January 15, 2015

To satisfy the requirement that he attend x number of outside activities for his Modern Literature class, I took Jack to a reading of works-in-progress by Zell Fellows in the U-M Creative Writing program last night at Literati bookstore in Ann Arbor. I was unenthusiastic about this prospect for a variety of reasons. For one thing, I have not been particularly steady on my feet lately, having fallen four times last week and experiencing a few near misses since. Hence, I was not looking forward to walking around on icy sidewalks at night. Secondly, who the hell wants to drag their sorry rear end out in single digit temps on a Wednesday night to see a bunch of goddamn grad students read their work? Not me, brother, and I was once one of that exalted species. And this was finally what I dreaded most about the whole enterprise: the prospect of seeing someone I knew and having to interact with that person in my present diminished state. Nope, just shoot me now because I ain't going.

Yet go I did, not least because Jack was counting on me. And because I could not rope his mother into taking my place. So it was that about 8:15 or so we found ourselves sitting on a couple of flimsy chairs upstairs at Literati, having conquered the first and third objections by virtue of a decent parking place and the fact that anyone I knew who worked at U-M presumably had the good sense to stay indoors, rather than subject themselves to a roomful of insufferably hopeful young people eager to share their work with each other. And there, of course, was the second objection in a nutshell: after all the ritual mockery Jack and I engaged in prior to the reading, from his wisecrack dutifully transcribed on my phone and texted to Julie at home, "Wow, shawl collared cardigans make you look great. And by great, I mean like a giant douche bag" to my proposal that we trade instant emoji critiques (pile of crap vs. shooting star) for each reader, it finally came down to my insecurity. It seems like nothing could make me feel more like a failure than being in the presence of the hopeful.

Yet go I did, and not just because Jack needed a ride and a grade. As the evening unfolded, I found that not only could I tolerate the shortcomings of these young, pretty, hopeful readers, as in the first one's occasionally tedious essay about Calamity Jane that reached too far and too often for its unsurprising conclusions, but I was able to unreservedly admire the brave young lady who shared a personal piece about her difficult relationship with her bi-polar Korean mother that was so fresh the ink fairly dripped from the pages. By the time we got to the third reader, I must've looked a little bit like the film director who gives Preston Sturges's Sullivan's Travels its name, leaning over to ask, "Say, am I laughing?" as Jack furiously scribbled notes which he told me later expressed his astonishment at sitting next to his "63 year old father listening to a story about 7th grade lesbian sex." I guess you can't beat that for happy surprises, and I guess that's finally one reason I went: to prove to myself, if no one else, that I'm still capable of surprising myself.

And speaking of surprises, as we talked the evening over on our way home, Jack let slip that he had "finally gotten around" to reading some of the entries in these diaries. After averring that I was a really great writer (Dad puffs up chest in pride), he suggested that their "painful honesty" was one of the reasons people found them so appealing. He went on to assert my "legendary" status at the high school where I had taught and said it was only natural that students would want to keep up with me, particularly given the fact that I was swearing like a dockworker in these. About the second point, sure, though I think the word "legendary" is an overstatement to put it mildly. But I know I will never understand this "painful honesty" business for as long as I live. For one thing, it makes me want to be painfully honest for once, just so that he and anyone else who thinks that's what they're seeing here could experience the real thing and understand the difference between it and this muted, constructed version of my life. And for another, what was I supposed to do, lie about it?

But at the end of the day, I suppose the graceful thing is to take the compliments as such as opposed to threatening mortifying levels of the very quality some find admirable. My only defense is that I am unaccustomed to fielding responses to my work, not having produced any of this nature to share in far too long. Which, I guess, was finally a bottom line reason I had such perfectly mixed feelings about going with Jack last night: what the fuck was I going to say if asked by one of my old U-M cronies what I was up to these days? That I was, as at last report, "happily out of the game for now?" With equal parts satisfaction and trepidation, the painfully honest answer would be that I was working on a little something.