BIGGIE J da BOMB

That was the title of my first novel. Most people don't remember that one. If you ask five out of ten people on the street, 3 of them will tell you it was "Downstairs Was Where I Fell Too" the other two might guess "Dopey: Just Height-Challenged Is All." But both of these were after I had gotten into the groove of being a writer.

"Biggie J da Bomb" was the semi-autobiographic look at this friend of mine. He was a ladies man of sorts. Some ladies, others had nothing to do with him. Weird thing was, no one knew he was gay. And that was where the tension in the book came from. We sensed this part of his identity, yet he was too busy spending tawdry moments with all of these women, in the back seats of cabs and in the aisles of the ballet, to realize it.

Most critics latched upon the immediate comparisons between Biggie and Laverne & Shirley. Not just the fact that Biggie wore a big, golden L around his neck nor his affection towards Pepsi and milk. Rather, they noticed how much Biggie needed his own Squiggie. My first publisher was so drawn up by these critics that they dropped me when I wouldn't write a sequel about Biggie and Squiggie.

I admit that my literary license was a fake. One of the guys living in the dorms with me at the writing camp had a side-business making fake IDs. I didn't need one to drink (I was well past the drinking age at that point: the benefits of extending your high school career a couple more years), but I did think I needed one to make myself seem older to the reader.

That was my biggest fear when I started out: that the reader was going to see right through me. I felt transparent. It seemed that at any time I was going to be found out for what I really was: a writer. No one wants to read the pathetic words of a writer. It's only one small step up from being a poet, and I surely wasn't that. I could have done better being a philospher, but I didn't have the stomach for it. So I wrote. And I tried to hide that fact.

At parties I would tell women I worked at a bowling alley. Somehow the allure of a bar on the premises, a smokes machine near each bathroom and the smell of freshly greased lanes made me irresistable. Well, until they came home with me and saw all the books I had lying around. There was no hiding my identity then. I tried to borrow the rooms of friends, but those friends I had were trying hard to pretend they weren't writers either.

We became so desperate one year that we pitched in together to develop our own sexual protagonist. We got him a job, made him enough money to rent an apartment, and soon we hoped to be having sex with many beautiful women without fear of being found out.

A system developed, where we carefully orchestrated multiple sexual encounters in one night, using a system of handkerchiefs, scarves, feather boas and simple lengths of string hanging from the doorknob. Occasionally there was a mix-up, with two of us ending up in the apartment with our dates at the same time. But we made the best of the situation and soon our sexual protagonists were bisexual swingers, and all worked out well.

I wouldn't trade those years for anything (except for perhaps the memories of them). I think if I had written "Biggie J da Bomb" after that period, it would have been completely different. I think perhaps more people would have read it, but it wouldn't have been as honest. And really, at heart, it was an honest novel. Perhaps the last honest novel I have written. Not to say they have all been lies since then, but many of them have. Things may have been different had I chosen to persue fiction as a career, but well, that would have required me to better use my imagination. And to be honest, I never had much use for mine.