“But there it was, in the story.I’d written it and had to confront it and learn to live with it.” It was like the line out of another story in this book, “ All the Lies That Are My Life,” where I mention the ugliness of simply being human. But I hadn’t thought of that line then. And the interviewer didn’t quite know what to say to me. What the hell can you say to some dude sitting there copping to wanting his mother to pass away?

Well, it was one of those call-in radio shows, and we started taking calls from Salt Lake citizens who were pissed off at an “outsider” coming in to tell them that Utah’s not ratifying the ERA was a sinful and mischievous act. And then, suddenly, there was a woman on the line, coming over the headphones to me in that soundproof booth, with tears in her voice, saying to me, “Thank you. Thank you for telling that about your mother. My mother was dying of cancer and I had the same thoughts and I hated myself for it. I thought I was the only person in the world who ever thought such an awful thing, and I couldn’t bear it. Thank you. Oh, thank you.”

And I thought of that heartrending scene in Jack Gelber’s play, The Connection, where the old Salvation Army sister who has been turned into a medical junkie by inept doctors says to this apartment full of stone-righteous street hypes, “You are not alone. You are not alone.”

I damned near started to cry myself. I wanted to hug that nameless woman out there in Salt Lake City somewhere, hug her and say you are not alone.