Slash and Burn, Return, Listen To Yourself Churn

It didn’t take me long to reunite with Stacy, Brandy, and the gang from the summer.  Right away, I noticed things were not quite the same.  For starters, Stacy along with Phillip, the director of my ill-fated Ibsen experience had rented an apartment off campus.  Apartments in Elgin, IL at the time were a dodgy situation.  While the appearance of a large casino boat in the next year or so would help to clean up the city, back then Elgin was one of the scariest, run down cities in Illinois.  It was very apparent at one time it had a beautiful place.  A second Chicago situated right on the Fox River.  But somewhere along the way things took a turn for the worse.  The people with money must have just up and left.  Soon after, just as any house left abandoned too long, the vermin moved in and took over.  Euphegenia was located way out on the outskirts of the city limits far away from the downtown area.  Downtown Elgin made me think of Gotham City, before the guy with the pointy ears showed up.  It felt as though something sinister was lurking around the corner of every crumbling old building.  We made it a point to stay on Route 31 and never take a detour through town. 

There was also a rumor at the time that it was the number 2 or 3 drop off point for illegal immigrants from Mexico.  Admittedly, if you looked around at any moment, you might tend to believe it but I never saw any INS pamphlet stating that as a fact.  Regardless, to the wide-eyed college kids of Euphegenia 99% of the city’s residents looked like they wanted to do us harm, regardless of race or point of origin.  So when I learned Stacy had not only rented an apartment, but it required travel through downtown Elgin, I was shocked.  Why in the world would he choose to move into the heart of darkness?  Had he applied for a firearms license over the summer?  If we visited, would there be a police escort? 

Their apartment was actually a really nice place.  They had the top floor of an old 3-flat in a neighborhood on the northeast side of the city.  They had a ton of space and it was old but kept up with beautiful wood floors and vaulted ceilings.  I was actually a little jealous.  Of course, I still wouldn’t go for a jog in the neighborhood.  But if you ran from the car, up the back stairs, and into the apartment, you actually might be able to relax and enjoy yourself.  I have specific and strange memories of oatmeal cream pie cookies, Carl Buddig lunch meat packets, and listening to U2 bootlegs which Stacy took great pride in acquiring.  After all, the internet was not an option.  There was no finding and illegally downloading obscure music back then.  Hell, the kid who would invent Napster was probably still in grade school at the time.  You had to hope there was a cool music shop within a reasonable drive and finger through rows and rows and sideways CD’s.  I know, it sounds like the dark ages.

We would have a lot of fun in that apartment.  It was good to have someplace to go.  Getting off campus and just being able to watch (and hear) television without fifteen other people coming in and yapping was like a mini-vacation.  Of course, ultimately things would happen in that apartment that would make me come to resent it, but we’ll get there.  For now, picture it as a cool little getaway for not only me but a number of our friends.  For a time, I would even come back here when Stacy wasn’t even around (which become more and more often) to hang out with Phillip and a few choice others.  Well, specifically for one of the others.  Again, we’re getting there.

It wasn’t just the fact that he had his own place now that made Stacy seem different.  He had chosen to become a commuter.  There was always this unspoken but no less real separation between the students who lived on campus and the commuters.  I always felt a bit of sympathy for commuting students.  They seemed to miss at least 50% of the college experience because they came in, went to class, maybe hung around in the commons for a while or studied somewhere, but then they were generally gone before dinner.  Since they didn’t pay room and board and had to pay separately to eat in the cafeteria, most of them chose to eat on their own which meant they missed a major social networking function each day.  But I figure if you never knew any better you just accepted it.  Still, when you’re paying what Euphegenia College cost, you might as well make sure you get every penny’s worth.  If all you want is an education, there are cheaper and far more reputable schools you can commute (and now cyber commute) to.

Stacy took himself out of that experience.  It was a strange move for someone who coveted and really fed on social interaction and being the center of attention.  I quickly noticed he was often just hanging around campus, looking for one group or another to glom on to.  Since there was a whole new crop of Freshmen for him to meet and less time on campus to do it, he was a busy man.  I rarely got to actually spend time with him or even have a conversation.  Fortunately he and Brandy were still together, so if I wanted to see him I could usually just find her.  He’d be along sooner or later.  It was they that decided our first week back that we should all drive down to the city to see this new band, Weezer.  Their first single, "Undone (The Sweater Song)" was all over alternative radio and we loved it.  Plus the show was wicked cheap, like $6 or $8 bucks a ticket.  I remember I drained most of the last few dollars in my bank account to buy mine at a Ticketmaster outlet in a department store (anyone under 30 is asking “did what at a what?”)

This was a new experience. We’d gone into the city a number of times, but never to a music club.  This wasn’t a concert in an arena or even a theater.  The Metro is a famous indie rock club in Chicago and has been for nearly 30 years.  It’s wedged unassumingly between a number of bars in the shadow of the great Wrigley Field.  They’ve had some pretty amazing bands come through early in their careers.  There was nothing particularly special about it.  I haven't been in over a decade but at the time it was a square room with a big bar at the back, a stage at the front, and a balcony overhead.  And at $8 bucks a head, it was packed.  We were wedged in shoulder to shoulder with sweaty concert goers.  The amazing thing I learned that night about going to shows like that was how close you could get to the band.  It sounds almost naïve now, but I’d never seen a club show before that night.  The handful of concerts I’d attended before were mostly spent watching monitors more than the tiny figures somewhere far off and barely visible on the stage.  Unless you counted the innumerable Christian concerts I’d been to which were rarely sold out and often held in churches or schools.  I could count the boogers in the singer’s left nostril at some of those.  Even at the biggest Christian concert I ever went to, Stryper, which was held in an auditorium, we were still close enough for my friends to catch the little red New Testaments they threw out into the crowd.

I remember when I was 14 going to what was going to be an epic Christian rock night.  Three acts: a Christian rapper named Michael Peace, a southern adult-contemporary gospel singer named Morgan Cryer (I’m not making these names up) who looked like an anorexic Daryl Hall, and the headliner, a guy I was a big fan of named Rick Cua.  Rick had been a member of the 70’s southern rock band, The Outlaws.  In the 80’s he turned his heart and his bass over to Jesus and set out on a solo Christian rock career.  It was in an old theater of some kind in Milwaukee.  I had seen Rick a couple years earlier when he literally played in a church.  It was him and his bass on stage playing and singing along to prerecorded backing tracks, while we rocked out in the first pew to the left. If he didn't have an instrument, it would have essentially been karaoke.
Still, to a 13 or 14 year-old me, it was awesome.  He had long black hair helmet hair like Stamos, was clad is all black like Johnny Cash, save for the red leather flames sewn into his black leather biker boots, and a red bass slung from his shoulder.  He stood along on a church stage bathed in smoke and lights, just a few feet from me.  Keep your Jaggers, your McCartney’s, your KISS.  To me, this was a rockstar. 

The next time I saw him, headlining that triple bill, he was backed by a full band. Still in all black, this time with black cowboy boots, and a less helmet-ish, yet still Stamos-like hair cut.  I was excited to see him and hear tracks off the new album.  What I couldn’t have expected was halfway through the show as he was talking between songs, saying how much he’d loved his last show in Milwaukee.  He was talking about the tough balance of being a parent and a traveling musician and mentioned that his daughter had been the inspiration for a new song called “Fifteen.”  He was lamenting about how expensive teenage daughters were, and how he, like many fathers (myself included now) was not thrilled at the prospect of hormonal boys sniffing around.  Then he looked down at me, a couple rows back from the front, pointed his finger directly at me and said:  “Like you!”

Everyone in my immediate vicinity began laughing, not the least of which my friends.  Then Rick laughed and crouched down, reached out over the other heads to grab my hand. 

“You were at my last show,” he said.  “Thank you! Great to see you again brother!” 

Forget about it.  I know most-likely nobody reading this knows who he is or any of his music.  Hell, I don’t remember most of it.  But at that time, for a 14 year old fan like me there could be no bigger thrill.  Later in life it occurred to me, a "rock star" shouldn’t remember anyone from any show.  But again, this was Christian rock.  Rick had no doubt done his share of road indulgences in the 70’s.  But as far as I know he was walking the straight and narrow at this point.  That experience made me a great respecter of anyone who works the road, playing and performing for crowd after crowd.  Especially the ham & egger’s out there playing small clubs and venues, often barely eeking out a living, just because they love it.  

In late ’94 it was safe to say, while they were about to blow up and I'd wager become financially solvent, Weezer was one of those.  We were halfway back in the crowd and still made clear eye contact with the band numerous times.  At the time, I remember they played a few songs, then their hit, "Undone." Shortly after they launched into a new single just hitting Mtv (yup, they were still playing videos then) "Buddy Holly."  While that first album is loaded with great grungy rock tunes sung by the ironic, iconic hipster nerds, I remember as soon as that one ended, hearing some jackass in the crowd loudly declare “okay, they played their two songs. Let’s go!”  There was a mass exodus for the exit halfway through the show.  Including, sadly, those I was with.  It felt very disrespectful to the band who I assure had to have heard it, as well as disrespectful to, oh God I can’t believe I’m going to say this, art.  Even my own friend Stacy herded us together and told us we were leaving before the show was over.  He was the one with the car, so despite wanting to stay, we followed.  

Stangely enough, shortly after that night, Stacy’s wardrobe began to change.  Short-sleeved, button down plaid thrift store shirts with long sleeved tee shirts underneath became his new style.  He took to wearing his glasses more often, and parting his hair to one side.  It takes a lot of work to make your hair look like that. In fact, it seemed he was dressing more and more like the members of Weezer. It was. I might add a similar look to what many of the incoming freshman boys were sporting.  Hmm.  And as those early weeks rolled on, I began to find Stacy playing foosball and talking alternative music in the commons with a group of freshman guys.  It struck me as odd since in high school, he’d always gravitated to older students, trying to seem more mature. And he never played foosball.  Now he was ingratiating himself with those two years younger, and aping their trends. 
After that last trip to the city, he was calling or coming around my room less and less. Add to that he wasn’t to be found around the Theater department very often either.  Although, in that regard, he may have been the wiser of the two of us. 

Feeling Pretty Psyched

It was Brandy, Stacy’s girlfriend who suggested the answer to my roommate problem.  She and Stacy called me and said that a guy she knew was coming to Euphegenia and didn’t know anyone.  He was really funny, unique and little different, and he was from Indiana.  She thought he and I would get along very well.  So I said why not?  She’d already called him and he was game.  Since she and Stacy were already at school they spoke to housing and the whole thing was sorted.  When I got there that late summer day, I had to not only find my new room, but also meet my new roommate Judd.

I checked in at the lobby and said hi to some familiar faces.  I was directed to the third floor once again, just as I had been a year earlier.  I was happy to be going back to familiar space.  When Milton had come and we all moved down to a large room on the first floor, which was basically the basement we had lots of space.  The problem was that on that level, there was one large communal bathroom/shower area.  I did not dig that arrangement.  And we were at the opposite end of the hall.  If you woke in the middle of the night to pee, you had to decide how bad you really needed to go.  It was a cold uncomfortable walk to find relief.  And call me a prude if you must, I wasn’t really prepared to be greeted first thing in the morning by a half dozen other guys, many nude and swinging when all I wanted to brush my teeth.  Most of the jocks lived on the first floor.  Communal showers were just another day for them.  That bathroom smelled like a locker room, as did the hallway.  Nobody had their own bathroom in the dorm but I was far more comfortable sharing a shitter with three than thirty.

I got to my new room, which was across the hall from my very first room.  Someone had indeed moved in already, but was currently not there.  The first thing I noticed was a velvet Elvis painting on the wall near the bathroom.  Brandy might have been right.  I might very well like this guy.  My dad helped me bring up my last box and was just about to leave (there’d be no long goodbye this time) when someone opened the door.  He had brown hair to his shoulders, a They Might Be Giants t-shirt, and wide, suspicious eyes.  

“Judd?” I asked.

“That’s me,” he answered in that slow, slightly confused southern accent specific to Indiana.  It’s not a heavy drawl, but still hints of antebellum.  Being originally from Indiana I feel great affection to the state, but feel I can also say it’s a weird place.  The northwest part of the state is basically a suburb of Chicago, and the northeast an extension of Michigan.  Indianapolis is a nice clean mini-metropolis but with just a dash of southern hospitality not as common in other cities.  But slip an hour south of the city and you’ll think you crossed the Mason-Dixon. 

We awkwardly introduced ourselves.  George and I worked our way around each other for a few minutes as we unpacked.  It was funny how he went about trying to set up his things nice and orderly, as you do when you’re a freshman striking out on your own for the first time.  I more or less dumped my shit into my closet or my side of the large dresser.  We weren’t really sure what to do next.  Thankfully that’s just about the point where his parents arrived.  Though at first glance, I wondered if he’d been raised by his grandparents.  these people were clearly in their sixties.  Judd’s folks never had kids until later in life.  They were really sweet people and doted on him and his brother.  His mother declared our room was too drab and they were taking us to the mall the spice it up.  I knew Judd and I would get along when his first instinct for room décor was a stop at Spencer Gifts. 

I had mentioned it would be kind of cool to take the boring white bulb out of the central light in our ceiling and replace it with some color.  He not only went along with the idea, he was the one that found us a blue light bulb.  That and a string of light-up Universal Monster heads to be strung across our window.  That night our room was flooded with cool blue light and glowing Frankenstein, Dracula, and Wolfman heads.  There were those who expressed concern about it not being conducive to a study environment, but we quickly argued we both had desk lamps.  I was finally starting to relax about the living situation.  We spent some time discussing our individual backgrounds and what we were doing there.  We were both from Indiana originally, though nowhere near each other.  I’d passed through his hometown of Lebanon a million times on my way to visit my family in Bloomington.  Turned out he’d worked at the Dairy Queen we would even stop at now and then.  He may have dipped my cone a few times (hello!) 

Judd was a Youth Ministry major, which initially gave me the creeps about living with him.  Then I would remember I was going to be a youth pastor now too so this was probably a good thing.  I told him I was a Theatre major but had decided over the summer that I’d be seminary-bound after graduation.  He was really supportive, saying how being an actor and having a theater background would be awesome for a youth pastor.  Then he told me how much he loved the 80’s and broke out his Debbie Gibson tapes.  He also collected PEZ dispensers and loved the blow soap bubbles.  This new roommate thing was going to work after all.  Then we met our suite mates.

The boys we’d be sharing a bathroom with had also been thrown together by pure chance.  They had very little in common on the surface.  As it turned out, they had even less in common underneath.  The first to come over was Tad.  He was a short, blonde kid with a constant shit-eating grin.  He had the personality to match.  Always talking, always upbeat, with more than a hint of arrogance and superiority.  His father was a successful chiropractor in a nearby town.  Tad was also a Youth Ministry major and a piano virtuoso whose dream was to be a Christian recording artist.  Tad was extremely outgoing and personable, though if often came across as disingenuous.   He also had mischievous sense of humor.  I liked him, and would find myself constantly making an effort to be funny around him.  It was almost like I was threatened since I was the actor in the suite but this guy was the one making people laugh.  But liking him and seeking his approval aside, there was also something slightly mistrustful about him.  There was just a spark of trouble in the corner of his eye. 

Then there was Doug.  Tad’s roommate probably had a legitimate case to sue the producers of Napoleon Dynamite.  Gob bless him, the kid had issues.  Side note: usually when someone says “god bless him/her” what they’re really saying is “that kid is fucked.”  Clearly there was something not quite right between his ears, yet to his credit he was making the effort to not let it stop him.  Doug was tall and lean, with tight curly hair.  He had large, thick glasses that, based on the way his eyes seemed to struggle through them appeared to impair his vision more than assist.  Whereas Tad was smooth and good at working a room, Doug desperately wanted friends and acceptance but struggled with social skills.  He spoke in non-sequiters in a voice similar to Sylvester the cat, though a couple octives deeper, and had a tendency to spit when he spoke.  He’d get very excited about things the rest of us didn’t share his enthusiasm for, nor did we quite understand.  Doug liked comic books (specifically The Tick, which I could get behind), considered “Weird Al” Yankovic a misunderstood genius, and faithfully studied Tae Kwon Do.  He would discuss any of the three at a moment’s notice, whether you brought it up or not. 

We tended to keep our bathroom door shut or at least cracked, but Doug became famous for Kramer-like entrances.  Judd and I would be sitting around chatting or studying when without announcement, the door would blast open and Doug would launch himself into our room like a Tasmanian Devil.  It was funny, at first.  Then he would just sit there.  Literally just sit in one of our chairs, not speaking.  He would stare at us with a smile on his face.  Even if we weren’t doing anything.  One afternoon I was lying on my bunk reading and Doug sat there for the better part of an hour watching me.  He was sweet so we didn’t want to hurt his feelings.  I would have said he was harmless, but we weren’t entirely sure about that.  He bragged from day one how he could split a board. 

One day Tad, meaning to be something of a smartass came back from a trip home with a two-by-four.  He pulled Doug into our room, as well as ushering in a number of spectators from the hallway like a carnival barker.  He demanded his roomy put on a martial arts display by splitting the board.  Tad stood in our room holding the plank and Doug, with zero preparation or hesitation spun around a split the thing in two even pieces.  Not with his hand, mind you, but with his bare foot.  I’d be lying if I said we weren’t slightly afraid of ever pissing him off after that. 

And so began my second year.  New roommate, new room, and hopefully a new start.  I was resolved to do better that year than the year before.  Of course, resolutions tend to only last so long, whether made after New Years or not.     

Raise The Walls To Hide These Flaws

It was late summer, 1994 and I returned to Euphegenia for my second year.  When dad dropped me off at good old Wilton Hall, it felt like someone hit the Play button on my life again which, for the last three months had been on a forced Pause.  It had to be.  Working in a hellish factory, constantly being yelled at by chubby guys in wife-beaters with mullets and porn 'staches, while also being treated like a freeloader in what I thought was my home was not my real life.  I was sure of it.  Everything on campus looked just as I’d left it.  It felt like coming home.  Although, just as when I’d gone to my parents’ house at the beginning of the summer and discovered there’d been major change, I was about to experience a change here at my old familiar dormitory.  I was about to meet my new roommate. 

Early in the June, I received the one call I’d hear from Artemis all summer.  The first thing he asked was “did you hear about Milton?”  I told him no, of course not.  I hadn’t heard much about anyone that summer.  It was then that Artemis filled me in about Milt’s attempts to be green by showering with a friend.  Of course that friend was that aforementioned female student who lived on campus and he’d been kicked out.  As I think back now, I don’t even remember if anything happened to her.  I wondered if her “scary-ass Jamaican" boyfriend (he was actually Bahamian), as Artemis and some of the other black kids that hung around our room called him, ever found out.  Come to think of it, not only do I not know if she got in trouble with the school, I’m not even sure she was ever seen again after that summer! 

I’m kidding of course.  I’m sure she was fine.  Allegedly.  But Milt was out. The school had zero tolerance for, well, they didn't get specific. There'd been stories of other couples busted for making the beast with two backs who'd received slaps on the genitals, or even no punishment at all. Yet my black roommate performed a naked Heimlich maneuver on a white girl and he was booted. Done and done. Unfortunately, it also turned out, Artemis was gone too. 
Not kicked out. He told me he was not coming back in the fall.  I don’t think he’d done too much better than me academically that first year.  More to the point I just don’t think his family could afford the rising costs of private school, nor did they want to get buried in loans. Whatever it was, his time as a student at Euphegenia College was over.  My roommate, my friend, my brother, and one of the funniest, most talented people I’ve ever known was gone.  I had this strange, foreboding sense that I was on my own the rest of this journey.  Fortunately he'd maintain one connection to the school that would keep him popping in from time-to-time.

I’ve mentioned before what a beautiful natural landscape the campus was.  Well, something about it in the spring took on a whole new dimension.  It was as if Jesus took a spring break and handed the keys to a different deity, Aphrodite the goddess of love.  When the foliage was a bloom, so it seemed were the genitalia.  Especially in the young men.  Most upperclassmen were already attached by this point in their college experience.  After all, declaring a significant other was nearly as important as your major.  But it seemed when the sun came out and things warmed up a little, we boys woke out of a funk.  Like bears rising from hibernation, we were out of the caves and ravenous, on the hunt with our snouts constantly in the air (something else constantly in our paws.) 

Artemis had not been immune to love’s lonely call.  Apparently he was giving off the right pheromones as well.  One day I was nosing around the bookshop after lunch (probably looking for a Snickers bar) and was approached by a girl named Holly.  I knew her, but I didn’t know her.  We didn’t run in similar circles.  Holly was a girl jock.  She was stocky, with a blonde boy cut and barely any makeup.  But don’t mistake me, she was beautiful.  She had these wide, crystal blue eyes and a gorgeous natural face.  She was a right off the assembly line from Holland, Michigan.  They must manufacture and implant those eyes there.  Even recently a woman came into my office and it came up she was originally from Michigan.  She was shocked when I asked without any further indication if she was from Holland.  When she asked how I’d guessed I gave a more diplomatic answer for the sake of my job, but the truth is she had those same bright blue peepers.

Turns out the little Dutch girl, who had never dated a non-Caucasian in her life had taken a liking to my roomie.  I guess they’d been sat next to each other or something and he’d had her laughing through an entire lecture.  He had that gift, and normally without trying.  That was just his nature.  Just like we were in junior high, she had come to me to find out about him.  At first it was just “I love your roommate.  He’s so funny.”  But it quickly progressed to “so does Artemis have a girlfriend?” 

Why no, I had smiled.  And I guess that was all it took.  She asked me to tell him to call her.  So I did.  They were more or less inseparable after that. When they were physically apart, I'd find him on the phone in our room with her for hours. One day, I came in and he was lying on his bunk with the phone to his head. He put his hand over the receiver and whispered "listen to this." She was singing the Cranberries song "Linger." I felt awkward that he invited me into such an intimate moment without her knowing, but it also was sweet.        

To her credit Holly was very good for Artemis.  She pulled him out of his shell, for as hilarious and boisterous as he could be, Artemis was naturally a shy guy.  He didn’t like to go many places or do many things.  He was very childlike.  Even in his only other relationship prior to her, Artemis wasn’t much of a suitor.  He had a little high school girlfriend, but they actually never went on many, if any dates.  His family would not have approved, as she too was white.  It was more of an “at school” relationship. 

They did go to Junior/Senior Banquet together (our form of Prom, but without dancing or four best friends desperately trying to lose their virginity or fucking an apple pie.)  That was the only time I ever saw them on any kind of date situation.  When Artemis came to Euphegenia our freshman year, he didn’t call her for nearly three months.  He was more or less done with her and didn’t know how to handle it.  Artemis was emotionally immature. I don't think his mother gave him much freedom to become an adult. He’d never been in a romantic relationship before and therefore had never broken up with anyone. I actually felt bad for the girl.  Imagine being a 16 year-old girl and your boyfriend ships off to college and you never receive one phone call or a letter or any contact at all.  This was long before email, let alone social networking sites where perhaps it would have been easier for him to stay in touch without much effort. 

Finally, she somehow got the phone number to our room (I still don’t know how, . . . allegedly) and called him.  They had a long conversation and from what I could gather by watching his face, she was less than pleased.  It wasn’t pretty.  What was already barely a relationship was by the end of the phone call no longer a relationship at all.  He confided in me after that call that he did indeed feel badly as he had probably handled that situation poorly.  I could only laugh, “you think?!?”   

He was not that same boy with Holly.  He became a man with her, in more ways than one.  They had taken to sneaking off campus on the weekends and staying in a cheap motel.  For a while it was simply to have some alone time, and not to mess around.  It was hard to develop any kind of intimacy, not just physical under the restrictions placed upon us on campus.  I knew about it, and some of her friends did too.  It was no big deal. In fact it was adorable the first time he told me they had slept together. "No man," he said, "I mean it. We just slept. We got pizza, watched movies all night, and fell asleep." He was damn near giddy about it. Still, I also remember quite clearly the Sunday evening Artemis came back to our room and, after a moment of pacing the room, said in a hushed voice “Holly and I had sex.” 

At the risk of knowing how uncomfortable this would make him, it was so damn cute!  He was shocked and confused but again, also giddy.  Understand, if his mother found out he’d had premarital sex, let alone with a white girl, she would have driven from Milwaukee to literally beat his ass with one of his father's wingtips!  Even at 18 years old.  He’d committed a cardinal sin in the eyes of our religion, but especially his denomination.  Fortunately he didn’t care.  There was a new air about him.  At the risk of sounding cliché, there was a spring in his step.  I don’t know for sure if he was her first, but Holly was his.  First anything in fact.  I damn near expected him to leap up and click his heals when he headed out to meet her for dinner.  As I said, Holly changed him.  She made a man of him. 

They were very much in love.  Their relationship was so strong and so happy that everything that made them seem like opposites disappeared.  This was an age when things were supposedly progressive, but trust me that on that small campus, interracial couples did not go unnoticed.  There was quiet judgment.  Some not even so quiet.  One day a soccer player whom I’d had some funny conversations with and I thought was an alright guy came up to me to inquire about them.

“Artemis and Holly are dating?” he asked.

“Yeah, for about a month or so,” I answered.

“Hmm,” he’d responded.  He was quiet a beat as we walked.  “You’re okay with that?” 

It actually took me a minute to process.  I didn’t have feelings for Holly.  Artemis and I were not on the down-low.  So what else could possibly make me not okay with it?  Oh, I got it.  She was a precious white maiden, while he was the savage black buck defiling her in a Motel 6.  I answered, annoyed, that Artemis was a really great guy and he wouldn’t hurt her.  I also mentioned he wasn’t as tough as they assumed, just because he was black, and that Holly could probably kick his scrawny ass if he messed with her.  The guy wasn’t satisfied with my answer, but carried on without mentioning it again.  In fairness, I learned later he and Holly had known each other before Euphegenia and he carried a pretty big torch for her.

  I’m not trying to be Mr. Liberal or a social justice warrior when I say this - it's honestly how it was. I have vivid memories of being a kid visiting my grandparents in southern Indiana and hearing people scream at interracial couples "salt and pepper!" And they weren't intending for them to "push it real good" when they did. When it came to Holly and Artemis, I actually forgot one was black and one was white.  Trust me that is saying something because Artemis was dark, and Holly was so white she was practically clear.  They were just my friends.  And when we all hung out, it was a blast. There was no racial divide. Because of their relationship, Holly became part of my life and a great friend.  So while I was saddened that Artemis wasn’t coming back, there was some solace that she would be there and we’d both be missing a shared partner. 

Tie Another One To The Racks, Baby

The end of the summer was rapidly approaching.  I was counting the days, nay the hours until I went back to school.  Actually I just couldn’t wait to be done with that God forsaken factory.  Every moment was misery, even after my mystery sickness had passed.  Some would say an experience like that would give one an appreciation for the people who do those sorts of jobs their entire lives.  I can’t say that so much, as it gave me a great deal of empathy.  If you met someone with a mental condition that caused them to run headlong into a brick wall every day, splitting their face open and knocking them unconscious, you wouldn’t really feel an appreciation for their plight.  These people worked in a horrible environment, doing extremely taxing work for little pay with no room for advancement.  Most of them didn’t even know any better.  I suppose working in a generator factory, as awful as it was, still beat working in a coal mine or some mill.  And was definitely better than not working at all.  Well, I can’t even say that.  Still, for the few people I met from other lines that I actually liked, I wanted to challenge them to attempt something else with their lives.  I know how elitist that sounds; cocky college boy trying to minister to the natives.  That was never my intention, but it didn’t matter as it was quickly apparent they weren’t interested.  The primary goal for most was to pay their rent, fill their tank, and have enough left over for beer.  And some of those had families at home who might have hoped for other priorities. 

The majority of these people were only ten to fifteen years older than I was.  It’s no wonder the American dream died.  Somewhere along the way, whole generations said “fuck it.”  They didn’t care about doing better than their parents.  They didn’t even plan on doing as well.  Let the next generation worry about it.  They were just going earn a check, go fishing twice a year, and when they decided they were too tired, fake a back injury and retire on disability. 

The only fond memory I have of that job was my daily ritual of stopping at a local gas station to pick up a vat-sized Cherry Coke.  To compete with 7-11’s Big Gulp, this company called theirs the Big Chill.  And the extra-extra-large size, my personal favorite, was the Super Chill.  It was something absurd like 64 ounces of sugary syrupy soda.  A Super Chill would last me almost an entire shift.  Sadly, like most young people, I didn’t drink a lot of water in those days.   No wonder I got dizzy working in 90+ degrees for ten hours a night, right?  Eric would always laugh at me and my gigantic plastic cup.  So when our final night came, I made one last stop at the gas station, this time with a shallow box in the car.  I bought five Super Chills, four Cherry Cokes and one regular Coke for this hump Don who’d recently joined our line. 

Don looked like the Penguin.  Seriously, all he needed was a monocle!  He wasn’t a bad guy, so much as he was just a loudmouth and a know-it-all, a deadly combination for a little ball of flab.  He was shooting his mouth off at us from day one.  He was recently unemployed as well and this was where he landed.  He didn’t like being stuck with a bunch of short-timers who didn’t, as he put it, take their jobs seriously.  One night in August we got pulled off our line and marched up to a conference room.  Mike our supervisor was there as was his boss, a snot-nosed young executive who was clearly praying that his time working the night shift was just a short stint of paying dues.  He was an Engineering major from Marquette.  He was a skinny kid with slick blonde hair who wore starched white shirts and a tie every night, regardless of the oppressive temperatures.  I don’t know who the hell he thought it impressed down there in the pit.  His face eternally showed his disdain for his surroundings and all of us.  A night before, Don was bitching at Tom who worked to his immediate right.  Tom was one of the meekest, most mild-mannered humans I’ve ever known, but apparently even he had a line.  Somewhere in his spitting and railing, Don crossed said line.  Tom leapt of his platform and took hold of Don by the shoulders, shoving him against a crate of empty cradles.  It looked like he’d shaken a Jell-O mold!  For such a brave tongue, I can vividly recall the terror in little Don’s eyes behind those plastic safety glasses.  We quickly sprang down from our stations and interceded, stopping him from doing anything stupid.  As much as this little tub of shit needed good ass-kicking, higher natures prevailed and we convinced Tom not to endanger his job or freedom any further. 

That was the reason for this little surprise pow-wow with the bosses.  Like on Festivus, we were all encouraged to air our grievances so we could get back to the line.  Don of course went first, and he spewed the same story about us all being irresponsible and not committed to the company.  Well he was right that not one of us had any commitment to the place past late August.  But as for irresponsible, we were all there every day at our stations, working as hard as we could.  Did we screw up incessantly?  Of course, but no one could question our efforts or sincerity, even if we cursed that place with every drop of sweat. 

Don went on and on, and the rest of us didn’t say a word.  We just exchanged amused yet also annoyed glances.  The worst part was, we knew this was all happening because he felt left out.  We had formed a little team there.  We’d had to in order to survive.  He came late.  We tried to be inclusive, but the minute you start casting dispersions on the family, you’re stonewalled.  Sorry.  Don was jealous.  And I guarantee he was the kid who tattled in grade school when he didn’t get his way.  He was the “take my ball and go home” kid.  Regardless, he started attacking the way we did things the first day he showed up.  That’s not a good way to make new friends.  And here he was talking shit about us in front of the higher ups.  I’d had enough of this bespectacled Quasimodo.  We were literally just a couple weeks from liberation.  If I got fired at this point, fuck it!  What would my parents do?  Make me find another job for two weeks? 

“I’m out there every day,” Don spat, “busting my hump!”

 “Well Don,” I deadpanned, without even looking up from the table.  “It’s a good thing you can clearly grow another hump.” 

The room was silent for a second.  I thought I’d just earned myself a pinkslip.  Then everyone erupted with laughter.  Even the junior V.P. couldn’t contain himself.  I saw him shaking his head, his face turning red, and then he finally gave in.  He actually had to take off his glasses and wipe away tears.  I know it may not sound like a line that would bring the house down.  But in that tense little area, where at any moment tempers might flare, it took the wind out of everyone.  Thank God that’s one thing I’ve been good at my whole life – defusing hostile situations.  Even Don himself was laughing.  How could you not?  We were all grown men, more or less, and we were in the principal’s office because we weren’t playing nice in the sandbox.  It was kind of absurd.   

Even though part of me wanted to piss in Don’s cup that last night, I quickly forgave, or at least overlooked his shitty attitude.  We all did.  Knowing we’d be walking out of Hell for the last time that night and Don would be staying behind I actually felt sorry for the little butterball.  So I bought him a soda too.  I’ve found in life sometimes it feels twice as good doing nice things for shitty people.  It probably hurts them more than a punch in the jaw.  Besides, it only set me back like a $1.60 or something. 

That last 10 hour shift flew by and we all walked out of there feeling eight feet tall.  Some of the “lifers” even invited us to the local dive bar they frequented.  All summer we’d heard tales of this dark, dingy joint frequented by night shifters and bikers.  It sounded right out of Easy Rider.  I wanted to go.  We were underage but they assured us it would be cool.  I knew my stepmom would shit herself if she knew I was headed to a bar after work, but I wasn’t going to turn them down.  Eric and I both made a right out of that parking lot for the first time that summer.  Sadly, when we got to the tiny roadhouse, it was already near closing time and the bartender eyed us the minute we reached the threshold.  I could smell the cheap beer and old linoleum.  A canopy of cigarette smoke hung over the entire room, leaving only a few feet of visibility to the floor.  The table legs and pant legs of the patrons looked dirty and tattered and cool!  The boss lady demanded to see id.  Eric tried to flash his fake, but it didn’t work.  I didn’t even bother.  I just headed back toward the car.

One of the guys, only a few years older than us, ran out after me.  I can’t remember his name, but we said hi a few times.  We’ll call him Spike.  He worked in the paint shop and drove his Harley every day.  He had spiky hair (hence the name) and wore the full on leathers to and from work.  He would bring my cradles down from time to time and talk to us about what we were doing in school.  While he emanated a James Dean don’t give a fuck attitude, I think he actually envied us college boys. 

“Guys, wait up,” he called out.  When he got to us, he pulled two cold Miller Genuine Drafts out of his coat pockets.  “Here’s to getting out alive.” 

We leaned against an old truck and clinked our cans.  The guy straddled his bike and lit up a Marlboro.  The three of us just hung out, enjoying the warm summer night/morning.  It was short lived revelry, as the barmaid came out barking at him for giving us beer.  She chased us off, fearing for her liquor license.  We just laughed about it and said our last goodbyes.  Good dudes, all around.  It was the last I’d see any of them.  

That MGD was the greatest beer I’d ever tasted.  Probably still holds true in fact.  Shortly after that, a movie came out called The Shawshank Redemption.  There is a scene where Tim Robbins, playing a wrongly accused prisoner strikes a bargain with the warden that he and his buddies will re-tar the prison roof under the hot summer sun.  All he asks in exchange is a bucket of beer for the boys and little downtime when the job is done.  I remember hearing one particular whack job conservative girl back at Euphegenia say “I don’t know why they had to glamorize the drinking.”  She definitely didn’t know, but I did.  I know to a smaller degree what those beers tasted like.  Because standing there in that gravel parking lot at 2 in the morning, knowing the worst summer of my life was over, that beer tasted like freedom. 

I drove home that night with the windows down and warm wind blasting through the car.  The taste of Miller still on my tongue.  I was wide-eyed, having turned nocturnal that summer as a result of the schedule.  I remember taking the long way home cruising up and down country roads with the radio blaring.  I think it was nearly 3 by the time I got home and snuck in to my bed.  I remember lying awake; looking at the boxes I’d already started to pack.  I had made it through the awful summer and was heading back to school with a new purpose.  I wasn’t going to immediately switch my major to youth ministry, but I would start taking some appropriate classes.  As I’d heard Doctor Bob advise many students, seminaries didn’t just want Religion majors.  They wanted people with backgrounds in the Humanities.  After all that was how you related to young people.  Not spouting off antiquated ideas and philosophies.  In fact, having a Theater background would make me more effective, I reasoned.  This was a way for me to satisfy my needs as an artist and performer, and still serve God, just as we were all taught we must. 

That last Saturday before I left, I attended a little get together of some of my high school classmates.  Initially I had no intention of going.  For starters I wasn’t that friendly with the girl hosting the soiree.  Her father was the Superintendant and her mother had been my History teacher.  They were super conservative and had always been about as warm and inviting as stingrays.  Only two or three of the people attending had actually been my friends back in high school.  It also turned out I would be the only guy who would show up.  I pulled up to a strange ranch house in a Milwaukee suburb I’d never seen before and before that day never imagined I would.  As I walked up the drive, sitting right there in a lawn chair staring into space with an iced tea was the man who’d spent four years grunting at me and flashing disapproving looks.  Her father was a tall imposing figure who slightly resembled Fred Gwynne with Donald Trump’s hair.  His trademark (aside from openly despising teenagers) had always been his array of oddly colored sport coats.  They ran the gambit from 70’s couch brown with colored flecks, to pea soup green, to my personal favorite, chipped beef pink.  That day however he was actually wearing shorts and a white tee, with tube socks hiked up to his knee caps.  Part of me wanted to cut and run at the sight of him, but no, I rationed.  I was a grown man (sort of) and I wasn’t afraid of him.  I could see in his face that it was taking him a moment to even suss out who I was against the setting sun.  When he did, the strangest thing happened.  He stood up with a wide grin and reached out to shake my hand.  He chuckled and asked how I’d been.  Then he directed me through the side door to the basement where everyone else was hanging out.  I seem to remember him saying it was good to see me.    

As if that didn’t catch me off guard, once through that door I ran right into my old World History teacher in the kitchen.  Back in the day she was not my biggest fan.  I barely made it through her class, and not without a fair share of warnings.  On the outside she looked very much like a pleasant middle-aged woman who might plant petunias or bake.  But when she disapproved of you or what you were doing, there was the look of disdain in those eyes that would match Satan himself.  Yet the moment she saw me in the kitchen, she practically slid across the counter, Dukes of Hazard style and gave me a warm bear hug.  She definitely said it was good to see me, and it actually felt sincere.  It was strange how at the foot of their driveway I was prepared for an icy reception but before I had even reached the “friendly gathering” I had already been made to feel comfortable and welcome.  Those small gestures stuck with me.  Understand they had both been scary characters when I was in school, especially to somewhat, um, rambunctious, rule manipulating scamps like myself.  This kind warmth I had just received threw me.  While I wouldn’t be the first to tell you I’m a cynical, mistrusting bastard, I would certainly support such statements.  But I guess what I’m trying to say is, you never can tell with people.

When I finally reached the basement, I saw that it indeed was a gathering of all females.  And they were the more conservative and also advanced placement students that I rarely socialized with in school.  There was a part of me that felt immediately out of place.  In fact, I think I wanted to go back upstairs and hang with the folks!  Also in attendance had been Mrs. Landon, who aside from being a very conservative Baptist lady and the school Spanish teacher, had also been our class sponsor.  Since our school was private and therefore small, each class had two teachers assigned as their sponsors.  Mrs. Landon, while politically was not be someone I’d connect to, became a mother-figure to many of us.  She had also been the assistant director of my first play so for that reason alone we had gotten somewhat close. 

I suppose as they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, or at least puts rose colored glasses over everything.  When I appeared in that basement, everyone seemed genuinely excited that I was there.  Of course I reminded myself that the students of Bates High acted excited when Carrie White arrived at the prom!  T

these were church girls and that informed everything they did.  For most of them, the goal after high school was to go to a Christian college and marry a Christian man, preferably a pastor.  The reason I so rarely spoke to them in school was because I made no secret of my liberal beliefs.  What they considered liberal at any rate.  Truth be told, I’m more left wing now than I was then.  At least on social issues.  But boy did I step on a number of toes back then.  Another truth that should be told is I also enjoyed espousing far more leftist opinions than I actually held, simply to piss people off.  I sheepishly submit that perhaps I enjoyed mashing toes, just a little, your honor. 

So it gave me a mischievous thrill to consider announcing here for the first time publicly to these good girls who had me as the devil’s spawn that I was entering the ministry.  So I did.  After a while, as everyone was going around a circle catching the group up on what they’d been doing the past year their eyes landed on me.  I went into my time at Eupghegenia and the shows I’d done.  I also had to make a little apology.  When Stacy and I had gone back to our high school for the Homecoming basketball game (yes basketball because we didn’t have a football team) we had decided on the drive up to invent interesting little stories for ourselves.  Stacy decided he would casually spread the word that he was writing a screenplay and working with some somewhat famous producers.  I had joined an alt-rock band currently in talks with a couple indie labels called Strawberry Pez. 

Of course, when we got to the game and spread out to mingle, I followed the plan.   Stacy did not.  When anyone asked me what I was doing, I’d briefly go over classes and plays, etc., and then just quietly bring up my band.  Guess which subject got the biggest reaction!  In fact it quickly snowballed faster than I could control it. 

Some of my former classmates really got excited by the news.  So much so that it made me excited, and then I forgot it was all bullshit.  I started running with the story.  I’m an actor after all, and it was fun.  I knew just enough from Mtv and Rolling Stone magazine that I could talk like I actually knew something about the music business.  Of course I didn’t know anything, but neither did they either.  The plan had always been at the end of the night to say a collective just kidding.  Since Stacy chickened out, telling me later he got there and “wasn’t comfortable with idea of lying to everyone” (douche) I had walked out on the plank alone.  I hadn’t expected people to believe it so deeply and to get so emotionally involved.  So, I went back to Illinois with at least a couple people in Wisconsin eagerly awaiting my album.  Oops.  And a couple of those people were now sitting in that basement as well. 

Fortunately, when I tested the waters by first coming clean about my fictional band, everyone laughed.  When I came out with my decision to become a youth pastor, that’s when they called bullshit.  I assured them all that this was not a prank or an embellishment.  They were all in shock.  One girl, Kay who had been a vocal charismatic Pentecostal from an Assembly of God church shouted out “Bart Scott is going to be a Youth Pastor?!?!”  To be honest, as much as the idea shocked and confused her, I think it also made her a little wet!  I assured them that I was being quite sincere.  I didn’t go into the dizzy spells, inner ear fluid, or the deal I’d made with the Almighty for curing my AIDs.  I simply left it at a burning bush experience that I couldn’t deny.  I had been called.  And after their initial shock faded, they were all really supportive.  Even Senora Landon said she’d always thought it was something I’d be good at. 

Looking back, I now wonder if she was being sincere or just trying to sound supportive.  Knowing the mischief I caused in high school, and would later get into in my twenties, I find it hard to believe anyone thought I’d make a good youth pastor.  I do believe I’d have been a great teacher.  I would have loved to have taught high school English.  Then again, I think that’s a common fantasy for artists and writers.  Many of us daydream about being a college English Lit professor, with a beard and patches on our elbows.  The problem for me was I hated school.  Teaching, at least in the traditional sense is probably never in the cards for me, even though I still revisit the notion from time to time.  But a youth pastor?  Let me state emphatically that I was dead serious at the time, and was convinced at the time it was my destiny.  Now that I’ve spent some time out on the water, I can promise you it never was and never is to be.  I really like kids of all ages and relate to them.  I would love to be some kind of guidance to them (as if any parent reading this will ever be comfortable with that idea!)  But not as a shepherd.

I left the party (if you want to call it that) feeling good about my announcement.  I went home and finished packing, prepared to go back to school and begin my training.  The funny thing is I never announced my intentions to my dad or stepmom.  You would think they’d be the first people I’d tell.  Their religion aside, at least it was a real career with the hope of a paycheck and some benefits.  I never said a word.  I did promise them I would work harder this year.  I hadn’t finished my second semester very well.  That’s an understatement for the books.  In fact, I was returning to school for my second year, but my third freshman semester.  At the time I shrugged it off.  Just meant an extra semester to graduate which meant more time at college.  At the time that was a pleasant prospect.  Plus there were tons of articles and news stories saying how it was becoming normal, and in fact expected for it to take 5 years to graduate college.  I was just among the average. 

That day we loaded up dad’s truck and made our way south, I really was dedicated to working harder at my studies.  I had no intentions of making the Dean’s List or even graduating “with honors.”  But I was going to make sure I passed everything so I could actually be a sophomore for at least one semester with the people I’d started.  The worst indignity was that my first semester back, I would still have to sign in at midnight, Monday through Friday just like every other freshman.  I didn’t care about the curfew so much, but having my name printed on a list viewed by anyone passing through that hall made it difficult to cover up what a miserable failure I’d been the year before.  As if the fact that I was always either sleeping, acting, or screwing off anywhere other than a classroom hadn’t made it obvious! 

I got out of that truck, boxes in hands ready for a new room, new roommate, and a new beginning at my old school.  Again I say I really intended to pursue the path of a youth pastor that year.  I had every intention of busting my ass, academically from day one.  In retrospect I think I realized the religion classes were somewhat easier for me to bullshit my through as well.  Still, I was sincere about the endgame.  I had good intentions. 

Oh good intentions, wherefore art though good intentions?  Where is it they say the road paved with such intentions leads?  Well, in the fall of 1994, it led me back to my little Christian college.  Isn’t it ironic?  Don’t you think?                 

I Can't Believe That I Believed

One night I was standing at my station on the assembly line, attaching cradles to generators, poorly as usual, and I started feeling a little dizzy.  I shook it off and kept working.  It continued to come and go throughout the night.  The next night, it happened again and a little worse than the night before.  This pattern continued, night after night and the dizziness worsened and began to cause nausea.  I didn’t say anything to anyone.  But inside I was starting to get worried.  This was something weird.  Something I’d never really experienced.  I’d had the flu numerous times, but it always passed.  And I’d never gotten dizzy just standing up, working.  Could this be something bigger?  I started to really get paranoid. 

What I’m about to confess will not only in some ways make me look ridiculous but will reveal the ignorance and naivety of my age at the time, but also of the culture I’d been living in.  I started to worry that by having sex with Kori.  I had contracted AIDS.  That was the first place my mind jumped to.  After all, Kori and I had unprotected sex.  And she was not a virgin.  Neither was I of course, but that wasn’t relevant.  Her last time had been more recent.  It was very possible during our 30 seconds of intercourse that the AIDS virus had crawled its way from her vagina up my miniscule shaft.  Now I was surely dying.  I know, I know, that sounds flat out retarded.

 But before you decide I’m a complete loon and throw this book out as the ravings of a buffoon, consider some things. 

At my Christian high school, we were never taught about health and were certainly never allowed to even discuss HIV and AIDS in any of our classes.  Except in Bible class where it was more or less presented as God’s punishment on homosexuals.  I remember being a high school junior and learning that Magic Johnson announced he was HIV-positive.  The first words to leave my mouth were “but Magic’s not gay.” 

It wasn’t an insult to the gay community, intended or otherwise.  I sincerely still lived in a world that believed only gays got those diseases.  That was 1992.  It was still a couple years before it was widely told that anyone could get it.  I’d say most of what I understand about AIDS, I learned from The Real World: San Francisco.  Seeing Pedro Zamora, the spokesman of my generation for AIDS awareness, go through his struggle with strength and dignity and educating the whole world via this reality show was inspiring.  Many people of my generation were truly shaken when our friend Pedro died.  I remember that day, and the news promos Mtv ran all day between episodes of the show Pedro was known for.  I know how cheesy it sounds, but I really did learn a lot from that show and Pedro’s experience.  That’s who educated me as a teenager about the realities of AIDS.  I suppose it is a sign of my generation that we got our social information from basic cable.  Just as parents learned about sex in the halls of their schools, and just as it will be the internet that teaches today’s teens.  And God only knows the next generation will learn about sex from Playstation 12.

There was another reason that my imagination took such an unreasonable leap.  Just a few weeks before these dizzy spells began, I had driven down to spend a weekend with Stacy and company in Illinois.  It was Saturday afternoon and he and I had been driving around, looking for a CD he wanted and just sort of chatting.  Then, as we were  literally just circling the parking lot of a nearly empty shopping mall while killing time until we were to meet Brandy and some others, Stacy decided to redirect the conversation. 

“Do you have any big regrets?” he asked me. 

“What do you mean?”  I asked him.  Moments before I’m sure we’d been discussing U2’s latest album verses Rattle & Hum or something just as important. 

“I mean, is there anything you’ve done in your life that you really regret now?” he asked me. 

It’s funny now at this point today in my life, I have no issue discussing all the wrong turns I’ve made in life.  Hell this book is a chronicle of my personal follies.  I’m completely comfortable with sharing them with world.  But at 19 years old, I was insecure and not really open to baring the more tender wounds of my soul.  So I kind of hemmed and hawed and didn’t give him a real answer.  I think I just said something to the effect of yes; there were a number of things.  I then just asked why he would bring up the question.  He gave me a few shallow answers about just making conversation.  Then after a few awkward silent moments he hit with the thing that was apparently just eating away at his mind.

“Did you have sex with Kori?”

The questions didn’t shock me.  I actually knew he wanted to know for a long time, and it was something I’d never have just offered up.  Not to Stacy anyway.  He was many things, often a good friend was at least towards the top of the list, but he was also very judgmental.  He’d been raised to believe that if he kept his nose clean, lead a pure and holy life following the Ten Commandments, more or less literally, he was qualified and sanctified to sit on a throne of judgment over others.  He lorded his moral code over my head on numerous occasions when I implied I believed the key to life was often ambiguity, in many things.  So I didn’t rush to his room when I returned to campus from that fateful trip north with Kori and confess my carnal transgressions.  But he had often suspected.  And one thing Stacy valued was knowledge. 

Another way of saying that is Stacy was a gossip queen.  The man was oft tight-lipped about his own life, but he loved to know shit about everyone else.  In fact, if you knew something juicy and didn’t share it with him, he’d actually get pissed off at you.  You could see it in his face.  He’d get red and frustrated and begin to speak down to you. 

This was it though, I gathered.  He’d finally grown a set and come right out with the question.  I felt obligated to be honest.  It had been months and there was nothing he could say.  She and I had broken up long ago; otherwise I wouldn’t have put it past him to demand I put a stop to the relationship immediately.  Well, he wouldn’t demand it, but he’d give me an unsolicited list of no less than fifteen reasons why I had better call it off. 

“Yes,” I answered him.  “I did.” 

Stacy got the widest, self-satisfied grin I’d ever seen the guy smile.  It was that “Aha, I knew it” look.  He was so please with himself for a moment.  But then of course he reined it in and put on that youth pastor / Dr. Drew on Celebrity Rehab face.  The one that essentially says “yeah, it’s good that you admitted your weakness but we know it was wrong and what are we going to do to keep you on the straight and narrow?” 

He let out a long sigh. 

“I knew you had,” he said.  “I just sensed it when you broke up with her.” 

I hadn’t ever gotten around to sharing the phony pregnancy scare with him.  Yet good old Sherlock had put it together anyway.  Damn he was good!  I started to get annoyed with him.  There was this tone of disappointment in his voice as he spoke.  Like your dad does when he wants you to know you’ve let him down.  Stacy often spoke to me like he was my superior.  Someone at school actually once referred to me as his sidekick.  Which was really fucking offensive, but I laughed it off.  I get sidekick?  Why, because Stacy’s taller and in better shape and smarter?  Ok, maybe.  But truth be told, I guarantee as much as he let on that he was sad that I’d compromised my soul by engaging in sexual congress with a woman not my wife, the motherfucker was as jealous as Cain of Abel!

Stacy was 20 years old and despite his relative good looks and wit, he’d never had so much as a spit soaked hand on his member, aside from perhaps his own.  And I’m not even sure about.  We never did discuss our individual positions on masturbation.

I know it drove him nuts to picture swarthy ol’ me in bed with an attractive art major with a great body, making the beast with two backs.  And it drove him nuts not for the reasons he would purport.  He was jealous that I had that life experience on him, plus he knew Kori wasn’t my first.  I’m sure the fact I’d actually gotten laid in high school had always bugged him.  And I sensed now that my answer pissed him off even more.  I did no act of contrition.  Offered no remorse or apologetics. 

“Do you regret that?” he asked me. 

“I don’t know,” I answered.  “I probably shouldn’t have done it.  It just sort of happened.  I don’t regret it though, because it happened.  Can’t take it back.  If anything, I guess I regret that we did and then broke up shortly after.” 

Apparently what I was supposed to say was “Oh man, I am riddled with guilt over it.  Every night I fall to my knees and flog myself with a cat-o-nine tails.  I sob and beg for God’s forgiveness.”  This may have seemed a better answer, although eh would have only truly accepted it had I finished with “but most of all, I need your forgiveness Stacy.  Please, tell me you can forgive my transgression and be my friend again.” 

He’d asked me two questions, and both had been in very judgmental, accusatory tones.  I wasn’t really here for that.  And I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of saying I regretted having sex with her.  I didn’t.  It was fun.  Not my greatest performance, but it felt good.  There’s no such thing as a bad orgasm.  Only no orgasm.  All that other bullshit surrounding a relationship may be soured and really bringing you down, but those few seconds of rapture are never wrong and never bad. And as long as the act was consensual there should never be regret.  Yes, I realize what a male statement that was.  I have a penis, and for that I apologize. 

“I just feel bad that you crossed that line again,” he said.  “Like you said, you guys just ended up breaking up anyway.  And you know she’s been with other guys.  Did you even use protection?” 

I just responded again that it hadn’t been planned so he could probably guess the answer to that.  Again, he brought up that she had been with other guys.  It was like he was trying to scare me.  As if to imply she probably had something and I’d put my own health at risk.  At the time, I more or less just waived him off.  I said again that I knew it was a bad decision and in my next relationship I wasn’t going to let it happen again.  That pacified him enough to end the conversation. 

He really just wanted to get the juicy scoop as to whether Kori and I had slept together.  I’m sure he would tell someone later that night.  It had probably come up in conversation when I wasn’t around he vowed to get the answer.  But the way he asked was kind of sticking in my craw.  So I turned it around on him. 

“So what about you?” I asked.  “What do you regret in your life so far?” 

Stacy just stared out ahead as he drove.  Finally after struggling to come up with answer he through out some bullshit.  He told me he regretted that he hadn’t always been as nice to his sister as he should have.  I honestly just stared out the window rolling my eyes and trying not to laugh incredulously.  I mean, honestly?  You’re big regret is you were mean to your little sister?  What was this, Leave it to fucking Beaver?!?!  The sickest thing is, he wasn’t really bullshitting me.  That probably was his biggest regret in life.  After all, he hadn’t done shit in his life yet.  He’d been to New Orleans once, and they played poker for M&M’s.  That was living fast and loose for this guy.  That basically ended the conversation.  I think he realized he’d taken the weekend to a strange place.  Eventually we forgot about it and went back to having fun. 

But for some reason, standing on my platform in that ungodly hot factory, feeling like I was about to fall over like a felled tree, I suddenly began to hear that conversation again.  Kori had been with a couple other guys before me.  And we did have unprotected sex.  And she was an artist.  This was the train of thought that lead me to the conclusion that I had AIDS.  Or at least was in fact HIV positive.  I really got scared.  What would I do?  How could I tell people?  What would my family say?  Oh yeah, how long did I have until I was dead?!  As ridiculous as the notion really was, when you are sick from something, and the suggestion imbeds itself in your brain, you suddenly find yourself getting religion. 

I began to pray.  More honestly, I began to try striking a bargain with God.  What did I need to do for Him in order for me to be healthy?  What would persuade God to run his hand over my head and cleanse me of any lethal virus that might be stripping me of my T cells? 

Ask and ye shall receive.  While no angel descended and no bush burned, the answer did indeed come to me like a divine revelation.  God would indeed take this sickness away, whatever it might be if turned my life around and pursued a life and career in Youth Ministry.  That right, if I changed my major and became a youth pastor, the AIDS would miraculously go away before I ever had to tell anyone I had it.  I committed myself that night while bolting cradles to generators.  Surely there’s some correlation to the savior, as he had no cradle at his birth.  A bit too much of a stretch?  Yeah, probably.  At any rate, while let me not bury the lead here and say I make no correlation now, but the dizziness stopped almost immediately. 

Of course, I finally saw a doctor a few weeks later who said I had fluid in my inner ear.  He explained that very likely caused bouts of dizziness, especially when standing for prolonged periods of time.  My ears were flushed and I was sturdy as a statue again.  Still, as religion and science have often been at odds, I remained committed to by end of the deal.  I didn’t have a life threatening disease, so I had to go into the ministry.  That was the agreement, and you couldn’t really tell God you’d had your fingers crossed when you said it.  Lest ye be smote!