I’d never had a physical reaction to a book before. I’d always been an avid reader. As a child, I spent many afternoons communing with friends reading Encyclopedia Brown. In high school I moved on to James Baldwin, Malcolm X and Donald Goines. Still, while I had emotional reactions to many of the books that I spent time with, I’d never physically responded.
I moved to Los Angeles a few months after graduating from Hampton University. Saying that I “moved” is actually a generous description of my arrival in L.A. I was a squatter. I had very little money and stayed on the floor of my friends’ apartment. The whole experience was overwhelming. Beyond the ordinary adjustments we all make after leaving the nest, I became increasingly restless with myself as I struggled with my identity.
I wanted to start over in L.A., but it’s hard to do that when so much of your past still lingers in your present. I was a popular guy at Hampton. Literally, I was voted “most popular” the week before graduation. I pledged. I was class president. I was “that” guy.
I was also lonely as hell. I was trapped between two worlds. In my public life, I was confident, smart and affable. Privately, I was uncertain.
Instead of starting over in Los Angeles, I found myself having to be “that” guy again. Surrounded by old schoolmates, I was crushed by the weight of expectation of being what I’d imagined people wanted and needed me to be. I didn’t know what it would take to jump start my real life, as opposed to the imagined one I’d created. Oddly enough, it wasn’t some spiritual event that helped push me forward. It was a rent payment.
My first apartment in L.A. was a shared three bedroom in a complex called Park LaBrea. Park LaBrea is not cheap. My roommates and I wanted to live in Venice Beach like the cast of “The Real World;” but one look at the then dusty Venice neighborhoods, sent us headed towards greener and too expensive pastures. One night, as I was writing my rent check, I realized that there was no way I needed to be paying this much money to live in hiding.
I came out.
It was a slow process. It started with my roommates and a couple of friends. Still, even after taking that step, I was uneasy. What had I done? I knew that I’d changed the course of my life and wasn’t quite prepared for the consequences. I thought I would be less lonely and freer; but I felt more trapped. I felt exposed and I didn’t have anyone to talk to; at least not anyone who I thought would understand.
My friend Danielle, one of the people whose floor I’d once slept on, recommended that I read a book called Invisible Life, by this guy named E. Lynn Harris. She told me it would help, but I was resistant. I had led a “normal” life I thought. I wasn’t teased, or ostracized and made to feel different in the way that I’d heard most gay men had been. I didn’t think Invisible Life could do anything for me. However, weeks later, I found myself in the bookstore looking for it.
It’s hard to imagine now, but I was actually nervous about picking the book up. What if someone I knew walked up on me? How would I explain? I crept up on the book as if we were playing hide and seek. I went to the store a couple times before I finally bought it. I went home, jumped on to my foam, eggshell temporary mattress and began reading.
About twenty pages into the book, I’d cried, laughed and gotten an erection. I felt like I’d been under surveillance for the last five years of my life and someone told my story. When I read of his protagonist Raymond’s fear of everyone knowing he’d just had his first gay experience, my stomach was in knots. Raymond contemplated the humiliation his family and fraternity brothers would feel. He’s consumed with paranoia and goes as far as considering dropping out of school.
E. Lynn was writing my life.
After reading that one paragraph of Raymond’s morning-after, fear laden regret, I literally threw the book against the wall. I let it sit there on the floor for a while. All of the feelings I had after my first experience came rushing back to me. I too, felt sick the next day. I thought that everyone was looking at me. I was so physically ill; my father had to pick me up from school. It was the flu, I told everyone. I almost did not go back to school the next semester.
After taking a moment to process the idea of not being alone and having what I now knew was a shared experience, I picked the book back up. By the time I finished it a couple hours later, my life was changed. While I can appreciate depictions of gay life that explore the perspective of people who are immersed in the culture, E. Lynn’s books were more representative of my experience. His books were about the whole person, as opposed to just the individual parts.
I am a man; a black man, an educated black man, a son, brother and writer. I am many things including being gay. E. Lynn’s work, especially his first two books, examines what it means to be all of those things and the difficulty in finding balance. Invisible Life didn’t give me answers, but it gave me hope. It gave me the courage to be able to write this piece and not be afraid.
E. Lynn Harris will be remembered in many different ways. For some he will be the author who exposed women to the “D.L.” For others he will be a commercially successful author who opened doors. I had an opportunity to tell him how much his work means to me. I’m sure he’s heard this a million times over. Still, he responded like he’d heard this for the first time and was appreciative of my admiration.
We call everyone a pioneer, or a legend nowadays and it’s become a bit pedestrian. Instead, I’ll be more personal and say E. Lynn Harris was a gift. I am thankful that he shared a piece of himself with the world and I hope that his work and life continues to be an inspiration.
To hear more, please visit illprofessors.com and listen to our podcasts on literature, film and music. Subscribe and please leave comments. This article is courtesy of Written Magazine and appears in a special insert honoring E. Lynn Harris.
Honest.beautiful. This will help someone,touch someone, bless someone.