Final Coming-of-Age Reflection

In viewing myself as an entity of transition, I cannot help but to reflect upon who I am, and if that even is worthy of being deigned “of age.” One of the questions that perpetually washes over my being, almost as a tsunami or an errant spray of perfume is when my journey ends, or if it ever will. I consistently ask whether or not I’m a man yet, whether or not I’m finished, whether or not I’m happy. But then I realize that’s not my question to ask, not my place to answer. My answer is my life. And my life, even for just the past few years, has been nothing short of magical.

I suppose the best place to start our tale would be the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. I remember distinctly the date – it was midnight on July 12, 2007. My dad’s birthday. He’d want me to say he was turning 34 but in reality it was closer to 50. My sister, Hannah, had the idea that since we hadn’t bought him anything we could use our respective musical talents to write and perform a birthday song in his honor. I agreed, but before the writing process began I knew I had to tell her something. I’d told her as much, and I could see the question foraging for an answer behind her eyes like a starving rat.

“Before we start, um…you said you had something to tell me?”

I bit my lip and twiddled my thumbs. “Yeah. Onlly…”

“Only what?” My sister cocked her head to the side,

“Only I need you to promise that you won’t tell Mom and Dad.”

“Of course. What is it?”

I opened my mouth to inhale, but before I could release the litany she said, “Wait! Don’t tell me! I want to see if I’m right.” She sat there, on my almost comically beige carpet, brooding for several of the longest seconds of my life, before looking up and chirping, “OK, I’m ready!”

“I…uh…” My throat had become the Sahara. No going back after this. “I’m gay.”

My sister responded by throwing her finger in my face and shouting “I WAS RIGHT!” I could only react by laughing my head off, and we spent a few minutes giggling together. To her credit, she instantly followed that up with how proud she was of me, how she still respected and loved me. I was relieved, but I knew Mom and Dad were another hurdle to cross.

Turns out that hurdle came up a week after I’d told Hannah. I was watching TV – it was a commercial for that movie, Stardust – when my parents walked into the room and sat down. I paused the TV.

“Luke?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Have you been having any…questions about your sexual orientation?”

Time stopped.  My brain went numb.

I am become Sisyphus, struggler perpetual.

Slowly, haltingly, the words came out, words I’d never meant to say until I was in my freshman dorm and my parents were in their car about 100 miles away. My defibrillation. I almost didn’t hear them when I said them.

My parents reacted just as supportively as my sister did, to my utter shock. They were only worried about me, is all – they wanted to see me safe and happy. They loved me. They loved me. I didn’t even love myself.

It was shortly after that I’d gotten into dating, or whatever dating I could Mostly, that meant long-distance relationships with guys I’d met over Facebook. Ever the Millenial, I’d satisfy myself sexually with text messages and promises that were fated to die on the wind. Mostly, those relationships never left the blush of romance, never went anything past “I think you’re cute,” or the “your-hand-in-mine” stage, as I call it.

It was in late May of 2008 that I met Nick Adams.

It’s a testament to the power of the human mind that even typing out his name filled my throat with bile. It used to be so bad that I couldn’t even think of the name without vomiting. But once upon a time, we were as in love as two teenagers could be, or rather as infatuated.

In the summer of 2008, his rhetoric became a little sharper. “You’re a loser. I love losers,” or “You’re so stupid. It’s cute.” I fell for it, as I believe anyone would have. Such harshness, disguised as love! Such bitterness, sugared over with sentimentality. All I could see was the sweetness, never the acridity. Never the demon beneath the halo.

By winter, the temperature of our relationship had plummeted to match the weather outside. The sleet was particularly harsh that year, stinging my skin with the same fervency that “ugly,” “idiot,” and “You know you’re lucky to be with me. I could do so much better.” I dealt with it – mostly because he’d told me his mother had Stage IV cancer, and I wanted to be a bulwark for him. A buttress that he could batter without fear of it breaking.

In January of 2009, he ended it. Citing “a lot of things,” he broke it off on January 5^th, leaving me seeking closure. On the 9^th – a Friday – I told him what I’d plucked up the courage to try to say over the course of our whole relationship: that he was right, he could have done so much better – to me. I deserved someone who appreciated me, not a guy that continually beat me down.

And that’s when the bomb dropped.

“Yeah, well guess what kiddo? I’ve been cheating on you this whole time. And my mom doesn’t have cancer, I do. I’ve got less than a year.”

I spent the rest of that night crying. Nothing could assuage me, nothing could bring me out of the pit that I’d dug for myself. He’d only handed me the shovel.

The week that passed after that was a blur. I didn’t eat – well, scratch that. I ate in front of my parents every morning, to keep up appearances. But the second I got to school I threw it all up, because I didn’t feel I even deserved to be healthy. I didn’t sleep: every night was a huddled mass in my corner, rocking, sobbing, “Why?” And in retrospect it’s so corny, so filled with teenage angst, but since he wasn’t going to live, I didn’t see the point either.

So that Friday, when my parents were out to eat with their friends and I’d rented This is Spinal Tap as pretense, I turned on my iTunes, set it on shuffle. Went into the kitchen. Gingerly pulled out the butcher knife from the carving block. Held it on my wrist. Waited for my resolve to steel itself, so I wouldn’t have to fight anymore. Waited.

Suddenly, the gentle strains of a guitar riff hit my ears with the force of a feather but the intensity of a sharpened sword. I knew that there was beauty, appearing to me in my darkest hour. And though my belief in God was shaky at best, I knew that it was beyond the ordinary that I was hearing this music. It was exactly what I needed to keep going. I put down the knife. I put down my apathy. I picked up my will to live. A Skylit Drive (the band that was playing) handed me back the reins to my own life.

For that next month, they were all I listened to. Every time I put their music in my headphones it became easier for me to forget the rumors that were starting to swirl. To shut out the memories of my failed relationships past. To try and remember that it was okay to breathe now.

March 2009 was memorable to me for two reasons: firstly, I was offered an interview for my first job, and secondly (the day immediately following, in fact), A Skylit Drive came to my hometown.

It was so surreal to me, to know that they were so close. That I had the chance to see who they were. I went into that concert with absolutely zero expectations, no clue of how to act. And I walked out crying silently tears of joy. A conversation with the bass player, a song dedication, and a trip backstage later, my entire world had been changed for the better. They told me they’d always remember me. I smelled bullshit, but I thanked them anyway.

The day after that – the first Monday back from Spring Break – I was sitting in my Business Imagery class when my phone vibrated. I checked to find a Facebook message sitting in my inbox from Nick, claiming that he’d be driving through Waco and that he wanted a chance to talk. I reluctantly agreed to it, desperate for catharsis.

Over the course of that week, I got to thinking. There was no way that the men who saved my life could come into my life less than 24 hours before the person who almost took it came into it. Cosmic coincidence, fate, destiny, whatever it was – it was meant to resound with me. And resound it did. That Thursday, I texted Nick and told him I was done with it. Done with him. That it wasn’t excusable. And he had the nerve to call me the next day to ask if there was any shred of me that wanted to be with him.

I laughed in his face. Even today I look back and wonder how I did it. It was the right thing to do, but the strength it took was unbelievable.

Especially considering the hell I went through daily.

“Faggot” was thrown around like a tennis ball, aimed directly at my self-esteem. I was pushed around, thrown into lockers, shoved down staircases. People poured milk on me at lunch. I was spit on when they didn’t think I knew well enough that they hated me. It was about April that I received my first death threat in my locker. I read it as impassively as I could and then stoically threw it away, but on the inside I was shaking like a newborn calf, unsteady on its own hooves. I only wanted to love someone else. Was that so horrible?

Once, the football team grabbed me after I’d slung my backpack into my backseat and dragged me into the woods. There were four of them: two of them held down my arms and legs, and two of them took turns kicking me repeatedly in the groin. Windup, here comes the strike, and then the colors of the rainbow would explode behind my eyes. I couldn’t flinch. I didn’t flinch. Flinching meant they’d win. And they wouldn’t win while I was breathing.

I was ostracized even outside my school. It was the first time I’d seen an adult act in a manner that so thoroughly reminded me of a child. And what stunned me even more was that it was someone I’d known since before I could walk.

I walked into church that early May morning, the sun shining with no warmth.
            “Hi, Mr. X!” I said, waving to the bespectacled gentleman.

“Hey, Luke, can we, uh…can we talk?” He seemed uncomfortable. My brow furrowed.

“Yeah, sure…” He led me around a corner and down half a flight of stairs, to where we were isolated. “What’s going on?”

“Well,” my parents’ friend drawled. “Rumor has it that you’re a, uh…that you like…” I waited, as patiently as I could, for him to finish the sentence. “That you’re a homosexual.”

I nodded, once. “Yessir, that’s correct.”

“Is it.” It was a statement, not a question. “Well then.” He smiled grimly for a moment. Then his hand moved to his belt and I saw the gun holstered at his hip that had been previously hidden underneath his jacket. His hand rested on the grip as he said, with all the menace of Santa Claus, “I think you better get outta here.”

I couldn’t breathe. “Mr. X…c’mon, man…I…”

He took the pistol out of the holster, in a series of motions that were fluid, but I view them now through the lens of memory as the slides in a daguerreotype. Pointed the barrel at me from his hip.

“You stay the hell away from my kids.” There was no joviality in his voice now. We stood, for a few silent moments. I looked at him, suddenly recognizing the point where I’d passed him in maturity, in acceptance of other worldviews. I didn’t consider myself a man. But now I couldn’t consider him one either.

I backed away, slowly. Walked down the stairwell, towards the exit sign. Never looked back.

My parents never questioned why I wanted to go to another church all of a sudden. I never told them anything either, but I suspected they knew at least about the stares I was getting from my peers. I had become a museum exhibit, a walking freak show.

The only thing that saved me was A Skylit Drive’s music. And on July 5^th of 2009, I had the privilege of seeing them again. I was fortunate enough to grab the hand of the lead singer during their final song, in a crowd of about two to three thousand people. He chose me. And the killing blow was that when I went to their tent for them to sign a t-shirt I had, they remembered my name.

It was that day that two things that would come to define me came into my knowledge. Firstly, I found out a friend of mine that I’d run into at the concert had known Nick, and had actually been propositioned sexually by him while he and I were together. (Thankfully, he turned him down.) Secondly, I knew – from the moment that the drummer called me by name – that A Skylit Drive had done so much for my development and my personal growth that their continued support and warmth couldn’t go unrewarded. I had to impact them like they impacted me.

It was later in the week that my friend from the concert messaged me on Facebook and told me that Nick had told him that he’d never had cancer to begin with. I couldn’t believe how quickly my anger passed. It was more relief than anything that I felt.

But the maw of guilt still remained. My solution for both that maw and for the debt I felt I paid to A Skylit Drive was the same: I threw myself into writing. Whether it was fiction, poetry, or music, I was constantly an outlet for my own creativity. I wrote marching band arrangements of A Skylit Drive’s songs. I poured my revenge fantasies onto paper; each as unique as the fingerprints I left on the keyboard.

In September of 2009, A Skylit Drive came back to Waco. I knew this was my one true chance to tell them everything that they’d helped me through. All of the travails, all of the triumphs, the heartache, the pain. I got my chance, and I took it with all of the gusto of a stockbroker digging into a surefire gainer.

They were all beautiful about it. No question about that. Their reactions varied from profane excoriations of my tormentors to a simple “Thank you,” but out of all of them the one I remember the most is the drummer – Cory LaQuay. He asked me who cared that I was gay, and then when I tried to explain said that if anyone had a problem with me then they had a problem with the band. We took a photo together – as I’d done with every other member of the band – and I left the concert.

Those few sentences completely reinvigorated my fight against the bigots by whom I was surrounded. When I was almost run over in the parking lot, I knew I had a group of guys that had my back. When I spat the blood out of my mouth in the bathroom, I had the memory of the music to fall back into.

Senior year came and went without much fanfare. I saw A Skylit Drive once more, that March. I knew I was going to TCU. My mantra was “May, May, May.” May was my graduation date. All I had to do was survive until then.

College rushed at me with all of the finesse and elegance of a hammer. I was so expectant that the environment at TCU was similar to my high school that it took me a while to stop mentally flinching every time I came out to someone new.

The goal of repaying A Skylit Drive still burned in the back of my mind, every night. I would go to sleep and dream of their faces when they saw that I recognized their efforts; that I rewarded the decency they all showed. I wondered what I would do. I wondered what I would give them.

And that’s when the idea of game shows came to my head. The guys on Twitter were constantly complaining about how rent was hard to pay, or that they were getting Taco Bueno for the fifth time that week. Dire straits was putting it lightly – these guys were broke. What if I could change that?

I started studying everything I could get my hands on. The launch date of Sputnik, the cerebral shunt that Roald Dahl designed, the reasoning behind the naming of certain colors.

By my spring semester of my freshman year at TCU, I had the plan mapped out firmly in my mind. Fly to New York City, audition for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Make it. Win $250,000. Take out taxes, and that’s $150K. Use $100,000 to pay for my college career, and then the remaining $50,000 would go into a briefcase that I would give to A Skylit Drive. In no way was it a bribe for friendship, or a way to gain an “in”. My admiration of them – hell, my love for them – was purer than that. It was a life-debt I owed them, several times over.

At the same time I was crystallizing my plan for repaying my debt, I was making my way along the path of Orpheus on the most memorable journey of my life. It was the spring of 2011 that I decided to pledge to Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, my fraternity. It was long, it was difficult, and per the requirements of my membership it was comprised of so much I can’t reveal. But it was entirely worth it, and entirely transformative. I finished that process closer to manhood than I’d started. Much, much closer.

That summer, I tried to make it to New York once. Didn’t make it. Tried again. My nerves got the best of me at the test. I did what I could but apparently two missed questions out of 30 were enough for my audition to end about 15 minutes after it started.

I was disappointed in myself, yes. But more than that I was just proud that I’d made the effort. And the effort will continue to be made, mark my words.

I think the entirety of my coming-of-age can be summarized best in those two days following the failed audition.

The day started at midnight, after I’d seen a Broadway play. I stumbled out into Times Square, giddy from the music. Ran straight into an Australian guy named Corgan with a rainbow wristband. Talked with him until the wee hours of the morning. Almost lost my virginity to him, but once I told him my age he told me I “had a lot of growing up to do,” and left. Slept, after internalizing my hurt.

Woke up, got a taxi to the airport. Saw my flight was delayed, called my mom, asked her what to do. Flight was rescheduled, and I made my connection in Georgia. Took my carry-on back to my car, drove an hour to Plano. There I spent the night at the house of one of my fraternity brothers, a dear, dear friend of mine. Part of it was to save money on gas, and part of it was to spend time with my brother. But there was an underlying reason behind both of those things.

I woke up the next day, bright and early. Slapped a cat that I thought was an alarm clock. Felt like shit about it. Showered, got dressed. Left for the arena.

Traffic was hell, got there in about twice the time it supposedly should have taken. Got out of my car. Walked around. Got up to the stage and waited.

A Skylit Drive walked on. One of their guitarists, Joey, saw me in the first few rows and returned the gesture when I waved at him. Their set was impeccable, as always. I yelled every word, screamed myself hoarse in ecstasy.

At their signing (as had become tradition), they saw me. Hugged me. Thanked me again for coming out. The dichotomy I saw between myself and someone they’d only just met was incredible. It went from “Hey-how-are-you-thanks-so-much-for-coming-out” to “HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU MAN!?” coupled with a bone-jarring handshake.

I left that concert and drove home, smiling the whole way. That was my sixth time seeing them live, out of the eight incidences that I now have under my belt. But it was the crowning moment of my third straight day of almost-independence. Taking my first trip without my parents. Seeing a Broadway play. Living out of a black leather bag. Spending time with a fraternity brother, something that even four months beforehand I wouldn’t have dreamt I’d have. Seeing my favorite band

All of this in the span of three days.  Three glorious days, that will forever etch their consequence in the catacombs of my consciousness.

And yet I know my journey isn’t done. There will be a day when I find out that I’ve turned into my father, that I understand I’m not invincible and the world is no longer my oyster. Is cynicism the arrival of manhood?

No. If that were the case I would have been a man long, long ago. I still retain almost a childish optimism that things will work out for the better. I think I always will.

Does that make me a Candide character? Or do my hardships make me more of an Esperanza, or a Scout? Would it even be safe to say that my struggling against a society that largely didn’t accept me would make me a Huck or a Jim? Who can say? More importantly, who would want to?

I finished that summer not even knowing the joy that Sinfonia would bring me in the coming year. Not knowing the beauty of having a “little brother”, or the raucous joy of my first Great American Road-Trip with my roommates, one of which became my fraternity brother only two days ago.

Has it been difficult, being me? Indubitably.

Is it safe to say that things won’t get easier? Yes.

Will I apologize for any of the choice I’ve made? Not for an instant.

I may not have come of age yet, but I have definitely come into myself. I sit here, on this august April day, typing with the most contentedness I’ve ever had since I was a child. Surrounded by brothers who love me for me, continually in service to the art of music and to each other. Built by my past, but not defined by it.

There is never nothing happening, I’ve learnt.

There is never any way to define where you precisely are, in life or in location.

There is never another way to live, besides in the moment.

And perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned – from the readings, from my experiences in high school, from my pledging to Sinfonia, from my failed game show audition, from my shaping at the concerts of A Skylit Drive, from my every heartache and obstacle and travail and victory:

It is always and ever true that the journey is much more important than the destination.

Writing Reflection

As a writer, I feel uniquely qualified to answer the question, “How do you write?”, or at least more so than I would have a year ago. Only a year ago – so strange that it moved so quickly. You, Dr. Williams, are already aware of my idealism pertaining to my writing style, how I tended to stray from the question of how I wrote and answered more the question of what I wrote.

I now know I was more of a Connie than I’d have admitted back then. Hadn’t really accepted the fact that I’d grow up eventually. Wanted to be mature, but had no idea of what it would actually take to be mature. Had a vague idea of the sacrifice I’d have to make, had no clue of what I’d give up.

The more I think about it, the more I’m sure that I write more of my awareness than anything else. I love to write about my experiences, but more than that – I like to write about what people can learn from them. I like the “morals” of stories, the “points” of fiction, the summaries of poetry. While I knew I loved the journey of writing, the destination was always more attractive to me – getting to the why of my writing. Yes, you wrote this, but what’s in it for me? Well, reader, you’ll find out if you step in my footprints, disturb the sand with me, look at the horizon past the ocean’s unyielding stare.

I wanted, more than anything, this semester, to understand who I was in relation to other writers. I knew then that I would come to the understanding of who I was in relation to my own self as a writer. But my writing was deeper than that. I delved instantly past the relating portion of the thought process and went straight into the parallelism portion – less of “Oh that applies to me!” and more of “That applies to my writing in XYZ, but not ABC. Here’s the symbolism, here’s the synecdoche.”

In starting this semester I knew I’d have to rely less on my head-voice, spoken with all of the apathy and lethargy of Edward Norton as the narrator in the film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, and truly understand what it meant to write the words I put on this paper.

But I realized, as I began to write this essay, that maybe writing isn’t about over-analysis. Maybe it’s less about conquest and more about surrender. Perhaps, what I needed to do was understand where I’d come from, as a writer and as a human being, before I could distinctively analyze my writing style. Maybe I needed to feel the words rather than think about them.

It was a strange idea – just get the words on paper? No revisions, no edits? Impossible, they’d say. It can’t be done, they’d say. Watch me, bitch, I’d snarl through gritted teeth. And ever it was, week in and week out. Carefully constructed, but never losing the voice.

Growing up in Waco, you’ll find, wasn’t exactly the best experience. In fact you already know that from sketches 3, 4, and 6, and you’ll get an even deeper delving in my final project. But it was entirely necessary – it furthered my writing and it allowed me to get in touch with myself, more intimately than I’d ever have been able to if my high school experience had been hunky-dory. In a way, I’m almost glad it wasn’t. In a way, I’m not glad at all.

Was it fair? No, of course not. Was life fair? Is it ever?

My point is, my writing was different then. Full of vengeful diction and optimistic zeal that I would rise, that I would conquer, that I would – in some Einsteinian sense of the word – Become. I would break from the chrysalis that surrounded me, and become the butterfly – the rainbow butterfly, of course – that I was always meant to be.

A friend of mine once told me that I was too big for the town I grew up in. He was right. I outgrew Waco like a pair of pants. And as I continued to forge my way in the world, as I moved past my adolescence and headed into my 20s, as I realized who I’d always been, I slowly began to shed the pain and insecurities of my past.

My writing reflected this. No longer was the character a sole arbiter of sanity against a society long corrupted by heteronormativity or adult-onset anhedonia, but rather I was a part of the cogs that turned, a member of society that recognized that everyone’s had their hardships, everyone’s struggled, but we all end up stronger for those of us that survive.

My trip to New York especially solidified this idea that I was swimming in a sea of everyone, and I had nothing of particular note to contribute. It was a comfort, for the most part. I could live without the burden of saving the world around me when I knew it wasn’t poisoned to begin with.

Most of this I can attribute to my brothers in Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. They challenge me, push me, support me, elevate me to a place I never could have reached by myself. And making it through the process was difficult but it helped me to understand myself and my circumstances that much more clearly. I can’t thank them enough for that.

All this to say, my writing has become less vindictive. I looked at Billy Collins, Andrea Gibson, Alysia Harris – poets as inspiration for my diction, their meter my dictation for how I said certain phrases. I saw their music, their lilt, as a tilting of their camera lens – something I wanted to emulate. And I believe I’ve accomplished a sliver of what I wanted. There’s always room for improvement.

I’m proud of myself this year. But I’m more than proud of my changing, my growth. And I can’t wait to see what I’ll be writing by the time I graduate. How will I grow from here? Where will I change this time? Will I continue to soften, like a used razor blade?

Is that what I need to do?

Who can say?

All I know is I’m ready. And as this writer begins his senior year, I cannot help but reflect on who I am, and who I’m destined to Become. But if the path strays, who am I to do anything but follow?

Time to Glow (Sketch Six)

            It wasn’t really anything I’d planned on. The week before, my mom – my godsend, really – had told me that a band I liked was playing at a venue not 15 minutes from my house. I rolled my eyes with adolescent apathy, but if she’d known how much I was jumping up and down inside I definitely would have been the subject of THE embarrassing story at the next family reunion.

            See, here’s the thing: my mother thought I liked this band. Secretly, I ADORED this band. Their music was so powerful, their lyrics so intense and dedicated to overcoming whatever obstacles that life laid before them. My circumstances being what they were I could identify with them very easily. A Skylit Drive did more than play instruments, more than release a couple of CD’s. Their music had – and to this day, still has – a profound impact on my life.

            And when I say I hadn’t planned on it, I didn’t just mean going to that concert. I meant falling in love with those six guys and the sound they produced. Because without Michael “Jag” Jagmin, Brian White, Kyle Simmons, Joey Wilson, Nick Miller, and Cory LaQuay, I wouldn’t be here typing this today. In fact, I wouldn’t even be in Texas.

            I would be in my family’s plot, pushing up daisies in Western Missouri with an epitaph that read “1991-2009.”

            You’re probably wondering why. I mentioned a particularly nasty breakup in my third and fourth sketches. And the reason that the ending of that relationship still resonates in my mind today is because after it ended my thoughts gradually turned to suicide. Looking back it chills me, how logically I had thought it out. How dispassionate I was towards the ending of my own life.

            But, on a night when the moon seemed hung by a noose I had my iTunes on shuffle, my letter in my pocket, and my knife against my wrist, ready to make those vertical cuts that would take away the lifeblood that coursed through veins so stubbornly. And right when I was about to make the incision, a song from A Skylit Drive came on. It was beautiful, it was haunting, and it was the only thing that could possibly have stopped me. “Breathe easy, the doctors are about to arrive,” it said. There was this frisson I couldn’t shake, this aural feeling, this sense that things were about to turn for the better.

            I couldn’t. I couldn't do it.

            All this to say – A Skylit Drive was on a pedestal in my mind. I knew one of the things I had to do before I died was to see them. And I also knew my parents would rather die than see me at this venue alone. But I’d never been to a concert without my parents before, and this was one I promised myself that I wouldn’t miss. So a couple days later I told my mother that a girl from my computer imaging class wanted to go with me, and off I went, excited beyond belief.

            It was a dingy place they were playing at. About the size of a garage, and about as sparsely furnished. Concrete floors, with no evidence of cleaning. Industrial ceilings that coughed up dust. A small stage, only about two feet high. But enough to elevate the music, to lift the noise, to raise a voice.

            I walked in, naïve, and surveyed my surroundings. The back of a tattoo parlor. I guess I shouldn’t have expected much. But my hopes returned when I saw the racks of t-shirts on the east wall. I’d never gotten a band’s t-shirt before – in my haze of happiness I’d forgotten completely that they were even sold at concerts.

            I walked over to the racks. I hemmed and I hawed. The guy stacking the shirts looked at me as I pondered my decision. Finally I tapped him on the shoulder and asked him for the one on the bottom left, in a medium.

            “Oh yeah! You like A Skylit Drive?” he said. Instantly I said yes and gushed for a few seconds about how they were my favorite band and they’d helped me through some stuff.

            To which he responded, “Thanks!”

            I was instantly confused. Why would he say thanks? Is he like a merch guy or like a roadie for them? I asked him if he hauled their gear for them or if he was their manager.

            His response will forever ring in my ears.

            “Nah, nah man. I play bass for them.”

            WHAT. WHAT. WHAT IS…WHAT.

            In some sense of the word, I fainted. In another sense, I’d just been reborn. After I could compose myself enough to tell him some of the ways he’d helped me, and listed off a few songs that really meant a lot, he then proceeded to make that night the best one of my life: “Hey, you mentioned Eris and Dysnomia? Well we’re playing that in our set. I’m gonna dedicate it to you.”

            I could have melted through the floor with all the joy in my soul. The feeling was indescribable. It was as though I was being frozen and immolated entirely at the same time. I was too excited to cry, too stunned to emote. The most I could squeak out was a “Thank…” and then I just stood there, foolishly, like a mannequin.

            He asked me my name and then whisked himself backstage. Then the opening bands came on and for a few minutes I almost forgot about the monolith of memory that still jutted out of my brain. But then Cory LaQuay, the drummer for A Skylit Drive, came out. And I actually recognized him from the music videos. I yelled his name and ran on over. We got to talking and I’d mentioned that I’d played drums for a couple months. To top all that had previously happened, he asked if I wanted to go backstage with him to see his drum kit.

            It was beautiful. I’ll never forget the shine, because I don’t know whether it came from the glitter on the drums or the tears in my eyes.

            It was one of the best nights of my life. I’ll never forget it. And the story continued to write itself even after that. I’ve left details out, but I went into that concert a boy and I came out a man.

            It’s a night I’ll never forget. The first time I saw Waco use me and spit me out better for it, as opposed to worse. I was polished, glorious like the sun.

            I don’t believe I’ve ever thanked my mother so much as when I got home that night.

Sixth Meeting with Pedro

Our last meeting.

Our last chance.

I was struck by how fond I’d grown of Pedro. How quickly he and I had related, how lucky I was to have someone in my age group as opposed to someone who was 50 and just wanted to talk about the good old days. Perhaps most importantly, how he and I had grown close. We cared now, about each other’s well-being. Where we’d go, who we’d be friends with. If you asked me why, I couldn’t really tell you. But I did. Friendships, in my experience, are like gems: they’re formed by time and pressure, and they might start out crude but they end up beautiful.

So it was, so it is, so it goes.

Pedro and I sat down, both of us with smiles pasted onto our faces. I could tell he was dreading this as much as I was. He seemed weary. I seemed weary. If you’d asked me how I’d felt at that moment, I’d have told you that I was an empty sack of potatoes, or the clothes that someone died in. I wasn’t dead, nor was I giving the appearance of such. But I was drained. There wasn’t enough time left. Vaguely, the Twilight Zone episode popped into the projector screen inside my forehead. “But there was time now!” the little man wailed, and I couldn’t help but feel the resignation he felt. J. Alfred Prufrock talked about how there will be time, time to turn back and descend the stair. There was no time anymore. L’esprit d’escalier had already washed over me, flooded like the banks of the Nile in irrigation season. I was overcome by all the things I could have said, should have said. I should have been someone different.

I barely registered Pedro talking, and I leaned in to focus. He spoke about how he was applying to a bunch of Texas colleges, and that his ACT was next week. I was worried for him, and I expressed worry. He quickly told me he’d be fine – I caught his insecurity behind his eyes but I let it go. It wasn’t something I could fix anymore. I wasn’t tasked with it anyway.

He asked me what my plans were for summer. I told him I was studying abroad in Japan and he started talking for a few minutes about how he loved Japanese animation and how a kid in his English class was from Japan but went back after a couple of months. He asked me to say something in Japanese. I came back with “Koko suwatteiru hito wa shinsetsu de atatakakute kiree desu.” He asked me what I’d said. I lied and told him it was about the weather.

I’d really just complimented him, several times over. But guys don’t say that kind of stuff to each other.

Why was I getting this sentimental? Wasn’t it only temporary? I didn’t know. I still don’t. But as the clock ticked closer to the time that he’d told me he needed to leave, I kept hearing Eliot’s bartender in The Waste Land calling to me, matter-of-factly but with a tinge of irritation.

Tick. HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME

Tick. HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME

Tick. HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S

HURRY UP PLEASE

HURRY UP

HURRY

“Well, my ride is here.” Pedro said. I snapped back into focus.

“Are you sure?” I asked. I was gripping the armrest so hard my knuckles were white.

“Yeah. I have to…” he trailed off. I nodded, staring at the floor.

HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME

He gave me a handshake. And then he vanished.

Fifth Meeting With Pedro

It had become apparent to me, over the course of our many conversations and awkward rushed handshakes on-campus, that Pedro and I were different from most conversational partners. His grasp on English was tentative, but the way he spoke made him sound as though he had lived here a long time and only spoke Portuguese with his mother and father at home. In many cases, it was disconcerting – here I’d been expecting to speak slowly and enunciate every word I’d said, and Pedro was colloquially cursing like a sailor with more and more proficiency with each passing visit. Brazil and America were different, but I’d realized that really the differences were negligible. You could say that the USA was more developed, and that (perhaps to Pedro’s eyes, I wouldn’t really know) the girls were prettier here. But for the most part, I came into my fifth meeting with the awareness that what we both had to offer was similar. We were two edges of the same Westernized sword. The only difference was I’d been tempered with living at the root. I was pure spring water, and he was tap water drawn through a Brita filter.

In short, we had recognized in each other some semblance of ourselves.

We met at the coffee shop, I in my usual band t-shirt and jeans and he in his usual muted pastel polo. He gave me a handshake and I returned it, but we both knew this was just a formality. After our routine discussion of the weather, the monotony of which almost seemed hyphenated (so-how-about-that-weather-really-hot-isn’t-it yeah-it’s-just-ridiculous-it-must-be-in-the-thirties [insert mental math to convert Celsius degrees into Fahrenheit coupled with a pithy proverb about how we’re all suffering under the same sun]), it was time to get down to business.

There was less to discuss than there had been before Spring Break, really. It was unexpected – neither of us had seen each other since mid-march, and yet we sat there for minutes on end in complete silence. Intermittently my phone would vibrate and I knew I’d have to check it: it’d be one of the probationary members for my fraternity trying to schedule a meeting. I respected them, but I also respected Pedro’s time.

The bus passed by, imperceptibly, and a thought popped into my head. “How long does it take you to get here, on the bus?” I asked.

Pedro smiled and nodded, his facial expression warm yet stoic. I was given the impression of the old mountain sage with the wisdom of eternity being posed a question that could have been answered by Google. He responded “About an hour, usually. The bus stops a lot.”
            That I hadn’t expected. “Jeez! An hour, round-trip?”

“What is round-trip?” Pedro asked. I explained it to him and he shook his head no. “Each time, is two hours.”

He takes two and a half hours out of his day to come and visit…and I thought I was pressed for time.

I dwelled on that and he asked me about my road-trip I’d taken for Spring Break with my roommates. I gave him the details – how we’d taken two days of nonstop driving to get there, the time we’d spent at Disney World, the novelty amusement park we’d stopped at on the recommendation of the manager of my favorite band, how the storm passing over Mississippi and Alabama cut into our drive time so badly that we had to take an extra day on our journey home. I showed him the photos we’d taken, the memories we’d shared.

Apparently that was all he needed. He looked at the photos, said “Good,” and rose to leave. I checked my watch – 30 minutes had already passed.

I shook his hand, almost numb. What sacrifices had I made for him?

And just like that, he was gone, carried on the breeze out the door. And I knew I shouldn’t call after him, knew that my schedule wouldn’t permit it, knew I wouldn’t have time to talk any longer. But as the door shut, I blurted out “Wait.”
            He didn’t hear me.

Adelphia, Alive (Sketch Five)

I stepped out of the airplane to one of the smallest terminals I’d ever seen. Despite my consternation, I knew my exact purpose; why I was there, so to speak. To put it mildly, my dreams were in the dwindling hours from beginning their road to fruition. I breathed in the hope that smog brings with it and did my best not to cough. My shoes were shined, my eyes bleary but excited. I’d discovered the promise of the metropolis; the lure was finally apparent to me. After the frantic promulgating of my intentions, after the scheduling and rescheduling and shattering and repair of my ambition, I had finally arrived in New York City.

To recap from my earlier post, I’d been met with antipathy and even outright hostility when my flight to NYC had been cancelled earlier in the month. I don’t know if I mentioned it but the airline attendant had called me “kid” when I’d tried to get on another flight that night. But I was never one to rest on my laurels and take my circumstances for granted. The second my feet were back in Texas, I signed up for another audition time. And this time, we checked the weather.

Touchdown, take my black leather bag the size of a large cat onto the street, into the taxi line. Take the taxi with the Middle-Eastern stereotype over the bridge and into Manhattan. Marvel at the bridges, the billboards, the buildings, the vast gray. Get out at my hotel, let my jaw drop as I see how close it is to Times Square. Walk around as my room is prepared, take photos of anything I can see that accurately portrays the grit and the organic quality of the city around me. I can feel the structures breathe. I hear the streetlights sigh. This is a city in love with its own status without being egotistical. It’s like life – it’s the Universe experiencing itself.

I get in my room. It strikes me at first – all this for $100 a night? – but then the true squalor (or as my mom would put it, coziness) revealed itself. It was a radiator, not a thermostat. No mirror in the bathroom. The grandiose view of a nudist old woman across the alleyway. The TV that had no channels except static. The chipping of paint on the wall. Most aggravatingly, the pillow with “Wanna?” written on it in lipstick that the hotel staff had only flipped over instead of cleaned. Thank God there were two beds, because there was no way I was using that one. I wondered if there was a place that offered a Lysol bath. I would have bought the works right then.

But time was running short. I whipped out my iPhone, looked up Eleanor of Aquitaine, the legends surrounding Charlemagne, the genealogy of First Ladies, Latin root words, broadcasting legends. Nothing too permanent. Only the transitory.

After a quick shower and three coats of deodorant I walked out onto the street at 5:00 EST to hail a cab. I was showered, I was dressed like a young professional – by God, I was ready.

It was then that I learned the impossibility of hailing a cab in the middle of rush hour in Times Square. I knew the audition was at 5:45 and they wanted us to be there 15 minutes early to cut down on time. The minutes dragged on; it was 5:15. I was sweating bullets. My deodorant was somehow starting to fail me already. In my panicked state I found a pedicab – a bicycle with a seat attached to the back of it – told the driver the address I had to get to, and hoped he’d get me there in one piece.

The next 15 minutes were some of the most terrifying of my life. He weaved in and out through traffic, he ran red lights, he missed cars by inches. We were almost hit twice. In fact he got the wrong address three times. To his credit, he biked all the way across Central Park in two minutes flat. By the time I got there I was just happy to be alive. I gave him the money numbly (later I realized just how badly he’d ripped me off) and got in line.

Surrounded by game-show enthusiasts, we quickly fell to chatting. I learned in seconds how much of a novice I was – everyone around me was on their fourth or fifth audition, and the woman standing next to me had won $30,000 on Jeopardy! once. I became a shrinking violet, the color of my lavender shirt. What was I thinking, coming here? What was I doing?

They ushered us into the room, with all of the fanfare of their daily routine. They gave us each beige folders, every one with a Sharpied number on the corner. They told us that the folders contained our audition tests. “It’s thirty questions and you have ten minutes.”

WHAT.
            “Good luck, your test starts now.” Beep. And just like that the nerves I’d been gulping down as though they were bile exploded out of my pencil. I tore into that test like a diabetic third-grader lunging for a Snickers bar.

The buffalo was on what coin for four years? The quarter, why not.

Negeta catania, commonly known as catnip, is what kind of plant? …fuckin’ …lettuce, I have no idea.

What was the occupation of the protagonist in the Fountainhead? This was perhaps my proudest moment. I’d never read Ayn Rand’s trilogy, but I knew enough to know that she’d be more obtuse than to make her allegories obvious. With that I ruled out B. Judge and C. Politician. That left A. Surgeon and D. Architect. Torn between one and the other I knew it was a guess, so I went for the more left-field choice of Surgeon and found out later from the philosophy professor sitting across the table from me that I was right.

As they processed our tests, everyone around me told me they were rooting for my number to be called, almost more than their own (the fact that I was Texan slipped out in line). They called out the numbers that had passed the audition test. My number was not among them.

And just like that I had a magnet and a pencil for my troubles. Was I disappointed? Yes. For about five seconds. And then I said to myself, “Y’know what? I’m in New York City tonight. The greatest city in the world. I have no excuse to not have a fantastic time this evening.” And by God did I fulfill that promise. I walked from ABC Studios back to Times Square, 20 blocks. The sky had opened up floodgates that I’d forgotten existed during the drought from earlier in the year, and I was covered in rain by the time I’d gotten my ticket for a Broadway play. After that I stepped out into Times Square and spent midnight until 2:00 that morning talking with an Australian guy named Corgan. I’ll never forget that night.

The next morning I hopped on a plane and flew back to Dallas. My journey was over. But if I ever forget a second of that trip, someone should shoot me dead because I clearly will have become so happy with life that I don’t need its remembrance, or so senile that it’s become lost from my memory. I don’t think either of those things will ever happen.

And I won’t have any reason to forget, either.

Unless my audition this summer goes better. 

The House on Mango Street - Reflection

The word “esperanza” in Spanish means “hope.” I find it only fitting that the main character in Sandra Cisneros’s The House On Mango Street has the name that simultaneously describes the optimism she feels at the beginning and the end of the novel.

Interspersing the story of Esperanza with the story of her neighbors, Cisneros paints a vivid picture of life in a Hispanic neighborhood, as well as the sexual and emotional maturing of a young Chicana girl – that is, a girl of Mexican and American descent.

I began reading The House On Mango Street in the middle of the day, when it had started raining and the world was gloomy on the outside. I figured it wouldn’t take me long to form an opinion; enough to write about it anyway. By the time I’d finished I’d found a fictional paramour – if I’d been so inclined. Her sexual maturing paralleled my own sexual maturing. Finding out about my attraction to men was a slow, a gradual thing, and not without its hardships – though nothing like what Esperanza went through.

I had many “Sally” figures in my adolescence as well. So many gay guys my age were so focused on sex. Their blood ran directly past their brains and into their crotch. What I called orgies, they called Tuesday. What I called decadent, they called boring. What I blushed at, they described how it turned them on. I knew immediately I wasn’t like most gay guys in my generation, smooth hairless hormonal boys – you couldn’t call them men, not really – who had bought into the “Logo lie”, as I’d called it: the feeling that at some point you WILL be having meaningless sex and so that’s no reason to want your virginity to be something special. Throw it away like a condom, full of the seed of regrets from the night before. Toss it aside, like the many men that tossed you aside in the morning. Once the light of day hit.

I could never ascribe to that ideology. In that regard, I’m different. I’m a 21-year-old virgin but I have no regrets about that. No qualms about saving myself for someone special. Will I be having meaningless sex eventually? Who’s to say? I can’t be one to judge my future actions. I can only judge my present, and right now I’m pretty damn happy with the decisions I’ve made. My mother told my sister the day before she started high school, “Not one high school boy is ever worth crying over. Not one.” I always listened to that. Not one high school boy was worth giving my virginity to.

Esperanza crosses the barrier between girl and woman, between darkness and light, between aimless and purposeful. I’d like to think my writing allows the same thing to happen with me as well. I used writing as an escape from my physical surroundings, from the Hell that encompassed my being when I was maturing developmentally in high school. But I also used it to project myself into fantastic situations, while Cisneros and Esperanza use their writing realistically. I just had the vision of what I should write, and I wrote it. Things that didn’t exist – things that couldn’t exist, simply because they were in my mind and for the moment they provided a recompense for what torture had been daily rained upon me by some unmerciful god.

I even drew on the strength of my parents as Esperanza drew on the strength of her elders: my parents were almost the only reason I made it through high school with the boundless optimism I still possess today.

Overall, Mango Street was a delightful read, and I identify so easily with the character of Esperanza. I’d highly recommend it to anyone who asked about it.