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.