The Early Years


Istarted strong, the firstborn of identical twin boys, leading my reluctant brother out into the world by seven minutes flat, give or take a moment to suspend my infant’s disbelief in the delivery room. By the time he finally emerged, feetfirst, tangled in his umbilical cord and placid in the obstetrician’s forceps, I had already taken my welcome smack, wailed my way into the human race, while sure hands cut my own cord, wiped me down, and bundled me in swaddling clothes. I had a name: William, chosen by my father, who had coveted it for himself since childhood. In the turmoil of the coming years my parents would consider changing my name to Guillaume, in honor of the student protests in Paris (this was 1968), and later, after a trip to Mexico, where they toured the countryside in search of armed insurrectionists and returned with the perfect dining- room set, they toyed with calling me Guillermo. My parents were still in their Anglophilic stage when we were born, and chose a fitting name for my brother: Clive. Clive narrowly escaped becoming Claude—they were, at least, consistent—and Chico. 

In their fondest dreams, then, the universe was ruled over by the Warren Supreme Court, and following the precedent of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), they believed their children would be guaranteed an equal opportunity to grow and thrive. The recent Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) ruling held that, no matter how helpless or indigent, we would always have a voice in family matters. We endured no cutesy nicknames in our formative y...