I used to get terribly anxious when people found out I had written a book. Half the people who talked to me about the book would be encouraging and generally interested; at the very least conjuring up the strength to feign emotion. The other half would be completely uninterested and incredulously asked what was so special about my life that I had to write a book about it. I learned long ago that thinking the world owes you something is not the way to go about life, but some people dismissed my entire life without even knowing so much as a single factoid related to me.
This reaction angered me so much that I discussed making my follow up book a compilation of other people’s stories and I would act as the editor. I have always held firm to the belief that everyone, regardless of ability, has a story worth writing about.
The key is knowing what story is worth writing about.
Recently, I have tried to reconnect with people I lost touch with over the years. A lot of the people I tried to contact are people from Massachusetts that I haven’t talked to in ages. For the most part, they are people who haven’t heard from me since my mother passed away; some hadn’t heard from me in even longer.
One of the people who I was able to track down and got back to me was Eric, a former co-worker and friend. I lived with Eric for a short period of time when things got to be too much living with my aunt. He also helped me through my first hospitalization for depression, so he already knew much of what I have gone through.
When I told Eric I had written a book about my life since graduating from high school, he was immediately excited. Unfortunately his excitement didn’t seem to be about my accomplishments.
“That’s great [about the book], dude. I actually wrote a book myself in the past year. I wrote it about the Sunny incident. You remember that right? Anyway, I was hoping you might be able to read it for me and maybe give it to your agent. If not, that’s cool. Just looking for some feedback is all. Plus, since you know all about it you might be able to help me punch it up a bit.”
I thought long and hard about how to respond to the email. As was Eric’s style, it couldn’t have been more earnest had he added the phrase “Oh, and my mom says it’s awesome.” After thinking it over for a moment, my immediate thought was to respond with:
“Eric, you know, that’s a pretty terrible idea.”
Before you jump all over me for such hypocrisy, remember that I said you need to know the right story to tell. This is the wrong story to tell, and I should know since I have had to sit through it more times than I care to recount.
I met Eric shortly after he moved to Massachusetts from suburban Baltimore in 2000. He was the same age as I was, although a foot taller and a dead ringer for Will Ferrell. We worked together at a movie theatre and immediately bonded over our love of film, but Eric’s true passion was theatre.
One night over a late night dinner at Denny’s I was telling Eric about a girl I had a crush on who wasn’t looking for a relationship. Almost immediately, Eric launched into the Sunny story. By the time it was over I hoped it was the only time I would ever have to sit through it.
Eric proceeded to recite what seemed like a rehearsed two hour monologue that lasted until 4:30 in the morning. The worst part was the story that recounted every mundane detail of every day this girl was in his life, ended up being about a girl he never even dated. It was like that joke about the kid who always wanted a pink ping pong ball for his birthday and ends up dying at the end.
Sunny was a girl that Eric went to high school with. They were good friends and Eric had a crush on her. Sunny though they were too good of friends to have a relationship. Eric was crushed, but remained the kind of friend that would subtly give Sunny mixtapes and play her Beatle’s songs on the piano to put her to sleep when she wasn’t feeling well.
Sunny started dating someone really nice and Eric was crushed. Things got worse when Eric and Sunny were cast in a play and they had to kiss. Needless to say, Eric was electrified by the stage kiss and Sunny moved to California a few weeks later; never to be heard from again.
That is really all that happened. That is the entire story minus details about the weather, how the stage looked, how her hair smelled, and all the metaphors he threw at me when he told it. The biggest problem with the story wasn’t even that it was boring, it was that Eric was so deluded that he thought this constituted genuine heartbreak, and told the story as if no one else had ever felt what he felt on that fateful day when he tried to run behind her car to give her one final mixtape before she left for the airport.
Sunny’s boyfriend wasn’t even a jerk. Eric simply thought he could do a better job. If Sunny’s boyfriend wrote her a song, Eric would have bitched about how he would have fashioned a symphony with Elton John singing as a parade of animatronic teddy bears marched through humming “Stairway to Heaven.”
The first time I heard the story, we hadn’t been friends for very long, so I just smiled and told him I understood. The second time I heard the story, we were both drunk and Eric told it to a crowd of people showing interest only because they were too drunk to play cards anymore.
The third time I heard the story it was told the exact same way as the other two times and we were even back at Denny’s. Only this time I walked in with the girl I had a crush on who I had finally convinced to go on a friendly date with me. Eric just happened to be there and took it upon himself to join us. He told the story to my date who was absolutely enthralled by the story. I was admittedly turned off and incredibly tired, so I took the bus home while Eric decided to drive my date home when he was done telling the story. She fucked him in the back of the Denny’s parking lot that night.
Needless to say, I never dated that girl, but Eric didn’t last long with her either since he wouldn’t stop thinking about Sunny. It was the perfect picture of an unhealthy obsession.
Every time someone around him would bring up a significant other he would turn into Paul Rudd from “The 40 Year Old Virgin.” Eric physically could not hear the word “love” without bringing Sunny up in some way, often in the same long form fashion and with the same exact details. Even if you had to leave half way through the story, Eric would remember exactly where he left off and he would have to tell you the rest of the story the next time he caught you unawares.
Oddly having sex with my date that night wasn’t the last straw between Eric and I. That came a year later when I caught my girlfriend cheating on me and he had the audacity to say “Now you know how I felt with Sunny.”
I chewed him out and told him never to bring her up around me again. He never did. When I moved we grew apart and haven’t talked in about three years.
And the first time we do talk, he brings up the same story again as if it still remains as the defining moment in his life.
I know Eric has had other girlfriends in this time. I even know that Eric has far better stories to tell than this on. He has a great story about how he had to fly with his father from Baltimore to Phoenix to pick up his younger sister who ran away to be with her boyfriend. She woke up, had breakfast with the family, and called to house at dinner time to tell them she was stuck in Phoenix and had just broken up with her boyfriend. She also insisted on not flying home alone. Then when they got to Phoenix, she had gone to Denver. For no reason other than thinking she had time to go sightseeing. She thought they were going to drive to Phoenix. She had also found a new boyfriend in Denver.
The Sunny story, however, remains a terrible story. It could be cute or endearing in a much shorter form, but in my response to Eric’s email I made the mistake of asking how long this book was. It was 366 pages. Single spaced. In the same format it is roughly 96 pages longer than my book that encompasses seven years.
I told Eric that I would actually (attempt) to read this book that I assume is going to have more detail than if Steinbeck and Hemmingway had collaborated on writing about the beauty of the same roll of toilet paper. I even told him that I am quite sceptical and that I will not give it to my agent.
He didn’t seem to care.
“It’s a story that needs to get told, man.”
I admire the enthusiasm. I just question the source and the material
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