” etc. a good narrative? A good story? Well, gee. Right away we all become the literary critic, now, don’t we? Perhaps the minimalist, the monastic culinary aesthete, would find it a fabulous story. Lots of us would say no, though, it is not a good story. There is no identity attached to the central character; even if we are to presume it is the ‘author’ unless it is presented to us as fiction; furthermore there is no context in which we may interpret the eating of the hamburgers thus the act of our reading the narrative is pointless, voyeuristic, maybe even pornographic (this may be a good time to look up that word). And the lack of detail, of development, of dramatic timing and consequence, lacks, thus does not meet our expectations for a story that matters to anyone: not to the character, not to the reader, not even the author! It’s “bad.” Right?

But think of the “I” and the “hamburger” in the place with the bed and the refrigerator as the barest of narrative bones. Think of the promise: the possibility. Think of what happens the second we say: “I got up. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and I was half-blinded by the late sun scissoring through the iced-up window. All I could think of was food. God, was there anything, anything at all? I pulled on my pajama bottoms and stumbled to the refrigerator, where I could find nothing but an open little plastic cup of hard green Jell-O and a half-eaten Whopper with a cheesy substance supergluing the seeded bun to the grey meat patty. I stuffed a bite into my mouth, gagged, spat, left the mess to the ants, and staggered back to bed. I didn’t attempt to get up again for thirteen days. That was when she came home.”

Well, that’s a little better, isn’t it? Storywise, aren’t we glad to see some developments here? Yes, this is your narrative expectation: you require detail, circumstances, and some glimmer of cause-and-effect; if there’s mystery, you can reckon with it. We already have a hint at what is memorable hence meaningful about this narrative, don’t we? We understand why the story is being told, we think: it’s about the extent to which loss can leave us, maybe? I don’t know for sure, but this I think we may glean by what we have.

And we can glean other things by the “better-told” story, “better” by six or seven sentences, can’t we? We have a central character, a first-person narrator, who might be telling us something “true.” I suspect embellishment, as I think one might die if in bed for thirteen days without nourishment, but embellishment is understandable in this case, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s just full-on fiction: we don’t know – it’s a story. Male or female we’re not quite sure but their state of mind, I think, is not good at all, nor state of body… It is winter in a cold place, yes? (The poetry reader in us ascertains a “cold in the heart,” perhaps?) We are in a domicile of some sort, possibly inhabited by just one person, for if the central character lived with others, how could he/she stay there alone for thirteen days? And it’s surely in America, or I guess maybe France or Greece, where the Whopper is an easily recognized brand and indicative of a certain way of eating, perhaps indicative of depression, certainly not of fine and sociable dining, especially in its apparently congealed state. And something has happened, is happening, and will happen … our time signals suggest linear and sequential movement in conventional time and space … getting up, going to the fridge, back to bed, etc. A nice bit of guess-at-able chronology is suggested here, too – what happened before the beginning? We get a pretty clear picture of the moment described … the central scene, as we say … and we are moved to predict and muse on what happens after the ‘end,’ such as it is.

*

Character, setting, sequence. 1), 2), 3). We want to nail down these elements because before we can decide what kind of creative nonfiction writers we want to be, we need to understand the expectations of our audience. Later you can decide if you want to meet them, greet them, or blow them to bits (we’re talking about expectations here, not the readers themselves!), but first you must acknowledge them.

Characters in autobiography. In creative nonfictional narrative – the autobiography -- the central character, the narrator – is assumed to be the author of the story. Other characters – secondary characters – serve to develop the central character. They are critical to the story but not as important as the narrator. We rarely hear their actual point of view, although the narrator may be tremendously sensitive to their experience. Like any conventional narrative, however, point of view is restricted to the author/narrator’s, to alleviate confusion.

Setting. This refers to two things: narrative place and time. A story cannot exist in a timeless, placeless space: a story is located. A sense of time and place is a truly luxurious and important domain of the autobiographer: when and where selected salient events that will be featured in their life story are of epic interest to the author and to the story. A birthplace, a long journey, a short journey in time and place but long in attachment, a place abandoned, a place discovered, a place in rain, a place in ruin … these are all exceedingly critical aspects of the autobiographer’s story. Please, never undervalue the power and emotional integrity of a sense of place and time in your writing ... or in your reading, for that matter.

Sequence/Chronology. Everybody just has to say “plot,” but, please, that’s a “TV word” that is rarely accurate in the lexicon of the autobiographer. How can your life have a “plot”? This is a very interesting aspect of the telling of the life story. When your story is autobiographical, it begins, surely, with the trappings of narrative. The circumstances of your birth, and before – your genealogy, hell, even the Michenerian chronicling of the Big Bang and the wrinkling of the hurtling Gaia-ball planet parting into oceans and continental berms of soil and cells can be considered part of your autobiography -- and it really is, sure. Where you decide to begin is where you decide to begin. We will accept that you begin your autobiography in the year 3300 A.D. if that’s where you say the story begins. Just remember that your reader begins on page 1 and ends on page ---, and the meaningful sequence of events from that first page to the last need comply with the expectations we have of movement in time and place in a manageable, earthly, fashion. We don’t require the shattering drama of Oedipus to locate our emotional narrative: we will follow a simple time line. Readers do, however, like to be led. We like to be comfortable, unworried – not about what’s happening, but how it’s happening. Most of them (us) really don’t like to be lost. At all.

By the same token, while we might not expect “ordinariness disrupted by conflict” that is “resolved” after “climatic moments,” we may still expect meaningfulness. We’re back to that old notion of understanding. For while you did your part as the author and protagonist of your own story by deciding it was time for us to understand, we just want to make sure we know what that understanding should be.

Just bear in mind that it is not your duty to make your life dramatic.

Yet if you have selected dramatic moments of your life to write a story around, get INTO it! Bathe in the glory and fun of the great telling … the narrative experience … write your life as if it were a novel – embrace the richness of story. (This is probably a lousy time for me to encourage you to lie, just to go nuts and fictionalize, go all James Frey on us all and bullshit the pants off of us … but it’s hard for me to restrain myself. I love lying. Ah me! Very much time for that on another day.)

*

Here’s a story about telling stories. Except that the ending of this story is quite incomplete. I hope that you find that unsatisfying.

I was a youthful (notice not “young,” actually) (more like “delayed,” I guess) poet teaching college composition as a graduate student in Tucson in the late eighties. I love to tell people that my “school uniform” was often a negligee and a sweater from Value Village and a pair of combat boots but I think what really matters was the hair: it was very big and black with Marc Bolan-like layering (okay, I guess go ahead and think Howard Stern, but not for long, please) (I can’t believe I’ve mentioned that joker twice in this set of notes). I wore the same earrings for about a year –they were large faux emerald antique hearts, and for some reason I loved them.

What I knew about – beyond bartending -- was limited I think, but intense; I knew how to listen to rock and roll music, and how to read and write poetry. Poetry I had acquired via the long way, really, by knowing and loving rock and roll in the first place. Music was my way in. I had learned all about giving myself permission to give in heart and soul to loud, sometimes stupid, often brilliant music. Thus I felt I could paw my way toward other loves – loves I could contribute to (as I cannot carry a tune or play an instrument). (I was attracted to the idea of poetry as a younger student but appalled by the “Poetry” I was given to read in school. Once I made it to college, my sometime teacher and former longtime boyfriend, poet Jim Simmerman, had given me that lesson, that permission, that liberation, that life of music and art and literature and love some years before I started teaching and it informed every aspect of my work.) Anyway.

Rock and roll!

So here it was 1989 or so and I was about 29 or so and I was a poet – and I was teaching an analytical unit that coupled tight narrative structure with compelling lyrical language in the “outside (off-campus) world” (meaning, for me, “the place where the radio always plays very loudly in the car”). I invited my students to bring in their favorite (recorded) narrative song. We had to: play the song, and provide a transcript of the lyrics, then list the narrative elements, then summarize the action, then finally explain developments and nice touches that made the story-telling song a good narrative song.

I was then, as now, a huge huge fan of the Georgia Satellites, Chris Whitley, Neil Young, Jerry Riopelle, Dwight Yoakum, Steely Dan, Neil Young, Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, and really, just uncountable others at the time. This would be a great time to play.

I remember one of the first students, Josh let’s say his name was, bringing in Stairway to Heaven. We listened to the classic Led Zeppelin song, which is always enjoyable, and read over the words as a class. And I said, “So Josh, can you summarize the narrative in this song? Who are the characters, what is the setting, what’s the sequence of events?”

And he said, “Yeh, well, there’s this, like, lady who knows, right? That all that glitters is, like, gold, right? And she’s like buying, like, the stairway to heaven.”

I said, “Oh! So this song is about ‘a lady’! She’s the central character?”

Josh said, “Yeh! A lady is totally the central character. And when she gets there she knows if the stores are, like, closed. With a word she can get what she, like, came for!”

I said, “Wow! What word? What did she come for?”

Josh paused, thought about it. “I’m not sure,” he said. “That’s not really part of the story. What she came for is like a, um, mystery.”

I agreed. “It is a mysterious story. I do have a question, though –"

"There’s a sign on the wall, but she wants to be sure!" Josh blurted, concerned that the lady, too, had doubts about what she came for.

“Well I have a question for everyone – according to the narrative of the song, what do you do when there’s a bustle in your hedgerow?”

And in a great moment in my teaching career – never to be duplicated – the entire class chimed in perfect unison, growing in volume as they went: “Don’t be alarmed now! It’s just a spring-clean for the May-queen!” And we all had a fine laugh together.

Josh rounded it out, though. If there was a message for us, a rhetorical apogee in a basket for us to take with us as we diverge from the heavenward stairway path to the concrete stairway down to the overcrowded student parking lot, it was this: “It's totally whispered that soon? if we all call the, like, tune? Then the piper will lead us to, like, reason. And a new day will totally dawn for those who stand totally long."

And who could possibly disagree? It was a good thing to think about. Not for too long, but for a moment. Because I didn’t get it. Nobody did, and nobody ever will know why that if it is whispered that soon, we all call the tune, then the piper will lead us to reason. But that’s okay. That’s rock and roll, people.

Was that a good narrative song? Hm. I brought in my own favorites. I brought in “Tangled Up In Blue” by Bob Dylan, and “Janey Got A Gun,” by Aerosmith, and “Sunday Morning Coming Down” by Kris Kristofferson. However my showpiece tune was “Red Ball Texas Flyer,” written by Jerry Riopelle and Stuart Margolin, and recorded by Jerry in the early seventies. Its lyrics are reprinted here with Jerry’s permission:

Well, I'm drivin' to New Orleans on a half a tank of gas
Got a Jesus on my dashboard, got a third wife on my ass
They don't think I'm gonna make it! -- but I swear I think I can
In my Red Ball Texas Flyer I'm a Red Ball Texas man

Well, I left Big D this mornin' just about the break of day
Sixteen bennies and a bowl of chili, well I'm bound to find my way
If I get to Nacogdoches then they'll know just who I am
In my Red Ball Texas Flyer, I'm a Red Ball Texas man

Don't you know ...!

Well, in Bunky, Loosiana, little redhead made her stand
With a fistful full of nickels, and a razor in her hand
She said, "Tex, I'm gonna cut you, boy, from appetite to thirst,"
I said, "Hold on, pretty pinto, better cut the mustard first!"

Well, I rolled her in the parkin' lot, I rolled her in the green
I rolled her 'til the sheriff came, and then it got obscene
Oh, we jumped the bail at midnight; she said, "Honey, ain't life grand!
In that Red Ball Texas Flyer, with my Red Ball Texas man!"

(fiddle section)

Oh, we got down to New Orleans down inside the Vieux Carré
Where we found out we were different than we ever thought we'd be
At the Court of the Seven Sisters I was crowned the Seventh Son
Opened up that Red Ball Flyer and moved in with every one!

Don't you know!

Well, the class and I determined the following. It was, in fact, a perfect narrative. All the elements were present, developed by terrific salient detail and language-loving rhetorical gesture.

First, the central character is not presumed to be the actual author of the song (which sometimes is the case: think “At Seventeen” by Janis Ian, and much of Tracy Chapman’s music; lots of other examples). The narrator is an invented adult male some folks call “Tex,” presumably of the hypersexed red-blooded American variety (his name even rhymes with sex!). He drives a big Red Ball truck, has been married to three pissed-off women and we can guess at what they’re pissed off about; he lives to sport with at least one very feisty redhead and can provoke the attention of the law with spectacular public demonstrations of his sexual rapaciousness, and zoom! -- he’s a speed-popping, chili-eatin’ road-hound and a ramblin’ man of Homeric proportion. The class and I agreed that he’s probably a “bad” boy, but completely lovable – certainly the hero, even superhero, of the song.

Other characters (and there are a lot for such a brief song!) are the aforementioned wives, the aforementioned and best-developed “little redhead” (“with a fistful fulla nickels/and a razor in her hand”) (she goes through the most changes, it seems, overall), a sheriff’s deputy of Bunky, Louisiana, and a whole household of affable whores. (We are to find, I think the redhead overly aggressive at first, probably superpissed at having been left behind on a previous run through town? -- then she becomes quite the gymnastic wild rompette and fellow midnight bail-jumper, and this stimulates her, makes her happy and reignites her true affection for our hero. “Honey, ain’t life grand?”)

The setting takes us skillfully in time and space from (having left) a diner in Dallas, Texas to a bordello in New Orleans’ French Quarter via Nacogdoches, Texas (now often have you seen that name in a song?) although the most carefully rendered location is a parking lot, “the green,” and the courthouse from which Tex and his lusty pretty pinto flee in Bunky. This is the most detailed, thus most affectionately, tended-to depiction of setting in the song. Tex is literally driving the narrative in a big rig with a “Jesus on the dashboard,” which gives us a little flavor of divinity, of guidance, of superstition, of irony, or …? Maybe all of the above?

Listening to the song, which I recommend (Jerry has described it as a “great hippie hillbilly dance tune”), we feel how the music itself imparts great gestures of sequence and successfully manipulates time and space in an appropriately grandiose and theatrical way. For the chronology works as such: Tex left Big D this morning yet the Bunky bail was jumped at midnight and we’re not sure how long it took him to get to Vieux Carré and find out he was different than he ever thought he’d be; but to soothe those negligible moments on the good long road from Dallas to New Orleans replete with adventures and boredom (sometime in there he’s GOT to get more gas!) we have fiddle music that’s as forward-moving and gear-changing and raunchy as anything else taking place in the song. In fact by the “third act,” when “at the Court of the Seven Sisters, I was crowned the Seventh Son,” our narrative has telescoped out (rather than microscoped in) to embrace a great wide-open world of possibility and companionship and, in my view, a “happy ever after” ending that gives the listener a good view into a better, more desirable, and utterly attainable world. It’s really very hard to imagine a four-minute song that is largely instrumental cover more narrative and rhetorical ground in such a satisfying manner.

Although there are some others: Jerry’s “Real Fat” is overripe with wonderfully idiosyncratic salient detail and the promise of a “narrative afterlife” that’s as delicious as the song itself.

“Ode to Billy Joe” by Bobbie Gentry is great – a dark tale, really, as is the epic “El Paso” by Marty Rollins. The seriously sexy “Son of a Preacher Man” is a Dusty Springfield favorite of mine … that, and “Ode to Billy Joe” as well as Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobbi McGee” make me smile with their overt narrativity by loading their lyrics with actual character names, place names, high and low actions, over the-top dramatic gestures and usually, a passionate central character that has done something to create unhappy consequences for which he or she must surely suffer long beyond the world of the song.

It was fun to tell my students during this romp of a lesson in rhythm, blues, and lyrical stories both awesome and eh!, finally, the story of “actually meeting!” the writer of "Red Ball Texas Flyer” and “Real Fat," Jerry Riopelle. It had been something like 12 years previously when he played a barn-burning barroom concert in Flagstaff and I was a googly-eyed, tongue-tied teenager superfan in a ratty Bo Diddley t-shirt begging to have my boobs autographed (he’d complied, literally two moments before my mom picked me up in the tavern parking lot). It’s also fun right this minute to wad up my narrative napkin, throw it on my narrative plate and stand up from this table of this rollicking autobiographical narrative infused with voluminous rhetorical gesture and only, really, a moderate amount of embellishment and tell you right now that Jerry Riopelle is the individual I mentioned earlier with whom I have recently consigned to co-pen his authorized biography. He corrected, this morning, the errors I had in the transcription of “Red Ball” and he thoroughly enjoyed, he said, the narrative analysis of the song and he will share it with the co-writer, Stuart Margolin (who played “Angel” on the Rockford Files). He also built, by hand, beam by beam, the house I currently live in, in 2008, in Kona, on the Big Island of Hawaii. And that’s really nice thread for me to find and follow: a neat connection and re-connection with someone of consequence to me in various ways over the course of my weird, boobs-out rock and roll, lonely teachergirl life.

(And I happen to be wearing a negligee and a sweater at the moment. And my favorite earrings are little bluish-brown rocks on silver hoops, and they change out occasionally. But I left my combat boots by the door [in a departed-from apartment in Tucson, probably around 1990].)

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Rhetorical elements: Rhetorical development

Once the elements of narrative are in place in your autobiography-at-hand --your memoir, your anecdote, your vignette -- and you feel that you are comfortably settled into the role of storyteller, at some point you’ll need to face down the point of all of this.

I mean, this will be work. Of course, your motive in writing said anecdote, as you chronicle meaningfully and meditatively a memory or several memories from your life, may begin with a point and utilize narrative development as illustration, as a rhetorical strategy among other strategies to illuminate, educate, persuade or provoke your reader.

Such is the realm and choice of the essayist, I think, versus that of the memoirist. The memoirist, biographer, and autobiographer are rooted in story over “making a point,” let alone “crafting an argument.” For example, if I were to summarize the “point” of Eric Clapton’s popular recently-published autobiography I would venture that he wants you to know that a wildly successful creative life can be marred irrevocably by ego, drugs and alcohol and it’s good to rein that in while the reinin’s good. I might summarize the “point” of Miles’ Davis’ autobiography, co-penned by the great poet Quincy Troupe, to include some similar sentiment (although less apologetically so and with a whole lot more personality, candor, and overall good storytelling skills), and his passion for the place in history and world culture in which he believes jazz deserves to dwell cannot be ignored. But for the most part, you know, these guys just want to tell you what they did. They did some cool stuff and saw some shit: they wanna tell you all about it. A lot of celebrity autobiographies often have another point to make: they are famous and sensitive to perceived public perception: they aim to set the record straight. Unauthorized biographies, however, often have another motive in mind: mix it up and mess it up, fictionalize and commit libel, and maybe, if you’re lucky, make a bunch of dirty money. Anyway, my meditation veered off down the memoirist’s path, there.

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Back to the essayist. Most of the creative nonfiction pieces in Lee Gutkind’s anthology are straight-up essays at heart, although almost all of them seem to have leaned comfortably into narrative at least somewhat somewhere, as it suited them. Annie Dillard’s “Notes for Young Writers” and Gutkind’s “The Creative Nonfiction Police” are clearly essays and not memoirs: Dillard’s piece is entirely non-narrative, in fact. Her piece is as rhetorical as it gets: it reads as an instruction manual for something which is technically pretty hard to “instruct” people on -- which is a fun form because it’s so unabashedly bossy. She can say whatever she wants and she’s Annie Dillard, so what’re you gonna do about it? Fortunately, her advice, or instructions, is pretty good stuff, I think. You can get the stupidest advice on writing: it’s unreal. I have to admit here that often very strictly rhetorical pieces strike me as funny – their tone can seem so supercilious as to be preposterous and I would think this would be intentional or at least obvious to the author after be called on it by an editor. However I have been surprised, dismayed and amused to note that a number of well-published essayists I’ve met over the years are just as supercilious and preposterous in real life as they are on the page (one of the many reasons I live alone on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean).

*

Anyway I digress again. Essayists are strategists. So are memoirists, but the narrative endeavors to meet a different end than the non-narrative. Most rhetorical strategies are altogether very well known by the average mid-career college student (right?) and sometimes I avoid discussing them, because it’s hard for me to feign a great deal of interest in them: I feel like I’m teaching composition and not creative writing, and I want to teach creative, not argumentative writing, so wah, and it’s all about me.

Something I do notice and enjoy very much about the engaging (and okay, clever – yes, I admit I like cleverness) essayist is, in fact, the common enjoyment of humor as a rhetorical strategy. Philip Lopate is the master among anywhere-from-silly-sweet-to-ohmigod-crude great creative nonfiction writers and he’s very articulate in his written discussions of the value of humor in CNF, too. My nutcase amigo Andrei Codrescu is also one funny sumbitch: in fact if the subjects about which he chooses to write were not so frequently incredibly drop-dead-serious I’d call him a full-on Best American-Rumanian humorist of the highest order. That’s the thing about being really smart and really funny: wow, if you can balance crossing back and forth the clear to muddy waters of humor and seriousness easily and without resorting to dropping the f-bomb or blowjob jokes, between the deep deep dark and the bright bright light, then you’re just really a genius and welcome at my breakfast, lunch, and dinner table every night of the week, as far as I’m concerned. Paul Theroux, like Andrei, can do this blindfolded. I’ve seen Francine Prose do it too in the past, but her piece included in Gutkind’s book, “Going Native,” isn’t really up to snuff, if you ask me. Thank you for letting me drop a few names here. I suppose I enjoy doing that. (I live alone. On an island, far far away. Don’t forget that.)

The narrative writer accomplishes something much different when they go for the belly laff, the smirk, the snigger, the PAH-HA-HA!!! A funny story is a sparkling diamond of its own, in and of itself a glittery little treasure. We all know the value of a laugh for a laugh’s sake: it’s a precious thing, a curative, and rare, too. Honestly do I think the humorous anecdote rarely succeeds in attaining that special spot in the Hall of Meaningful Moments, of transformative moments that beget certain change in an individual’s life around which the poignant memoir will be shaped. Funny stories are most certainly always embellished in order to accentuate the embarrassment, the blooper, the irony, the relief, the whoopsie-daisy, the get-back, the punch line and the boooiiing! So while the reader is often enamored of the funny story, ironically trust is not always established well. It’s a curious although I think necessary choice to involve humor in almost all writing; you will find a little bit of it at least in virtually every piece in “In Fact.” The funniest piece, I think, is Judyth Har-Even’s “Leaving Babylon: A Walk Through the Jewish Divorce Ceremony,” which is a beautifully well-researched, culturally informed, essentially sad piece by a woman who is divorcing her husband of something like 30 years … and it’s a fucking scream. That woman is funny! Whoa!

(One last note on “humor” – not so much as a rhetorical strategy but as a subject. I read Steve Martin’s autobiography over the holidays and I did not find it funny at all – I found it dark and troubling, although I comfortably assumed Steve’s focus on his life as a spectacularly successful wild and crazy guy. While initially disappointed with this somewhat I have to say I appreciated having my expectations dashed a bit, there. It’s interesting – in his book, which is brief -- he lightly deconstructs his brand of obverse, surreal humor and takes a hard look at he American predilection – and ravenous appetite – for humor. Here it seems as though what he discovers in this meditative process – in which he thoughtfully balances narrative anecdote with reflection and a kind of low-impact cultural analysis -- is finally rather discouraging to him.)
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So both narrative and humor can be considered rhetorical strategies, which are techniques by which the essayist may develop his or her personal essay’s rhetorical elements. The elements of rhetoric are akin to those you’ve practiced throughout your college career. You’re expected to structure your nonfiction piece in an organized manner that gathers a kind of argumentative momentum. You’ll need to have the equivalent of a “thesis” in your mind as you sculpt and finesse the purpose of your essay (although unlike writing a traditional academic essay you needn’t spend a weekend crafting a single sentence that represents the molecular core of your thoughts). The notion of “theme” is possibly a more helpful term here.

As I mentioned rather petulantly before, beyond the construction of a standard classic introduction, body and conclusion I am not inclined too much in the direction of dictating the structure of the creative essay. Again, I’m much more interested in creativity than standard rhetorical craft ... that’s our burden: you have a poet at the helm. However I will say that a rhetorical element that I find crucial, and very much worth everyone’s time, regardless of your leanings towards narrative vs. non-narrative writing – and that’s the notion of establishing and finessing tone.

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The rhetorical godsend of tone.

I’ve always been obsessed with tone.

Tone as a poetic element and expository strategy was a concept with which I struggled for a good long while as a younger student until someone along the way gifted me with the notion to me that tone was really synonymous with attitude, and at the same time, with sound. (Once again, music comes to my intellectual rescue.) And you know, attitude was the word I needed to hear. I know all about attitude. I work online all day and half the night and I have to constantly struggle with the manner in which my uniformly typed words “sound” to strangers, family members, cutie-pies, students, people with whom I’m arguing as well as people I’m trying to entreat, friends I love whom I’d be loath to accidentally offend (which for some reason I do often, and it’s awful), asshole ex-boyfriends and their asshole friends, guys in the legal department at the bank (did I tell you about that crazy child-support situation?), etc. etc. And many phrases that refer to the sonic aspect of tone are helpful here: “tone of voice,” “don’t use that tone,” “tone deaf,” etc. Tone is a sound-word, referring to the aural nature of language exactly, and as a poet and a very vocal person, as well as a sensitive listener, I understand that language is essentially an instrument, one that can be tuned and modulated, in either a symphonic or solo setting.

So manipulating tone at large is really a great art super-form, and I respect a writer (or any artist) who manages mood and mood-changes, shifting emotions (from indifference to great passion and everything in between) and other complex managements and musclings of attitude. Rhetorically “tone” is supposed to indicate authority and persuasive control over the subject and therefore the reader but you may wish to negotiate this dynamic on your own terms. I for one tend to engage in a largely conversational, even confessional, frequently self-deprecating tone even under the most formal of circumstances and I assure you this is often highly regrettable. (I shared recently that my poetic audience, at least, is clearly better-informed about the world, is funnier, has a better vocabulary, and a better sex life than I do).Yet for better or worse that’s just what works for me. When you look over four, five or a half-dozen models of rhetorical, lyrical or narrative writing with your ear tuned to the tone of all pieces, you’ll start “hearing” the humans driving quill across parchment immediately and this will affect you. This will make you a better reader hence a better, literally more tuned-in writer. I’ve had a lot of people tell me they enjoy literature more, particularly poetic pieces of writing more, once they become conscious of tone; I often hear it’s simply a more natural, hence enjoyable, process to sit down and write once you hear your own natural voice writing from the actual mood you are in, utilizing the measure of attitude you feel is accurate for you at that moment. You drop all the worries about struggling with what you’re “supposed” to sound like, and your editing process relaxes, perhaps profoundly.

So think of tone. Tap into that musical, attitudinal, mood-sensitive, hormonal part of you when you read or write a memoir.

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Autobiographical Writing: Techniques

Memory: Collection & Re-collection

It’s a foggy morning here in Kona. Cool and coffee-flavored. I am summoned to the muted light of day as usual by the neighbor’s dogs barking and whining in truly passionate protest which is, in its way, a moderately miserable way to wake. However soon enough I hear Kamali’s little pawnails trotting excitedly across the pine lanai – built by my good friend who built this great house -- and I become pretty happy pretty quickly: I can shake out whatever weird dream has been frolicking in my brain as if it were at its own little mental Grateful Dead concert. Okay, you dreams: you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here! Here comes the winged Kamali, flying across the tiles to spring on my clavicle and stick his tongue in my nose three, four times in ultra-rapid succession before I can even scream in grossed-out delight. He knows the drill: he’ll curl up under my chin and lick wherever I’ll let him till we both fall into a half-doze for about half an hour. Then we both spring up and hit the bathroom, yipping and nattering like the little green birds outside the window. What’s up? What are you doing? What’s for breakfast? Where are my toys? I want a new one! Are we going for a walk? Where’s the newspaper? Let’s go get it! Are there any centipedes in the bathtub? I need to pee! Where’s my biscuit? Where’s my yucky bone? Tell those dogs to shut up! It’s a new day! It’s a new day! It’s a new day! (And sometimes Kamali answers me, too!) (Could NOT resist.)

Last year at this time, I was not here. In late January last year I was deep in the snowy woods of Flagstaff, Arizona, peering out a frosted pane of glass in my log cabin and wondering if I was going to live to see 50. Now I know that sounds completely melodramatic: but what can I say? That was what I was thinking. I’d had some, as they say, bad news from the doctor and no medical insurance; my stomach hurt, I hadn’t had sex in a year, I’d been dreaming every night that my teeth were not just falling out but were being punched out, and my hair was falling out (not a dream) (due to, as it turned out, hard well water). Just six months previously, my dear friend and former teacher Jim Simmerman had died by his own hand and I rarely could get that out of my mind: grief had really sprayed me down. I was in charge of arranging a major literary event that would take place in the spring, the Tenth Annual Northern Arizona Book Festival, for which I was the director, this time for the third year. I had just booked Jerry Riopelle for the spring event, a musician whom I’d admired all my life, as well as Marilyn Hacker, a great poet then living in Paris, and Billy Collins, and Lemony Snicket – all coups. I was less heavy then – stress and illness had lightened me bodily, although there was a lot of worry weighting me down; my half-balding head felt very heavy, and sometimes I didn’t lift it far off the pillow all day. Such was the case then. I remember it.

Memory begets memory. Locatable memory becomes emotional memory. The more I think about where I was, and when it was the more I can remember and will remember, well, who I was. There’s a reason films and TV shows commence immediately with “establishing shots” of cityscapes or ocean views, of roads or villages or jail cells or jungles or dorm rooms or taxis or maternity wards: to initiate a narrative, a story, a memory we must first locate. Location location location is, in the parlance of real estate, everything -- and everything that is not just for the sake of the listener’s convenience, a foxhole, a peephole through the bedroom wall. Location is necessary for the story itself, and very necessary for the teller of the story. It is the locus of the story’s reality and the point from which all agree to gather and move out together: teller, listener, and story itself. And since locatable memory is by its very nature associative, we are blessed by the autogeneration of story that will “tell itself,” in many ways, once the where and when is named and all its associated locations are poised for inclusion.

This is why I always begin with setting. I believe that if I were to ask you to name all the people that have ever been important to you in your life in chronological order since you were born, it would be more difficult a task for you than if I were to ask you to name all the places you’ve lived in your life … and all the places, after that, that you’ve visited … then all the places you’ve left, all the places you’ve returned to, all the places you’ve been during a storm, all the places you hidden in, all the places where you smelled smoke, all the places you were unfaithful in, all the places you’ve been stranded in, etc. etc. This is because your memory is not located in faces first, but rather places first. Apart from the certain few degrees of separation between one significant person in your life and another, there are no degrees of separation among the places in your life; you went from one to another without ever not being somewhere. And usually once you re-establish yourself in a place in your memory, the circumstances, the rising curtains of action, the characters, the drama, the consequences -- the compelling action to close the curtain and move to the next location will come to you. Such is the powerful nature of narrative in our lives, and its relationship to memory.

Memory is elusive to some of us. Since we so frequently call upon it to produce narrative, circumstantial details from our lives, memories are only with the most reluctance forthcoming, so out of context. How often do you pound or have you pounded your poor head, trying to remember some obscure detail that you know was certainly a terribly significant transitional moment of your life? I consider my own memory to be “shot,” as do many my age and certainly after some of the many disservices I have provided my own brain and body, over the wildly self-indulgent, indifferent, intemperate years. However as memory does, in fact, beget memory, I find there’s little that a spirited dinnertime conversation with an inquisitive friend who gladly sits as both listener and fellow-teller of tales that won’t eventually come back to me. (And I’ve learned that that which does not come back readily may be easily filled in by the mind’s PrismaColor pencilbox of creativity. That does come later though!)

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So as the fog burns away and blue Pacific sky above the airport clarifies, Kamali gnashes the pink hair off the head of a smiling soft girl-doll in, I think, a cheerleading skirt. Where the hell did this doll come from? I used to not have Kamali or pink-haired cheerleader dolls or sky or planes or vanishing fog or centipedes in the bathtub or geckos in the coffee maker or a really great conditioner that smells like orange and lilacs before, so for the billionth time in the past eighteen weeks I think: how the fuck did I get here????

And it’s a wonderful question: it’s the question of my life, and the day I stop asking it is the day I need to have the tubes removed and plugs all pulled and someone can issue a “spam” to everyone in my email address book since that’s the way the world seems to get news of friends’ and families’ deaths these days (and yes, that’s a “tangent,” thank you). The answer to that question answers the why? and the when? and to some extent the initiation of the how? of the autobiographer’s questions.

And the answer is, even more importantly -- the autobiography itself. How the fuck did I get here?

I got the fuck here like this.

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Meditation & Revelation

I’ll be posting some thoughts on “Meditation and Revelation” here shortly. : )

Om!

These are notes on the subject of “Autobiography 1,” composed for an advanced course in the reading and writing of creative nonfiction for Arizona State University Polytechnic. They were written by the course instructor, Rebecca Byrkit, in January of 2008 and updated in August.

Students are encouraged to react: comment in any way, shape or form on these ideas. Please don’t regard these notes as “lecture;” one of the operatives of this course is one of inquiry.

We are examining, together, the nature of the genre of creative nonfiction.

We are particularly interested in the character of the “story” in regard to the life of the author, and well as the nature of “truth” in our work and “trust” from our readers.