Every year, my crazy division director at Dominican College randomly selects a team for each of the faculty in his division. He sometimes comes up with some crazy reason for it, but lately he's been a little light on that -- there might be some reason, but maybe he doesn't always want to tell us. This year, he selected Baylor for me. Now in the nine years I've been involved in all this, I rarely make it out of the second round -- more often I'm knocked out in the first. The prize is ridiculous -- some lame school shirt and a box of girl scout cookies -- so it's nothing to do with that. This year I made it to the finals.
A long while ago -- it may go all the way back to 1995, if I'm not mistaken -- I was out in Chicago visiting my soon-to-be wife Becky (then Pam, so weirdly). I was doing way much more writing at the time. That's how I met Becky, through my writing. I'd been invited by a friend of Becky's (Tina) to do a reading at their once-a-month meeting at the Red Lion Inn not far from Becky's place. My first ever public reading -- I know somewhere I have the flyer for it and everything, although this one may have been an open mic or something. The story I was going to read was one of my favorite ones, a rewriting of the old Scottish ballad "Tam Lin." In my version of the story, John (the Janet of the original story) falls in love with a woman named Tammy (Tam Lin from the original) and they have a wonderful relationship, except that she is literally haunted by someone from her past (who isn't dead). She's trapped by him, but John finds out the one way to save her is to come out at midnight on Halloween, pull her away from the ghost that haunts her, and hold onto her no matter what happens (in the original it's the Faerie Queen herself that he has to be rescued from). The original story ends with the Elven Queen turning Tam Lin into all sorts of monsters, but brave Janet holds on, no matter what. In my story, they reveal all kinds of truths about Tammy to John (for example she'll grow old and die and maybe fall in love with someone else and that there are a lot of risks in love). John passes the test of course and the two go off to live their lives -- happy or otherwise. I was pretty excited about the story, mainly because it was the first story of mine that Becky seemed to really like. I had rewritten the crap out of that story and I thought it was ready. I'd even gotten some interest in it for an anthology.
My two best friends at this time were certainly Mike and Tom, and Tom had come with me to Chicago to hang with Mike and I had assumed to hear my story. I was nervous as hell to be reading this piece to strangers, and was happy that I'd have an audience in Becky and Mike and Tom.
But... it was not to be. The night of the reading was also the night of the NCAA Men's Basketball Finals. I thought it was nuts that the tournament ended on a Monday, and had never even considered the conflict. I didn't even know at the time that either of them were that interested in men's college basketball. As the day approached, and they realized that my reading fell on the same night as the finals, they informed me that they'd be hanging back and watching the finals rather than coming to the reading. I was hurt, but I don't think I really said anything. I think perhaps at first I thought they were messing with me, but as the day arrived and I realized they weren't, I was pretty pissed off. Mike kind of laughed off my anger, and Tom got mad at me. We'd fought before, but I was pretty put out this time. I didn't know how to handle my anger.
I did the reading and it went well, and as everyone congratulated me I tried to shrug off the fact that my two dearest friends weren't there for this event.
I know I gave Tom a lot of shit for it over the years. I mentioned it to Mike once that I can remember and he seemed to be angry with me that I even would consider that he would miss the finals for something like a reading of my story. I pulled back pretty hard for a while from both of them, but that faded by the time my wedding rolled around later that year. Or maybe it was a little later... but I could never really hold on to anger with them. Tom at some point many years later apologized when I explained how hurt I was -- I never invited them to any other reading I did for that series, and I'm not sure they ever came to one, even though I probably read there four or five times.
Two years ago, there was a panel looking for medievalists who had used medieval lit in order to write modern fiction. I submitted my idea of the Tam Lin story and was immediately accepted. Of course, COVID shut everything down last year and so the panel never happened. They rescheduled it for this year and so I dug out the story, dusted it off, and realized that it needs a lot of work -- I have learned a lot in the last two and half decades, although mostly that I need to do a lot better with my writing. So I've been thinking about the original story a lot and how it could be changed. I don't want it to be about a guy saving a girl in trouble any more and I'm not the guy I was way back then. It occurred to me after talking about it with Becky for a little bit that it could really be a story about someone struggling with mental illness, but from the standpoint of the people who try to help those suffering. Of course I've been thinking about that a lot with Tom's situation, with my Mom and Aunt who are dealing with their own end-of-life issues, and seeing the people struggling to understand all of these situations from the outside. I haven't quite worked it out yet, but I have a clearer path to a rewrite than I did before we talked.
And here I am about pay attention to the NCAA finals for the first time in my life because of Baylor, thinking about Mike and Tom, and wishing like hell I could sit with both of them to watch this stupid game, and trying to channel my grief at losing one and struggling with the other into the writing of this story.
And those that come by Carterhaugh,
They must leave him a pledge,
Either their mantles green,
Or else their maidenheads.
Rob
And Baylor won tonight...
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