Phone is Ringin (Oh my Gawd)
I seem to have settled into a rhythm of work on a book where I finish an (overlong) chapter a week. At this rate, I will be finished drafting by the time I leave Louisiana at the end of July.
I can tell Dead End Boys is asking me for cuts--and that's even before my agent and my editor weigh in. I want this book to be sleeker and more straight-up than Ballad. I want it to reflect the growth and learning I've done since we put that novel to bed in, I think, 2021. Maybe that way, the revision process won't be so arduous.
As I type this little update, I'm sitting in one of my very favorite New Orleans cafes, The Bean Gallery. I didn't come to this place enough when I lived in the neighborhood, but I've been visiting for decades. It's comfortable, with a lot of seating--more now than ever before--and a lot of outlets where I can plug in my MacBook and just throw down for hours. Before I sat down, I had about nine pages of this chapter, and now I've got eighteen. YES, I KNOW THAT'S TOO MANY. But that's a revision concern.
One difficult element of this particular chapter is that it touches on the Upstairs Lounge fire in 1973. Someone set fire to the French Quarter gay bar, killing 32 people. Robert Fiesler has written a brilliant nonfiction volume about the case: Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire. And it's a beautifully written look at this tragic episode in queer history and New Orleans history. Robert has been supportive of me and my work, and his kindness is truly humbling.
It's recently become a tradition for Kechi and I to travel to New Orleans on a Monday, and I'll either work toward or complete a chapter, and after our Improv class, she takes me to Sushi. the last couple of times, it felt doubtful that I'd be able to complete the work in time to get rewarded this way, but clearly, I'm capable.
There have been times when this book felt impossible to achieve. I learned a lot from working on Ballad, but that novel took me ten years to finish from conception to release. Because of the pain and anxiety of the Pandemic, my own near-fatal health crisis, my move from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, and the loss of my brother, work on this book too often felt like an uphill battle. Especially when loss made it clear to me that I had to throw out much of what I've written and start over, writing from the perspective of someone who knows how it feels navigate what feels like a depthless grief.
This coming weekend, family and loved ones will come together to memorialize Brandon and release his ashes. I don’t know how that would feel. I’ve never done this before. Brandon loved New Orleans, he loved Fantasy—dark and otherwise—and there are still so many moments when I fish my phone from my pocket, ready to call him and jaw about comics, movies, or life in general. I felt him sitting beside me and Kechi as we watched SINNERS on opening night. I’ve spoken to him a few times in dreams, but it was only the first time that I felt like I was genuinely in touch with his spirit.
I was lying in bed and my phone rang—the one he got me as a present, and I answered. He told me that he loved me, and he was sorry he’d had to leave, but that he was okay.
Last Friday, I participated at a Writers Round Table at the Metairie Park Country Day School. I read a little from Dead End Boys, discussed Confederacy of Dunces with a murderer’s row of local literary talent including C. Morgan Babst, E. M. Tran, Nathaniel Rich, and Maurice Carlos Ruffin. After I talked to ten students in a breakout session about my first novel and this new one, one of the students asked me a parting question.
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
I answered as I often do, “No, but that’s because I don’t have to.”
It’s time I revised that answer. I very much believe in ghosts, but I am not convinced of their literal reality. For me, ghosts are memory. Ghosts are the surviving presence of people and circumstances that have passed on even if they haven’t fully left us. Dead End Boys is written from that understanding. The understanding that memory persists, that is a gift and a curse. That it shapes, complicates, and sometimes torments us.
It doesn’t matter whether I was dreaming or awake when my brother called one last time. What matters is that the line between those states was effectively blurred, and that all the listening, all the hoping, all the remembrance of him had finally borne fruit. The other times I’ve encountered him in my dreams have been reflections, at best. Little bits of memory where my own mind has filled in the gaps, and I’m just as grateful for them as I am for the visitation.
Next Saturday, when I say goodbye, I’ll tell him so.