David Matheny

Puberty and Equality David Matheny

An author tells of going through puberty during the struggle for racial equality in the South as he seduces and is seduced by his wife's friends. At a party for academics, a famous author is coaxed into telling a story from his past. He's never talked about his past before. Even with his wife. The party ends and his wife and her friends pressure him into telling the whole story over a three-day weekend. He has to talk of his own physical and sexual growth because that's so inextricably intertwined with the growth of civil rights during the busing and desegregation of the early Seventies. The weekend of story-telling is embellished with good food, good wine, good pot, and bad deeds. His wife is caught up in a power move to put her into a powerful position at the university. She listens to as much of the story as she can, but she gets pulled into the power-play some. Her new assistant and two best friends are intent listeners who are all intent on making their own play on the well-known author. He wants to play as much as they do. The playing gets hot and heavy until it's no longer playing. He plays with each of them until he ends up playing with all of them. At the same time!His story is the story of an abused Southern boy going through puberty to reach manhood on the other side. He witnesses the horrible things done to African-Americans in that hard time. He knows he always was a little different and that makes the difference. His empathy for humanity grows as strong as his body. His strange mind and odd nature always allowed his obsessions to rule him. He became obsessed with equality and became more than a passive sympathizer. He kicked ass as an activist in his own special way for the special young man he was. While he became a champion of equality, he grew from a bullied runt to a capable man. A man who wanted honesty from others and demanded it from himself. He blamed his own dishonesty for the loss of his first true love, who was lost to him and the world forever. He struggled with being a better man until he found a better woman and survived into the better part of his life. He didn't believe in God, Karma, or fate, but he would've certainly enjoyed the 'what goes around comes around' irony of his own fate