a friendship, some allegations of heinous shit, and what i believe

[elisem]

I’ve known Neil Gaiman since the very early nineties, when Mike said a friend was coming to a local book-centric fantasy convention and that we should look after him.  Apparently he sounded trepidatious or something; Mike said something about how of course there were the comics but the friend said he’s only written one book and he only wrote half of that. Sure, Mike, we can make your friend welcome. So we did. I wrote elsewhere about how this left me for some years with a habit of checking in on Neil at events or when he had a recording session where I worked. I'd go by to see how he was doing, ask whether he'd eaten lately, see if he needed anything. I didn't quite march over and tell him to put on a sweater, but it was like that. (He always had a leather jacket; a sweater wasn't necessary.) 

 

Over the decades there were shared meals in various cities, late night convention conversations, visits to the house, gatherings and parties, some with musicals written by Mike because Neil had made a typo on the invitation too good for Mike to resist. For many years I've navigated to Neil’s house by singing  the American Pie filk Mike wrote about Neil's invitation to his annual Guy Fawkes Day party which contained the driving directions. One verse ended “The tower lights will be alive; you’ll see the house as you arrive. But do not park upon the drive!” because that last bit was emphasized on the invitation.

 

Mike and Neil meant a lot to each other. Back in the day, watching the two of them talk writing at a restaurant or sushi bar or a room at a convention late at night was a true delight. When Mike died, Neil helped me through the aftermath. He gave one of the eulogies. He did kind things. He wrote a foreword for Mike’s posthumously published book Aspects which was pretty much another eulogy. He told me it was the hardest thing he ever had to write, and that we were very lucky to have had Mike in our lives.

 

One time at the house Neil gave me beeswax from his beehives. I used it to make pendants where meteorite dust was sealed into tiny corked glass bottles with the beeswax and sterling silver wire. Stardust in a bottle.

 

For decades, my metric for buying a new pair of glasses was that whichever one made me wonder what Neil would think of it was the one I'd probably buy.

 

He took me to my first Tori Amos concert many years ago.

 

So yeah, I’ve been friends with Neil for somewhere upwards of three decades.

 

After the news broke, I walked through my house, and every room had something Neil had written, or some art or music that he had introduced me to, or something he had given me. He's woven through so many memories, with Mike and without. I looked through various correspondence, all the notes with "So much love to you," all the snippets of news and shared silliness. Years. Decades.

 

And you know what? Not one bit of that cancels out any of what the survivors say. He's been my friend for a long time. And I believe them. Which is a tangled set of feelings from one angle, but from another perspective what rings true to me is clear. I believe them.

 

When I see people saying “Oh, everybody knew,” I shake my head. Everybody did not know. I didn’t know. Nobody in any of the whisper networks told me, or warned me, or asked me to help anyone who had been hurt. And I never figured it out for myself. When the news broke, I was shocked.

 

Thinking back, I wondered whether anyone had thought he must be OK to be around because of people like me who were his friends. It's happened before. I don't like being used as cover. 

 

I went through the house gathering the silly goth keepsakes, birthday party souvenirs from New Orleans, bottles and bottles of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab prototypes of scents inspired by his work which he’d had me on the test squad for, and the books. The souvenirs went in a storage box. They can sit there until I know what I want to do with them. All I know right now is that I do not want to look at them every day the way I used to. I took the stardust pendants out of my Etsy shop. The books that were signed but not personalized went up on eBay. I was already planning to put these up to pay bills. Did you know that RAINN is one of the charities to which eBay will automatically route a percentage of your choosing when the item sells? Now half will go to bills, and half* to RAINN.

 

What I say to my friend when we next talk will be between me and him. What I most want to say is "You know fairy tales. You WRITE fairy tales. What did you think was going to happen??"

 

I’m angry. I’m sad and I’m angry. I’ll probably be sad and angry for a long while. None of my sadness and anger matters one one-millionth as much as the survivors and how they are doing. They are what's important here. 

 

I believe the survivors. I believe the ones we’ve heard from, and the ones we haven’t heard from, and the ones we will probably never hear from because, as the songwriter said, this world is shaped to have his back. It took more courage for the survivors to speak out than most people will ever know. Listen. 

* (edited to add) Now 100% is going to RAINN on the things that are left.

Comments

[laurel]

Much love to you and I appreciate you posting this. Have been thinking of you (and others) and not sure what to say privately or publicly. As I’m sure you understand, I’ve been reeling.

I also wound up watching out for Neil occasionally at cons and events. (Heavy sigh.) Trying to make things easier for him. (So much sighing.)

What you said about being sad & angry is where I’m at too. So angry and sad.

I think it actually is a sign of progress that at least in the places I hang out online, I’ve not seen people defending or excusing Neil. There’s been silence in places where I think if this had happened years ago, we might’ve seen “but he was always nice to me” sorts of comments, implying they didn’t believe the stories.

And one reason I think the silence is impressive is because Neil was nice to a lot of people. Which makes this all so shocking and appalling and bad. He’s tied into so much stuff in so many places (comics, SF/Fantasy books, TV, movies, music) and so many communities. The fallout and repercussions are enormous (if you had a thing tied to Neil in each room, well it’s a bit like that in the larger world of the arts too).

I have seen some people say “he was always nice to me” but only after saying how horrified they are over what has come out and that they had no idea. A lot of people were fooled.

I’ve sent a couple private messages to people I know who publicly said basically “I liked him, he was my friend, I had no idea, maybe if I traveled in comics or science fiction/fantasy circles I’d’ve known” and I write to tell them that no, that wouldn’t have helped. Lots of people in those circles had no idea. Not that I had the heart to go out and try to confirm that, but I have to have a bit of faith in my community. What a horrifying and heartbreaking idea to think that everyone knew.

I first met Neil when I was 19. I first went to a party at his house when I was 22. So. Yeah. I would hope if our mutual friends also going to those same parties knew anything, they would’ve warned me.

You know where to find me if you ever want to rant/vent/talk about this stuff. I haven’t talked much about it publicly because it’s very hard (and I didn’t know Neil as well as you nor did we have nearly as many interactions as you did). I believe the survivors. I’m angry and sad. Looking back and reframing interactions over 3 decades and trying to figure out if I missed signs has not been my favorite, that’s for sure. (But as you say, our sadness and anger doesn’t matter as much compared the survivors. It still really sucks though.)