How He Became a Man

He is at home with himself, having done twenty years already, with only months to go. He refuses a folder to carry his work in -- precious contraband -- when I offer. "Give it to one of the younger guys," he says. He is calm, lean, clear, a regular in the prison workshop, and he writes with authority. Today he reads a long piece about being raped by an older woman, his first sexual experience. The woman taunted him with "Only fags don't have sex with women. Are you a fag?" She shamed him, pulled him into a closet while the other kids were playing hide and seek. He has since been seeking answers to how to be a man in the world of love. Some of his characters in his story advise "Don't give away too much," while others recommend "You can't give enough; the giving is the point." An undercurrent of taking what you want, even when the answer is no, haunts the telling. A woman he loves tells him the nice men are not the ones she wants. While he reads, the men in the circle are silent, spell-bound, transported; or at least I am transported. His account of moving through the mine field of Eros is told through the words of women he loves but can't have, women he can have but doesn't love, and the pitfalls of giving one's self away to another who will take it all and give nothing back. He listens to the wisdom of a man lost in love. They sit together at the beach. "There is nothing wrong with giving," the man says, "even if you lose it all." The waves crash and then he is done reading. The work offers no clear path, no easy answers. The characters have spoken, and the master drops the strings that animate his drama. It is the first serious piece he has written. "What do you think?" he asks.