It Was A Boy

An excerpt from the story It Was A Boy on page 53 from my memoir “The Great Unlearning.”

Excerpt from It Was A Boy

“…Within a week my mother and father, who were in the throes of a messy divorce, found enough civility to drive me down to a clinic in Los Angeles that “took care of such things.” Although grappling with the fear of what was about to happen, feeling a strange pleasure in seeing my mother and father together caused me to make a special effort to be on my best behavior, so my only expression was one of quiet compliance. I didn’t want to cause any more trouble for them, and believed that I was one of the problems that had caused the breakup of their marriage.

Our destination was in an industrial part of Los Angeles. Once in the nondescript concrete building, we were ushered to an old, peeling Formica table in a very bright room to sign a document. After being given a chewed-on Bic pen, and asked to write, “I am consenting to this procedure of my own free will,” I felt my mother standing behind me and leaning into my upper body as if to ensure my completion of the task. Smelling like Aquanet hair spray, and something fermented, she was literally on my back, pushing my face to about ten inches from the paper as I slowly wrote out the statement in perfect cursive penmanship. As soon as I had signed my name, she quickly grabbed the pen and signed the paper as well, handed the man a check for $500, then lit a Pall Mall non-filtered cigarette—which I really wanted a hit of.

I was soon taken to a large cinderblock room with eleven other teenage girls…”

You can listen to me read It Was A Boy and other stories from my memoir by visiting my podcast on Spotify. Or, support me by purchasing a copy of “The Great Unlearning” on this site.

Author reflection

This story is about a devastating decision I made at seventeen to keep the peace with my mother, but at an extreme emotional and physical expense which haunted me for decades. My parents never spoke of it again.

In my Podcast, I provide a poignantly candid discussion on this traumatic story by exploring how my parent’s avoided the discomfort of talking about this painful disaster of my young life because they didn’t have the emotional intelligence to handle it, and consequently, I was taught that stuffing pain was the right thing to do. See Podcast number 7.

Listener discretion is strongly advised as this story contains a very controversial event that will most likely upset some people.