Chapter 15: Press Coverage

Friday, July 15, 1983

Dr. Danforth caught me again, this time before the assembly, to let me know that the Tribune (in conjunction with the AP) and the Washington Post were sending drafts for review by his office and to my parents. Time was likely to sit on the story and see if it had legs for the dailies, and the Wall Street Journal hadn’t provided any feedback yet.

While I myself technically had no say in the reviews, Dr. Danforth wanted my opinions, and my parents would, too, of course. He asked me to come by before my afternoon class and pick up the copies, assuming they’d been delivered. The hope was to get feedback to them by five. It seemed likely that the pieces wouldn’t run until Sunday, but any changes would have to go through rewrites and copy-editing at the papers and might require another pass by Northwestern and my parents, too, so time was of the essence.

Everyone was excited at lunch. For all I knew, they were excited about nothing. I had no idea if I would be the lead or just a bit player in the stories. That they existed at all was amazing, after all.

Once I knew what was happening, I’d have to call Janet or Lizzie and give them a heads-up. I’d try their parents, since that was the only contact information I had.

Jane would need a call, too, as would Meg. Both of them would kill me if I forgot. For that matter, Principal Riggs might need a call. Maybe Cam Michaels, too, and Carl Brandt? And Tom Myerson? Anderson or Rita?

This was going to be a busy few days.

In the meantime, I called Mikayla and left her a message saying that we’d plan on getting together and to call and leave a message when she arrived, with a fall-back plan of meeting at four in the afternoon at her apartment. I also let her know it would be Northwestern’s dance, so we wouldn’t be able to really get together on Saturday. Sunday, though...

I picked up the drafts just before my afternoon class. When I got to class, I quickly told the teacher about the stories. She chuckled, said I was ahead of her in that regard, and gave me permission to ignore the class and read.

So ... read I did. I went through each piece three times. Both of them were lengthier than I’d expected, and they had clearly done their homework.

The Tribune/AP piece was focused on me. There was a ‘semi-local boy makes good’ take on it, with a nod towards Northwestern for attracting top talent, but the focus was somewhere between ‘look at this guy who’s been in the right place at the right time’ and ‘look at this guy who’s really got it together.’ They had quotes from Dad (‘We couldn’t be prouder of Steve, and his friends are an amazing group of people’), Principal Riggs (‘Steve Marshall is a perfect example of the sort of high-achiever we want to nurture at Memorial. He’s going to do great things - mark my words!’), Cam Michaels (‘Ever since the name Steve Marshall came to my attention, it’s been amazing to watch his progress. He’s one of those people who makes everyone around him better, but that’s partly because he surrounds himself with quality people’), and Meg (‘I had no idea what to expect when Steve walked into my class. Had I known, I probably would have jinxed it. I couldn’t be prouder of my entire team, but Steve stands out even in an elite group’). Those didn’t really surprise me, mostly because I’d thought of them.

They’d also talked to Steffie (‘Somehow Steve flows effortlessly from being analytical and structured to being artistic and creative. He’s quick with a joke or a hug, and I can’t remember him ever being overtly critical of any of his peers in Drama or Debate, yet he gets everyone to up their game.’) and Janet (‘Steve has a knack of getting to know you, even if you’re not easy to get to know, and not only seeing the best in people but making them see it, too. Lizzie and I might have gone to our prom anyway, but Steve was a major part of why it was a celebration rather than a battle.’) I probably should have seen those coming, but I hadn’t.

I’m certain I was blushing by the time I got through all of that. There was more, of course, and it didn’t all focus on me, thankfully. Prom wound its way through the story, giving credit to the Student Council (but not Tom Myerson, which was probably just as well), the cheerleaders (including a mention of Jess, and that we’d dated for a while, which the writer found amusing: ‘In what other school would it seem perfectly normal that the head cheerleader dated a standout debater and thespian for months?’), and a number of other groups.

The upshot of the entire piece was that, knowingly or not, Reagan (or, as the article acknowledged, his speechwriting team) had picked a particularly apt teenager from whom to crib a quote, and that — perhaps — Reagan might do well to listen to more of the things I, and other up-and-comers like me had to say.

This would be quite embarrassing were the Houston Chronicle to pick it up, and my guess is that they would, probably with some local embellishments. On the other hand, I’d been embarrassed before, and publicity is capital. They say that any press is good press. I doubted that, but this was good press. If my profile was going to be raised (which it seemed likely to be), I could do worse.

The other piece was less embarrassing but might amount to more capital than the first, in a way. The Washington Post pretty much followed the thread from ‘open-minded students at Memorial who rocked the boat’ to Reagan’s speech, with a nod towards my off-the-cuff word-smithing (Extemp got a nod there, which it deserved). They interviewed the writer who first found my quote, verified that he knew the context, and from that built a picture of some brief infighting over whether it was a good idea to put words in Reagan’s mouth that were, at their core, supportive of gays. While the article didn’t provide proof positive, it certainly advanced the case that Reagan had approved the inclusion knowing of the underlying meaning.

The Post, of course, used that to nudge Reagan on whether his actions would live up to his words, and whether this was simply ‘We’ll take everyone, as long as you vote Republican and don’t make waves’ or instead a commitment to make the Republican Party more of an actual ‘big tent’ where some differences were acknowledged and accepted.

Most likely someone in the White House would read both pieces, but the Post’s piece might well trigger a ripple or two. How big? Who knew? Reagan was much more likely to listen to the Phyllis Schlaflys of the world than the Steve Marshalls, but ... who knew?

Historians would, in the future, note that Reagan, as an actor, governor, and union leader, had quite a number of gay friends and wasn’t standoffish with them. It was the way Hollywood was, after all. He just hadn’t acknowledged that politically, nor particularly openly. The Post’s piece didn’t call him out on that directly, but it opened up a can of worms that some other reporter could easily use to connect the dots.

The old Chinese curse came to mind: ‘May you live in interesting times.’ These times were definitely going to be interesting, especially for those few of us who knew what these years had looked like without some crazy Memorial students throwing monkey wrenches around.

I called home after class was out. Dad had gotten home early so that he’d have time to read through the articles. We both agreed that we were fine with everything in both of them.

Dad was, for the most part, still thrilled that Reagan had quoted me — his son! — in a speech. He was equally thrilled with the idea that Reagan might take some inspiration from me and from my friends. It made me happy that I hadn’t really changed Dad in this regard. He’d always (in my experience, at least) felt that gay people were just people, and should be judged like anyone else and deserved the same opportunities and happiness. He would never have been political about it before, but his sense of fundamental fairness dovetailed with mine, which made it much easier for me to be political about it.

That, and his daughter was now directly affected. I’m sure that mattered, too. Dad would’ve gone to battle with anyone who slighted Angie, after all. He was able to juggle that with the Lutheran prohibition against homosexuality and wind up accepting both. But, then, as the Bible says, ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’ There was, of course, an injunction to ‘sin no more,’ but one would have to agree that Angie was sinning, and both Dad and Mom seemed to have decided that she wasn’t, or at least that it was sufficiently arguable to avoid being an issue.

Once I’d checked in with Dad, I let Dr. Danforth know that we were fine. He was going to call Dad anyway, and Northwestern wanted a few tiny tweaks, but it looked like pretty much everyone approved.

After that, I quickly ran through my list of others to call. I left messages for Meg, Steffie, Principal Riggs, and Cam Michaels, thanking each of them for their kind words. I left Jane a message with a bit of detail, and Tom Myerson simply a message to check out Sunday’s Chicago Tribune and Washington Post, along with saying that none of it would have happened without him.

Once all that was done, I caught up to Cammie and her/our friends in the library, where we proceeded to get nothing done as they grilled me about the articles. I found the whole thing amusing because it mirrored my life so well. Just as I’d been trying hard to play down everything around Laura, Cammie was trying hard to not show just how much all of this meant to her personally, since she hadn’t told anyone at Northwestern her secret. Realistically, how could she? Piss off the wrong confidante and her life would be ruined.

I briefly talked with Angie and Jas at dinner, and we agreed to plan a meeting with Laura. After that, I checked with Laura and verified that she agreed. The plan was to meet at the student center. Risky, but I didn’t want Laura to know about the apartment just yet. I’m not sure why, and it’s possible that she already knew, but ... well, better safe than sorry?

Cammie and I, along with her friends, agreed to keep working on Debate in the evening. Next week would be our first round of actual Debate rounds and we wanted to be ready.

While we were doing that, Angie and Paige headed off to the apartment, and Jas got together with some friends of hers to practice some lines for a play they were working on. The pace here wasn’t really lower than that at USC, but it’d been clear for a while that the pressure was different, both external and internal. Jas, Paige, and Angie were all having a great time even as they plowed through a heavy workload.

Some of it was undoubtedly a year of better time-management skills, maturity, and our all working to keep Impostor Syndrome at bay. I’d verified that some of it was also that Northwestern’s Drama coaches were more into nurturing and less into yelling.

Saturday, July 16, 1983

I slept in for the first time in a while. I’d warned Cammie that I might be late for breakfast. She, in turn, had said she’d leave a note for the others, because she might be late, too.

As it turns out, we were all late, as in ... brunch. Or, at least, lunch eaten as the first meal of the day.

Everyone was in good spirits. I hoped that would continue, because my hope was that we could get together in the evening.

Cammie and I wound up spending much of the day working, as did Jas, Angie, and Paige. At dinner, Jas and I made it clear that we’d be heading to the apartment. No one would walk there to look for us except in an emergency, and we could always say that we’d changed plans.

Angie gave Paige an excuse, too, I’m pretty sure, as they went their separate ways after dinner.

Half an hour later found the four of us at a group of four chairs as far away from anyone else as possible. Unless someone was actively trying to eavesdrop on us, and could read lips or had amplifying microphones, we were probably safe.

First Angie, then Laura, and then I told our stories. We tried to be brief, but it was impossible to miss the pain in each story, nor the happiness with how things were going this time.

In particular, Laura really did seem to be much more settled now. If she was still harboring grudges, she was hiding them well.

Jas asked few questions. I was sure Angie was going to get a bunch later, and Laura might, too. Jas and Laura were the only two of us who had no direct connection, after all, and while Laura might (correctly) decide that Jas was on my ‘side,’ she was still free of any past-life resonances.

What seemed to fascinate Jas the most wasn’t us, but our three different starting universes. We’d found a few little differences in Laura’s along the way. In hers, John Lennon was still alive, for instance. Mark Chapman had still tried to kill him, but had missed any vital organs on the one shot that actually hit Lennon. Her world had the assassination attempt on Reagan, but the Secret Service had shot Hinckley, and Reagan had only been grazed.

Jas shook her head. “So, somewhere out there, are presumably Jasmine Two, Three, and Four, going about their business, all of them likely unaware of Steve or Angie or ... well, any of this. That feels weird.”

“It’s worse,” Angie said. “Or, better. Or ... bigger?”

“How so?” Laura said.

“Our friend Candice tried to kill herself during our freshman year,” Angie said. “Steve and I are the only reason she lived, pretty much. Now, maybe someone else played that role in other universes, but I’d bet she’s dead in most of them.”