a husky african-american guy and the guy basically propositions them. proposes a three way. they decided he seems like a great guy. they tell him about their b and b. the innamong the flowers. it doesn't mean anything because it was camouflage night at the full moon saloon. we felt compelled to tidy up.

and reaging toilet. you force him to shower. we stashed it in the closet. he grabbed a razor and headed for the stall. you better be faithful about it. it's down right inhospitable. he was dressed in a while, v-neck tee shirt. nothing.

just wondering about the dress code. where your dress pants. you look hot in those. did you see my ring? i swear you would lose your head if it wasn't attached. this was my mother. i wondered if her death would release me or if i was doomed to norman bates territory. he will be here in five minutes. half an hour later, after i squeezed. we were awkward as wall flowers. the lamp was already blazing

with intensity. my growing hard on >> he seemed amenable. he got cold feet? may be he lost interest. ben shrugged. who knows. i would be with us in the second. i am serious. don't you feel abandoned. it's a three way honey, i don't think two people can feel abandoned. he might be late. i looked at the clock again. 25 minutes. only hustlers can get away with that. he's not a hustler? ben turned and looked at me.

you think i bought us a hustler? how pathettic tic do you think we are? >> i sort of felt like he targeted us. i didn't get that sense. may be i'm wrong. ben smiled. you are disappointed. no , i said, no just annoyed. he pulled down the waist band. i don't need a mercy suck. he looked up. mercy suck. whatever. undeterred ben got down to business. mercy i said, there was when

mr. johnson knocked on the door. you may have figured it out by now. to us, he was still the great dark man. a mythical man or object to desire. it was probably why we jumped to attention. jesus. tucking the incriminating evidence. wait. let this go down first. >> why? i don't know. seems rude. ben widened his eyes at me. did you learn that from miss manners. i hid myself. this probably made me look

grand. that somehow seemed preferable. men opened the door. he was standing there. i'm sorry fellows. come on in. our visitor shot a quick glance. can we get you something to drink? remaining seated. there's a soda machine. no thanks. did you have a hard time finding us. i'm michael i said. finally standing. this is ben. he shook our hands.

i'm patrees. i am worried that it might make me squirm. i found it hospitable. that it put he more at easy. we're glad you came. patrice smiled. ben caught my guy. he began to rearrange the forskin. it seemed to swell. when he removed it, he said, i open it's okay. i'm sort of a kiss pig.

no problem. as i caught my breath. ben removed. he reported getting a big laugh. i should tell you something. i am used to this moment arising. i tried to make it easier for him. we always play safe. so it's something else. we waited for the penny to drop. i do your momma's hair. this simply did not compute. ben looked up at him completely open mouthed.

what he murmured. i do his momma's hair. in this moment of raw revelation. the obvious pride she showed in her new hair dresser. i thought you were a woman. how did you about who we were? >> she has a picture of y'all in her room. y'all by waterfall. she talks about you all the time. jesus said ben. what are the chances of this?

patrice shrugged. why didn't you say something earlier? they ain't going to happen with your momma in the conversation. i liked the way he naild that down. i felt bad about it later. i almost didn't come. i need a break from here and it might as well be y'all. how often does he get her hair done. i do her make up too. you cover up the blue.

she has emphysema. she got to worrying about it. it must have been lennor. she looks really good. i like to work on old ladies. no one objected. he pulled me closer. within seconds he had us both in hand. like an eager barby doll. sorry. every now and then, my own visuals overwhelm me. then he went down on both.

i can understand why my editor didn't want this. then we went down, never neglecting either one of us. ben pulled my face into his and kissed me. in a three way, there's always the danger of being left out. i never felt unwelcome on the ride. by the time we were naked, by the time i shot my load, i rolled it on to patrice. he came on all fours. never touches himself. i know because i was under

neath, catching the flash. ben stayed there. his heart beating hard. then my cell phone rang. it's programmed to ring like an old 40's ring. leave it said ben. from the middle of the panting stack of men. nobody move said ben. there was a brief silent. or at least when i do. sorry. that's okay said ben. patrice lled off the bed. then he flickinged it into the

toilet. what's this? his head was on my which of the now. that's an orchid. it keeps coming back. one with of those extra touches that mean a lot. he stared down at this offering. it don't look right somehow. i know. especially with a condom on it. he cleaned up at the sink. he started gathering up his clothes. hang with us for a while.

busy day tomorrow. >> my other job, bacheloret party. i strip for private parties. that's what this is for. he was stepping into his fatigues. apparently impressed. it ain't worth the bus fair half the time. patrice shrubbed. if a sister has a plate of ribs, there's no way to held her attention. ben and i laughed. i'm serious.

tickled to his response. i am up there working my ass off and they are sitting down there with their press on nails. tough crowd. they say they like the mens, he drew out the last. but they don't like the mens like the mens. they don't tip as good either. he came to the bed until we came his naked book ends. he laid there for a while. be well my brothers. he said at the door. [applause]

>> i want first to introduce margaret cooley who writes nonfiction and poetry. also with us from boston but having stepped off the plain from dublina daniel to be lynn a writer at emer son college. i want to start by reflecting back that those of you folks endeavored to reveal hidden histories of your family lives. we have spoken in advanced of today's conversation. it's clear to me you pursued the

stories of your families histories for decades through genealogical work and writing and reflection. i'm wondering if can describe how you dot work you do and where the seeds of your curiousity, how they were planted and want compelled you to do this work. >> i would say that i was have much inspired since i lived in san francisco, california. we are a country of immigrants. in san francisco in particular, we have so many first generation americans. my husband is just became an american citizen a couple of months ago. i have friendlieds who are first generation from vietnam. palestine, israel. mexico, as i watch them struggling with their cultural

identities and trying to maintain the identities and have the respect as the american citizens they are in this country, it got me to thinking about my family heritage and thinking about how history really does repeat itself. because i know that my people want through these same issues in the famine times when they came. and i thought to myself, why are not more of these stories being told? we need to collect these stories. i am at an age where my parents and their cousins, their siblings, they are getting close end of their life. one of the main ways i collect my information is through oral history i knew time was on the

essense. there were stories that would be lost if i didn't collect these stories immediately. and that's what i embarked upon doing. >> i grew up in brooklyn, new york. my experience was landing by birth into an urban town land. my family, my mother is first generation i'm second generation. my grand mother lived in the apartment building with us. i had aunts upstairs. another aunt lived close by. pretty much 4 days a week my great uncle would come in and visit all of these people my uncle, my grand mother and so forth, all were from a town land called outside of robin. when i was growing up i would hear the names.

and they would conjure the sense of another world i was no longer a part of but was connected to. i think the -- i came to the brink of this sort of, you know, really quest gradualy by hearing the names. the other experience i had when i was growing up is music in my grand mother's house. my grand mother live on the first floor of the apartment building the door was open. everyone in the apartment building stopped there after work. they would stop for a drink and play polka, not polka, poker. and lynched to john gibbons play an accordion on his wooden leg. you had the sense of people having come over if not in mass by a great number to this other place with a kind of echo of that place being transposed into

the world that became my world. so that of my mother's side of the family. my father's side was more mysterious. over time i heard stories of lost aunts and saint john >> new found land which is not where they are from and a deeper echo further back. i had my grandfather's passport from 1918, you could smell the must on it. all of the mysterious presences were there. my father's side was a mystery which we will get to eventually. and the third component is similar to what margaret was talking about. i irish american. i didn't know what a pure american was. none of my friends were pure

americans. a lot of my friends were lebanese and from syria. i had yewish and irish american friends. all of our identities were mixed. my sense of being american was being in a mix of things. >> margaret could you also reflect in a prior conversation you talked about your father had a sense of where he came from and it was a little more difficult for your mom to articulate that? >> sure. mother's side is irish american my father come from a different heritage. he is a genealogy.

he traced his family all the way back to the times when they moved from spain to a region of france. that's where his family came from as peasants in 1850. and for generations, his family members had been going back to this place to visit their distant cousins. they knew exactly where it was. i was thinking that was a year after my irish american family came here. why don't my irish american family know this information. i want to try to find out what it is. i didn't know at that time what i was undertaking. i heard it said with irish american it's not genealogy it's

archaeology. i found out about that later. it's exciting to hear the nuts and bolts experience of discovery. and at the same time i know i heard from both of you that a very spiritual and unmeasurable experience happens of people come alive in the histories of your family's lives. i was wondering if you could bring alive for the audience the individuals or characters of your family's history and also if you can both reflect on this point that daniel's making of the importance in going to the lands and seeing what is there. what that experience was like for you personally. >> i thought i would read a bit at this point. i think this is a good point for that for me. and so you will hear a little bit of what my writings been like in this experience when i went to ireland for the first

time in january of 2007. i was actually lucky enough to find a man in his late 80's who lived in the same area that my family had lived in the 1800's who had been the oral historyian for the area and was able to know that my family had been there and i was able to confirm that with actually in the records, in the library. and so i will read a couple of pages. seems like the right time to introduce this. >> where we from in require land, mom? she replay plied. my father says the lacies are from tip rare the name of a city in require land, mom, which is it? is how the hell do i know. all i know is it's a long way to

tib rary ♪it's a long way to go. then she told me, your father and i went to ireland but we didn't go to tibrare. this is the extent of the family history passed on to me about my irish american ancestory a song written in england in world war one perhaps written as a means to recruit the irish into the british military. i am the first person in my family to locate and travel to the town where we came from in ireland. it turns out that the town is only 60 miles southwest of the dublin airport. place my family lived is 75 miles from dublin. it is 2007 and i'm sitting in the tibrare studies department in the library in require land looking for books and reading

the microfilm of every county tibrare daily nurl from january first 1847 through december 31st 1849. i'm looking for family history and in particular one ancestor who disapeered between 1848 and 1849. james lacy. from what i read in these local newspapers is looks like the people's history of require land during the great hunger, my people's history, was never record indeed books. nor barely mentioned in any newspapers. you will only find mention of the local people if something unusual happened. the librarian tells me. i read the newspaper so i know that unusual is the polite word for murdered or murderer. why else would a poor person's name apeer in the