Even before we started running around together, Shelly and I were two of the most visible people in our high school. Heck, it seemed like everybody in town knew us: we couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized. At the time it was a town of about twenty-five thousand people, and we had both been born there. Our dads were highschool teachers, so even when we were young, people knew our families. Both of us were deep into the performing arts and were used to being photographed by the local newspaper for publicity purposes several times a year, starting in junior high school. The fact that nobody would have imagined us as a couple prior to our now very public getting-together made us the subject of much gossip and speculation. As Tom pointed out, everyone figured we would last about three weeks. If “everyone” thinks a thing, there might be a basis for it.
Shelly took it as a challenge.
From the vantage of decades of hindsight, I think three to six weeks would have been appropriate. She would have graduated and headed to Europe for the summer, then to UCLA in the fall. I was preparing to attend the piano master class music camp that summer, with another year of high school after that. The fling would have served as a sweet coming-of-age memory for both of us. You are guessing correctly that it went a different way.
Neither of us minded the public attention our liaison received. We revelled in it. We were both accustomed to the rumor mill, she for being a “slut,” I for being “queer.” The cognitive dissonance that had people marveling over our odd pairing was hilarious to us, not least for the irony of it. From the outside, everyone assumed that Shelly, being a year-and-a-half older and “very experienced” was “robbing the cradle” and corrupting a previously innocent nerd who was painfully awkward with girls. Many were surprised because it was widely assumed I was “gay” — not entirely without reason, of course, since I am bi. She was well-known for her brash and assertive manner, and I was generally quiet, my goofy antics not withstanding. It certainly seemed I would be overmatched and swept away by her passionate intensity.
But as soon as we got to talking it became clear that the reality was quite different than what people thought. About the only part they got right was that I was indeed swept along by her intensity. I would push back, but in any clash of wills or perspectives, she usually won out. But while she had been the one to “make the first move” on me, she quickly hit the limit of how far she could go with it. In an earlier post I described how she was actually “terrified of men,” and she had kind of painted herself into a corner socially. She could never have lived up to her reputation. If she had gotten with an experienced man it would have become immediately apparent that she was sexually walled off. She would have been traumatized by the humiliation of it. She felt safe and comfortable with me, and I never pushed her past her boundaries. I am a sensitive guy with “great hands” and even greater patience. And I had done my homework. Her understanding of sexual matters was what she had learned in health class, wrapped in a thick layer of cultural myth and dirty jokes — cartoonish at best. On the other hand I had studied every bit of written material I could get my hands on, from legitimate to sketchy. I had read “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” “The Joy of Sex,” “The Sensuous Woman,” the “Kama Sutra,” and lots of “Penthouse Forum.” From Langenscheidt’s Medical Encyclopedia I had memorized all the diagrams of female anatomy, internal and external — to the point that I could have sketched them out and labeled them correctly from memory. I had even read Freud. She didn’t even really know what she had “down there,” and had never explored it beyond a quick scrub in the shower. Her very large breasts were an annoyance and an encumbrance to her, and not in any way a source of pleasure. As I described in a previous post, I could feel anxiety gather in any part of her body I touched, so I proceded with care. Because of the disparity, the power dynamic was reversed when we became physical: I was the one in control as I spent the next few weeks gradually initiating her into the experiences of intimacy, first clothed, then gradually, not.
This bifurcation between the public and private aspects of our relationship set a tone that persisted the whole time we remained together — a sense that “the world” just didn’t understand us. “They’re wrong about us.” It became a kind of trap. We both cared very much about how we were perceived, both as individuals and as a pair, but we each harbored dark secrets that wouldn’t see the light of day for years to come. In a sense there was a transactional nature to the relationship: we were both ashamed of our inadequacies and “weirdness,” and we hoped each would help the other overcome them. We came to be defiant in our defense of our partnership, and the more people looked askance at the way we began to cling to one another, the more we dug in.
Many years later my dad and I had a conversation about the whole relationship. He was comparing it to his with my mom. He said, “Sometimes when two people find they have complementary neuroses it can lead to a strong bond, deeper than codependence. Very unhealthy, because the mutual adaptation keeps both people stuck in their neuroses.” I had majored in chemistry at UCSB before dropping out, so I made an analogy. “Hemoglobin has an active site where oxygen temporarily attaches to an iron ion to be transported through the bloodstream from the lungs to the cells, where it is released for metabolism. Cyanide kills by attaching to the hemoglobin and never letting go.”
Before I continue with the story of our budding romance, I want to pause for a moment to introduce Shelly’s dad. I mentioned earlier that our parents all knew each other when we were born, since our dads both taught at the high school. By the time I was in high school my dad had long since moved away to the wine country along the Russian River, but Shelly’s dad was still there teaching physical geography and driver’s ed. I took his class when I was a sophomore. He was not a popular teacher. The most popular teachers at our high school had lots of personality, took an interest in their students’ lives and made their classes interesting and fun. Not so with Milan Staival.1 He was a tall, slender man with dark hair and Slavic features — a little intimidating just to look at. He was born in Yugoslavia and moved with his family to Pittsburg while still a young child. His father was a baker. Neither he nor his father could ever return to the old country without risking arrest and conscription into the Yugoslavian army, but they didn’t mind serving in ours. Milan met Shelly’s mother, Cleo, when they were both in college in New York. Cleo was Irish Catholic from Iowa, trained as a librarian, but now a dedicated homemaker. Milan stopped short of completing his doctoral dissertation in physical geography and got his teaching credential for high school instead. I’m not sure how they ended up in Northern California, but they brought with them old world values that stood out in the 1970s. They were very old-fashioned. They were in many ways a contrasting couple: she being a petite redhead who talked a mile a minute, he being tall, dark, and quiet. She was Catholic, he was Eastern Orthodox. There was no Orthodox community where we lived, so he agreed to allow Cleo to raise their kids in a strict Catholic manner. I think he preferred to be relieved of any religious obligations.
Milan’s teaching style was dry and to the point. It would have been beneath him to try to appeal to the kids by being fashionable, cool, and groovy like some of our teachers. He simply lectured, sticking to the facts. One thing that caught my fancy was that he was still skeptical about the newfangled theory of plate tectonics. “I can see that it has a lot going for it, but I’m still not quite convinced,” he said one day in class. I found that amusing because everybody knew plate tectonics was a thing. (I had had a subscription to National Geographic magazine since I was eight and knew all about it.) Most of the students seemed to dread his class, not only because he was strict and gruff, but also because they found the subject dry and boring. Not I. I loved the class and paid attention to every word. I think I may have gotten the best grade of any student who had taken the class, and I think he was charmed by my enthusiasm for the subject. My intuition told me that the gruff demeanor was actually a cover for a shy and gentle spirit.
When I say that he and Cleo were very old fashioned, I mean they raised their kids in a very strict and orderly household. They were dedicated parents and very committed to their traditional gendered roles. Milan could fix anything that needed fixing and Cleo would enlist her daughters’ support (she had four) for the organizing of stacks of coupons each week before grocery shopping. But Milan did one thing that I didn’t anticipate: he baked bread. It was only occasionally, but I have to say the basic white bread his father had taught him to make was the most delicious, chewy, and delectable I have ever experienced.
I think the fact that he was an intimidating teacher might have been one of the reasons Shelly had never had a boyfriend, but I knew he liked me, which is why I was willing to take the chance.
Returning to that first fateful night after the show: the next thing I remember after making out in the bathrooms is riding in the back of someone’s car. Shelly and I continued to kiss and hug. I was surprised by the thickness of her waist and the way my hands and arms sank into her when I squeezed, but I liked it. She was a very good kisser. We weren’t saying much, as I was still pretty roasted. The next thing I remember was rolling around on a bed in a back room at some house I had never been to, fully clothed, but very wrapped up in each other. We started talking, although I have no idea what about.
The next night, Saturday, I was aglow with anticipation of another party that she had planned with her closest friends. I remember arriving together and being greeted with inquisitive looks. As soon as I got there someone handed me a beer. There were a lot of people, although the house was small. I was introduced to several people whose names I already knew and who probably already knew mine, but the formality of it cemented the fact that I was with her. And that turned out to be a very big deal. She knew virtually everybody at our school (her father still taught there — more about that later) and she seemed to have many friends. Suddenly I found myself conversing with a bunch of seniors — well-known popular people — and they were curious about me.
I had walked in the door shy and inhibited. One or two beers later a complete transformation occurred. I vaguely knew that one of the signs of alcoholism is a radical change in personality when drinking, but I wasn’t reflecting on it at the time. What I felt was the crushing weight of self-conscious inhibition that had tormented me since being assaulted by Walt was suddenly lifted. I was free: unafraid and exuberant to be the person I had been in sixth grade. I was funny. I was zany. I found I could converse with people, and I loved to hear one after another say, “Wow, I had no idea you were such a fun/interesting person!” It was amazing. Obviously, I wanted more. I also experienced a curious craving for more beer. It was the first time (but not, certainly, the last) that I found myself drinking uncontrollably until there was no more to be had. This became the pattern for how I behaved at high school parties from then on. I realized that being with Shelly was like having a key to the center of the social scene of the drama crowd. It was amazing.
It was the morning after this party that my mom got the phone call. As we puzzled over Cleo’s dire warnings my mom asked me where I thought this might be going. I told her we had simply made out a couple of times, it was casual and I had no reason to think it would lead to anything serious. My mom expressed some concern that Shelly was older than me and already eighteen. I said I knew what I was doing and would be fine. (I didn’t and I wouldn’t, as you will see.)
A couple days later I found myself riding in a car with a guy named Tom. He was a very prominent senior in the drama crowd, sort of the male equivalent of Shelly in terms of his knowledge and influence. Don’t ask me how I got there, he was just giving me a ride to another party or something. It was the first time we had ever spoken, and I will never forget the things he said. He seemed to know Shelly very well, and commented that people thought us getting together was very odd. He said, “Everyone thinks it will last three weeks, tops.” Clearly we were the subject of much gossip and speculation and that thrilled me. He said, “You’re new to the party scene, aren’t you?” I affirmed that and added, “I really don’t have any experience with women, either.” He turned to me and said, “Well, stick with Shelly and you will get very experienced very fast.” So that was the gig: I would be her plaything for a couple of weeks and finally get my wings. I didn’t mind the thought.
It turns out that Tom didn’t know Shelly as well as he thought he did.
I need to fill you in on what I knew of Shelly before that fateful night when we got together at a cast party. I mentioned that it came out of nowhere. Nothing in my story up to this point foreshadows it, and absolutely no one at the time would have pictured the two of us together. And yet there was a certain kind of inevitability to it, which became apparent to the two of us only gradually.
I first met Shelly when I was in eighth grade when we were in a speech and drama class together. She was in ninth grade, as was the majority of students in that elective. A part of me loved the course because it was so interactive. We did improvisational exercises, script reading, speeches, and so forth. I was painfully shy at that point, although I would have thrived on it in elementary school. Truth is, the abuse from my stepfather had really taken a toll on me socially. My social blossoming in the band room had yet to take place, and I felt a bit intimidated by the older kids in the class. But it was fun. Shelly and I got along just fine. She was very extraverted, joking and laughing all the time. She loved being the center of attention, and she was hilarious. She was five foot four with long blond hair, thick and straight. Her face was pretty enough but her ample Macedonian nose made her brown eyes look smaller. None of that mattered when she talked, because her voice and facial expressions were animated and fascinating. She could easily capture the attention of a room full of people.
One day in class a group of the ninth-grade boys began making jokes about her breasts, which of course everyone knew were the largest in the whole school. It was her claim to fame, and she didn’t seem shy about it. Although she was laughing it off and coming up with snarky retorts, I sensed she was beginning to get uncomfortable. I suddenly found myself telling the guys in a stern voice to knock it the hell off and leave her alone. They were shocked at my sudden intrusion, but they sheepishly complied. She acted like it was no big deal and she had the whole situation under control, but after the guys turned away she threw me a glance. There was a lot of information in that glance: surprise, gratitude, and curiosity all mixed together. One of my older sisters was an early developer (fifth grade) and back in those days men made all sorts of ignorant assumptions on that basis. I remember my sister crying at the way she was treated by boys and men of all ages, including sexual assault. That must be where my sudden courage originated. I felt empathy and indignation.
After that we conversed sometimes in class, and had fun doing improv together. I loved it when she laughed at my jokes. But that was our entire relationship: one semester of middle school getting to know each other a tiny little bit. In high school we would see each other around, but we never talked. She was very wrapped up in choir, drama, and musical theater. She had an amazing singing voice and was the strongest soprano in our high school. She often accompanied the choir on the piano. The two of us had been involved in two musical theater productions prior to that spring, where she now played the part of Aunt Eller in Oklahoma! while I played the piano in the orchestra pit. It was over the course of the many rehearsals where I was providing the musical accompaniment that we began to feel each other’s presence more and more.
Everyone in our school knew who both of us were, since she stood out in voice and stage work, I in music. But she being the extravert and me being the nerd, no one would have imagined us dating, including me. Especially with her being a year-and-a-half older. And when I say she was an extravert, I mean she was a true drama queen: president of the Thespians club, organizer of cast parties, godmother to the cast, locus of attention, and the life of every party. If you wanted to know any gossip, just ask her. If you were wondering where the next party was going to be, ask her. She cared about how everyone was doing, and they went to her for advice. She was also a straight-A student and was ambitious about her future: really a remarkable person, frankly. This is all I knew of her prior to that fateful night, except for one other detail.
I said she was the center of attention and the life of the party. Well she definitely did like to party. By that I mean drink. And make out with boys. Actually, she had a reputation. Maybe it started with the anatomical features that evoked assumptions about her proclivities, especially when she made the most of opportunities for humor with her Mae West impressions and bawdy jokes. She didn’t seem to mind that everyone considered her “the biggest slut at our high school.” She took it in stride, seemed to enjoy the notoriety. Perhaps that was why I wasn’t entirely surprised to find myself making out with her that night. My number had come up, I assumed. It was just my turn, perhaps.
“I got a very strange phone call this morning,” my mom said. It was approaching noon Sunday, the 9th of April, 1978. I will always remember it. I was hungover from a cast party the night before, the first time I had ever gotten drunk two nights in a row. I asked her to tell me about the “strange” phone call, and she began, “Well, it was Shelly1 Staival’s mom, Cleo. I haven’t heard from her in a long time, although we know each other quite well since we were in Faculty Wives2 together for years. After some friendly small talk I asked to what I owed the pleasure of her call. Her tone suddenly became very urgent and she said, ‘Carolyn, what are we going to do about the kids?'” My mom told me that confused her: what about the kids? Cleo said, “We have to do something. I heard they are dating. We have to do something to stop them.” My mom got a bit flummoxed and sputtered back, “Well, I don’t know what you have in mind. Kirk told me all about it. It seems to me they are old enough now that if they decide to date each other there’s nothing we can do about it.” Cleo took a deep breath and replied, “Well, we can’t just let that happen. Your son is so gifted and has such a bright future ahead of him — and I know my daughter. She is so intense she will consume him, deflect him from his goals and destroy his life.”
We sat there in silence for a few moments as we processed the implications. Shelly’s mom, whom I hadn’t met, sounded crazy to me. And how antiquated the notion of controlling your teenage children’s dating choices was! I was sixteen, soon to be seventeen, and Shelly had already been eighteen for a few months. We most certainly would continue dating if that’s what we wanted. But I owe the reader an explanation as this is all coming out of nowhere.
What happened was that on the previous Friday evening after opening night of the Spring Musical, I was invited to go to a cast party. I honestly don’t remember who I got a ride with, but it was at a little “country club” just outside of town. I use the term “country club” cautiously, as it was merely an acre of land surrounded by a chain link fence. There was a pool, a covered picnic area, and a couple of tennis courts. The rest was a large grassy field for whatever. We had been members when I was growing up: I took swimming lessons there when I was about seven. I had never been there after dark, so the experience of the cast party was surreal. I don’t think we even had permission to be there, but somebody obviously had a key to the gate. There was beer, of which I happily consumed several cans, and I even took a few puffs of a joint that was being passed around. This was only the second time I had tried smoking. Let me tell you, the beer and the pot combined hit me hard. I remember being in a highly altered state, just wandering around talking to people, then becoming very quiet. When the chaos and shenanigans started overwhelming my senses, I wandered off to the pool facility where there was a large restroom and changing area. There were a few people milling about in there talking and laughing, but I just retreated to a nearby wall and leaned against the cool cinderblocks, zoning out.
Suddenly Shelly was standing in front of me, looking directly into my face as if trying to solve a puzzle. Without a word she stepped forward, put her arms around my shoulders and planted a sweet, wet kiss on my lips. The similarity with what Kelly had done four-and-a-half years earlier is striking, and my response was the same. Which is to say I received the kiss passively, in shock. But I liked it. She pulled back, intently surveying my expression for any kind of feedback. I looked past her, over her shoulder and, as if speaking to someone else, said in my best Spock voice, “Captain! I appear to be receiving a curious labial stimulus.”
Her jaw dropped, then she burst into laughter. She moved in a second time, took me in her arms, and we began “making out” for the first time. The first time for us, the first time for me, but certainly not the first time for her. So now I need to give you some background on who Shelly was, at least as far as I knew her up to that point.
My wife Sarah [real name], whose advice I trust, has told me I need to make up fake names from here on out, so Shelly and Cleo Staival are not their real names. ↩︎
Back in the early 1960s, when most of the high school teachers were men, there was actually an organization called Faculty Wives where the spouses of faculty met together socially. Shelly and my parents already knew each other when we were born. ↩︎
I grew up in a big Catholic family with twenty-three first cousins but by the time I was in eighth grade half my aunts and uncles were divorced. My mom remarried and my stepfather, who was an ordained Methodist minister, turned out to be psycho. My mom threw him out of our house soon after my thirteenth birthday, but the two-year marriage had left me quite damaged. (I am summarizing for people who might not have read my synoptic “From Boom to Bust” thread.) I discovered a new worldview in the book, Dune, and found myself embracing humanism. I have talked about reading a lot of sci-fi and philosophy. What I haven’t mentioned much is the television show Star Trek.
Star Trek was airing in prime time when I was six and seven years old. I mentioned sitting with my dad in the big easy chair watching it with him, being terrified yet fascinated. By the time I was thirteen the show was in syndication. We would get home from school and be on our own for several hours before my mom got home from work. I would watch an episode of Star Trek almost every day. Eventually I had seen every episode multiple times. Two of my best friends were also into it: Chuck and Alan. (Chuck and I started out in beginning band together in eighth grade, having been friends since kindergarten. Alan was the airplane nerd from the Bay Area whose mother was the school librarian.) Chuck and I were obsessed with the show. We bought and read books about it, including the making of the series and the science upon which it was based. Chuck’s dad was an architect and we both had taken drafting in eighth grade. We set about designing our own starships, drawing up detailed floor plans and doing our best to sketch the shapes of the ships. We got into philosophical arguments about specific episodes (we would rarely agree on anything).
We were all somewhat secretive about it. You have to understand: back in those days Star Trek was just this campy, weird show that had been on for only two seasons. The entirety of the Star Trek “universe” was just some re-runs on afternoon TV. People who were really into it were considered weird nerds. It wasn’t something to brag about. But actually it was a bold and innovative concept — with the potential to become a new religion. Instead of ancient myths involving warring tribes in the Middle East, we are given a mythical future, wherein mankind has overcome our barbaric past by means of science and reason. On the bridge of the Enterprise we have, in addition to the All American Hero captain Kirk, an African woman, a Russian, an Asian, and an Alien working side by side. In 1967, in the middle of the war in Vietnam and the nuclear standoff with the USSR, this was a shocking vision of the future — almost too much to hope for. I grew up doing bomb drills in school. We all figured we might be wiped out in an atomic holocaust at any moment. Star Trek offered a vision of hope for the human future. It wasn’t mere entertainment: it was philosophical speculation of the best kind.
One day in high school this guy who had recently moved to our town from the Bay Area appeared on campus wearing a Star Fleet shirt and Vulcan ears. Everybody was talking about it and laughing. “Have you seen ‘Spock’ yet?” I had to admit he looked pretty good: he even had the Starfleet standard haircut — in the seventies when everyone was looking scrappy, or had feathered hair. It turns out my friend Alan was hanging out with him. Alan and I never hung out at school together. I would go to his house for sleep-overs and such, but I don’t think anyone really knew we were friends. I’m not sure why, but it felt like something I wanted to keep secret. Anyway, he called me one day and asked if I wanted to go to Sacramento to a Star Trek meeting. I had no idea there were such things, but I said yes. The three of us, Alan, “Spock” and I carpooled over to a lecture hall at Sac State where the meeting was held. There were mostly grownups there. I was considered pretty weird by most of the students at my high school, but even I was saying to myself, “Man, these people are really nerdy.” And the atmosphere! It was very serious, as if we were in church. There was mention of Star Trek conventions, which sounded amazing. But the room got very quiet when someone who had recently returned from a meeting with an affiliated Star Trek club in Los Angeles gave us all an electrifying update. There were talks — just talks at this point — about the potential for a Star Trek movie. Word was that most of the original cast had signed on to the idea, and there was funding and studio interest as well. It was likely to be a full-fledged feature film! Holy cow! I sensed the tension mounting in the room as people were afraid to hope yet were exuberant at the thought of it. You may be laughing now, but seriously, for Star Trek aficionados it was a first glimmering of the glorious future to come in the following decades.
My love of Star Trek was a secret I shared with just two special friends, but perhaps it showed up with my band friends whenever I rolled out my Spock impression. While Captain Kirk resonated with my heart, especially reminding me of myself in elementary school, Spock represented what I was striving to become during my teen years. Having emerged from puberty being prone to emotional hysteria, Spock’s disciplined dedication to the principles of logic captured my own struggle to use my awakening mind to override my turbulent emotions. I amused myself endlessly trying to craft Spock-ish phraseology. I remember one time during band rehearsal when Tana turned to me and said, “Ooh, I love that harmony.” I responded with, “I agree: the nodal interference in the overlapping wave forms produced by the oscillating columns of air does produce an effect that is most pleasing to the ear.” She looked at me like I was nuts, then burst into laughter.
My wife is a pediatric occupational therapist. She works with all kinds of kids and knows a lot about neurology. She tells me I have “sensory issues” and she could have helped me with them as a child. Actually, she says she could help me with them now, if I were willing. I’m thinking about it. What I do know is that my hypersensitivity as a child really impacted my life in both positive and negative ways. Take music, for example. I hear things in music that others don’t, like bees see colors that are beyond what our eyes can process. The positive side of this is that I am a good musician. The down side is that I can’t filter it out. Just the other day I was in the grocery store to pick up three items. Several times I had to stop and gather my thoughts, because I lost track of where I was and what I was there for. It’s not dementia. It was the fucking music that was playing in the background. It’s always been a problem for me. I’m supposed to be choosing a loaf of bread and all I can think about is the fact that they opted to use trombone for that musical phrase. Add narrow aisles and lots of people and we have all the ingredients for a psychological breakdown. I avoid stores and other crowded places. I have been to one or two big rock concerts in my life. The only way I survived was by allowing myself to break from reality and float in a borderline dream state. Utterly overwhelming and horrible. Even when it was Springsteen. If it hadn’t been for the beer and weed I would probably have made a break for it like I did at the haunted house. I have never understood how “normal” people can enjoy the things they do.
I went with a buddy to just one high school dance when I was in tenth grade. As you would guess, it was nightmarish. I tried to “dance” one dance, but the sight of all the other kids having such a great time as I wondered where the exits were made me sick to my stomach. I didn’t understand how guys got the courage to ask a girl to dance, much less on a date. My lame attempts with Trisha and Tana stand out in my memory because I had finally developed enough self-confidence to make a move, but the humiliation and remorse sent me reeling back into my cave. It’s important to note that all this was happening in the immediate aftermath of John the Cat’s death. And while I do recall sobbing myself to sleep one night soon after the tragedy, they were bitter tears and it didn’t help. I mentioned earlier that John kept the nightmares away. Now they were back, and it was brutal. I mean the content of the nightmares was often brutal. The worst involved coming upon a cat that looked like John and seeing that it was mortally injured. As it cried out in pain I knew the only thing to do was end its misery. So I grabbed a shovel to do the deed, but you know how in dreams sometimes it’s like you’re moving through molasses. I tried, but while each blow made things worse, the cat wouldn’t die. Being torn between horror and frustration caused me to wake up. I have had variations of that nightmare many times since. Other nightmares involved fist fights, again where I could barely move, or finding myself on a battlefield with bullets and bombs flying, stark naked with nowhere to run. Or being chased by a demon and, my escape being blocked, forced to turn and confront the monster only to see that — as if to mock me — it was wearing the face of Walt, twisted snarl and all.
All this talk of nightmares and dissociative states of mind brings up a crucial memory. I was seven years old, I think. We were camping in the redwoods. In the middle of the night I had a nightmare. In my dream I am wandering around the campground in the dark, barefoot and lost. Then there is a bear, which sees me and begins pursuit. I’m trying to run away but — molasses of course. I see a camper trailer up ahead and I make a bee line for the door. I feel the bear right behind me as I grab the handle of the screen door and try to turn the knob. It’s locked. I’m dead. So I snap awake, only to find myself standing exactly where I was in the dream. But now I’m awake and I can see that there is no bear. Completely freaked out, I begin banging on the door and screaming. Some old guy comes to the door saying, “What is it?” He opens the door and sees me, knows I must be lost. I had been sleepwalking again. He was kind and reassuring as he helped me back to our tent about fifty feet away. I found my sleeping bag and went back to sleep, my family completely unaware of the incident.
I told that story to illustrate what it feels like whenever I am triggered and begin to dissociate: panic is near and it’s hard to discern what is real and what is exaggerated by my imagination. If it’s a physical threat I might react violently before I even think. If it’s some kind of emergency my mind will snap into a hyper-alert state, completely depersonalized, as if some other grownup has taken over and I am just a spectator. If I am overwhelmed by sadness and grief, I simply lose track of myself entirely. It’s like a fugue state, but I still know who and where I am. Have you ever walked into a room and just stood there because you forgot why you were there? For me it’s like I have forgotten who I am and why am am alive — why anybody would want to be alive. I am completely detached from all feelings and motivations. Other times I am debilitated by strong emotions, but I can’t bring to mind any particular reason why I would be having them: the connection between the emotions and their source has been ruptured.
I remember one time when I was thirteen, not long after Walt left. For no apparent reason I decided to leave the house without my glasses on. That means the whole world would be a blur and I wouldn’t feel safe at all. But I just wandered down the street, then over to the next block where a busy street cut through the center of town. It was a residential neighborhood with nice houses, but there was plenty of traffic. I wondered what would happen if I just laid down on the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the street, like I was passed out. Would anybody notice or care? If so, I would pretend to be unresponsive. So I did it. Lying in the sun feeling the cool grass against my cheek, I listened as cars whizzed by, letting go. Giving up. Refusing to go on with anything. A car pulled up. I heard the door close followed by footsteps. High heeled shoes? A lady’s voice: “Young man, are you ok? What’s wrong?” I refused to move, feigning sleep. She touched my shoulder, “Are you all right? Do you need help?” I suddenly felt bad for her. She was so kind and concerned! I opened my eyes and saw a nicely-dressed, conservative-looking woman with gray hair looking at me with a worried expression. I said something like, “I must have fallen asleep.” She probably thought I was drunk or on something. If she knew the truth, that this was a cry for help, I don’t know what she would have done. I desperately wished she could just take me with her, away, anywhere. Give me a new life. Sheepishly, I stood up, brushed myself off and headed home. I never mentioned this little experiment to anyone or reflected upon it much, but it felt like I was wanting to end my life, psychologically, but unwilling to inflict any violence on myself to achieve it.
John’s death left me empty and numb. Unsurprisingly, the dark and cold of December have always been devastating to my mood. I listened to music and read books. I couldn’t feel my own emotions so I immersed myself in the emotions of others. I read short stories by Kurt Vonnegut, a gothic romance “My Cousin Rachel” by Daphne du Maurier, “A Bridge Too Far” by Cornelius Ryan, and — at my sister’s suggestion — “The Left Hand of Darkness” by Ursula K. Le Guin. My crush on Trisha became obsessive and I began talking about it with my therapist. I told him I was having trouble wanting to live. I was going through the motions of a very busy life and doing my best to mask the existential crisis I was in. There was a bright spot, though. Trisha wanted to audition for the part of Ado Annie in the Spring musical, “Oklahoma!” and she asked me to help her rehearse it. We met several times in a practice room at school. I played, she sang, I coached. She could really belt out a tune! I felt there was no way she wouldn’t get the part and I am afraid she might have been convinced by my enthusiasm, biased though it was. But she didn’t get the part. Actually, it wouldn’t have mattered how good she was, she wouldn’t have gotten the part. Our drama director, my dad’s old friend and comedy partner, casted the leads before he even picked the plays: the auditions were just perfunctory. Or maybe a good opportunity for kids to practice auditioning, but the die was already cast. My hopes for a rekindling with her were dashed when she seemed to withdraw from me in shame. I felt like I had let her down.
January came and rehearsals began for the show. I was the rehearsal pianist. In my ten-part thread I wrote about how busy my schedule was at that point: jazz band before school, symphonic and marching bands in the morning, jazz ensemble during lunch, music theory last period. After school I would ride my bike across town to play the piano for voice lessons, then back to school for musical theater rehearsal. It was brutal, but it was also addictive. Whenever I was playing an instrument it forced my attention to a focus. My breathing was regulated, the time was structured, and my nerves were soothed by the sounds. Music was my medicine, and I think it saved my life. It also provided a ready-made social life. My brother Dan, a year older than me, had been mostly invisible at school. But his friend, Kit, had been cast as Will the cowboy (the lead) and he convinced my brother to try out. Turns out my brother could really dance! All told, there were about one hundred and fifty people involved in the production when you count cast, crew, and musicians. It was the first time my brother and I had overlapping social circles, and the first time many of my friends learned that I even had an older brother. When we both starting going to cast parties a whole new dimension opened up in my life.
I realize that the last two posts made me look pretty gay. While I proudly claim the label “queer” for myself, I have sometimes been told that bisexuals don’t really exist. Contrary to popular opinion and some very flawed studies, bisexuals are real. I have debated about telling the following stories, but I feel that it is necessary to set the stage for the following post (A Dark Winter). Alcoholism involves a physical addiction but is often fueled by emotional and spiritual deficits. To recover I had to come to recognize that I was “soul sick.” My soul sickness began before my addiction developed. Even after I knew it was bad for me I continued to drink because it was the only medicine I had that assuaged the deep anguish I felt. Now I will place myself on the autopsy table for a forensic investigation into some of the underlying conditions that amplified my disease. I hope my honesty makes up for the bad impressions you will get from my behavior.
When I was in sixth grade I was pretty uninhibited, often playing the role of clown in class, and very active on the playground. I teased and flirted with the most popular girls in class because I didn’t see why not: I was a boss. I remember hanging out with Lisa and Katie at Lisa’s house on a few afternoons. There was quite a bit of off-color humor, as you would expect with eleven-year-olds. That year for Halloween our town put on a haunted house. There was this old mansion on the edge of town that was in the process of being restored by the historical society. It was made available for the purpose and I suppose a lot of work was put into it. These days it’s not unusual for organizations to put together such things, but at the time it was very new. Everyone was excited to go, and a group of us including some of my siblings went together. I clearly remember going through the first two rooms, the horror displays, the jump scares, the arms reaching out from hidden places to grab at you as you passed. At a certain point something weird happened in my brain. I remember feeling disoriented and dissociated. Suddenly my legs were moving in a new direction without any accompanying thought. I suppose my prefrontal cortex switched off and the animal parts of my brain took over. I somehow got past the workers who were shouting, “Hey, kid, you can’t go that way!” and evaded capture. In serpentine fashion I darted across three rooms and found an exit. Once out in the safety of the cool night air I took a deep breath, relishing my return to consciousness. When my group came out a few minutes later they were saying, “Where were you? We lost track of you and didn’t know what happened.” I was ashamed of the fact that I had panicked, but was also a little bit proud of my daring escape. Their security was weak. Perhaps they didn’t anticipate any of their victims making a break for it.
Over the summer leading into seventh grade I got a girlfriend, Kelly. It began with playground flirtation. I remember being at my dad’s house for a couple weeks after that and thinking of her obsessively. I was lost in fantasy and imagined her thinking of me too. I sensed the potential of — what? I didn’t even know. But when I got back in town, saw her again, and learned that indeed she had been thinking of me the whole time I was gone it was pure elation. This was my first experience of someone I really liked liking me back. That Fall we were “boyfriend and girlfriend,” which really meant that we continued to spend time goofing off on the playground at her condominium complex and talking a lot. I believe we spoke on the phone as well. One day in October she said to me, “Come over here, there is something I want to give you.” We went away from the playground to another courtyard in the complex. “What?” I asked. “Come over here,” she said, leading me into a recessed doorway. I stood with my back against someone’s door as she turned. Smiling, she placed a hand on each of my shoulders. “Close your eyes.” I did, still clueless. All at once I was awash in the sweetest sensation: her soft lips planting one careful kiss on mine. I was overwhelmed. I did not reciprocate, but I could think of very little else for the next few days. But I guess with what was going on at home I somehow couldn’t go any further with her and I cut things off suddenly. For decades I regretted the hurt and confusion she must have felt at me breaking up with her for no apparent reason, but it was a bit like my escape from the haunted house. I couldn’t have told you why I did it. After that I became increasingly shy and inhibited about my crushes.
One of the themes of this blog, a main theme actually, is the dangerous destructive potential of low self-esteem. I think my parents were misguided on this subject. Perhaps as a mix of Catholicism and Twelve-step ideas, I was taught that pride was a sin, humility a virtue, and that “ego deflation at depth” was good spiritual medicine. Whenever my parents perceived that I was getting “too full of myself” they would tear me down verbally. Of course, with Walt it was physical too. Today I understand that self-esteem is different than pride. “Pride” exists as a poor substitute for self-esteem, often activated in response to accusations or insults. It’s natural. Being called “queer” in a derogatory context made me militant in my denials. I finally developed some real self-esteem in my fifties, thanks to going back and finishing my undergraduate degree, and also meeting the love of my life during that time. Her humorous yet loving acceptance of my foibles has helped me to accept that, while utterly unique and weird, I am just like everybody else in that I deserve love and happiness just by virtue of the fact that I exist. I don’t have to “earn” it — it’s a birthright. That, my friends, is self-esteem. My parents weren’t given anything approaching unconditional love growing up. They worked hard to prove that they were of value in the world, but somehow never seemed to really believe they had succeeded. As a result they were very good people, but deeply insecure nevertheless. In my teen years I was plagued by the same sense of inadequacy and it permeated my awkward attempts to gain notoriety through my musical activities.
On with the next story! I met Tana when I was in tenth grade (she was a year older). I sat next to her in marching band class as she played tenor sax and I played baritone sax. Tana was very intelligent and we joked around a lot. She was unusually close to her mom and was active in her church. She was tall and thin, and to be honest, I didn’t find her physically attractive at all. But I loved our friendly banter and I relished how our friendship grew over that year. Enter Trisha. The first Star Wars movie was released over the following summer and made quite an impact. The fact that the music stood out enough to make the album a hit made it all the more popular with us band nerds. That Fall (now I was in eleventh grade) a new girl showed up in band playing French horn. She had recently moved up from L.A., had tacky dyed blonde hair, a curvy body and a cute face. Most sensationally, she had a bubbly-yet-nerdy personality that made her the focus of attention for me and my male friends. We couldn’t get enough of her! I had seen Star Wars in the theater once or twice. She told us she had seen it a dozen times and she knew people in L.A. who had over a hundred viewings under their belts. She talked a lot about how amazing L.A. was, and hungrily soaked up all the attention she was getting. In a small town she was suddenly a big fish.
After seventh grade my “romantic life” had devolved into fantasy-driven, super-secret, excruciating crushes from a distance. With the girls I was friends with I could joke around easily, but when I developed a crush on someone I became quite shy. Trish was a little different because we were part of a friend group (comprised of her and a bunch of guys who lusted after her), so while my crush was secret (barely, I guess), I was able to be my usual boisterous self. We all had a lot of fun that fall. The marching band had been fundraising for a year to make a trip to the Mother Goose Day Parade in El Cajon, down in San Diego County. That meant travelling by air, which I had never done. The parade was scheduled for the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We were playing “Ease On Down the Road” from The Wiz, and the band director’s concept was for us to come to attention, play about eight bars of “Over the Rainbow” while standing still, then start marching to the upbeat popular song from The Wiz. Cool! But we didn’t have an arrangement of Over the Rainbow. The director asked me if I could take this piano arrangement by George Shearing and score it for marching band, writing out all the parts. I could do that! I gained even more notoriety from that accomplishment, as not too many high school juniors could have done it without help. My “ego” was growing.
I hadn’t had anything to drink since the infamous champagne incident before ninth grade, but some of the guys I knew from Jazz Ensemble were partiers. They invited me to go for a drive with them one evening and we cruised Main Street, drank beer, and smoked a joint. I was not used to this form of male companionship. They asked me if I liked any girls (no doubt they had heard the rumors about me liking boys). I said, “Yeah, I think Trisha is really hot.” They started shouting things like, “Yeah! You should bone her!” I was pretty uncomfortable with that attitude, as I already knew her well enough to know she was not that type, appearances perhaps to the contrary. She had quietly admitted to me that she had no sexual experience. But I felt the peer pressure to make some kind of move in her direction. As the trip to San Diego neared, I somehow mustered the courage to call her. I told her I really liked her, thought we would be good together, and asked her if she wanted to hang out with me at the San Diego Zoo, which was planned as part of the trip. She said yes! I was euphoric for about three days as I kept our arrangement secret from the rest of the guys. I was lost in a world of fantasy that included walking around holding hands, maybe sneaking a kiss in front of the giraffes. The night before we were to leave on the trip I received a phone call. She said she was worried that maybe I wanted to go off alone with her, which would probably alienate the other guys and mess up the friend group dynamic. I learned she had actually been a chubby misfit in L.A., had lost weight and dyed her hair over the summer, and was making a new start of things. She told me she had worked hard to develop an outgoing personality and to build up a social circle and didn’t want to ruin it. It really felt like she was confiding in me, which I should have appreciated more than I did.
If I could travel back in time as my sixty-two-year-old self and talk to sixteen-year-old me I would say, “Dude, you got this. She likes you. She wants to go out with you, but she doesn’t want to ruin the trip for the other guys and destroy what she has built. She’s opening up to you. Just play it cool on the trip knowing that you are going to start dating afterwards. Make a plan to go see a movie with her.” But I was an insecure dork, and I felt myself spiraling into despair. I told her I understood, but once on the airplane I couldn’t bring myself to try to sit near her or speak to her, even. I sulked the whole way. She seemed hurt and confused. My mom would have derisively told me to get off my pity pot. Ugh. The trip turned out to be very fun anyway, but I just couldn’t get past the feeling that I was not good enough for her. On the flight back I sat next to Tana. We had been good friends for over a year but she knew nothing about my failed attempt to get something started with Trisha. After take-off I suddenly, without really thinking about it, put my arm around her. She accepted it, and we sort of cuddled the whole way back. I was weirdly gratified when I saw that Trisha had noticed us before quickly turning away. Revenge? What a dick, though. Arriving back in town, Tana took me aside and said that us being a thing was probably a bad idea. She was right, but it was a second blow to my pride.
I never apologized to either of them. The common denominator in all of these stories is that under certain stressful circumstances I would act or react in ways I couldn’t control or even explain. Apologizing or salvaging the situation in some graceful way was simply not within my capabilities at the time. Not long after that weekend Tana’s mother died suddenly. I’m sure it turned her whole world upside down. The following semester she was like a different person: she had ditched the horn-rimmed glasses for contacts, lightened and styled her hair, wore make-up, and now had a stylish wardrobe. Soon she was dating one of the most popular guys in the senior class and became part of the “in” crowd, partying a lot. We never really spoke again.
As for Trisha, our friendship was rekindled when I helped her rehearse a number to audition for the Spring musical. Judging from what she wrote in my yearbook the following year we must have become good friends by the time I graduated, but I am sure the San Diego incident was never mentioned again.
The champagne incident, where I ended up grounded for a month, happened right before the start of ninth grade. The truancy crisis happened midway through, while I was still fourteen. After nearly losing custody of me my mom knew she had to monitor me more closely, but it was hard to do working fourteen hour days. She sat me down and explained that now that I was sitting on the bubble of one more unexcused absence leading to foster care, I was going to have to take full responsibility for my decisions as much as possible. She would help me whenever I asked (I remember her helping me type a paper), but most importantly, I needed to be honest with her. “I understand that you are a teenage boy and you will do things you don’t want me to know about. But if you do get into trouble, it will be much worse for you if you lie to me about it than if you tell me the truth.” From that time forward I decided to just open up to her about a lot of things, and we became much closer. I probably wouldn’t have been able to go to music camp that summer if we hadn’t made such strides in developing trust and mutual respect. It turned out that having your mom as an ally and support made life much easier!
The music and theater programs at our high school were among the best in the state, but just down the road ten miles was a university town that rivaled or eclipsed us. We hated them, of course, and there was even a big football rivalry between the two high schools. But my mom worked at the university, and had friends and associates in that community. Perhaps even then she was thinking of relocating there. When I returned from my triumphant experience at music camp the summer musical at our high school was midway through rehearsals. Since it was summer school, it was more like a community theater production, with adult members of the community performing on stage and in the orchestra. The lady that had been functioning as the rehearsal pianist was a “fan,” and she invited me to take over for her, since she preferred to play the cello anyway. It was a breakthrough moment, as even though I had only been playing for three years my skills were approaching a professional level. It turned out to be a pretty creditable production of The Sound of Music, and I loved performing in the orchestra. My mom tried to do me a huge favor, but I didn’t see it that way. A doctor and his family who lived in the nearby university town had a bedroom available as one of their several children was leaving for college. I think they still had three teenagers at home, all of them heavily involved in music. She brought me over to visit them, and I got a chance to play their piano and see the bedroom where I could spend the rest of my high school years, if I chose. It was a great opportunity. They were attractive and kind people, and were offering to take me in for the sake of my talent. But it would mean betraying my high school and leaving behind my “Chompain Bunch.” I couldn’t do it! Still, I can’t help wondering how much better my life would have turned out if I had taken that fork.
During Spring Break of my sophomore year in high school (I was fifteen) my mom decided she would take a drive down to UC Santa Barbara to visit my eldest sister, Stephanie. She would have been twenty then. She was majoring in Religious Studies and Library Science. The Religious Studies department at Santa Barbara was one of the best in the world. It was secular and was more like “the history, literature, traditions, sociology, and psychology of world religions.” My sister was a lesbian and radical feminist. Decades later she joked that she was considered a “paleo-lesbian” by the younger crowd, steeped in feminist history, philosophy and literature. I found her fascinating. My mom invited me to go with her, six hours driving each way. I hadn’t learned to drive yet, so I couldn’t help in that way, but I kept her awake. We talked the whole time, there and back. It was really good for us. In Santa Barbara I was bewitched by the beauty and sunshine. We went to the beach, visited campus, spent time at the Mission and botanical gardens, and stayed with my sister and her [housemate, lover, friend?]. A highlight of the trip for me was getting to sit in a meeting of the gay/lesbian alliance. I knew I was bisexual, maybe even gay, but was hoping to get more of a sense of that world. The meeting was stimulating: they talked about issues of gay rights, politics, identity. But I was very disappointed with the gay men. The lesbians all seemed to be very deep and intellectual, with a full-flowering culture that was deeply grounded. The men just seemed to me to be shallow and hedonistic. Perhaps it’s not fair, it was just one meeting, but I remember feeling a little crestfallen. But nevertheless, that visit to UCSB planted the seeds that resulted in my decision to go there for college a few years later.
The relationship my mom and I forged during that time lasted throughout the rest of her life, not counting the last two years of my drinking, where I mostly avoided her. But once I got sober at twenty-three we established a pattern of talking on the phone every two or three weeks for two or three hours at a time. Eventually I got to a point where I was hesitant to make any major decision without discussing it with her first. My siblings sometimes resented how I seemed to have become her “favorite,” but I think it was really just that I was kind of “special needs” and had opened up to her in ways my siblings could not. I only have my experience to go by: I know they struggled with her hyper-critical tendencies. She and I would really go at it sometimes. I stood my ground many times, but she was always a font of wisdom and insight. And we laughed a lot! She was diagnosed with frontal-temporal dementia (FTD) in her late seventies. It was quite progressed by then, probably developing since her sixties. I will have more to say about that later, but for now I can only mention that as it gradually became apparent to me that she and I would not be able to have the deep conversations we were accustomed to much longer, an aching grief came over me that was like heartbreak in slow motion.
Me and my mom, with my little brother Drew and our family dog, Gizzard.
When I was in sixth grade I had a posse. I was the chief instigator and center of attention for a group of about six guys that I had known since kindergarten. Our desks were pressed together right next to the teacher so he could keep an eye on us and redirect our attention whenever necessary. It was often necessary. When the constant giggling at my little quips escalated to raucous laughter, it would be time once again to send me out to the hallway so that things could cool down. This went on all year, and I loved it. Poor teacher. But he was great, the only male teacher I had in elementary school but a true classic, from Boston. We California boys loved his accent. But in seventh grade it was just me and Chuck, both lonely misfits who constantly bickered with each other, resentful of our plight. I will have a lot to say about my relationship with Chuck in another post. I mentioned him when I told the story of how we entered beginning band together in eighth grade, and how we were made fun of by the more inveterate members of the advanced bands.
One day in eighth grade between classes, I sat down at the piano in the band room and played some ragtime, rolled out some improvisations as well. One of the kids from Symphonic band, Robert, heard me and got very excited. As his friends began to arrive he told them, “Hey, listen to this guy play: he’s really great!” A crowd gathered and I became a somebody. The beginning band wasn’t good enough to perform anywhere, and I still felt like a guest in the band room, but Robert invited me to hear the Symphonic band perform their winter concert. Robert was a percussionist, the good kind. He could read music very well and played the glockenspiel, xylophone, and timpani in addition to all the drums. I arrived at the concert that evening feeling like I was crashing a party or something, out of place but eager to hear the music. I sat near the back of the auditorium, but when Robert looked up from tuning the timpani and saw me he…smiled. Just a simple smile, notable for its lack of self-conscious reservation. No hedging or goofiness. Just, “Hey, you made it! Glad to see you.” I felt welcomed, and confused. Guys didn’t just smile at other guys, I had discovered in seventh grade. You don’t want people to think you’re gay or something, I had learned. But, no, he just threw me an easy smile and I think it may have changed my life. After that I felt like I belonged in the band and the band room. By the end of the year I began to be the center of a new circle of friends, and I liked it.
In summer school Robert taught me to play timpani and encouraged me to fool around on the other percussion equipment, showing me how to interpret drum notation. I was learning tuba and bassoon on top of baritone sax. It was a fun summer during which my friendship with Robert grew. I mentioned in a previous post that there were several boys who vied for status of “best friend,” and I wouldn’t ever grant any of them that title. But forty years later I looked back and realized that Robert really was the best friend I had in those years, even though I had never really noticed. I took him for granted because I could: he was so loyal and patient with my awkward social convulsions. Near the end of that summer, when we were fourteen, his sister got married. I should say something about Robert’s unusual family. Robert’s parents were members of a social club near my house, notable for the swimming pool enclosed by a fiberglass fence, with a clubhouse that was basically a private bar. His dad and dad’s best friend were gym teachers, I think, and the two couples had long taken family vacations together, camping at the beach and such. I think they liked to party because they had a full wet bar in their house. Anyway, some years before I met Robert, his parents and their best friends decided that they were married to the wrong people. They all divorced and remarried — each other’s spouse. The two families continued to get on great with each other, and the numerous children of the two marriages mixed freely and were allowed to live in whichever house suited them. I had never heard of such a thing! But they were all very nice people. His sister’s wedding reception was going to be held at the social club, and Robert told me he might be able to sneak a bottle of champagne out, so I should be ready. That Saturday afternoon Robert quietly arrived at my house with not one, but two bottles, still cold since the club was a block from my house. We snuck out to the detached garage about sixty feet behind the house and locked ourselves in. All I remember is how good it tasted. We laughed and joked around as the effect grew. I had never been drunk before, but by the time my bottle was empty I sure was. What I didn’t know was that Robert had already consumed a whole bottle on his own before arriving at my house. After finishing what turned out to be his second bottle, he threw up. Then passed out. I tried to get him back to the house, but he threw up again and collapsed in his own vomit. I couldn’t rouse him.
My mom and brothers and sisters were sitting watching TV together as the clock neared 10PM. They were startled as they heard the back door slam open, loud footsteps coming through the laundry room, kitchen, then dining room. As I entered the middle living room (still one room away) they had a clear view of me by now, and they knew it was me because I was yelling, “Mom! Mom!” the whole time) I suddenly tripped, did a shoulder roll and popped back up, still running. That’s when they noticed the blood running down my forehead. They assumed I had been in some accident or been beaten up. What had happened is that I fell on the back steps (without feeling a thing) in my haste to get some help for my possibly deceased friend. I told them that Robert had passed out and I couldn’t wake him. My mom jumped up and headed to the back door while my older sister Karen, now eighteen, laughed her head off. She knew immediately what was going on, and thought it was hilarious. Robert was fine. My mom called his parents and they laughed the whole thing off, saying, “Well, you know, boys.” My mom was mortified. I was grounded for a month.
When school started we told the story to the other boys in the band (I was now in Symphonic!) and they got a great laugh out of it. We gained a lot of status, as none of them had ever done anything so outrageous. The group of us adopted the name “The Chompain Bunch,” pronounced with a bad impression of a Mexican accent. I had a new posse.
One day after school, not long thereafter, I heard a commotion in the hallway outside the band room. When I came out to see what was going on I found Eric the trumpet player holding a very tiny, very wet kitten. “Someone just tried to flush this kitten down the toilet!” We didn’t believe him at first, but he said he heard the voices and the toilet flush before some boys ran laughing out of the building. He had gone into the restroom and found the kitten still in the bowl. We all formed a circle to look. He was adorable, a tabby, and happy to be held in someone’s arms. “What do we do with him?” everyone wondered. I sensed that Robert was about to say something, but I blurted, “I’ll take him. I’ll keep him.” And Eric, who had found the cat and was still holding him, said, “OK, but you have to name him John, since that’s where we found him.” And that is how I came to possess my very own cat.
John was the best thing that had ever happened to me. He was sweet and playful, no trouble at all. He slept with me every night. I remember one night having a dream where I was being attacked by a rattlesnake. I struggled with it, but it kept trying to bite me. Finally, in desperation, I attempted to stick my finger down its throat, and it stopped. I snapped awake and saw John sitting there nonplussed, shaking his head and opening and closing his mouth. My finger was wet. I remember when we took him to get “fixed,” how he wobbled around the house as the drugs wore off. He was always a good sport about anything like that. During the time I was skipping school, later that year, Robert was the one who would drop by on his way home and hang out with me, just to make sure I was all right. One day he skipped too, and we hung out all day. He played with John, whom he loved, while I played the piano. Even after I started going to school again six weeks later Robert continued to come by often. We spent many hours together, talking about music, life, people, stuff. He loved Rachmaninoff as much as I did, and I loved the way Robert smiled whenever I played ragtime. He let me borrow an old set of bongos and taught me to play them. Robert was great. One Friday in high school we stayed after school and he taught me the “timp-tom” part of the cadences we used in marching band, which he normally handled. The timp-tom is a set of three tuned drums you wear in a harness. The next Monday during Marching band rehearsal I played the timp-toms while Robert marched with the bell lyra. We had fun, but the director said I couldn’t do that again: I was needed on tuba.
Back to ninth grade: one Saturday Robert was over and I was practicing bassoon. I recall my mom and several family members were there. I glanced over and noticed that John had fallen asleep in the empty bassoon case! Robert laughed when I pointed it out. I put down my bassoon and quietly crept over to where John was snoozing and gently closed the lid. Even full grown, John was always a petite cat. I latched the case. No sound from within. Laughing, I gently picked it up by the handle and walked all the way through the house with the bassoon case hanging at my side. As I passed by my sister Jenny she asked, “Where are you going?” When I told her what was up she followed me. When I got to the dining room I set the case on the table with care, popped the latches, and opened it up delicately. There was John, now awake, totally chill. I went and grabbed my mom’s instamatic camera and snapped a picture, which is the only one I have of him.
In the Fall of 1977 the nation was riveted by the airing of the mini-series, Roots. I think it was the first time White Americans focused their collective attention on the history of Black people in our country, and it was a shock. My whole family watched. It would be difficult for me to over-state the impact that show had. I was instantly in love with LeVar Burton, of course. Everybody at school was talking about it, too. It pained me to have to miss two episodes due to evening marching band practice. That Thursday I returned home from practice at around ten, sad to have missed the show, which my family was still talking about. I looked around. “Where’s John?” I asked. My siblings’s faces dropped. “Oh,” they threw glances at each other. My brother, Dan, said, “John got hit by a car. He died.” I demanded to see him, disbelieving. Dan explained that a neighbor who lived around the corner had seen it happen and recognized him, calling our house. Dan, Jenny, and Drew raced out to see him, but apparently he was so badly injured they didn’t even want to go near the body. They had called Animal Control to come pick him up. So I never saw him again.
Something changed inside me. It was as if giant steel doors were slamming shut, one after the other, like on the beginning of the show “Get Smart.” I loved John the way only a child can: without reservation, without limits, without thought of self. He was the perfect cat. He had been my constant companion for two years. He kept the nightmares away. Now he was gone. I somehow knew I could never love anyone or anything the same way again. Now I would always have to guard my heart a little against the possibility of loss. Ten years later I “inherited” a female tabby named Cygnus, who had been in the family for about eight years. I loved her very much, but it was never with the same abandon with which I loved my little John. That night I was numb. But when Robert came over and found out that John was dead, he cried. How I envied that.
[Me on the piano, Robert on the timpani, and Eric (who originally rescued John) on the flugelhorn, photo for a newspaper promo for a high school concert.]
kirkwise 