The Good Ones

I thought you were one of the good ones.

I first noticed you some time ago, when you were already Somebody to my Nobody. Maybe your books helped me through a hard time. Maybe your show was a light when I needed one. Maybe your humor kept me going when nothing else did. Maybe your art opened a window to the world I'd never seen.

You seemed like one of the good ones.

In interviews, you laughed and smiled. You spoke passionately about your causes. You spoke up for colleagues and co-workers, perhaps, or called out an injustice. You were engaging, charismatic, clever. Even though I know, as we all do somewhere inside, that what is seen is not all there is, that there are always masks for every face and shadows for every light, I believed enough of what I saw to think of you as one of the good ones.

As others were outed, as the shark teeth behind the smiles were bared, I still thought you were one of the good ones.

Then the voices, the quiet voices, grew louder. Voices speaking of stalking footsteps in cyberspace and growls in the night, of the monster unmasked in the hotel room. Voices speaking of the light of celebrity used as a firebrand to lure, to burn, to hurt, to blind. Voices speaking of starstruck laughter turned to tears and screams and shame. And though I know I am Nobody to your Somebody, just a forgettable face among the throngs, though I know I am owed nothing, I want to know the truth.

 I want to know if you are one of the bad ones.

 I know there are few clean, clear lines in life. There is very little that is universally good or bad. We all have our masks and our shadows. To me, you may have been the one who helped me through a hard time, the light when I needed one, the window to the world I'd never seen. In some ways, you always will be.

But to someone else... were you the darkness? Were you the shark behind the smile, the light that burned?

Whatever you gave to me, in that intangible osmosis through story or screen, cannot outweigh that. You cannot be one of the good ones to me if you were the bad one to them. Their personal pain outweighs my general joy.

I'm still watching, still waiting. Not all stories are true, after all. Not all smiles hide shark teeth. But there are more voices. And your silence, while not damning, deafens...

I still want to believe that there are good ones.

Please, tell me that some of them are still good ones...