Market and hitched a ride back to the car. Mom was asleep when we slunk in—there was no movement from behind her door, anyway—and Peter and I crept straight to our rooms, our clothes smelling of smoke and exhaust and all the other smells you bring home from downtown in the middle of the night.
It’s strange. I never noticed how quiet it is here. There’s the occasional siren from a faraway street, some birds chirping, the sound of that tree scraping against Peter’s window through the wall.
Still, I can almost hear my heart beating. And I can hear the shouts ringing in my ears, too.
I don’t want to fall asleep. I’m scared I’ll forget this feeling, and I want to remember it forever.
Yours, Sharon
Wednesday, June 8, 1977
Dear Harvey,
Have you ever tried blowing up a dozen balloons in a row?
It’s terrible. I don’t think there’s any breath left in my body.
Either way, I’m home now. It’s the middle of the night, but I can’t sleep. Whenever I close my eyes I’m back in that fucking basement, blowing up balloons with the rest of the youth group while our parents sit on the couches behind us drinking Dixie cups full of grape juice from the communion stash. My cousin Eddie and the other little kids kept trying to grab the balloons out of our hands so they’d fly around the room making fart noises.
Through it all, Uncle Russell was praying at the top of his lungs while Aunt Mandy called more reporters. She sounded so happy, I’m surprised she wasn’t fucking floating.
There are few things that terrify me more than my aunt being happy, Harvey.
I was sitting on that floor, feeling like my head was trapped in a vise, when it occurred to me. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen from blowing up all those balloons, but the thought popped into my head and now I can’t shake it:
Why am I the one who has to be so terrified all the time?
Why do I sit around worrying about whether someone will figure out my secret, while everybody else gets to have a fucking party because Anita fucking Bryant convinced a bunch of people thousands of miles away that she’s right and I’m going to Hell?
You probably figured this out years ago, but to me, sitting there on that basement floor, it was a brand-new, mind-blowing idea:
This is fucking BULLSHIT.
Look. I’m not saying I want to skywrite the words “I’m queer!!!!!” outside the house when my parents wake up tomorrow or anything. They’d just haul me straight to Uncle Russell, and if he couldn’t fix me, it’d be electroshock therapy time.
And it’s not as if running away is an option. There’s nowhere to go. Sure, I’ve had fantasies about getting an apartment in L.A., but I’d need money for that, and I don’t know how I’d ever get a job. All I can do is recite Bible verses, and they don’t pay you to do that unless you’re Uncle Russell.
But tonight, sitting there on that basement floor, I wasn’t thinking about running away. I was thinking about Patti Smith.
Do you know her music, Harvey? I’ve never heard her playing on the radio here, but maybe it’s different in San Francisco.
I had no idea who Patti even was before last Easter. I was at a slumber party with the girls from the youth group, and we snuck downstairs to watch Saturday Night Live. We aren’t supposed to watch that show, since our parents say it’s sinful. We didn’t see what was so sinful about it, but it was funny. Then, halfway through the episode, Patti Smith came on with her band, and when I saw her, my heart stopped.
Patti Smith looks… I don’t know how to describe it. She almost looks like a man—she was wearing a shirt and tie, even—and she sounds like a man, too. Her voice is low and gravelly, and the first words she sang were…well, I can’t write them down, but they were the bravest words I’ve ever heard anyone say.