“GRAC and you,” she interrupted.
“Yes, we came up with this kind of ridiculous thing about me being a Shawnee and just really kept going with it. And, I mean, it was funny. Because I love to wind you up, you know that. But the shoes—these are Grac’s from forever ago and she wrote the letter from the charity.” I was spitting it all out as fast as I could.
I’ll never forget the way my parents looked on that April Fools’ Day. Standing in the kitchen of our colonial home, drinks in hand, faces calm, both completely blank and uncomfortably puzzled.
“How long?” My mom finally spoke. “How long has this been going on?”
“I don’t know. A while. Six months, maybe.” I was speaking softly now. The fun was long over.
“Six months you’ve been doing this. Why?” My mom was as still as a painting.
I did not have an answer.
“I mean, why? Was it funny? Why did you do this?” She seemed on the verge of being genuinely upset.
“I think originally just, well, you know how I play tricks on you sometimes. I mean, I thought it was funny and you have to admit—those shoes—I mean, that letter … it’s pretty funny.” I could hear my own voice and it sounded like I was trying to convince myself. I was such a jerk.
Then my mom’s face turned. One thing about my mom: She appreciates a good joke. And I had gotten her. And now she knew it. She laughed. Thank God. “This is unbelievable. I mean, what a joke.” She was taking it well. I was relieved. Then my father left the room without saying a word.
“Lou? LOU?! Where are you going? Come in here.”
“I’m going in the other room to watch TV,” he said. He had better things to do.
On that day, the art of the prank more or less died for me. I had gotten such pleasure from the whole thing, but my father’s quiet disappointment erased it all. I don’t blame him for not knowing how to react. Now that it’s in the rearview mirror, I hardly know what it was about, either. An armchair psychologist could maybe surmise that I’d spent so many years hiding my true self from them—my gay self—that once I was out and they knew who I was, there was a hole left where the lies and pretending had been. But then I remember that I’d told them Richard Nixon was dead when I was still in the closet, and I realize maybe I was just being a dick.
Did they get over it? Yes. Did I? Not really. I never played another joke on them again. I guess you could say I became my own man. Though, in truth, Graciela probably paid the greatest price. My mom hasn’t believed a word out of her mouth since.
Ross Perot and me in a rare moment when both of our mouths were shut
BREAKING NEWS
You might be thinking that my emotional maturity was stunted at age thirteen—and if so you may have a point. But when I wasn’t goofing off, my job at CBS had become intense, and often really serious. I was in the thick of a few bona fide disasters—and I don’t mean when we added a live audience. While I loved covering entertainment stories and spectacular events such as the Olympics, I’m most proud of my work in breaking news situations. I was actually on the scene for hurricanes, floods, fires, plane crashes, and the aftermath of a bombing.
The first major disaster I covered for CBS was way bigger than those floods in Petaluma and, ironically enough, in my home state of Missouri. The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers had overflowed simultaneously, covering a massive swath of land. This flood ended up lasting seven months, from April to October, and would become, until Katrina, the most costly and devastating flood in American history.
CBS sent me to Southern Illinois for what was supposed to be just a day, to produce a live shot. I grabbed a rescue worker named Rick Shlepper (in case you didn’t know, in Yiddish that means someone who’s awkward or dumb—I love a name with a double meaning). By the time we went off the air, I was told that I was staying indefinitely and that Harry Smith was coming down to broadcast from a different water-gutted town every day. I spent the next week shooting during the day, writing a script and editing the piece at night, then driving to a new spot and doing it all over again.
My next stop was St. Louis but in a part of town I’d never even seen, and I felt far from home. I was in a neighborhood of low-lying land and tract houses when I met an older man named Rufus White, living on his own. He showed us around his soaked living room—all of his belongings were ruined, the place stank like hell, and the floor was a big muddy puddle. As we surveyed the damage, shoes soggy and noisy, he tried to salvage scraps of keepsakes and knickknacks. I watched him go through his damaged photographs—the record of his life erased by water. When I asked him about his plans for the future, he tried to be optimistic but his voice cracked. At that moment, I realized that I had started to cry.
A few days later, I arrived in Rocheport, Missouri, before my colleagues. It looked like it had once been a beautiful town. My assignment was to book flood victims for the next day’s show. I met a group of wonderful people who were filling sandbags for anybody who needed them in the parking lot of the firehouse. The simple things people were doing for each other felt very Midwestern, and that’s when I finally felt I was indeed back home. I joined them, shoveling sand for several hours and feeling good about helping, rather than just taping and watching. Eventually I hit a wall,
