Chapter Ten Cruising, dir. by William Friedkin
“This is all you’ve got?” Michael asks, breezing through Eli’s more recent notes. “There’s nothing here.”
“Well, I’m still finding it...” Eli starts to say, but the excuse dies on his tongue.
The dating article isn’t nothing. He has a beginning, a good first chunk of writing that he’s actually very proud of; the
rest of the piece is less fine-tuned, a little rougher around the edges because he hadn’t had the time to really string things
together, make it cohesive.
It’s just that it’s fallen to the wayside. Both articles have, if he’s being honest with himself. But at least his article
about the queer South is looking close to readable.
“I like what I have, Michael,” Eli tells him.
“You’ve had two weeks to deliver something more to me. Something beyond bullet points and boring nights at jazz clubs. I need details, Eli.
The readers want the messiness, they want that drive to keep reading.”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t seem like it. Maybe it’s time to rethink this whole thing.” Michael gnaws at the end of his thumb. “You’re not
as ready as I thought you might be, Eli.”
“It’s... it’s tough. To write about,” he tells Michael. “It’s harder to quantify what’s happening when there’s nothing
physical going on.”
“I don’t expect you to sleep with him. That’d be a conflict of interest.”
Eli winces, breathing slowly. “No, I mean, there’s no physical change . It’s all mental, all happening in his head.”
“That’s bullshit.” Michael stares at him.
Eli’s used to Michael’s directness, but this is new.
“Because I’ve read the emotion in your work, Eli. I’ve read your perspective, and you’ve never had a problem writing about
something that you’re passionate about.”
Eli doesn’t have the answer to a question Michael didn’t ask. Though he’s surprised to hear Michael speak so candidly about
his writing. The most he ever heard in terms of feedback never stretched much further than Our audience doesn’t want to hear about this .
“Well...” Eli begins to say. “What do you suggest?”
“You’re not connecting.”
Eli swallows. “I like to think that Peter and I are becoming friends.”
“No, not with him.” Michael points to his computer. “With the article. And right there, you just pointed out the biggest issue.”
“That we’re friends?”
“You’re afraid to hurt his feelings.” It’s not a question, not a thought. Michael isn’t wondering. It’s a statement, a fact.
Plain and simple.
Eli resents just how correct Michael is. God, it would be so much easier to hate Michael if he didn’t actually have an eye
for good editing and writing.
“The very nature of this article means that you’re going to make an enemy of Peter, Eli. And you have to be okay with that.”
“What if I don’t want to be?”
“Well...” Michael hesitates. “Tough shit. I tell you what to write, and you write it. That’s how things will work when
you’re a writer. And if you don’t like it”—Michael nods to somewhere behind Eli, through the glass that surrounds his office—“the
elevator is right there.”
Eli rubs his hands on his knees.
It’s complicated, hoping that this article will never make it to print, that Michael will miraculously see the error of his ways and publish the real
article. Maybe this was a stupid idea, maybe Eli was ignorant to think that he could ever make a difference.
But Michael just said that he’s read the emotion in Eli’s voice, the perspective. Couldn’t that be enough? If Eli just showed Michael what kind of difference they could make, then maybe he could convince Michael to let him run it.
“You have to be willing to offend people with the things that you write, Eli,” Michael continues, and Eli listens. At the
very least, this is sound advice. As a journalist, you can’t ever be afraid whose feelings you might hurt, not when reporting the truth is the
most important part of your job. “You can’t be afraid.”
“I’m not.”
“This article says otherwise.” Michael points with his pen to the monitor in front of him. “Prove to me that you’re not afraid,
and we can still put together something great here, Eli. You’re a strong writer, with a strong voice. I just want what’s best
for you.”
Another odd bout of sincerity where Eli expects it the least.
“Right.” If only Eli could believe Michael’s ever wanted what’s best for him. “Okay.”
“When are you seeing him again?” Michael asks.
A good question. It’s been days since Eli and Peter have really spoken, let alone seen each other. Aside from a very awkward
phone call where Peter apologized for getting too drunk, there have been text messages, but not much else.
Eli wonders if he’s secretly been pushing Peter away.
Peter had apologized over FaceTime because a project at work was demanding attention that he couldn’t give to Eli at the moment, even telling Eli all about a night where he’d been forced to sit in front of his computer for fourteen hours just to make sure nothing went wrong with one of his company’s biggest—and confidential—clients.
And Eli accepted the excuse because the less time he spent with Peter, the less he had to write about, and the less time he
had to think about what these new feelings mean.
“Three weeks,” Eli says. “He has a Halloween thing with his coworkers—”
“Three weeks?”
“Nineteen days, really.”
“No, see him this weekend. Make plans.”
“Okay...” It’s such a funny feeling, being told by your boss to go out on a date.
“Text him, see what he’s doing, have fun. And write about it!”
“I will.”
“Good, and call Fiorella’s and try to get me a reservation, my wife wants to go there tonight.”
“Understood.” Eli nods. “Anything else?”
“You’re good to go,” Michael tells him, and Eli stands, eager to get out of the office. His eyes meet Keith’s from across
the office, but Eli does his best to ignore him. He pulls up the actual article.
Late Blooming in Lavender Country: Growing Up Queer in the Southern United States
Growing up in a rural red state, in a small town of only 1,000 people, is in itself no easy feat. Coming of age as a queer
teen in the same environment is even harder. An hour and a half outside of Atlanta, one of the few safe havens in Georgia,
being openly queer in Athens is still considered taboo, a topic discussed in quick hushes and whispered gossip, as though
the implication of being queer were comparable to the accusations of being a witch in the 1600s or a Communist in the 1950s.
In a town where no one is truly permitted to be their authentic self, queer children often grow up internalizing their own
prejudices, hiding themselves and never finding the permission to live in a way that allows them to discover their true selves.
The adolescent years are so formative for teenagers, especially queer teens, who are so eager to find understanding and relatability.
But what happens to those teens who are never given the chance to experience those moments? What do we do for those queer
teenagers who grow into queer adults who have yet to craft these formative memories? What do we do for queer adults who have
never dated, never been kissed, never had the opportunity to hold hands with their first crush? What are they supposed to
do when the community meant to show support and welcome them with open arms shuns them for not having enough “experience”?
He has a handful of notes. Comments typed out, bullet points of things he wants to explore, questions that he wants to ask, his sources.
He thinks back to his conversations with Peter, when he talked about his friends and their late-night hangouts, about Mark
and their memories with one another, about Peter’s parents, how they craved the quieter life. These are the specifics he’s
done his best to work in, writing about Peter growing up in a town with a .01 percent Korean population. About how, even after
moving to a larger city, Peter still felt uneasy about connecting to other Koreans or Korean Americans. How his queerness
was a wall between them. How places believed to be safe havens for queer people can be so dangerous for people of color, queer
or otherwise.
He does consider the weight of being a white man writing about the Asian experience. But Eli’s done his hardest to present
these parts of the article as strict fact, using the words that Peter himself has used to describe his terrible experiences
meeting men whose dating profiles proudly proclaimed, “No fats, no fems, no Asians.”
Not all of the pieces of the article are there, but it’s shaping up nicely. Eli skims over paragraphs he’s already reread,
double-checking that he’s changed the names of anyone he’s written about.
Then he opens the other article about Peter.
The Build-a-Boyfriend Project
Over the last few years, it seems that dating apps have only gotten harder to use. These sites once meant to help users find
the mythical “One” are now inundated with people searching for hook-ups or looking for thirds, and users who won’t reply to
a single message.
That was my experience. I tried every app I could find, even dedicated far too much time to the likes of Grindr and Scruff
in the hopes of finding anyone worth my time.
I’d just about given up on my search, doomed to wander the streets of San Francisco single for the rest of my days.
Eli rolls his eyes at Michael’s latest changes.
It was after a heinous string of bad conversations through apps that I agreed to be set up. I’ve never been one for blind
dates, but I figured why not give this stranger a shot. So I did. To say that the night was a complete disaster is an understatement.
He showed up an hour late, spilled food on me, and ignored me to take several phone calls. He even missed the movie we went
to.
I left the date embarrassed and ashamed of myself.
“Laying it on a little thick, aren’t we, Michael?” Eli mutters to himself.
He rereads what he has, cringing. Peter has gone from a socially awkward sweetheart to a douchebag with no common sense. Eli