...and, as he usually does, Sedaris entertains his readers with seemingly light and humorous stories about his life, especially his youth. They become more poignant and bitter-sweet when they sink in.
David tells us about the time he was, more or less, forced to go to a neighborhood slumber party where the guys ended up playing strip poker. Pubescent David felt out of place. He didn’t fit in with these boys. He was nervous around them. And he was terrified that he’d get an erection when he took off his clothes in their presence. It seems he had assumed he would lose because he couldn’t imagine beating these straight boys, but it turns out he was pretty good at playing cards and only lost his shoes. When a couple of the boys were nude, David suggested they pay for their losing hands by sitting on his lap for a few minutes. He loved holding these naked boys, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew they had gone along with his suggestion because they felt they had to, and David knew that later, when the guys had a chance to think about what happened, he would get a certain reputation and possibly become more of an outcast than he already was.
As a young adult, David lived in an apartment in a slummy part of town. His neighbor was a stripper, and she had a little girl. The girl was neglected and spent much of the late afternoon and evening alone. She sought David’s company. David is socially awkward, so he was reluctant to befriend this nine-year-old girl, but he felt sorry for her. Soon, he imagined he could help the little girl by playing a combination of Professor Higgins and Auntie Mame for her. His mother informed him that it wasn’t that easy and warned him to keep his distance. When the girl began stealing from him, the relationship cooled. More trouble followed, and he confronted the negligent mother. The mother felt she had enough to deal with without having the “faggot” next door complaining about her daughter. The little girl quickly figured out that David was not the kind of adult she had to be afraid of or respect, so she started taunting him. She began standing outside his door and calling him a faggot, chanting it in a low whisper. When David informed his mother, she insisted that he move out immediately before the stripper and her daughter accused him of being a child molester.
When David was finished with college, he drifted across the country and began abusing drugs. After a couple of years, he moved back in with his parents. David stayed up all night, slept all day and wasn’t particularly eager to find a job. A couple of months went by, and his father called him into his den. He told David that he had to leave. David assumed that it was because he had become a drug using layabout, so even though he was hurt, he didn’t really hold it against his father. It was a wake-up call, and David was determined to get his act together. David’s sister offered to let him stay at her house for a while, and his mother drove him. His mother cried and was unusually apologetic. David didn’t understand why she was so upset because he wasn’t all that upset. Years later, he learned his mother was mortified by his father’s actions because the real reason he wanted David out of the house was because he is gay. This was one of the shortest chapters in the book, and it lacked his characteristic self-deprecating humor and wry observations.
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