u/M0506

Lyle, Erik, Jose, and Kitty were the only people to witness the events inside the Menendez house on August 20, 1989. By the next day, Lyle and Erik were the only two still alive who could give an account of what happened. And yet, they present a story that is far from likely to get them acquitted of murder and get them either convicted of manslaughter or acquitted on grounds of self-defense. They do this despite the fact that there is no one alive who can contradict them about what was said the night they killed their parents, and despite the fact that the shotguns were never found. They have years to come up with a better story with more details in their favor, and they never do.

Here are five pretty simple ways they could have done it.

Have Jose or Kitty find the shotguns, and call Lyle and Erik into the room

Trial lawyers like to talk about "bad facts" - facts that are not helpful to their side of the case and are helpful to the other side instead. One of the "bad facts" in the Menendez case is that Lyle and Erik entered the family room carrying shotguns. If you're Lyle and Erik and you're making up a story to save yourself from the gas chamber, why keep that "bad fact" at all? Why not say something like...

"We bought the shotguns for protection, and then when we brought them back home, we hid them in [place]. On the night of the twentieth, our dad yelled for us to come to the family room, so we did. He was sitting on the couch with our mom, and the shotguns were on the table. 'Boys,' our dad said. He sounded angrier than we'd ever heard him. 'Where did these come from, and why the fuck were they in [place]?'"

You've made Jose the person who got the guns out in the first place, and made him the reason why Lyle and Erik are in the room. The bad fact is no longer part of your version of events. Plus, you've made Jose be angry as hell, giving Lyle and Erik a reason to be afraid.

Say you picked up the guns only to keep them away from your parents - or, alternatively, say one or both parents reached for the guns

"I was afraid he might try to shoot us, so I grabbed both shotguns and handed one to Erik."

Alternatively:

"My dad/my mom lunged at the shotguns, and I yelled. I grabbed both of them and handed one to Erik."

Continue.

"'Dad,' I said, 'I love you. I don't want to hurt you. But what you're doing to Erik has to stop. We're going to go upstairs and pack, and then we're leaving here and we're not coming back.'"

Extra "points" for adding an attempt to leave the house.

Have Jose and Kitty say things that one, are enraging, and two, emphasize that Lyle and Erik have no chance of escape

Present Jose and Kitty as really escalating the volatility of the situation. "My mom looked at Lyle, and then suddenly she laughed this weird, choked-out sort of laugh. 'You think you're leaving here and not coming back?' she said. 'No, Lyle, you're not. You two are staying right here until your father and I say you can leave.'

"My dad started shouting, 'Leave and do what? Live on your own? You two won't last a week in the real world. You'll turn up on our doorstep begging to move back in.' Then all of a sudden he stopped shouting and looked at us. 'Lyle,' he said quietly, 'this is the last time I'll say this. It's none of your business what I do with my son.'" Maybe have him get really explicit - 'it's none of your business if I want to' X, Y, or Z, with X, Y, and Z being various sex acts or ways to hurt Erik. "'There is nowhere you two can go where I can't find you.'"

Emphasize an imminent threat of sexual violence, and portray Kitty as having explicitly condoned it

"My dad looked away from me and looked right at Erik. 'Now,' he said, 'you two are going to put those guns down. And then Erik is coming upstairs with me.' And my mom said, 'Do as your father says.'"

Have Kitty grab a shotgun after the first shot is fired

Example. "[Lyle or Erik] shot our dad, and our mom screamed. She grabbed [Lyle or Erik's] shotgun and tried to pull it away from him, and [Erik or Lyle] shot her." Detract from the prosecution's portrayal of Kitty as this meek battered woman, and turn her into someone who's trying to seize a shotgun that will make her an active physical threat to her sons. Remember, the shotguns have never been recovered, so as far as anyone knows, Kitty's fingerprints are all over one.

There is no physical evidence that contradicts anything in this story. It makes Jose and Kitty into clear and imminent threats to their sons' safety, and has them say things that are so incendiary that a reasonable person might shoot them without taking time to think about it. (One of the classic manslaughter scenarios is of a person who witnesses something enraging, "sees red," and kills another person without having time to think about it. Law professors like to teach this with the example of a man who comes home early from work, finds his best friend in bed with his wife, immediately grabs the gun on top of the dresser, and shoots them both dead before he's had time to premeditate the act.) It's not a perfect story. It can't be a perfect story, because you can't erase the evidence that someone reloaded one of the guns to shoot Kitty further times.

But it's a hell of a lot better than, "After Lyle confronted our dad, we kept getting these weird vibes from our parents. When they shut a door, we figured they were going to kill us, so we grabbed shotguns, entered the room, and shot them to death." If Lyle and Erik's account of the night of the murders is a made-up story designed to save them from execution, it's a feeble effort. (And definitely not what you'd expect from an aspiring screenwriter like Erik.)

The prosecution maintained that Lyle and Erik crafted highly detailed false stories of years of sexual abuse. All that time creating a sexual abuse narrative, and not even a few hours to come up with a better story about the night of the murders? Nope. They're telling the truth about what happened the night of the murders, because anyone with an average IQ and a will to live could invent a better story more likely to keep them out of the gas chamber.

(He says it’s okay if I post this on Reddit.)

Since April, Hawk and Tim have taken over so much of my brain that, despite my better judgment, I felt like I needed my husband to watch “Fellow Travelers” so I could talk to someone IRL who was familiar with the show. My husband is very sensitive and at first I told him, “You should never, ever watch this show – it’s really emotional and devastating.“ Then, after maybe two months, I cracked. “Can you watch ‘Fellow Travelers’ with me? I know I said you should never, ever watch it, but I need to talk to someone else who’s seen it.”

Okay, he said. It sounded really emotional, but he could get through it. So over the course of June and July, we squeezed in episodes when we could. (Go to sleep, kids, your parents want to watch Hawk and Skippy’s doomed love affair.)

I knew my husband was getting invested in the series, because sometimes he’d spontaneously bring it up or ask a question about it. But he seemed to be doing okay with it emotionally. Then we got to the last episode.

Hawk and Tim see each other for the last time, and Tim, Marcus, and the other protesters invade the governor’s event. Cut to the AIDS quilt in 1987.

I’m sitting forward on the couch and my husband is leaning back. And I hear this quiet little voice behind me say, “Tim died?”

Yeah, I told him. Tim died.

Hawk finds Tim’s quilt panel. Looking at it, my husband reads out loud, “Beyond measure.” And then I hear this wretched, anguished sob. My husband is gasping for breath with tears streaming down his face. So I sat back and held him.

”Sweetheart, he wasn’t my friend.” My husband is crying with his head resting on my shoulder. “He was the man I loved.” Now my husband is sobbing so hard that I’m hoping the kids don’t wake up.

He cried for around ten minutes after we turned off the TV. He actually told me, “I’m sorry you had to go through this [watching the series] alone the first time.” He said he related to how Hawk felt that he didn’t have a choice about some things in his life and he had to do them whether he wanted to or not because he felt they were necessary. (I asked him what things in his own life were things where he felt he didn’t have a choice. He said, “I don’t know…nothing about you.” I suspect this is related to his parents, but I didn’t push it.)

While watching previous episodes, he’d commented things like, “Yeah…Hawk is just gone for Tim” and “You can see how they could be really happy.” (He said the last one when Hawk carried Tim to the bedroom in the Christmas episode.) A couple days after we finished the series, my husband asked me, “What was Tim’s middle name again?”

David, I said.

“Yeah. ‘Timothy David Laughlin. That adorable Catholic boy from Staten Island.’” For whatever reason, that line stuck with him.

We were at a family event and I heard him telling his stepdad how we’d watched this series. “It’s a love story between two men. It starts in the ‘50s – one of the guys gets married, because, you know, it was the ’50s, right. It takes place over a few decades and there’s some stuff about the AIDS crisis. It’s a really good show. I cried like a baby at the end.”

He says he’s glad we watched it, even though it was so sad. ❤️

A few other thoughts from my husband:

He wondered whether McCarthy (as presented as a character here) was gay, or if he raped and harassed men to assert dominance, “like guys in prison.”

When Hawk told Jackson there was nothing wrong with him: “He didn’t listen.”

When Senator Smith said he didn’t know what to tell people about why Hawk hadn’t gotten married, my husband was convinced Smith had figured out Hawk was gay, and was really surprised when that wasn’t the case.

When I said that “Fordham, history“ was a lame explanation for the cufflinks: “No, that’s something Tim might actually do. Tim is kind of a dork that way.”

When Tim is leaving Hawk’s apartment after accidentally sleeping over: ”His glasses. Shit, he forgot his glasses. Oh, they’re by the scotch glass.”

For some reason, he thought it was really funny when Frankie said he was going to make Marcus a sweet potato pie, and Marcus said, “What, on the hot plate?“ 😂 He was also more invested in Marcus and Frankie as a couple than I was.

He thought the actor who played Jackson really, really looked like he could be Hawk and Lucy’s son, physically speaking.

He was aghast that Cohn’s mom would have a plastic surgeon operate on baby Roy’s nose. (I should perhaps mention that our older daughter has an actual birth defect, on her left hand, and we just sort of rolled with it.)

When Schine is on the phone, talking to Cohn about how they should hang out and do things they can’t do around women: “Wow, he’s laying it on really thick.”

He thought Hawk’s monologue to Dave about holding Tim in the hospital bed was awesome.

In the 1950s, he’s working for the State Department in the Bureau of Congressional Relations. In 1979, he tells Tim that he’s on sabbatical. “My reward for years of faithful service to the Diplomatic Corps.” Not to ask a dumb question, but how does Hawk work for years in the Diplomatic Corps without being posted to a different country until 1986? Does he work with foreign diploma who are in Washington?

If I had to guess, I’d say that after working with Mary for a while, Hawk noticed that she never seemed to have the slightest romantic interest in men, and correctly intuited that she was a lesbian. Then one day while Miss Addison was out of the office, he made some oblique comment about himself that would indicate to those “in the know” that he was gay. (Sorry – homosexual. 😉)

It’s a really interesting question to me, because Hawk is so heavily closeted and high-profile as an “eligible bachelor,“ and because Mary being a woman means that she’d never be at any of the cruising spots for gay men. (I figure Hawk and George probably found out about each other from seeing each other in a men‘s room late at night, or something along those lines.)

The cover may have pictured the boy wearing a dark suit. His mother is a widow, and every time the boy has a seizure, he and his mother move to a brand new location – possibly under aliases? His mother is afraid people will see him have a seizure and think he’s insane, and he’ll be confined to a “madhouse.” There might have been a part where he walks a long way down the bank of a river.

Thanks in advance! 🙂

This was a YA paperback I found at the public library sometime in the late ‘90s, but I know the book was from the ‘80s. The cover featured three or four girls wearing scrunchies and possibly sitting at a cafeteria table.

Fleur, who’s in junior high, was held back a grade at her old school. Her new friends don‘t know, and, with her birthday coming up, they all assume she’s turning a year younger than she’s actually turning. Fleur is planning to have a sleepover for her birthday party, but her (younger?) brother doesn’t want her to. He says that last time she had a slumber party, the other girls spent all night squealing, “Ooh! I love Jon Bon Jovi!”

Fleur is afraid that if her friends find out she was held back, they’ll all start chanting, “Fleur flunked!”

This book was the first time I ever heard of Jon Bon Jovi, and for a few years, I thought his first name was Jon Bon and his last name was Jovi. 😂

Not only is “Skippy“ the nickname Hawk gives Tim after the first time they have sex, but it’s a nickname that no one else ever uses. Hawk establishes that Tim is his boy, calls him Skippy for the first time, and, when Tim asks why, tells him, “That’s what I’m gonna call you…it suits you.” Tim belongs to Hawk; therefore, Hawk gets to name him. After that, Hawk only rarely addresses him by his actual name.

We see in Episode Three that in the context of their relationship, names are powerful to Hawk. It’s not enough for him that Tim says, “I belong to you” – it has to be, “I belong to Hawkins Fuller.“ Not even just “I belong to Hawk.“ First and last. If he liked his middle name, he probably would have insisted on that, too.

1957 happens. Hawk and Tim have a passionate reunion, Tim is basically Hawk’s “male mistress” for a while, Hawk betrays Tim to M Unit, Tim sees baby Jackson and realizes that Hawk’s new family is where his priorities need to be now. The romantic relationship is thoroughly severed.

Fast-forward to 1968. The first thing Hawk says upon seeing Tim for the first time in eleven years is, “Nice to see you, Skippy. Or is it Father Skippy now?” Translation: You’re still mine, even if we haven’t seen each other in over a decade and you might be joining the priesthood.

This is the part where it would be reasonable for Tim to raise his eyebrows and say, pointedly, “It’s Tim.” As in, I’m not your boy anymore, even your grown-up boy. That was a long time ago. I’m considering swearing vows to someone else, the way you swore vows to someone else, and I’m done being “Skippy” to you. You don’t get to call me the name you first called me in bed. Nope. “I’m not a priest. I’m in seminary. And I wouldn’t be here if I had a choice.” No argument, no debate. Tim is Skippy.

He’s Skippy when Hawk sends him the postcard from Fire Island. He’s Skippy during the disastrous attempt at a drug-fueled threesome with Craig. Tim tells Hawk, “Go on, fucking die,“ declares that he’s free of him, and later tells Marcus to make sure Hawk understands that Tim doesn’t want to speak to him or see him. Hawk shows up in San Francisco anyway. “Hi, Skippy.“ Tim is too angry to forgive Hawk, or anyone else. And still, he doesn’t protest being called the name Hawk gave him.

Skippy belongs to Hawk. It’s a done deal that time, distance, other relationships, and anger cannot erase.

In Episode 7, when asked if he knew Harvey Milk, Tim says, “Yeah. Everyone did.“ Frankie tells Marcus, “Harvey was a friend.” However, while the series gets across the significance of Harvey Milk as a historical figure, I felt like there’s very little sense of him as a person that Tim and Frankie actually knew personally and interacted with, and I’m wondering what it could have been like if we’d seen that.

When you look at Harvey Milk’s life, he and Tim actually have a lot of biographical similarities. They were both born in 1930 – Harvey’s birthday is only 15 days before Tim’s – and grew up geographically close to each other, with Harvey living in Long Island and Tim living in Staten Island. They’re both ex-Republicans (Harvey once campaigned for Barry Goldwater) who served in the military in the 1950s. (Tim is in the army from 1954-1957; Harvey was in the navy from 1951-1955.) Both of them had several career changes before moving to San Francisco in their forties. Ethnically, they both come from backgrounds that are what people at the time termed “white ethnic,” which basically translated into, “white non-Protestants whose ancestors didn’t come from England, Scotland, Wales, or Germany.” (Harvey’s ancestors were Lithuanian Jews.)

Hypothetical potential scene that’s currently running through my head. Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s crap. I’m just tossing out an idea.

May 1977. Tim walks into Castro Camera to pick up photos; with Harvey preparing for his fourth campaign in November and using the store as headquarters, the place is a zoo. Volunteers and campaign fliers all over the place, everyone talking. No one even knows who’s supposed to be manning the counter. Tim sees Frankie among the volunteers and gets his attention. “I just need to pick up my photos…”

”One second,” says Frankie. “Harvey! Where’s Harvey? You know, this place is still a camera store…”

Harvey emerges from the crowd, only half paying attention, his day planner in his hand. He’s talking to someone else about his schedule. This thing is coming up, that thing is coming up – “and goddamn it, my birthday’s on Sunday. How is it possible that I’m turning 47?!”

”Me too,” says Tim. Harvey finally registers that Tim is standing there. “Turning 47, I mean. In June.”

Harvey smiles. “You’re Tim, right? Frankie’s friend?“ Tim nods.

Frankie is still standing by. “Harvey, he needs his photos. Should be under L for Laughlin – if you’re still bothering to alphabetize.”

Harvey goes behind the counter. “Give me shit later, all right, Frankie? It’s my fourth time running for office. I have to win this one.” Looks at envelopes. “Laughlin, Laughlin…”

Tim is serious. “You’re going to win this one.”

Harvey finds the envelope. “Timothy Laughlin – practically have to say that with an Irish accent. Let me guess, your middle name is Patrick?“

Small smile from Tim. “David.”

Harvey tells Tim the price and Tim pays him. “David? You could be an honorary Jew.” Counting change. “My middle name’s Bernard. Maybe we should switch.”

”Harvey!” someone yells. “I’m with a customer!” Harvey yells back. Gives Tim the change, peaks briefly into the envelope of photos, smiles a little mischievously before handing the envelope to Tim. “New boyfriend?”

Tim still looks serious. “I think so.”

”Guy like that? If I were you, I’d make sure he knew so.” Harvey looks up at Frankie. “How’s Marcus?”

Frankie presses his lips together. “Well, he’s not here.” Harvey gives him a commiserating look.

The phone in the back rings. “Harvey!” someone shouts again.

“Yeah, all right! Jesus!” Looks at Tim. “See you later. Good luck with your guy.”

Cut to Tim and Frankie having lunch. Short conversation about Harvey’s campaign history and the political climate in San Francisco. Brief mention of Dan White in talking about other candidates in other districts. Tim reiterates that he thinks Harvey is going to win.

Footage of Dianne Feinstein announcing the assassinations. Episode continues.

(Yes, Harvey Milk was really that disorganized and swore a lot and commented on pictures of people’s cute boyfriends. His day planner is in the San Francisco Public Library Archives.)

There are cons to the idea of Harvey Milk as a character. I think there’s something powerful about “Fellow Travelers” showing footage of the real Harvey Milk. Sean Penn won an Oscar for playing Harvey Milk in 2008, so whoever took the role in “Fellow Travelers” would be subject to comparisons. But McCarthy, Cohn, and Schine are rendered so vividly in the first part of the series, and it would have been interesting to see something similar for Harvey Milk in Episode 7.

The opera is touring in 2026-2027, but it looks like they haven’t announced all the 2027 dates. I was curious about the plot of the opera and couldn’t find a complete recording, so I tracked this down.

I’ve seen the TV series three times so far, but never read the book, although I’ve read about the differences between the book and the series. The opera doesn’t do the framing device of an older Hawk finding out that Tim is dying (series) or has died (book), and ends in the 1950s.

I’m sure it’s different seeing the opera on stage, but just reading the libretto here, I’m not a huge fan of the plot of this version. It seems like a very abridged, somewhat altered version of the book. The parts with Tim in church (“I died last night”) and Hawk reflecting on the life they can’t have together are poignant, though.

Multiple choice question – what term does Hawkins Fuller use for “penis”?

A. Cock

B. Prick

C. Dick

D. None of the above, unless you count when he calls Roy Cohn a cocksucker

Answer: D.

Watching the series a third time, I listened specifically to make sure I was right about this. Hawk doesn’t use anatomical language about sex, even when he’s “talking dirty“ during sex.

Let’s take the toe-sucking scene in the first episode. Hawk asks Tim if Tim wants to walk into “that fancy Georgetown party with my smell on him” – not, for example, “the smell of my dick on him” or “the smell of my cum on him.” Same thing with “the taste of me in his mouth.” Before they have sex for the first time, in Tim’s apartment, Hawk stands up and steps in front of Tim (who’s still sitting), putting his crotch parallel to Tim’s face and asks, ”Is this all right?” He‘s asking if it’s okay if he wants Tim to fellate him, but there’s no explicit language about it. (Tim, quietly and intensely: “Yeah.”)

At Christmas, Hawk tells Tim that “it’s your turn tonight,” not “it’s your turn to get sucked off tonight” or “it’s your turn for a blow job tonight.” Cheating on Lucy in 1968 is “lowering my zipper only occasionally,” not “getting my cock out only occasionally.” He doesn’t use any words for penis, or testicles or buttocks or anus. He does say that Leonard was “servicing another man,” which was probably the clearest yet least explicit way to explain the situation to Leonard’s father. Masturbation isn’t “jerking off” or “jacking off,” it’s “man’s second best friend” (complete with hand gesture).

Tim doesn’t use any anatomical language when talking about sex either, but we expect that. Tim is a nice Catholic boy who thinks the phrase “the person I’m fucking” “sounds so ugly.” Hawk has rough sex with total strangers, walks through a grove of naked men having sex, tries to get his ex and his boy-toy-drug-dealer to have a threesome with him even though they can’t stand each other – but I still don’t know what he would call a penis.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this? It’s so consistent over eight episodes that I feel that it must have been a conscious choice from the writers.