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9.2.04

Memoir of a Memoir-Writing Class:
I Smelled Trouble...Or Was it Me?

By Harris Bloom

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Click here for the introduction to this column.

It was 6:30 in the evening when I walked into the classroom. Looking around, I was immediately taken back to my school days of yesteryear. Essays, written by elementary school students during the day classes covered the walls. The neat rows of seats and unintelligible writings on the blackboard completed the picture. Seven people were already seated even though I was a half-hour early. I looked towards a middle-aged woman and asked loudly enough for all to hear, “Is this for genital herpes or all herpes?”

“Excuse me?”

“This support group…is it only for people with genital herpes or for all herpes sufferers?”

She stammered, looking around her for help, “I…think…you’re…in the wrong room. This is a memoir writing class.”

“Oh wait, I’m sorry. Today’s Thursday, isn’t it? Oh wait its Wednesday…silly me. No, I’m in the right place, just had my days mixed up.” With that I took a seat in the back. I noticed others looking at each other, raising their eyebrows and shaking their heads.

I felt like an idiot, but I needed to gauge the personalities and mindsets of my fellow classmates. One of my regrets – I have a few – is that I never played the rebellious class clown in any grade of school. I played the dorky smart quiet kid. I also played the smart quiet dorky kid and the quiet smart dorky kid, but never the rebellious class clown. This class was my opportunity, my one opportunity to yell, “Do over!” and be the cool kid for once. I have friends who’ve paid a lot of money to go to baseball fantasy camps to play hardball with ex-major leaguers. This was my fantasy camp. I wanted to see what life would have been like if my personality had developed in my teens rather than when it did, in my late twenties.

Following me in was an Asian guy in his early thirties, about five feet ten inches tall, and in impeccable shape, which I knew because he was wearing a shirt that looked painted on. Due to its snug fit, I could also tell he either had his nipples pierced or had suffered a nipple-mangling accident at some point in his life, an adolescent “purple nurple” gone awry. He sat next to me and introduced himself.

“Hi, I’m Timmy…this is beginning memoir writing class, right?” Timmy? Not many adults call themselves Timmy. The name conjured up images of a nine year old blond kid with a big light brown dog in tow playing stickball and getting into trouble because he broke Old Man Willoughby’s window again. Well, it used to. Now, it’ll make me think of submissive gay Asians with mangled nipples. The price of living in New York.

“I hope so.” We shook hands. “Harris.”

“So, Harris, you’re writing a book about yourself?”

“Well, I’m gonna try to.”

“What makes you so special?” he asked in a loud and exaggerated fashion, sitting back straight in his chair and putting his hands on his hips. He quickly added, ”Oh, I’m just kidding!” then leaned forward again and waving his hands at me.

“No, it’s actually a good point,” I replied, more than slightly flustered. “I don’t really know the answer other than to tell ya that my friends tell me I should and I have plenty of free time at work to write.” My voice trailed off as I was saying this. Suddenly I realized how pathetic it sounded. Like every moron attempting any new creative endeavor doesn’t have his or her friends encouraging him or her every step of the way. I’ll bet even Carrot Top’s friends tell him how funny he is.

“That’s great that you have time to write. My job doesn’t really allow for writing.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a go-go dancer at a gay bar.”

“I see your point.”

Someone else joined the conversation and I retreated. Even though he was joking, he was also right – What makes me so special? I thought of potential book titles – My Incredibly Average Existence? True but Dull Tales? Ordinary Stories of a Not-All-That-Exciting Life?

To summarize, I wasn’t a writer and I had led a fairly boring life. Yes, writing a memoir sounded about right.

A few more people walked in including one really cute, smart looking girl in her mid-thirties with long, straight brown hair, brown eyes, and small glasses. I’m not one to typecast someone based on appearance, but if I were, I’d say this girl looked like the girl-who-insists-on-telling-people-that-she-lived-in-Brooklyn-before-it-was cool-doesn’t-watch-much-television-heck-probably-doesn’t-even-have-cable-but-likes-hanging-in-small-divey-bars-with-great-jukeboxes-when-home-listens-to-NPR-bows-at-the-alter-of-Radiohead-and-all-lesbian-folk-singers-definately-thinks-that-meat-is-murder-and-oh-yeah-hates-Starbucks-and-everything-it-stands-for type.

She looked around the classroom – definitely stopping at me for a second, I think, well, maybe she didn’t – and sat halfway across, on the other side of the room. Either she thought I was cute but didn’t want to make it obvious by sitting too close to me or maybe she thought I was dead ugly and wanted to send a clear message to me, and everyone else. Then again, maybe she had a boyfriend and didn’t want to chance the temptation - or maybe she just picked the first empty seat she saw that was open with no immediate neighbors. Then again, I have a girlfriend so who cares.

* * *

By seven o’clock everyone had filed into the classroom except the teacher. I scanned my thirteen classmates to size them up and immediately realized one thing - I could beat them all up. Sure, there were about seven or eight women in the 30-44 range, three to four in the 45-60 range, two gay men, and one other guy in his fifties, but still, it was the first time I could ever such a thing in a classroom. If anyone was going to threaten and fleece classmates out of their lunch money in this class, it was going to be me. Then the teacher walked in.

Michelle Niedhart was about thirty-five years old, five feet three inches tall and at least two hundred pounds. She had wavy dark brown, shoulder-length hair, brown eyes, and curiously long earrings. At her request, we rearranged the desks to form a semi-circle for a more intimate atmosphere. She smiled easily and often as she introduced herself. She’d gotten her MFA from Iowa, blah, blah, blah, had several short stories published, blah, blah, blah, and was currently writing a book about female sexuality. Come again? I only prayed it didn’t come with pictures.

The first thing she wanted to do was set up a “Critique Calendar.” A major portion of every three-hour class would be devoted to a critique of classmate’s stories. Each week three people were to bring in fourteen copies of a short story or chapter of the book they were working on to be read by all as homework. The next week, everyone would have to offer one positive and one negative comment about each story, followed by the teacher’s remarks. I volunteered to be part of the first group so I was to bring in a manuscript (story) the following week.

As a “get to know you” project, for ten minutes we were told to write down what we had done that day and then we would read our pieces aloud to the class. After each reading, a different student was selected to tell as much as they could about you based on what you wrote. Before we read our pieces aloud, Michelle wrote on the blackboard a few “rules” we were supposed to follow throughout the course…

1. Don’t insult your own writing.
2. Don’t insult others.
3. No disclaimers (i.e. this piece sucks because I had a bad day).

As I was about to read my tale I said, “Before I begin, I wanna say that I suck, and therefore, this story will suck.”

A blond pregnant woman named Helen scolded me, her eye on the teacher. “Weren’t you listening to what the teacher just said?” Helen was evidently vying for the usually coveted Teacher’s Pet position. I say “usually coveted” because while I could understand wanting to be Teacher’s Pet in grade school, where we would get grades; but here, there were no grades, not even pass/fail. Such being the case, I had no idea why she felt the need to speak up and admonish me.

“I was kidding,” I said incredulously.

“Oh.” This, I thought, may be a long ten weeks.

When I finally finished sputtering out the story of my day, the classmate selected to analyze me said, “You hate your job…you hate your co-workers…you’re bored at work” – Perfect!

When I had to analyze someone else, the first thing I mentioned was, “You are fascinated by large shiny objects.”

“Where’d you get that from,” Michelle asked quizzically.

“I dunno…isn’t everyone?”

After a fifteen-minute break, we went around the room confiding why each of us was there and what we wanted to write about. One woman intends to write about her brother, who died of a brain tumor. Another is going to write about the car accident that claimed the lives of her husband and child. A third is going to write about her abnormal childhood – which was Helen, who shockingly turned out to be a former actress. A woman with a thick Eastern European accent, Natalie, said she “vanted to tell zee tale ov her sister who came to America and deed ov cancer.” They went on and on…and even the hopeful ones (“I would like to write about living as a young gay man in America…”) had sad subplots (“…and about my boyfriend dying of AIDS”). As they went around the room, I felt like I was in a support group.

Then it was my turn.

“Hi, I’m Harris.”

“Hiiiii Harris,” Timmy blurted out, waving his open-faced hand from side to side. The class laughed. I turned red.

“Umm, hi, well, I’m hopin’ to write short stories about experiences in my life.” I could feel my face getting clammy.

“What kind of experiences?” Michelle prodded.

“Umm, well, like my dating experiences, my lactose intolerant experiences,” I said, then paused as a few people laughed.

“Why is it that men always like to talk about their bowels?” Michelle asked. “I mean, would you like to hear a story about a woman’s menstrual cycle? I’m not saying that you don’t have good bowel stories, I’m just curious.”

The class grew silent and looked at me. I could feel sweat start to trickle down my face.

“I’m not sure. I guess if it was funny, yeah, I’d love to hear about, ummm, that sorta thing.” I wasn’t about to ask if she had any such tales for us.

“I think male authors sometimes forget that they have to appeal to women since women statistically buy more books.” Several people suddenly began writing in their notebooks.

“Soooo, you’d recommend I don’t write about my bowels?”

“I’m not sure. I guess I’d have to read it.”

“So if I had a really good bowel story it might be okay.”

“It might be, sure.”

“How can one tell a good bowel story from a bad one?”

“I think more important than what you write is how you write it.” More jotting in notebooks. I did as well, transcribing the conversation we’d just had.

“In the same vein I probably shouldn’t write about how I see girls mainly as sex objects and trophies to brag to friends about,” I said, quickly adding, “Kidding! I’m just kidding.”

The last person to speak before our time was up was Ann. She just quit her job as a chorus girl on Broadway. She told the class she’s going to write an inside account of what it’s like being in a dressing room with 24 other girls night after night.

I said, “If I may make a recommendation, your memoir should have pictures.”

Next Installment: The Battle of the Sandwiches.

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Harris Bloom lives and works in New York City. When he's not eating cheese or being distracted by large shiny objects, he's hard at work on a short story collection. He can be reached here.

© 2004 Me Three