confession crushed against my manly chest. “It’s me.”
Of course it was you, Adam.
“I’m afraid that I’ll get fat. I’m deathly afraid of it. Getting fat.”
And look at you now, say it together everybody: chubby; pompous.
What a shitty way for me to begin! After you have been so nice. After all these years. I didn’t even think you would write me back. And if you did write back, I never imagined you would say: Sure! Send me your story. I would be delighted to take a look, that’s what you said. Take a look, that’s very noncommittal of course, but then, that’s the Adam I remember.
Well guess what. I was being noncommittal myself. I was being noncommittal in that I was lying. That whole last email I sent was a lie.
First of all, I said I haven’t read your book yet but am very excited to do so. But I have read it, Adam. I’ve read it a few times now.
Second of all, I was being friendly and nice in my email, but that was in fact not a true representation of how I am actually feeling toward you. I was baiting the hook. I wasn’t sure you’d be particularly pleased to hear from me, if you would even bother to write back. So I thought I should be nice. I thought I should be all the things I knew — assuming you were still the old Adam — you would respond to: complimentary, admiring, affectionate.
Third, I said I had a story of my own. I said it was short. The first statement was the truth, but the second was a lie. I said I was trying to write and I would appreciate your help. That’s not true either — I’m writing just fine at this very moment, I don’t need your goddamn help. I said it wouldn’t take too much of your time — not true.
You said, and I’m cutting and pasting here:
Sure! I’d be delighted to take a look.
So guess what? I am taking you at your word.
Okay, I thought I’d better go get another beer to help grease the wheels and now I’m back. So here we go.
I was born in a small town, like John Cougar Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen. Remember how we all sat around arguing that time about whether or not Springsteen was a Jew? And Wade was so appalled — he couldn’t get his head around the idea for some reason. And I got all in his face, having fun, like I was totally outraged: What are you, KKK or something? Jews can’t sing? Jews can’t be born in the U.S.A.? And he goes, No, Rank, no it just — it doesn’t line up. In my head. It was like that time you told him Freddie Mercury was gay and the two of you argued all night until finally Kyle yelled, Dude! The name of the band is Queen. And the next day all Wade’s Queen on vinyl mysteriously disappeared. Anyway, you said it didn’t matter what Springsteen was, what mattered was we shouldn’t say “a Jew.” You said we should say “Jewish.”
For years I went around studiously avoiding the term “Jew” because I didn’t want to offend anyone — people like you, that is. And then one summer a guy I was working construction with used it in reference to his brother-in-law. And I go, Look, man, I don’t know if you’re supposed to say that these days. And he straightens up and stares at me and goes, What’s wrong with Jew? And I say, Like it isn’t offensive? And he goes, I’m a Jew, dickweed. Am I offending you?
So thanks for that, Adam.
And — yes! What the hell! I am going all the way back and starting from day one, with my birth. I can do whatever I want, because it’s my life and it’s my story and it exists and has existed in a very specific way, despite what you have done. It is a thing that hangs in the air around me at all times, like if I didn’t wash for a couple of months, which has sometimes been approximately the case — a personal stench made up from the chemical composition of my sweat, from everything I ate, from everywhere I went, everything I sniffed on the ground in front of me, all the crap I ever laid down and rolled around in.
You know all this, or I thought you did. I gave it to you, these intermittent chunks,