Draft of Reflective Essay for Portfolio

Reflective Essay

I write to ease the pain. When I awake at 3:00 a.m. in a cold sweat, writing for an hour helps me get back to sleep. Sometimes I write about politics or social issues, but mostly I write about my life to remind me how good it has been—how interesting. Sometimes, at 3:00 a.m. I lose my way—writing helps me believe that I am not a worthless piece of slime.

Somewhere along the line I realized that writing is almost as good as doing whatever it is that I am writing about. Of course, this frightens me in a Matrixy kind of way—you know, “What is reality? What does it mean to be a human being with real human interactions?” I worry about my perverse narcissism—a love-hate relationship with myself. My sister calls my writing “self-indulgent.” Whose isn’t? In an early draft of The Sun Also Rises Jake Barnes is referred to as “Hem.”

I am finding that Creative Nonfiction is a tricky business. Take the story I am writing now, “Regrets.” The character “Robin” is a real person, who as far as I know is alive and well in California. I wanted to disguise her name, but could find no other suitable bird name, and the bird image is too important to lose. How would she feel about the story? I write nothing bad about her, but she might be creeped-out knowing that her friend lusted after her—actually, not true because she did know—but creeped-out that the whole world potentially knows. I sent the story to some friends who know both of us. Are they now worried that I might write about some intimacy we shared? I remember reading somewhere that Hemingway felt there were stories he could not write until those involved had died—and he was writing fiction!

* * * *

My ego always required success—not real success, but its appearance. It made no difference to me whether I helped society, so long as I appeared to help society. I have no morals, although I cannot deny that I have occasionally indulged in selfless acts of goodness. I did so because it made me feel good, and this troubles me. Should real altruism hurt? If so, I have never been altruistic. I have never done anything good that I did not want to do.

Everything I write is true. But I cannot escape the nagging fear that I have made myself better than I really am, not by avoiding the truth—although there is plenty of bad I have not yet tackled—but by little shadings that make me seem wonderful. One critic—I so want critics—to be read and hated is so much better than not to be read—has pointed out that in at least one story, “The Case of the Dog That Barked,” I am not quite as good a person as I seem to think.

Speaking of critics, one issue that keeps popping up is whether my stories have a point. What I try and do is say, “Here it is—here is what happened; I find it an interesting slice of life. Do you?” I am comforted by the existential view that there is no ultimate point to life—a tale told by an idiot, filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing—and that the mundane is as interesting as life gets. I’d be lying if I did not cop to wanting others to love my stories. It would be enough that I love them—and I do—but my narcissistic side wants me to be wealthy too.

For I have always hoped that writing would be a ticket to limos, and jazz clubs, and summers on the Riviera. I have no other hope.

Short essay number one: "Regrets"

Regrets

I regret having sold the small gold charm I won from SPANJ—the Scholastic Press Association of New Jersey—for writing the New Jersey high school newspapers' best editorial of 1968. Gold had gone to over three hundred an ounce; my wife Gail and I needed money. We were selling all of our gold. The charm was only ten karat—we had stuff that was twenty-four karat and one piece that was even higher—yet the charm yielded a surprising amount—almost a hundred, I think. I don’t remember what else we sold—it was a lot of stuff, but the only thing I remember selling was my charm from SPANJ. “What are you going to do with a gold charm,” Gail, had said. She was right, of course.

*  *  *  *

In eighth grade one of the teachers wanted me to play Uncle Sam in a variety show celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of World War II. I was supposed to camp it up—walk on stage like I was on stilts, and waive to the audience. That was it. I felt too embarrassed to do it and look like a fool. I said no. My buddy Wendell did it. I sat in the audience—not part of the show. All of my friends had parts—Robin was Rosie the Riveter. Wendell camped it up; he was not ashamed. The audience loved it.

*  *  *  *

When I was thirty-nine, I was in LA to take the deposition of a doctor. I arranged the trip so that I could also see the Giants play the LA Rams. Coincidentally, later the same day the Knicks were playing the Lakers. I sat next to Chevy Chase and Mel Gibson to boot. The Giants and the Knicks—the same day—in LA—amazing.

While in LA I also met up with Robin, who had been a high school chum—in fact Robin and I started together in kindergarten and went all through the Verona school system together—Hebrew School too. I fantasized about getting Robin back to my hotel room.

She had been one of my favorite fantasies ever since I learned what to do with a fantasy—sometime during eighth grade. Forty years later I look at the photo of me and my two hundred eighth grade classmates on the steps of the public library across the way from the junior high school in the middle of the town square. I still marvel at Robin’s breasts as she stands in the front row. In eighth grade, when I was sick and missed school, she and Debby Kastner would stop by on their way home to bring me my school work. After the girls left, I imagined Robin naked.

The night I was supposed to fly out of LA, Robin and I had dinner together in a West Hollywood bistro. We had such a good time talking over old times and laughing, that by the time I got her home, flew in the rental down the 405 to LAX, returned the car and got to the gate, I had missed my flight to Miami, to make the connection to West Palm Beach. My plan had been to fly all night, play an early morning round of golf with my wife’s parents, and surprise my mother for her seventieth birthday luncheon. Back then if you had an open ticket—and mine was First Class—you could change your itinerary, so Delta hooked me up with a later flight to Atlanta, and a new connection to West Palm. I had to call my father-in-law at 11:00 p.m. to tell him about the new time and flight, and we only got to play nine holes, but my mother was thrilled when I walked through the door of the restaurant in West Palm. I flew back to Jersey later that afternoon. Now that was a good twenty-four hours.

Anyway, over dinner Robin shared that she was still hurt that I had not invited her to my bar-mitzvah when we were both in eighth grade. I was shocked and dismayed—I had always desired her, and in high school I regretted the motorcycle helmet law because what I wanted to do was ride with Robin on the back with the wind blowing through our hair. I never had a motorcycle—never even rode one—but the thought of Robin on a bike, her arms around me, was a vision from heaven. My not having invited her to my bar-mitzvah seemed impossible; but as I thought about it, I realized that she was correct—when I had decided on the twelve friends to invite, I had drawn the line on the wrong side of Robin. I had completely forgotten about it until that night in the bistro in West Hollywood when she reminded me.

What never came up during the dinner in West Hollywood was a night during the summer of 1970, after graduation but before we went to college—me to Rutgers, Robin to Cal-Irvine—when she and I and a bunch of friends had smoked some weed; everyone else had gone home, and Robin was making me elbow macaroni with tuna and ketchup. As she stirred by the stove, I came up behind her, put my arms around her and rubbed her belly. She was wearing a hippie muumuu; her hair was natural curls in which I buried my face and breathed her in; she ignored me and continued to stir. My pinkie rubbed the top of her panties through her gown. I turned her around and ran my fingers through her curls and kissed the skin below her ear; when I rubbed her butt, it was rock hard with desire; as I kissed her she gasped, “Lew, I don’t want to get screwed until I am married.” I was shocked—I had no idea I was doing so well. To this day I wish I had said, “I don’t want to screw you—I just want to make out and feel you up.” I know she would have let me. It would have been enough; lifting up that muumuu to bunch it around her neck—it would have been plenty.

*  *  *  *

New Years Eve, 1970 becoming 1971, I threw a huge party for my high school friends, my college friends, and my Israel friends—plus people I did not know who showed up all night and into the morning. At dawn, there was Debby Kastner and me, straightening and vacuuming—my parents were due home at noon. Anyway, about 2:00 a.m. Robin caught my eye from across the room—we had not said two words to each other all night—and I knew in that instant that she had gone back on her word, had been plucked, and her eyes were offering me a rain check. I was not interested—that New Years Eve I was mooning over the girl I had taken to the 1969 Junior Prom, but who had dropped me after I returned from Israel—now she was “just a friend.” That one hooked up, not with me, but with one of my college buddies who she met for the first time that night at my party. Not walking over to Robin was a mistake.