Page 57 of My Own Kind of Person

He lets out a dramatic sigh. “That’s the sacrifice a man must make.”

The alleyway ends at a street of old warehouses with expensive-looking shops. We walk quickly past them.

“I joked about something similar onstage the other night,” I say, and now I’m also talking with my hands. “How if men have an emotion other than anger, then they’re only allowed to express it through humor.”

“You joked about it.”

I stop. “This is what I should tell a story about in class tomorrow.”

“This is what you should do in class tomorrow.”

I squint. “Okay, but what do you mean?”

“Don’t make us laugh. Make us feel.”

I look away. “I hear that, but I also want to beat Jay. And in class the currency is laughter.”

His face contorts. “Says who? Not Mazzei. And not me, if that’s worth anything.”

The feeling I don’t understand flares up again.

Soon Elijah stops in front of a set of metal stairs leading to double doors and a clapboard sign saying Housing Works Bookstore. He holds his hands behind his back and says, “We have reached our destination.”

The place is packed inside. Used books fill shelves so high there are rolling ladders to reach the top. Spiral stairs lead to an indoor balcony where people are sitting at little tables and eating giant cookies. A microphone stands on a small stage in front of rows of white folding chairs. A counter in the back sells coffee and alcohol. A sign explains that everything in the store is donated, everyone who works here is a volunteer, and all the profits go to supporting people living with HIV/AIDS.

Elijah goes straight to the hardcover art books and opens one with black-and-white photos of mostly naked bodies in elegant poses. I’m too overwhelmed to know where to start, but I see a whole wall labeled LGBTQ+. I scan the titles of memoirs, history books, criticism, poetry, and novels. They’re all books I’ve never heard of. How many of these include things the writers once couldn’t allow themselves to think about?

On a stand at eye level is a James Baldwin biography focused on his love life. I take this down along with the others on display: Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story, and Susan Stryker’s Transgender History. They’re all used and very well-priced. I bring them to the register and spend almost all my money to buy them along with a tote bag.

Elijah touches my arm. “The show is starting soon.”

The chairs facing the stage are almost full.

“I thought this was a bookstore.”

We take two seats in the back row. The audience is a mix of ages and skin colors. Everyone has a different fashion sense than people on Long Island, though I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like I haven’t developed the language to understand this place yet.

The host is a big guy with a beard and long gray hair that’s buzzed on the sides. He wears a tie-dye T-shirt under a blazer, with camo shorts and puffy gold sneakers. His nails are painted sparkling blue. He welcomes us to The Moth, and says anyone from the audience can put their name in the tote bag onstage and ten people will be randomly picked to come up and tell a story. The stories will be recorded, and some will go on the podcast and radio show.

“Is this the show Mazzei was talking about?”

Elijah nods. “Are you gonna put your name in?”

“No way,” I say, but I feel the rush of wanting to.

The host pulls a slip of paper out of the tote bag and calls up the first person. A woman shares a story about her daughters seeing pornography before they’d even learned the truth about Santa Claus. Next, a guy talks about how getting fitted for glasses made him realize his face hadn’t been touched by someone else in years. The next person talks about when their mom dated a rich guy. Instead of walking around the stage with the mic like a comedian, the storytellers all stand still at the stationary mic. After each story, the host returns and shares how it made him feel. At the end of a man’s story about his husband passing away, the host hugs him.

The stories are emotional. Heartbreaking. They’re also often hilarious.

A teenager with long dark hair and dark eyeliner gets up, and I adjust my seat. She tells a story about drawing a self-portrait in kindergarten and looking for a crayon that matched her brown skin. It’s thought-provoking and devastating—and, again, hilarious.

I’m so jealous.

Watching her story, I can see how it’s not a question of whether to make the audience laugh or feel. You can do both, and each one makes the other more powerful.

By the end of the show, my body is tingling.

The storytellers chat with one another and exchange contact info. The host talks to the teenager about how she prepared for the performance. They’re not acting like comics after a show, where everyone is trying to one-up each other. They’re genuinely trying to connect.