The Sidewinder Sleeps Sleeps Sleeps In A Coil

After an hour or so of secretive emotional outpouring, I walked back to my room in a haze and crashed on my bed.  But when I woke a little while later, I was a new young man.  I felt great about the fact that I had no idea who the hell I was.  That’s what college was for, after all.  You go there to figure out who you are.  That’s what I was always told.  Of course, the truth is you still have no clue who or what the fuck you are til long after college, but let’s not tell the kids that.  Let them believe there’s a reason to take out all those loans!  At that point I was going to walk out of that dorm and take on that school with a new attitude.  If I didn’t feel a connection with people so what?  I’d make one.  I harkened back to the days when I was that strange kid from Chicago thrown into a Christian school in Milwaukee.  All I had to do was make a little mystery, get them all wondering. 

In one of my boxes I found a Harley Davidson bandana my parents had given me.  I stared into the mirror noticing how much long my dark hair was after my first summer post high school, where well-trimmed hair was the rule.  I wrapped the bandana around my forehead.  My long bangs fell around the sides as I tightened it behind my head.  If you feel different, then by God be different.  I put on sunglasses and headed out to see what the afternoon had in store.  It sounds crazy, but that day things changed.  I started talking to people.  I started just saying “hey” to people as we passed along the sidewalk.  At dinner I actually engaged people, and started telling stories and opening up.  Soon after people were approaching me, especially in the Fine Arts building, which as a Theatre major was my second home.  Generally I was being engaged by the other eccentric, quirky art majors and other would-be outcasts, but that was fine too.  I would get invited to go out for coffee, or to hit a thrift store, even to play Frisbee golf with the hippy kids.  It even led me to a role in an independent play that sadly never happened. 

I walked into the Fine Arts building one afternoon, wearing some black t-shirt, a denim shirt over it with the sleeves cut off and my ever-present bandana around my brow.  I should add I’d started growing my goatee the day we got to school, facial hair also verboten at Highland Christian.  At this point we had begun rehearsals of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.  I was going early to sit in the quiet and study my script.  I ha dbeen cast as the jeweler, Angelo.  It wasn’t a big part, but had a fair amount of stage time.  Still, admittedly in the midst of my own crisis of personality, I was having a difficult time finding the character in my character.  On the page it felt like a bland part, to say the least.  I needed to find my take on it.

There on a couch in the lobby was Chip, another cast member.  Chip wasn’t actually a student any more.  He’d graduated a couple years prior, but Lane our director had asked him to come back to play a part in the show.  Chip played one of the two  Dromios, twin servants and the second largest parts in a play.  It would take a whole chapter to explain the show, but in a nutshell it involves two sets of twins both separated at birth.  Two are rich masters, and the other two, the Dromios their respective slaves.  Chip was older than most of us but very affable and funny.  While I was pretty stand-offish to most of the cast at first, I liked him right away.  I was actually intimidated by him.  He was like a younger (and much thinner) John Candy.  He’d graduated from the program I’d just entered and was out in the Chicago theater world trying to start his career.  His claim to fame at the time was he’d been Jim Belushi’s stand-in on the lesser know John Hughes movie Curly Sue.

But there he sat by himself also looking over the script for the show.  He and I hadn’t spoken much.  Chip was pretty chummy with the upper classmen in the show and he and Lane got on like brothers.  Being the unknown freshman I just watched and listened.  Chip was often the center of attention, even when he wasn’t on stage.  He made little asides or facial expressions that often caused us all to lose it.  Once he flubbed a line in a way that gave it an unintended double-entendre and, embarrassed, he mimed wiping something away from his mouth.  A lot of people laughed, being in on the real joke.  I too cracked up, while at the same time completely missed the “wiping cum from my mouth” implication.  Remember, I’d just come back from 4 years in conservative Christian Wisconsin-land.  But I still recognized funny even if I didn’t quite get why.

Chip looked up as I came in, and I could see him watching me walk towards the lobby.  I couldn’t just pretend to not to notice him there and walk by, although I considered it.  This was way before the days of whipping out your cell phone and pretending to take a call.  Up to this point Chip and I had never had a direct conversation.  Sure I was the new me, but that was around fellow students.  Chip was now a “real actor.”  He called out to me and nodded hello with a funny look on his face.  Not bad, just weird like the wheels in his head were turning.  Trapped, I crossed into the lounge area and leaned against the couch across from him, wanting so badly to look cool.

“That is so weird,” he said.  And I lost what little cool I had.

“What?” I asked, self-consciously.

“I’m writing a play,” he said.  “It’s about this guy who had this strange relationship with his dad, among other things.  The dad is dead,  but he comes back as a ghost and they have conversations.  But the dad appears as his younger self.  He was a wild partier who abandoned the family.  He dresses kind of like a biker, but not like a Hell’s Angel type.  Anyway, when you walked in just now, it was totally like the dad’s ghost walking into the building.”

I’m pretty sure my response was one of confusion.  Not really sure what to say to something like that.

“When I finish writing this thing,” Chip went on, “you’re going to play him.”

 “Definitely,” I said.  Suddenly I was a lot more comfortable with this situation.  I sat down and Chip and I started to talk.  He told me more about his play.  Then we discussed Comedy of Errors.  He cued me in to some secrets about the cast and the school.  The funny thing is I don’t remember him ever giving me advice or criticism about my performance.  And he certainly could have! 

In fact the only advice he would ever give me regarding my performance came weeks later during dress rehearsals.  And it wasn’t critique.  There came a point about halfway through preparations for the show that Lane, our fearless director had seemingly checked out.  One afternoon we all began to file into the theater for rehearsal.  We had been hearing rumors that Lane and the stage director had been working on the sets and it was possible at least some parts were finished.  It was exciting to think we could begin blocking the show now.  When we entered the room, one by one each just sort of stopped and stared with confusion, as on stage stood crude pipe work frames covered by black plastic trash bags cut into large sheets.  We all looked back and forth hoping to see someone laughing, giving way that it was some joke.  All we saw was our fellow cast members mouths hanging with a look of “what the fuck is that?”  

Were they cleaning out the storage closest and using our stage to stick shit until a dumpster could be acquired? 

Suddenly the heavy wooden door opened behind us and there was Lane beaming.  He ushered past us and climbed up onto the stage.  With half-hearted Shakespearian flourish he gestured towards these poor examples of modern art before us.

“Ladies and gentleman,” he announced, “I give you our set.”

            The general consensus was one of confusion and bewildered optimism that he was still somehow just kidding.  But no, it turned out he was quite serious.  He gave us a line of bullshit about minimalist theater, etc.  The truth was Lane already knew he was about to receive his walking papers.  Even if he didn’t, he was probably planning on bolting soon anyway, tired of fighting the conservative powers above year after year.  The bottom line was Lane had grown too disillusioned with the place to put any time, effort, or money into a real set for the show.  I think it was meant to be one last fuck you from Lane to the administration who had been slapping him with constraints and censorship throughout his tenure at Euphegenia.  And so for his grudge, the ancient Greek city of Ephesus was to be represented by stretched-out Hefty bags.  For this, we were paying $7,000 a year. 

            As a cast we all came to a general consensus that whatever we did, we couldn’t fuck this show up any more than it  already was.  We began to go full-tilt with our characters, from the leads to the supporting cast.  If the show was a joke we were going to make the funniest shit anyone had ever seen.  Even still I couldn’t really find the essence of my part to make me stand out.  Then came our costumes.  Togas sewn together from pastel bed sheets.  My costume was a peach colored toga, and a sort-of muted aqua shoulder wrap.  It was clipped together by a handmade clay broach in the shape of a dollar sign.  Yes, very period.  Not too mentioned it looked like it was molded out of dough by a five year-old before being baked and spray painted gold.  It looked ridiculous.  However while being fitted for the first time I spied a box of costume jewelry in the prop closet.  Well, I was playing a jeweler, and if he was gouache enough to have a dollar sign broach, he’d surely be adorned with a number of his own wares!  I decided to make Angelo the jeweler a walking self-promotion and put on a shit-ton of rings and chains.  Then I took my already longish hair and combed it all forward, like DeLouise in History of the World Part 1.    

            Suddenly I was finding my character.  And oh boy was I finding him!  I began to break out of the confines of conservative Christian upbringing and nervous high school theater and started talking with my hands and gliding around that stage.  I found the edge of the Shakespeare bubble, then I burst the shit out of it!  Yes, something in my subconscious turned Angelo the Goldsmith into Angelo the flamboyantly gay jeweler.  It started subtly enough, and with every little tweak, every flip of the wrist, every slight lisp on an S, the cast and crew would laugh a little more.  Ask any actor, when you find something that makes people laugh, it’s like a drug.  You immediately crave more.  So you push the envelope a little further, and litter further, seeing how far you can go and make them laugh harder.  It was actually Chip, ironically, who encouraged me to go farther.

            After our opening night performance, as we were all cleaning up and changing in the men’s dressing area, I was openly questioning some of my choices.  Chip was the one who said “Hey man, go for it.  The audience liked it.  It worked.” 

            By the night of the final performance I’d turned Angelo into a cross between Jim J. Bullock and Charles Nelson Riley!  And the Baptist stiffs in the audience were eating up.  They loved it.  I thought I was just being entertaining, but in retrospect I proved a sad lesson.  I thought I was just milking the laughter teet for every sweet drop!  Until I left the stage after a particularly over-the-top performance, exited down the stage steps, right past the audience and out a side door.  I passed laughing face, laughing face, and then Lane who was not laughing at all. 

            His face, which was always friendly, even if patronizingly so, looked angry, sad, and just disappointed.  I knew in that instant I had pushed the envelope too far.  The audience might have been laughing, but they were laughing at the portrayal, not with it.  There were always rumors that Lane who was married to a woman was actually gay or bisexual.  After all he was sweet, kind, and taught theater.  Clearly he was gay!  In truth I came to realize he was just a really nice, open-minded and open-hearted human being and yes, he stood for equality and acceptance of all people.  I don’t know if he harbored a secret sexuality or not.  Don’t much care.  He was and is a good man.  And I knew in that instance what I’d done was hurtful. 

If I may paint with a broad brush (but one based in reality) Conservative Christians love to laugh at gay people (or what they perceive as gay.)  They consider them lesser.  They’re inhuman.  They’re “choosing” a lifestyle that will send them to Hell.  So they’re foolish and we will make them our foils.  It’s frighteningly similar to the way whites used to laugh at Amos & Andy and Stepin Fetchit. Hollywood has made millions on turning gays into court jesters.  Movies like The Birdcage, which is a great movie but in some scenes it’s clear we’re simply laughing because the characters are effeminate or worse In & Out which was a 90 minute gay joke.  It never really bothered me back then, but as I would befriend more gay people throughout my life, I became a much more sensitive to the fact.  I like to believe as a society we're getting better.  After all this was the early 90's.  Take a look back at the election of 2008, a scant 4 years ago.  In the same night that Barack Obama made history as the first Black president, those “crazy liberals” in California, the place I’d been told as a child was “the land of fruits and nuts” voted in Proposition 8, once again banning the rights of gays to marry.  And believe you me, while thousands of gays who only wanted to be fully equal were crying in defeat, the conservatives were laughing their asses off.  I was in California that night, in the gay Mecca of Palm Springs, and I witnessed it.  And now we're weeks away from another election in which one candidate and his brown shirt running mate want to strip away every right the gay community has fought & died to achieve.  Rights that should be guaranteed by God, not asshole politicians anyway.  

Regardless, that look on Lane's face will never leave my memory.  It has informed my actions everyday since.

That's Me In The Corner

       I began to staying away from the room when I knew Artemis would be there.  I was having enough trouble adjusting to my new life and surroundings, trying to figure out where I fit in around campus.  Clearly my own room was not the place.  Conversely in the middle of the day when I knew he had class and then had to go directly to basketball practice, I stuck very close to the room.  In those few hours a day it was my sanctum.  I had arranged my class schedule so that I had one class in the morning (I dropped that 8:15 shit) and one later in the afternoon.  So after lunch I’d be in the room listening to music, drawing, or just staring at the wall.  Or else I’d go to the mall.  The one thing that kept me from losing my cool or snapping at Artemis was I had free reign to take his car pretty much whenever I felt like it. 

But tension around the living situation was only compounding on my lack of feeling accepted by any one else around the school.  I wasn’t connecting with people.  I had two pre-existing friendships from high school there.  One was being destroyed by close-quarters.  The other, Stacy was practically MIA.  He was a big man on campus type.  Everyone knew him, and being ever the politician he wanted to make sure everyone liked and admired him.  I saw very little of him.  And honestly that seemed okay at first, because I did feel like being in this new environment I shouldn’t cling to old friends.  I wanted to meet people.  I wanted to connect and really feel like I was part of the community.  I just wasn’t. 

Within the first couple weeks I was going to class, eating lunch alone, wasting the afternoon, and at dinner I would occasionally meet up with Stacy and sit at his table.  But I usually just sat and observed him as held court.  Whatever his shortcomings, the guy could work a table.  If there were ten people at a table, all eyes were on him.  Every ear was listening to whatever he was saying.  He would introduce me to people, and I’d try to interject and engage, but I always felt like I was just performing. 

I just looked around and saw my classmates bonding, forming new cliques.  I felt like the last kid to be picked in gym class.   In retrospect, I think this feeling of alienation is probably more common among college freshman than I realized.  It was really coming to a boil.  I didn’t get it.  Was I literally scaring people away?  That sounds silly, but on multiple occasions as a teen, I was told I had a “scary face” or “looked menacing.”  Again, the dark hair, dark eyes, and by this time a black goatee.  Maybe it was true.  Throw a pair of horns on my head and a pitchfork in my hand and I wasn’t too far off from those cartoon representations of the devil they were all so afraid of. 

I think the truth was just a combination of being away from home, feeling dropped into a strange place surrounded by strangers, and taking on a study load that was overwhelming in subjects that weren’t like anything we’d studied in high school.   The hardest part of all might be having nobody to talk to about it, no one who would commiserate or listen to your whining.  Most of all, no one that made you feel comfortable and safe and could distract you from the fear. 

If I had been in my right mind I could have told myself, look, you’ve never been quick to open up to people.  You’ve always hung back a bit, waiting for kindred spirits to come along.  This isn’t new.  And the people who seem so chummy so quickly are probably just desperately grasping onto the first life preserver they could grab.  

And then came the call that pushed me off a cliff, emotionally. 

Back in Milwaukee, we had a dog.  A little shi tzu that was given to my stepmother some ten years earlier.  I’ve always been an animal lover.  Normally as a guy I prefer bigger dogs, but this one was the sweetest, most affectionate animal I’d ever known.  She was the closest thing I had to sibling up there.  Just a few weeks into my first semester I got a call from my dad that she was sick, and worse than that, she was going to have to be put down.  It shook me, but for the moment I sucked it up and didn’t deal with it.  I don’t remember for what, but I had to get to the fine arts building.  I know I didn’t stay long because I came outside at a weird time that fall afternoon when no one was out walking around.  That’s when this shaggy beige dog came running up to me.  It was some kind of mutt though looked sort of like a cock-a-poo crossed with a wheaten terrier.  It ran towards me but when I knelt down and slowly put a down turned hand out, it backed off, then circled around me.  That’s when I noticed it was trembling and was way too thin for its size.  This dog seemed scared and hungry.  After some gentle coaxing, I got her to come to me.  Once I pet her carefully a few times she began to trust me.  She didn’t have tags or even a collar.  After spending some time just petting her, getting her to calm down, I led her towards the commons.  I wanted to find her something to eat.  Of course I also didn’t want to risk her running off again, so I ducked inside and bought the first couple things I found in the vending area.  I think it was Ritz crackers and vanilla wafer cookies and bottle of water. 

I know none of that is the healthiest choice for an animal (hell they’re not really good for us humans either) but this dog was starving and the vending machines didn’t sell Purina.  But the pooch ate up everything I gave her and lapped up the water.  She was pushing herself against me as I sat on a ledge beside her.  She seemed not only starved for food but just for some love and affection.  I guess it’s fair to say I knew the feeling.

A group of people came up out of the commons who’d been downstairs eating a late lunch.  The dog actually turned and ran over to check them out.  Among the group was another Theatre major, one of the more notorious characters around campus, MaRek.  Yes, that is how he claimed his name was spelled.  I would go on to really like MaRek, despite the fact that you could only believe about 60% of what came out of his mouth.  For instance, I eventually visited his family home in Wisconsin and I’m fairly certain I saw a number of items where his name was simply spelled Mark.  But, if you knew MaRek, you quickly learned to indulge him and his wild stories. 

He wanted to be a celebrity so badly, and at that school, he was.  He made sure of it by spreading around quite a legend about himself whenever he could.  Of course, if you asked him he’d be the first to tell you how shy and antisocial he was.  MaRek dressed like a cross between Robert Smith of The Cure and a 70 year-old bubby.  Long sweaters and cardigans, lots of black, a skull cap, a pierced eyebrow, and thick heeled Doc Martins.  He spoke slowly with a deep, lispy voice, his tone always nonplussed.  He put a great deal of effort into sounding unimpressed with the world around him.  And while at that time he vehemently denied it, he was the gayer than Jim J. Bullock blowing the Village People while sipping Cosmos in a pink neon hot tub.  When MaRek told us how much he loved pussy, it was like Liberace winking to Mike Douglas he hadn’t married because he just hadn’t met the right girl yet! 

I barley knew MaRek at this point.  As well as you could know him anyway.  When he saw me sitting there and saw the dog coming for him he put on a big performance.  He grabbed the arm of the guy next to him (MaRek was always looking for reasons to be touchy feely with whatever guy was around) and pretended to be terrified by this animal.  He was literally squealing and feigning a panic attack.  But in a manly way, of course.  Mind you this dog which barely came up to my kneecaps was the sweetest, most harmless creature on Earth.  Marek then looked over at me and hissed, “Ugh, get that thing away from me or I swear to God I will kick it!” 

I lashed out at him with something clever like “shut the fuck up” and he gave an offended jerk of the head and sashayed away to RuPaul’s “Supermodel.”  Work!  Okay, that part wasn’t true.  Although in his head I bet it was.  But it really pissed me off.  This dog just touched me.  I love dogs anyway and to see one so nervous and hungry made me care for it more.  It also made me furious with the owners, whoever they might be.  I would find out sooner than expected.  Right after the encounter with MaRek, a chunky teen rocketed up the sidewalk on rollerblades with a leash in hand.  He called out a name I don’t remember and the dog looked up.  She didn’t go running though.  He saw her with me and came skating over, calling the name again and ordering her to come. 

“Is she your dog?” I asked. 

He didn’t even respond at first.  I put my hand on the dog to keep her with me, but she wasn’t making any effort.  Finally the kid said that she was in fact his family’s dog.  Oh, and incidentally his father was Professor Shay, the head of the Psychology department.  A department of two, by the way. 

“You ever feed this dog?” I asked.  He stopped on his wheels but still didn’t’ say anything.  “This dog looks like she’s been abused.” 

“She’s not abused,” he said.  “She’s just old.  She ran off.” 

He called her again and this time she got up and trotted over obediently.  He slipped a collar over her head and clipped on the leash.  He skated off without saying anything else, pulling the leash behind him making her run along to keep up.  Every instinct in me said chase after and brain him with the biggest rock I could find.  I didn’t give two shits who his father was.  I was angry.  I was angry that he seemed so uncaring towards such a sweet animal.  I was angry for the dog.  I was angry that my own pet was being put down back home and I couldn’t see her again before it happened.  I was angry that I was at this school with a couple thousand other people and felt completely alone.  Whatever it was, that little old dog made it all come flooding out. 

I started walking.  In fact, I started running actually (something I rarely do, which if you see me you’d believe) but without any real destination.  But between the commons and my dorm was the campus chapel.  I had a thousand emotions swirling through my head and I couldn’t see straight.  In my Christian upbringing I’d always been raised to believe in moments like that you turned to God.  And here I was in a school where He was Headmaster.  I walked through the front doors and looked around, making sure there was nobody inside.  I didn’t really know what to do.  I’d been going to church for over a dozen years, and I didn’t even know how to pray in one.  I just sort of walked up the aisle in a daze, and since nobody was around I went right up front to the altar.  I remember staring up at the gigantic wooden cross hanging over the choir pit.  Everything came to a head and I dropped to my knees.  I knelt on that altar and wept.  I cried and cried, trying to pray but really not saying much.  I was just angry and sad and confused and had absolutely no control over my emotions.  I was a mess.  I felt broken.  I thought I might actually be going crazy.  Or maybe I was all along.  For an hour I sat inside a darkened chapel and just cried.  An 18 year old “man” and there I was crying like a child.  I don’t say that as if it was shameful.  It just was what it was.  All that emotion I’d been holding in for a days and weeks and probably 13 years or more finally said enough! 

The craziest thing of all is when I finally rose back up to my feet and the tears stopped flowing and I caught my breath, I felt good.  It was the best I’d felt since I’d stepped foot on campus. 

Maybe I’d just cried it all out.  Maybe what I needed was a complete release.  I don’t know.  The problems I had when I went inside that chapel weren’t gone.  But I suddenly felt like I could approach them with new vision and new resolve, and maybe even a new strength.  As hokey as it sounds, I walked out of there feeling like a brand new man.  And honestly I was.  Call it a religious experience, or maybe an emotional breakthrough.  Something had come to me in there, in my moment of confusion and despair and pulled me out of irrational darkness.  Something put a hand under my chin, brushed me off and told me lift my head up and walk tall among the rest.  It was ok, even here, to stop trying so hard.  Of course I didn’t fit in because I didn’t know who I was yet.  All I had to do was just be me.  The secret that was revealed to me in that darkened chapel was nobody, no matter confident they proclaim it, knows who the fuck they are at 18.  And most of us at the tender age of 18 are a mess inside.  We remain that way for a long time.  It was ok to still be discovering who I was and who I was to become.  And damn it, I planned to.     

Take It Into Town . . . Happy . . . Happy

I discovered something else that night of the boat cruise.  Artemis, my roommate, could sleep through anything.  I could have driven a motorcycle down the hall of our dorm and come crashing through the door without shaking him loose from dreamland.  I got back to the dorm that night and headed up the stairs (we were on the third floor) and by time I came around the second landing, I heard music.  It was after midnight, and loud music was verboten, especially the first week of the semester.  This was loud, and the quality of the system was shitty.  Sounded very much like my little stereo when the volume was cranked all the way up (to 11.)  When you tried to blast it, it sounded like the music was playing from inside a coffee can inside an oil barrel inside a concrete drainage pipe.  Strangely enough that’s what this sounded like.  I walked down our floor and the music got progressively louder, although no less muffled or tinny.  I immediately knew the song, Michael Jackson’s Will You Be There.  I knew immediately knew where it was coming from.

Our first Sunday at Euphegenia after my parents finally left, Artemis and I decided to hop in his car and check out the local mall.  I’m a mall rat (thank you Kevin Smith.)  Always have been.  I think it goes back to that first serious relationship I had in high school with Arianna.  Since were just a couple of kids and there wasn’t a great deal we could do in the earlier hours of the evening we’d often hit the mall.  From where we lived there were 3 malls within 20 minutes travel in either direction.  It became a great source of cheap recreation to just hang out at the mall all day.  I love to people watch.  And I’ll admit it I like to window shop.  I don’t buy a lot, but I like to look at cool shit.  I hate shopping for clothes; I’m still that much of a man.  I frequent toy stores, novelty chains like my beloved (and long gone) Suncoast Pictures, which sold movies (VHS  of course and giant laser discs – DVD’s didn’t exist.)  What I really loved was all the movie themed merchandise, collectibles, and toys.  I loved nosing around a Suncoast at any mall.  I even applied for a job at one when I was 15, but was told that was below the company’s minimum employment age.  In those days we also had things called music stores where we’d often peruse the racks of cassettes for an hour or so.  I have never lost the sense of joy wasting time around a mall brought in those days.  Even now when I’m a little down, or just plain bored, I’ll head to the mall.  So when Artemis and a couple other guys on our floor said they were told there was one just ten minutes away, I was in. 

The moment I was on my own, what I wanted more than anything was to get to a music store and a buy non-Christian music!  Remember at Dad’s house, secular music was a huge no-no.  Any time I did buy a tape or CD that wasn’t by a Christian artist, I had to take great pains to hide it.  I could only listen to them when my parents weren’t home or later in my car.  My best hiding spot was inside a little Gremlin amp I had for an electric guitar that I never learned to play.  If I unscrewed the back of the wooden box there was plenty of room for a few tapes, CD’s, and even a couple dirty magazines I’d managed to get my sticky fingers on.  Without getting too lost in the minutia, let’s just say there was a reason I always wore my cowboy boots and baggier pants at the home of my stepmother’s brother.  He worked for a very large magazine printer and had once revealed to me were he kept his best collections.  If a little Top 40 was enough to get me in trouble, a copy of Genesis or Cheri magazine would have brought the wrath of God.  Ultimately I did get caught and had to throw not only my nudie mags but all my music away. 

As soon as we found Summer Mill Mall, I went on high alert for the first music store we came across.  I wish I could tell you I bought the latest alternative grunge rock album that all my generation was listening to.  Sadly, not the case.  I had managed to smuggle a bootleg copy of Pearl Jam’s seminal first album Ten on cassette, as well as that of another Seattle super group, Temple of the Dog.  Not to mention an album that changed my life in the summer of 1993, Pocket Full of Kryptonite by the Spin Doctors.  They were poppy alt-funk with great lyrics and catchy hooks and I loved it.  Not to be one of those guys, but I was way into them before Two Princes was on constant rotation on every radio station.  No, what I bought that day in retrospect was far less cool.  Fortunately I’ve never cared that much what was cool.  I’ve always had strange and eclectic musical tastes.  I admit it.  I own it. 

I bought four CD’s that afternoon to christen our new room, not a one from the current decade.  They were as follows:

A Night on the Town by Rod Stewart

Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player by Elton John

A Kind of Magic by Queen

By Request:  The Best of Billy Vera & the Beaters

I could argue the first two are classics and need little explanation, even by an 18 year old in 1993.  The Queen album was a cult hit, and the soundtrack to the movie Highlander (more on that later.)  As for Billy Vera, well, what can I say?  I’ve loved Billy V since the first time I saw The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai.  You may not recognize the name, but if you were born prior to 1980, you know his one “hit” song, At This Moment.  It became the unofficial theme between Alex P. Keaton and his girlfriend Ellen on Family Ties.  The casting led to real life marriage for Michael J. Fox, and the song led to Billy Vera sealing his own little moment in Pop culture history.  More recently he sang the theme to the sitcom King of Queens.  What I remember him for was the cameo he and The Beaters made in the movie Blind Date.  Ask many people what their favorite Bruce Willis flick is, you’ll probably hear one of the Die Hard movies, or Pulp Fiction.  For me, it will always be the 80’s romcom, Blind Date.  Billy & The Beaters appeared as a band in an L.A. club (which in the 80’s was very much art imitating life for Billy Vera.)  Those songs stuck in my young mind.  The album was full of jazzy, bluesy cuts, all recorded live.  Probably, I like to imagine, in a hip Los Angeles club somewhere on Sunset. 

Meanwhile, Artemis picked up some cassettes as well.  He didn’t have a CD player, though I told him what was mine was his (more on that later as well.)  I admit I was a little concerned about what music he might be bringing back to our dorm room.  As far as I knew, the only music he’d ever listened to was gospel.  I was not up for a semester of Kirk Franklin, or worse.  So I was relieved when I saw the clerk ringing up Artemis’ copy of Michael Jackson’s most recent album, Dangerous.  It became a staple in our room.  I admit, while not actually a fan of Michael, I liked a number of cuts on the album (which of course he’d bought on tape.)  We both loved a song called “Give In to Me” which got played a lot in our room, to our suite-mates’ dismay.  But as I walked slowly down that hall and recognized the familiar theme to that crazy killer whale flick, Free Willy, I knew there was no way it was coming from anyplace other than my room.  When I stuck my key in the lock, I could feel it vibrating.  What the hell was he doing in there?  Was about to discover wall-to-wall revelers in my room at this late hour?  Actually, I’d have liked that. 

I opened the door, and sure enough, the music was so loud and distorted my ears immediately began to bleed.  And there was Artemis sound asleep.  Our room was otherwise completely empty and dark.  Expecting an angry mob to burst through the bathroom door at any moment, I dove for the stereo and shut it off.  And of course, when I did, Artemis groggily sat up and asked, “What are you doing?”   

Ultimately I loved rooming with Artemis, and it would make us very close.  Those first few weeks at Judson just took a great deal of adjusting.  Probably on both parts, but I don’t know.  We were very different, beyond the obvious cultural/racial differences.  Although, in smaller less significant elements those issues were there too.  I know he hated a lot of my music.  And we didn’t share the same cultural references.  I was raised on television and movies.  He was raised in the church.  I had fantasies of college involving late night discussions of film and music and philosophy.  The first problem there Artemis was out cold by 9 o’clock.  I was a night owl.  Still am, when parenthood allows.  I stay up late for no reason other than I can.  I often regret it now as my kids seem to know when daddy stayed up a little too late (and had one or two cocktails too many) and they are sure to be awake and screaming by 6:00 AM.  Back the only impediment to my late night habits was class at 8:15, which I would begin to just sleep right through. 

I don’t know which of my little peccadilloes annoyed Artemis most, but I can think of a couple ticks he had that drove me up the wall.  The first being that Artemis was a loud human being.  He was especially noisy in the morning.  He even woke up loud.  And he was always up before me.  Every morning he performed the same ritual: he’d sit up, swing his legs around the side of his bed (by Day 2 we’d taken the bunk beds apart and each had our own side of the room) and he’d reach for the 3- liter of generic grape or orange soda always at the side of his bed.  Artemis began every day with a big swig of the room temperature, super sugary, artificially fruit-flavored elixir.  I would wake to the sound of the plastic bottle compressing as he sucked on it.  That was always without fail followed by a cavernous belch echoing from the depths of his soul, shaking the walls of our dorm room.  The piece de resistance was just after the burp reached its crescendo; he would cap it off with “Oh boy!”  My good morning for nearly a year, every morning, went:  BELCH!  “Oh boy!” 

  Prior to having a black roommate, I had no idea what the term “ashy” meant.  Nor was I aware how many lotions and lubricants were involved.  Artemis rarely showered in the morning because being a basketball player he showered after practice every night.  Which, sharing a small space with him I always appreciated.  His morning preparations involved slapping on multiple lotions before getting dressed.  It started with the yellow stuff he slathered on his arms and upper body.  Nothing unusual as even I, a white man gets very dry around the arms and hands.  But then came the green gelatinous goop he would put in his hair.  His hair which was about a millimeter long at its thickest point.  Before he would apply it to his head, Artemis would squirt a pile of this emerald shit into one hand and then in a strong fluid motion, for reasons that defy explanation would clap his hands together.  I shouldn’t  have to explain what happens when someone claps their hands together forcefully while holding a pile of gel.  I would find green goo in my toaster, my hair dryer, on the microwave and the fridge.  It was everywhere.        

I know that by nature I’m a loner.  Living in close quarters with anyone is going to be tough.  It isn’t difficult for little innocuous things to get on my nerves easily.  It’s usually a fault of my own and not the other person’s since they aren’t intentionally trying to be annoying.  I know Artemis wasn’t trying to drive me nuts.  But he was just the same.  A particular favorite was the day he came back to the room with a tray of sub sandwiches from a new player reception.  He sat on his bed wearing a shirt and tie and popped the lid on the tray holding at least a dozen party sized subs.  He was kind enough to offer me one, but at that point I was so annoyed by everything he did that I declined, hungry or not.  Not to mention lord knows how long they’d been sitting out before the end of the meeting.  Refrigeration was clearly not a concern of my roomy.  He once found a package of bacon in a shopping cart outside of a grocery store someone had clearly forgotten.  He grabbed it and threw it into his car.  After all, free bacon!  There it sat while he went in and shopped, drove back to the dorm and decided to cook it in my microwave.  He was kind enough to offer me some, but again I declined.  What an uptight ass I was, not taking free shopping cart bacon.  Let’s not even get inot what the microwave looked like after that.  As for his prized sandwich tray, since there wasn’t much room in our little fridge; he opted to store the deli subs under his bed.  After all, it was dark.  There they remained for days until he finally realized he couldn’t eat the remains any longer. 

What irked me about the sandwiches growing stale and moldy under his bed was not the health risk they presented him.  One day I was walking out to class, or who knows where, and saw that when Artemis would sit on his bed and pick the condiments he didn’t like off of his sandwich, he would fling them at, not in, at the garbage can near our door.  The lower part of the wall was encrusted with dried tomato slices, pickles, mustard smears, and dried lettuce confetti.  It looked like that told arcade game Burger Time!  I’ve never been accused of being a neat freak, but dried produce crusted to the off-white walls was more than I could deal with.

Carry A Compass to Help You Along

Finally I saw that white Toyota heading for the highway.  Had I been able I would have done a cartwheel.  I had a lot of plans, and it was time to get to them.  The first mission was at hand.  I went back up to my dorm room  . . . and took a nap.  Scoff if you must, but napping is a big part of college, and major adjustment to the life of every freshman.  The first week or two you actually feel a great swell of guilt.  You have all these classes, and the workload is double anything you’ve ever known.  High school wasn’t half this hard, and you didn’t nap then.  How dare you actually squander a precious moment and all those dollars by lying down in the middle of the day and going back to sleep? 
Guess what - by week two, it’s easy.  You didn’t nap in high school because there wasn’t time.  That’s why you were supposed to go to bed early and get a good night’s sleep.  This was college!  Bedtimes were always negligible, as you learn very early on.  So the daily nap was essential.  And I got into that schedule almost immediately.

While lying there in our respective bunks there was a knock from the other side of our bathroom door.  The rooms in the men’s dorm were set up as suites.  Every two rooms shared a bathroom.  So the two guys on the other side of your bathroom were affectionately known as your “suite mates.”  A term I should add that Artemis refused to say.  He would simply mumble “the guys on the other side of our bathroom.” I got up and opened it and there stood this lanky, perpetually sleepy-eyed dude with dark hair and goatee. 

“Hey how’s it going?” he asked.  “My name’s Seth, I’m gonna be living over here.  Thought I should come over and introduce myself.”

We exchanged pleasantries, which at 18 was essentially “what’s up?” and “nothing, what’s up with you?”  Although Seth was a few years older. He'd worked as a mechanic for a couple years before deciding to give college a shot. Seth’s roommate Joe came over, who was a quiet soccer player from southern Illinois.  The kid literally never talked.  And always wore dark blue Adidas warm-up suits and a white Umbro tee shirt.  Soccer was clearly his life.  Seth and Joe had nothing in common, and no previous relationship.  They were very different guys, but actually got along just fine. The pairing just worked.  Even Seth, who was definitely the Penn to Joe’s Teller was still relatively quiet.  Always affable, but kept his cards close to the vest.  He did have an affinity for cigars and was often willing to share.  We’d take long walks off campus (smoking on campus was grounds for disciplinary action) to the Holiday Inn on the corner of the highway, and sit on a concrete wall puffing away in silence.  I would actually end up dating Seth’s sister Tabitha for about 16 hours. Dating is a relative term. She invited me to come back to her parents' place and watch movies one Saturday night with another fledgling couple. There may have been a little kissing and heavy petting. It wasn't anything salacious and it never went anywhere. Still, not sure if he ever knew that.

Seth was funny because, at least at the time, he didn’t subscribe to the whole “Baptist thing” the school was founded on.  His sister Tab and I were the same age and I guess when she decided to come to Judson (she was following the straight and narrow already) their parents persuaded Seth to go along.  As I'd mentioned, he hadn’t really tackled the college thing yet.  This was of course ironic given that he was extremely intelligent.  He struck me as cynical and unimpressed by the world and intellectuals.  And if intellectuals make your skin crawl, stay away from any Christian college campus.  (With the exception of Bob Jones.  I doubt you’ll find any intellectuals down there.)

I was trying to do the “religious thing” at the time, though I always wrestled with my own spirit, so it felt good to know I had a pragmatist living right on the other side of my toilet.  Plus, Seth had a funny little tick of his own that we found endlessly entertaining.  Every time you made any kind of point, regardless of its social relevance, he responded with “How about it?” 

No expression.  No vocal inflection to indicate how he actually felt.  Just a flat out question as a statement. 

“Seth, the United States and China will be at war soon.”

“How about it?” 

“Seth did you try that chicken in the cafeteria?  It was terrible.”

“How about it?”      

“Seth, I slept at your house this weekend and totally messed around with your sister.” I did.

“Hey, how about it?”

When I arrived at Euphegenia I very much had one foot in the world of faith and one in, well, the real world. The humanist world. The world of fleshly pursuits.  I knew that in a place like this, just as it was at my high school, the more outspoken and charismatic you were about Christianity and your faith, the more accepted you were by the majority.  A great deal of it had to do with simply walking around with a big dumb smile and bright bleary eyes like a Labrador.  In the world of the Evangelicals, bad days are not allowed.  In some sects, if you’re depressed it is a sign of weak faith.  It’s a very emotion based worldview.  And that was the part I always struggled with.  I’m Irish and Native American, two peoples prone to inexplicable sadness and power drinking; a few of my favorite things.  But I was determined, hard as it may be, to make a fresh start of things here at this new place.  I was going to be a happy little Christian and make lots of new friends because of it. 

It was a great plan, in principle.  Unfortunately, I have this issue when it comes to making friends.  I don’t like people.  That’s not actually true.  I do like people. I love having people around - some people. I’m just not a good schmoozer.  I can be painfully introverted. I don’t like walking up to people I don’t know and introducing myself. Part of it is a basic fear of rejection, and I'm sure some underlying childhood abandonment issues. Yet , honestly, I also equate a lot of it to my name. 
I hate my name, and really hate saying it. Even now at 40 I'm not a fan of it, but that's more because I'm sick of saying "no, not Mark, . . . as in Starr. Okay, as in Simpson." So imagine being 9 years old with a name that rhymes with fart, and you’ll understand.  I will use it as reference now when, but it is true the Simpsons hitting the air just as I was starting high school didn’t help, although I was big enough then that it kept most would-be funny guys from saying anything.

I’m going to let the parents of potential Christian college students in on something they won’t put in the brochures.  A huge percentage of the students are looking for something beyond a degree.  The girls are looking for what’s called their MRS degree.  The guys are looking for a girl that will touch their dick if they promise they won’t insert.  That first week of orientation, after moving in, figuring out your schedule, buying books, and learning the campus layout, is spent looking for the primary directive, a significant other.  In other words someone to hold hands with, make out with in the lobby, sit next to in Chapel and at dinner, and dry hump whenever a darkened corner becomes available. 

The majority of the kids at these colleges were raised with the same basic tenant about premarital sex; they’re not allowed to do it.  However the majority of that majority, despite what they’ll say publicly also believe another common myth . . . “premarital sex” is defined by one thing, a penis inside a vagina.  Everything else is at the very worst inappropriate, but can be easily prayed away after the fact.  In the dark corners and parked cars of Christian college campuses, there are hand jobs and blowjobs a plenty, there is fingering and rubbing galore.  And say this is just one man’s opinion all you want, moms and dads.  Denial, as the cliché goes ain’t just a river. 

My third day on campus, I grew a set and called a girl who was in one of my first orientation meetings.  Her name was Vickie.  She was cute, and had a great smile and laughed at every wise crack I’d made.  She needed a little help in the hair and makeup department, and dressed a little conservative, but with the right bad influence all this could be rectified.  I had a little plan.  Since I didn’t know if we had anything even remotely in common, I wasn’t going to offer to grab a meal or go to a movie or anything.  I didn’t want to even appear to be asking he rout on a date.  This was simply to be a pre-interview.  So I called her room and told her I was planning to head out that afternoon just to “explore the campus and figure out where my classes were and how far from the dorm, etc.”  I said before, this was a small school with a small campus.  It wasn’t like there was a real chance of being lost for days in the wilderness if you didn’t map out your routes ahead of time.  But she took the bait and actually said it was a good idea.  So we met up in the parking lot between our dorms with our respective class schedules. 

We covered the entire campus in less than an hour.  She told me about growing up in Iowa, and her church.  She told me her desires to be a teacher and youth leader, and more about her church.  I told her about my high school plays and how I was a Theatre major and wanted to be an actor.  She told me a little more about her church.  Halfway through our little Sunday stroll, I was ready to walk the other way.  She was sweet, really.  A great girl.  But not for me.  She was probably in that percentage that wouldn’t even allow heavy petting.  And there was nothing of substance there that would make me okay with not getting any.  So that was the first and last one-on-one time I’d spend with Vickie.               

In the Euphegenia yearbook for the ’93- ’94 school year, there is a picture of me that will always be on of my favorite pictures of myself.  A lot of people, especially men say they hate having their picture taken.  I don’t know if they’re telling the truth or not, but I am often one of those.  But in fact I don’t really mind at all.  What I hate is having a picture of my profile taken, or when I happen to be looking down causing my chins to squish like a toad.  I have a boxy meathead.  From my profile, it looks square.  If you catch me head on, and give me a second to suck my cheeks in slightly, then snap a shot, I don’t mind as much.  Yes, I admit it, I’m self-conscious. Guess what, so is everybody else walking this rock.  This particular picture of me is my favorite because the photographer caught me gazing off the side of a boat on the Chicago river at night, drink in hand, lost in thought.  Apparently he called to me first because I’m looking at the camera, body turned slightly, gut sucked in.  I just like it, and I remember telling the photographer that when he showed it to me later.  Days later kids.  In the old days we had this stuff called film.  Anyway, I was happy to see it in the yearbook many months later. 

As I look at it now though, I’m reminded how much fun I wasn’t having.  The first week of school, the student activities committee put together a number of events as mixers for Freshmen and new students.  That particular night they booked a boat cruise on the Chicago River which winds through some of the most amazing architecture in one of the most amazing cities in America.  This is actually the same tour that was in the news a few years back when one of Dave Matthews’ tour bus drivers decided to unload the bus shitter into the river.  This is illegal enough, but add to that he happened to unleash a tank of filth onto a tour boat down below, and you’ve got a full on disaster of environmental, Biblical, and just plain disgusting proportions. 

I love boats so for that alone I was excited to go on the trip.  And the thought of making some new friends that I’d be going to school with for the next 9 months didn’t hurt either.  We boarded on lower Wacker and most everyone mingled up on the top deck, trying to meet new people.  This picture of me that I like so much was taken on the lower deck, in a small alcove where within an hour or so I had retreated by myself.  I had talked to a few people upstairs, but within a few minutes of each conversation, I knew I had nothing in common with the people I was meeting.  And a number of them made it clear they were less interested in me than I was in them.

There weren’t any girls on the little Love Boat I felt even remotely attracted to.  I mean, Vickie was there with some of her friends, so I quickly said hello then avoided that gaggle like the plague the rest of the night.  Instead I chose to wander the boat and take in the city at night with a few non-alcoholic beverages.  Remember how I mentioned that smoking was a punishable offence if committed on campus?  Well drinking was grounds for full-on excommunication, and it didn’t matter where.  If a student was even witnessed imbibing fermented beverages anywhere on planet Earth (and probably any other planet in our solar system) they were out on their ass. Can you believe we agreed to this? I will say if you think that's bad, Euphegnia was actually a progressive Christian college. I had a friend who attended a school that made them sign a contract swearing they wouldn't go to movie theaters! 
Anyway, in this particular pic, I’m wearing a loose Henley with the collar open and my hair is relatively long and shaggy.  I look, in my mind like a gentleman pirate of the Caribbean, but sadly there’s no rum in that plastic cup.  Sigh.  Ron Bacardi would have been welcome company that evening, but sadly his presence was verboten. And the captain of that ship was not named Morgan!

Stacy was on board, or aboard (I'm not very nautical) but he wasn’t much company either.  He was spending a lot of time hovering over a little collective of freshman girls.  In fact, on the same page of the yearbook as my favorite pic is a shot of a trio of incoming young females, two of which look quite studious and the third is just fucking cute. There pressed in among them, trying to be amusing stands Stacy.  I remember him being latched on to this group most of the night.  To no avail it would turn out, but he tried, in his own “Eric Stratton, Rush Chairman, damn glad to meet you” fashion.  Although I have to admit there was one particular girl on that cruise I was very interested in, and he’d introduced us.  Although she looked at me, sadly, like a snow blower on the shelf of a Sears scratch and dent sale. 

Kathy was a senior at Judson, and in fact was only there one more semester.  She was graduating in December.  She was beautiful.  Not like an actress or a model, necessarily, but real world beauty.  Soft brunette hair, and these large shining eyes that could convince you to commit a crime.  She was the woman you wanted to have children with.  The kind who was beautiful at 20 and would be beautiful at 50 and 60 and beyond.  I recently came across her on Facebook, and I was right.  I don’t remember if she was actually a Theatre major, in fact I’m pretty sure she wasn’t.  But she had some connection.  After graduation she packed her shit and headed west for the land called Hollywood.  She actually found some behind the scenes work.  She’s even listed in the credits of a hugely successful Michael Bay/Nick Cage flick. 

I wouldn’t say I was attracted to her.  I wouldn’t have known what to do with her.  She was a woman.  I, still very much a boy, dealing in the world of girls.  I was just in awe of her.  To me, she was one of the seven wonders. But even if she had taken any notice of me, she was off-limits. Stace had told me about her.  He had actually had a couple dates with her, and, at least according to him she had actually come on to him.  According to him she didn’t want to get too serious since she was leaving so he resisted her advances. He wanted love. She wasn't interested. Such chaste Baptist bullshit – I am relatively certain a gay man would have had trouble resisting her! 
Still, his rejection prematurely ended their dating career.  In retrospect, I don’t know what to believe.  What I do know is that, when I was 18, I was an idiot.  One day I was hanging around Volkmann Hall where Kathy was living that semester and bumped into her.  She needed help moving some stuff out of her car.  I was already lonely and just happy to see a friendly face so I happily helped.  As we walked and talked, for some stupid fucking reason, I thought I saw an opportunity to help a friend.  Stacy’s name came up, and I said to her, as if scripted in a movie, “he really likes you, you know?” 

In my mind I pictured that after I said that, she'd realize what a great guy Stacy was and they'd reconnect for a second shot at love.  Happily ever after, right?  Boy was I wrong!  Holy shit.  No good deed goes unpunished.  She just sort of laughed it off at the time.  But the next day I got the call from Stacy.  Actually, not even the call.  He asked me to go to the mall or something with him and confronted me right in the car.  That was one thing about Stacy, he didn’t mind handling some uncomfortable situations face-to-face.  He would set up some other reason to get together, but there was an agenda. It hasn't changed, by the way. He didn’t yell or scream.  That wasn’t his way.  But he did dress me down for saying anything and made it clear there and then, his love life, despite how close our bond, was none of my business.

I tried to explain my whole love story angle.  I told him I was just trying to help.  I’d heard on more than one occasion how much he liked her and was attracted to her and wished she reciprocate his true feelings. I thought I sensed a chink in her armor and went for it.  In my mind she'd confess her love for him before boarding that plane to Los Angeles. None of it mattered.  In his mind I’d made him look foolish.  That’s something else about Stacy.  He was always willing to look silly to make people laugh.  Specifically to make girls laugh.  But no one else was ever allowed to make him look bad, even if it was only his perception.  I suppose it’s safe to say he had a highly developed defense mechanism.  Perhaps a little over-developed.  But still, I get it. 
She didn’t feel the same way about him, even though she suspected his affections.  Whatever it was, I understand my trying to help caused awkwardness between them.  As far as I know, they didn’t have any more dates after that. 

However Stacy did fly out to visit Kathy about a year later in Los Angeles and stayed at her place.  She was working as an accountant for some division of Disney.  Go figure, he already had a connection to the mouse and had no use for it. She got Stacy into a screening.  Showed him around Hollywood.  According to him, they even shared a late night moment where he was certain he could have kissed her.  But he also told a story of being alone at her house one night while Kathy was on a date.  Huh?  Apparently there was a knock on the screen door and it was Robby Benson dropping off a script or something.  Given the timeline, I’m guessing it was either for the Beauty and the Beast direct to video sequel, Belle’s Enchanted Christmas, or an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch!  While he’d sneer and turn up his nose in disgust if you ever suggested working on such infantile projects to Stacy , I guarantee he was chartreuse with envy!  I would be!  Then again, I watch the Disney Channel whether the kids are home nor not! 

I believe Stacy went out there a couple more times and hung out with her, tried to meet some of her industry friends, etc.  Last time her name came up, he told me he had lost touch with her.  Curiously he had lost touch with her shortly after she'd married, become a mommy, and no longer had those Hollywood connections.  What I didn’t realize back then that I do now is Stacy was very shrewd. Every relationship was calculated.  He was a good friend and a sincere friend in many ways, but he also collected people, like tools in a toolbox.  It was why he was such a schmoozer and got so good at being outgoing in every situation.  When you thought he was just getting to know you, he was really sizing you up; determining what you were worth.  He was trying to determine what you might be able to provide for him, either immediately or down the road.  In retrospect, I wonder what was in his dossier on me. That hasn't changed either.