Category: Scintilla

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Fly Disneyland

Twelve years ago, on a day not unlike today, I woke to the chirping of birds and the fiery glow of sunlight saturating the green of the back yard. I opened the window to the back bathroom to take in a breath of fresh morning air and there he was – that fat, juicy jet-plane of a housefly that I had cruelly confined between the windows the day before. Cruelty is not my cup of tea, but that particular day I was capable of anything. After a week and a half of on-and-off rain, the day had been a total wash from start to finish. I woke up from a despairing dream that left a knot in my back the size of a tennis ball. Everything I did felt as if it were a futile escape from the molten core of that knot. And everything was. Anyway, that day as I was vainly trying to poop out my sorrow in the back bathroom, a fly – one of those big fatties as I said – kept dive-bombing me and buzzing about my head. After taking a few swipes at him with a dirty rag, he finally landed on the window screen and – without hesitation – I slammed him into his prison cell. After a minute or so of helpless buzzing around he sat motionless, seemingly watching the downpour and (so I imagined) contemplating the heinousness of the wrongdoing he had perpetrated against me. All day long, when I came in to take a leak or brush my teeth, I stopped to check in on my little P.O.W., each time feeling a little more guilty, but not enough to grant clemency. The following morning, with the sun shining and the birds chirping and all, I finally had a mind to set things right, but when I flung open the window, my little buddy didn’t so much as stretch his wings. I pursed my lips and let out a gust of breath as a wake up call, but the little fat fly just slid across the windowsill like a tree branch over a frozen lake. I waited too long. It was too late.

A few months later I broke my leg during a particularly boisterous (and awesome) jam session in the band room. I was singing and stomping and spinning and jumping off amplifiers. Somehow, I stomped so hard that I cracked the plateau of my tibia. I’d need to be on crutches for several weeks. One morning as I hobbled along in that back bathroom, just before I reached the toilet, one of my crutches went right through the linoleum, through the rotten wood underneath, and straight down to the ground underneath the house. I put a board over the hole and left it at that, knowing from past experience the futility of notifying the landlord. A strange thing occurred to me as I sat on the toilet, resting my right foot on the edge of the board and staring at the box of Arm and Hammer Fabricare Detergent that was sitting on the washing machine across from me. I noticed that the box had the words “Deep Cleaning” printed on the front. That started the following train of thought:

Deep cleaning… That’s what Arm and Hammer Fabricare Detergent is. It’s what it does. An overused word – deep that is, while its inverse, peed, well, you hardly ever see that in print. “Took a leak” you might see every once in a while, but not so much “peed.”

Insane, I know, but this is just a taste of what it’s like to be in my head. The conversation (with myself) continued:

Have you ever been taking a shower somewhere, like in a hotel or something, and suddenly realized that you’re in one of the few places where it would be just fine if you pissed all over yourself. You know, just to have the experience. You can aim it right at your feet or kneecap and just flat-out urinate on yourself. It’s kind of exhilarating, isn’t it, like when you’re out in the woods and you can just let it go without aiming it anywhere – the old “hands-free pee.”

Contemplation, I think it’s called. A few moments before reaching satori I suddenly recalled how John and I had often discussed how liberating it might be to set aside a special night and, intestines willing, crap our respective pants. Just poop ourselves, right there in our Levis, and then ponder it a while, letting the experience sink in, feeling the warmth, the texture, the shame of it all maybe too. We actually talked about this, about sitting together in the living room and pooping our pants, as if it would be some kind of sacred bonding experience, like doing shrooms out in woods or becoming blood brothers.

My leg eventually healed, and one night we all went out to the Cat’s Cradle to see the rock band Guided by Voices. By this time, our house was known for its raging after-hours parties, and sure enough the guys from Guided by Voices turned up at our house at about 2am. Everybody but the main guy, the singer, Bob Pollard. Truth is, I didn’t really give a fuck about the rest of the band, so instead of shmoozing with them I went to the band room to rock out. I took the lead on a cover of The Who’s “I Can’t Explain”. I knew that Bob Pollard was a big Who fan, and so I was trying to go all Pied Piper on him, hoping he might eventually stumble in and jam with me. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to show, I passed the mic to someone else and went to the back bathroom to take a leak. The door was slightly ajar, and pushing it open I was taken aback to discover the other Guided by Voices guys hanging out in there with some girls, smoking cigarettes and preparing a line of coke on the back of a CD case. It was a Guns N’ Roses album, the one with all the unplugged acoustic songs, like “Patience.” I was concerned someone had filched my copy from my bedroom. Just as I was about to back out the door, something truly extraordinary happened.

I noticed a fly buzzing around the room, a big, fat, juicy fly. “It couldn’t be!” I thought, and that thought (along with however many beers I had pounded up till then) produced a wave of excitement so powerful that I pooped my pants right there on the spot. We’re talking the Hershey Squirts – right in front the girls and the guys from Guided by Voices and the line of coke and the half empty bottles of beer. In a panic, I grabbed for the box of deep-cleaning Arm and Hammer Fabricare Detergent, and without stopping to think things through I dumped a whole lot of the white powder down the back of my pants. With that, everyone began to laugh hysterically, everyone except John, who was by this time standing outside the door surveying the scene. He was weeping like a war widow. “You did it without me!” he wailed, and before I could explain myself, he began to strain, red-faced and eyes bulging, holding his breath until at long last letting out a groan that sounded like a grizzly caught in a bear trap. Everyone fell dead silent. All eyes were locked onto John, as his face slowly began to twist from a grimace to a wry smile. The room filled with the odor of a freshly pinched loaf. Before anyone could say a word, John raced toward me, arms outstretched, and gave me a big bear hug. Then we started spinning each other around the room like lovers in a field of daisies. The bathroom was big, but not that big, and in our exuberance we accidentally knocked over the box of Arm and Hammer Fabricare, spilling the remainder of its contents right onto the Guns N’Roses CD and the line of coke. With this, one of the girls started screaming, and by then the stench in the room had become so disgusting that the bass player for Guided by Voices puked, in projectile fashion, against the side of the washing machine. This triggered a chain reaction whereby we all began vomiting all over the floor and each other, all the while the one girl screaming like a banshee. In the midst of the commotion, I slipped on some vomit and fell back onto the floor, knocking the board off the crutch hole as I reached my hand back to catch myself. Then another truly extraordinary thing happened. To everyone’s utter shock and amazement, a human head suddenly popped up through the hole in the floor. It was Bob Pollard, the lead singer of Guided by Voices. He had a big smile on his face as he shouted, “Did I hear I Can’t Explain? I love that song!”

After that, the details get a little fuzzy. We may or may not have played a few hands of poker, and I think someone spilled some beer on my left shoe, soaking the lace all the way up to the knot. Maybe it was the right shoe. I can’t say for sure. But the last thing I recall is looking high up on the wall and seeing that fat, juicy fly. He seemed to be waiting patiently for the place to clear out so he could wallow about in the muck and mire. It must have looked to him like Fly Disneyland.

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The Perfect Palace

Rolling up toward the dead end of our little street I notice that the garbage has not yet been dragged to the curb. Just as the squeaky wheel gets the grease, the most retentive anus ends up doing the most chores. Simple laws of the universe. It’s Wednesday afternoon, and there will undoubtedly be pizza boxes and empty beer bottles to be gathered up. Lots of empty beer bottles, enough to fill both recycling bins to the point of spilling over. Our driveway is a more of a long, winding gravel road, so to avoid multiple trips to the curb it’s best to pile the recycling bins on top each other, inside the garbage can, and just drag the whole load down in one shot. To be sure, this journey can be fraught with hazards and hardship. You should expect to lose a bottle or two along the way, and you might have to rest and resituate two or three times to avoid a total calamity, but it’s still better than making more than one trip. Might as well grab the mail while down by the box. I’ve got the routine down to a science at this point, and despite my occasional protests for a more equitable division of household labor, I must admit I almost enjoy this particular chore. It’s become a ritual of sorts, marking the transition from the grind of work (the Monday morning through Wednesday afternoon stretch at the group home) to the sweet, unobstructed expanse of my four and a half day weekends.

The Carrboro police refer to our driveway as “Starlight Lane.” While we were painting the place (in exchange for a significant break on the rent) we had some problems with vandals. Apparently the house had been vacant for many months prior to our arrival, and during that time it had become an ideal place for the occasional squatter to spend a night or two, or else for teenagers to meet up after school for beer and cigarettes. In any event, someone didn’t much like the fact that we were locking the door at night and otherwise staking our claim, so we’d return each morning to find the front door kicked in, windows broken, a turd floating in the washing machine. When I described to the officer where the house was — “that big old house set back in the woods at the end of Carr Street” — she said, “Oh, you mean the place on Starlight Lane, that little gravel road.” The mailbox says 117 W. Carr St., but Starlight Lane better communicates the sense of the magic and mystery that sets in when the house appears through the trees as I head up the drive. Standing in front of this place I often get an uncanny sense that some event of major importance has happened here. Shit has gone down. Deep shit. Or else I might be sensing the ghost of shit yet to come. Whatever the case, there’s a palpable vibe that’s hard to shake.

The first time I laid eyes on the place I knew I was home. Every other window was smashed in, the grass was growing high and wild all around, and the dull yellow paint looked so worn and faded that the house blended right in with the surrounding woods. It looked like a giant mushroom that had just sprouted up one spring after a thunderstorm, completely out of step with and — more importantly for our purposes — out of sight/earshot of the other little houses on this little dead end street.

Stepping onto the front porch that first day I was startled to hear voices inside. The place was advertised as “For Rent” in the paper, so I was surprised when, having knocked and eased open the door, I saw a group of teenagers congregated at the end of the hallway. They were obviously surprised to see me as well, and in a heartbeat they hauled ass out the back door and into the woods. Beer bottles were scattered everywhere and clouds of cigarette smoke were still visible. The place was a shit-hole, to be sure, but looking around all I could see was potential. This is just the place John and I had dreamt about all winter — The Music House. A little paradise hidden in the woods, no immediate neighbors, no eye witnesses, yet right in the heart of town, a stones throw from Carrboro’s main drag. This could be that house where our new band could rehearse without being hassled by the man, where jam sessions could rage on all night. A place where we could let loose every angel and demon constrained within the chambers of our collective heart.

Now to get the other guys to see through the garbage and broken glass. To see what I see.

As I headed back out the front door to round up the guys, I noticed, painted on the glass of the outer storm door, a picture of a castle. Above it was painted: “The Perfect Palace.” Nice. Someone else had felt the magic too.

John’s initial impression of the place was one of, well… horror would be an apt word, I suppose. He got the message I left on his machine and drove over with his girlfriend to check the house out later that night. It was pitch dark, and looking up at the broken front window on the second story, they noticed the orange glow of a cigarette, which was soon flung down at the car. The two of them peeled out of there, terrified. John and I met there the following morning, and the light of day made the place appear less menacing, although the first thing we noticed stepping onto the porch was the severed arm of some animal, probably a possum, nailed to the awning like some sort of warning.

“Forget about that. Wait till you see the inside. It’s the House of Rock and Roll, dude!”

It wasn’t until I got him onto the roof that John really began to see the light. The view from up there was breathtaking. We truly felt like we were on top of the world. I didn’t have to say another word. John was on board.

One by one we led the others under the “monkey paw,” through the gates of the Perfect Palace, and up through the second story front window and onto that glorious rooftop. John and I delivered inspired speeches channeled straight from the nearby heavens, as each potential housemate helplessly succumbed to the glorious vibe. Now we could all see through the broken windows, the puke stained carpets, even the turds floating in the piss-filled washing machine. Home sweet home! Yes, we saw through it all and into a crystal ball radiating with the fiery glow of our shared destiny. The Music House, aka the House of Rock and Roll, was born. Soon she would be taking her first steps into the local music scene. Soon she would become part of the scene.

Four years can fly by like a shooting star. High school. College. That first serious relationship that leaves you with a hole in your chest and your heart in your hands. I was twenty-nine years old and at the end of something. Something important, something precious, was over, done with, gone forever. Simple laws of the universe. Yet I was also on the edge, the brink, the threshold of something new. Something deep. Some shit yet to come.

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Hunting and fishing

Scintilla prompts:

[1. Talk about your childhood bedroom. Did you share? Slam the door? Let someone in you shouldn’t have? Where did you hide things?]

Every now and again I think of that middle hallway bedroom on Taylor Court. My brother and I shared that room for a time while my sister had the room off the kitchen all to herself. I had the top bunk, and always positioned my pillow so that I’d face the wall while lying in my favorite position — on my stomach looking left. The wall was made of linoleum I think, and was patterned with cracks and lines, like wood grain. Since I faced the same spot night after night it wasn’t long before I could see all sorts of faces and weird creatures staring back at me. My siblings and I changed rooms every so often, and months or even years might go by between stays in that middle room. I remember straining to find my little friends in the wall after a long time had passed. I knew right where to look, even found the five-like shape that made up the main monster’s nose. The face wouldn’t appear though, and I was left wondering if it was ever there at all. Years later, completely out of the blue, I remembered the spot again and ran in to hunt for my old friends. Within seconds the monster’s face jumped right out at me, bringing the entire scene to life once again. I was so happy I almost wept.

[2. What does your everyday look like? Describe the scene of your happiest moment of every day.]

It’s still cold enough that I want to have socks on when I first get into bed, but once I get a little toasty under the covers I inevitably peel each sock off with the toes of the opposite foot. When I wake up the following morning, it’s time to do some sock fishing, the results of which can set the tone for the entire day. Every once in a while I reach down with my feet around the bottom edge of the bed and hook both socks right away, scoop them up and hop out of bed to meet the day. This morning is more typical though. I nab the first sock right off the bat, but even repeated scourings of the sheet-scape fail to detect sock number two. At that point, I have to go all scuba on its ass, diving under the covers head first, enlisting the services of both hands and eyes. Still nothing. Next I check the floor between the bed and the wall. Nothing. Under the bed? Nothing. Well fuck, now I have no choice but to tear the whole damn bed apart, untucking sheets and blankets, necessitating a total bed remake when it’s all said and done. Still nothing. How can this be possible? Did my wife mistakenly dredge up my sock while fishing for her own? Surely she would have thrown it back under, or at least off to the side. But it’s nowhere to be found. I even rummage through the laundry bin, finding an even number of my socks. Ah, fuck it — there’s nothing to do but make the bed and move on, cursing whatever gremlin pilfered me in the night. Making the final tuck and surveying the scene one last time, I see a little white speck poking out from under the bed. And there it is. Of course, I already looked under the damned bed, but hey, the important thing is I have found my sock, and I slip it on my foot and head for the bathroom to empty my bladder. I step up to the toilet and right into a puddle of water left from my wife’s shower. The right sock — the one I worked so hard to recover — is soaked. Game over. Checkmate. Morning 2, Bob 0. Both socks come off and hit the hamper. Now where’d I put my doggone slippers?

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The company of angels

Lost in thought at the Open Eye Café. Fragments of conversation, real and imagined, fall in lockstep with the Greatest Hits of James Brown. Last night Brenda died in my dream. Again. I’m remembering this as I stare at a vase of flowers getting showered in sunlight. Heavy breaths weigh on my bones and my muscles ache as if I’ve fallen down a flight of stairs. Turning toward the window I see the sleepy sky and feel the scratch of wool on my skin. The word “love” has been so overused, I think, that it’s become just another word, like “lice” or “lollipop.” Just a taste of the real thing and we remember with thunder rumbling in our guts: Freedom is real, and life is not just a dream in which we die, unfulfilled, fettered and unawake.

The sky is now dark and dreaming, and the flowers sag like the jowls of a woebegone old woman. Only death can stop the madness now. The fence around my heart grows higher, more impenetrable. The only way out now is down and under. “Down and under, down and under…” My thoughts get stuck in this groove as I stare at the rocking chair across the room. There’s something about the sight of an empty rocking chair that evokes in me a sense of nostalgia mixed with undertones of terror. There’s something ghostly about it, a haunting by the spirits of deceased relatives. I guess that’s it. For me the rocker is a symbol of death, or more precisely, of waiting to die. “Can Aunt Hazel move in with us?” “Sure, but we’ll have to get a rocker for the living room, so she’ll have something to do while we all wait patiently for her heart stop beating!” For the living room!

A breeze blowing through the open window gently rocks the empty chair, and I imagine it’s the ghost of Aunt Hazel waiting for someone to sit on her lap. It’s interesting to hear from my parents that Hazel (my Grandfather’s sister) adored me, and that I, unlike the others in the family, seemed to have no fear of her withered visage. Apparently she had a wart removed from her face because I had innocently pointed out how unappealing it was. She had stubbornly refused to part with this eyesore for decades in the face of relentless ridicule, and then a mere grimace from a child suddenly compels her to have it lopped off. A strange, sad creature, in life she was alone and ignored; in death she was all too quickly forgotten.

My parents now live in the old house on Pleasant Street, and when I’m home for a visit I stay in Hazel’s old room. My Uncle Jack, who lived in that house well into his thirties, won’t set foot into that room to this day. Funny how the old bird suddenly means something to me. I’ve got warts of my own now to be ashamed of, as well as a paralyzing fear that I’m just rocking my life away.

My defenses are down today. I feel fragile, susceptible to the vagaries of life. Last night’s hard partying has killed off enough brain cells to upset the smooth running of the mind machine. A pleasant side effect to buffer the pain. If to be haunted is to be visited by a spirit, then why be afraid? Welcoming Hazel today I was enriched. Brenda I run from, though she seems to be everywhere, in every nook and cranny, behind every pair of sparkling eyes.

James Brown howls from the stereo (I got the feelin’…), calling me back to San Rafael, CA, the group home on Third Street and the haunted soul of one Sam Jenkins. A black man in his thirties, this crazy motherfucker was haunted — possessed maybe — by James Brown. He would get up each morning (who knows if he ever slept), take his meds, then go back upstairs to his room and blast James Brown from his boom box. He had only one tape, which he played over and over again, all day, every day I worked there. He would take a few breaks during the day to wander about town, then he’d return home for more of the Godfather of Soul. He didn’t merely listen to the music though—he howled and grunted along in a dead-on perfect impression, his foot thumping, shaking the dishes in the cabinets downstairs. Evenings I’d have to open his door and shout at him — “Want any dinner Sam?”

“Wha we haain?”

“Lasagne!”

“Poke chops?”

“No, Lasagne!”

“I ain’t eatin that?”

Then he’d turn back to the stereo, thumping his left foot, slapping his right thigh, and howling at the blank wall in front of him.

At one point, James Brown, in the flesh, actually came to town for a show, and we got tickets for Sam, thinking he’d be ecstatic. Although he grunted his assent at the idea, when it came time for the show he wouldn’t budge. He just grunted at us, turned back to the stereo, and continued thumping, tapping and howling like his life depended on it. Who’s to say it didn’t?

Last night I wanted to crawl under a rock, and tonight, tonight when they’re all nursing their hangovers, I crave the company of others. I started to write “the company of angels” — for whatever it’s worth. Nothing, I know.

I almost hooked up with that barista from the Artist’s Escape last night, almost went nuts at the café today. What I want is to carve my name into the night, this night, tonight, friends or no friends, but I haven’t the faintest idea how to go about it. Guess all a man needs is a good sharp knife — that and the courage to thrust it in to the hilt at just the right moment.

Baby baby baby, baby baby baby, baby baby baby, baby baby…

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Halcyon days

[Scintilla prompt choices: 1. When did you realize you were a grown up? What did this mean for you? Shock to the system? Mourning of halcyon younger days? Or the embracing of the knowledge that you can do all the cool stuff adults do: drink wine, go on parent-free vacations, eat chocolate without reprimand? 2. No one does it alone. Write a letter to your rescuer or mentor (be it a person, book, film, record, anything). Share the way they lit up your path.]

The thing is, I don’t know what “halcyon” means. The thing is, for someone who likes to string words together now and then, I’m not especially literate. Until my mid-twenties, I didn’t even read (voluntarily, anyway), much less write. I was the kid who would rather go outside in the driveway and shoot baskets — in the dark, in the rain, or even in the snow — than sit on my ass staring at little black marks on paper. My brother was always reading. Mom too. And they were the two in the family condemned to wear big, thick glasses for the rest of their days. Me, I craved movement. There was just nothing to me quite as sublime as the raw sensations of my body moving through space, responding, reacting, just being what a body is, doing what a body was designed to do.

Of course, I was forced to read some, in order to jump through the seemingly endless hoops put before me by my teachers. And so I jumped, collecting my blue ribbons, but gosh was it all so damned boring. I especially detested English class, where I was forced to read a lot. I read those famous poems, that supposedly “great literature,” like Beowulf and whatnot. Didn’t understand a word of it (although the Cliff’s Notes and my older brother’s papers helped create the requisite illusion of understanding). Heck, I wasn’t even interested in reading the issues of Sports Illustrated my parents ordered for me. I would flip through the latest magazine, enjoy the great photos, then run back outside to enjoy the real thing. Movement!

I turned twenty six before I finally laid hands on the book that would open me to the world of imagination and creativity. It was Henry Miller’s Tropic of Capricorn. I was in the laundry room of my apartment complex, waiting for my jeans to dry. There was a pile of old books that residents had left there for just such a moment as this, when one had about five minutes or so to kill. I mindlessly picked up the book and opened it to a page at random. What I read didn’t make a lick of sense. The language was all over the place, flung onto to page stream-of-consciousness style it seemed, but nonetheless I was intrigued. There was life in these words.

My jeans were burnt around the edges before I roused myself from my trance. I couldn’t put the book down. I started from the beginning, but it seemed not to matter where I started. There wasn’t really much structure to the thing, in terms of plot, character development, dialogue. It struck me as pure creative expression, and unlike the stuff I choked down in high school, I found myself actually relating to what I was reading. Sort of… The truth is, I didn’t really understand why I was digging this book so much. The whole experience struck me as strange, but tantalizing. I was on the threshold of the about-to-be-known, like when, at the age of twelve or so, I would stay up late to watch dirty movies on HBO. I didn’t quite “get” the world of sex at that point, but I knew I was onto to something big, something compelling, all-consuming. No turning back now. And so it was with Miller’s world of “art.”

It’s hard to believe, looking back, that I transformed so quickly from a person possessing not a spark of creativity to one who would come to place an almost supreme value on the creative process. Seemingly overnight I began reading voraciously, writing on an almost daily basis. I grew my hair long, bought a 1971 VW Bus, learned to play guitar, started writing songs.

Although I credit Miller with ushering me into the world of art and creativity, I certainly don’t idolize the man. As a human being, his flaws are as glaring as any I’ve known. Even his writing is, in my opinion, hit or miss. And yet no amount of crappy writing or biographical demystifying can diminish in the slightest what Miller imparted to me that day in the laundry room. These things defy explanation, as when a few years later I was simply bowled over by the music of Jeff Mangum. When my best friend (an almost worshipful Mangum fan at the time) first played me his latest record, my initial reaction was something like, “His voice is kind of annoying. Sounds like a goat and duck having sex in a garbage can.” Yet, as with those first flourishes of Miller’s Capricorn, I was intrigued enough to delve deeper, eventually breaking through to a whole new musical perspective.

Or maybe I didn’t really break through to a new place, but rather it was I who was broken down, made more receptive in some way. I only know this: I was moved. Movement! Life! Yes, somehow that’s it, the heart of the matter, although I can’t explain it anymore than I could tell you what “halcyon” means, or what Beowulf was about.

This, however, a gift from my friend Henry, is something I know in my bones. It is the gift really, the one that blew open all the doors:

Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heart-ache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he gets desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.

If I had been assigned Miller in high school, I probably would have disregarded him along with the rest. They say that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. I was ready for Miller at twenty six. I can’t help but wonder, what now? Will there be any more surprises, any more mentors, any more soul shaking revelations? Might there be another gift, one perhaps lying around right out in the open, waiting for me to grow the new eyes needed to recognize it for what it truly is…

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Covalent bonding

[Scintilla prompt choices: 1. Who are you? 2. Life is a series of firsts. Talk about one of your most important firsts. What did you learn? Was it something you incorporated into your life as a result?]

Honestly, I hadn’t given much thought to Kim Cheung before that day. I mean, sure, she had a really nice butt, and yes, she was certain to be our valedictorian at graduation, but otherwise she wasn’t showing up too strongly on my radar. It was Joe who planted the seed. Said he knew, for sure, one hundred percent certain, that Kim would go to the prom with me. I only needed the requisite courage, the intestinal fortitude, the balls, to verbalize a simple sentence while in her presence.

All the other guys were going, had somehow performed the voodoo necessary to successfully pair up, and they were making big plans with a limo, a hotel—the whole nine yards. The night promised to be a once-in-a-lifetime blast, and it wouldn’t be the same without good ol’ Bobby D.

But Bobby D. had no intention of joining them. There was no way any girl would go out with me as long as my face was the zit-factory-and-showroom that it was. “Kim Cheung may be a brainiac,” I said to myself, “but she’s still a girl, and girls don’t like zits and they don’t like me. End of story!”

Just when it seemed I had successfully quashed the idea, I couldn’t help but notice when Kim flashed me a sweet smile as I settled into my seat in Chemistry class. Maybe she did want me to ask her. Maybe she wasn’t like the rest of the girls and could see past the pus farm on my face. Maybe she was different. Just as class was about to begin I heard a rustle at the door. Joe’s face was pressed up against the pane of glass and he flashed me a look that said, “Now is the time! Do it, or else!”

I stewed in my own juices for the entire class period while Mr. Mazer droned on about the properties of covalent bonding. “The stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces between atoms when they share electrons…”

The bell rang. Suddenly, I was seized with the notion that it was now or never, seized with paralysis, seized with a case of the stammers as I found myself tugging on Kim’s backpack, asking her the question I thought, knew, I would never ask a girl: “Will you go to the prom with me?” I nearly passed out cold waiting for her reply. It was as if I was hovering above, somewhere between the light fixtures and the ceiling rafters, looking down at myself, like the ghost of a future-self powerless to stop the cruel hand of destiny.

“Can I think about it?” That’s what she said.

Um, sure. A few class periods later she appeared at my locker. “Um, I think I’m already going with someone else. Sorry.” I was still in a daze, still floating around a few feet from the ceiling. She turned me down. Cold.

Joe, that bastard! This terrible, horrible feeling of deflation, of humiliation — this was his doing. I would never forgive him. Fuck him. Fuck the prom. Fuck these zits. Kim? Who could blame her? After all, I had never spoken two words to her before dropping that bomb on her lap. We didn’t even know each other. What a terrible position I had put her in. What a terrible, horrible, foolish idea. Joe!

So the prom came and went. I listened to all the wild stories about the limo and the hotel. Whatever. One might think that at the very least I had the satisfaction of knowing I mustered up the courage to ask a girl out. After all, I had never done anything like that before. If nothing else, at least I finally showed some guts. But no, there was no solace to be found there. I was pushed into doing something I wasn’t ready to do, and the result was an injury to my self-esteem that might never heal. In fact, I never — not later in high school, not in college, not ever — directly asked a girl out again. Not to this day. Sure, I had a few girlfriends after the zits went away. I even got married, I did. But the few romantic relationships in my life just sort of “happened” without me having to put myself out on the chopping block directly. I paired up with extroverts mostly, or else women who made things easy by dropping a hundred and one hints so that there was truly no chance I’d be shot down.

As I think about it now, this pattern was in place long before Kim Cheung. For instance, throughout my childhood, not once did I pick up the phone to call up a friend to initiate a “play date.” My best friend, David Woodburn, would call me almost everyday, asking if I wanted to play. Ninety-nine percent of the time I was looking forward to his call, but every once in a while I felt annoyed or put upon. I just wasn’t in the mood, nothing personal, yet I would either make up a lame excuse or else play with him anyway. Occasionally other kids would call, perhaps someone whose company I didn’t enjoy at all, yet I would usually end up hanging out with them despite my true feelings. Couldn’t bear the thought of hurting their feelings. Somehow I got it in my head at a very early age that it would be terrible if someone were to feel that way about me, if they were to secretly think (or worse yet, say out loud), “No, I don’t want to play with you!” Often times I would be bored and hoping David would call, and the thought would eventually occur to me, “Why don’t I just call him?” Why? Because maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t feel like playing with me today. If he wants to play, he will call me!

Funny, this reflection started out being about the first time I asked a girl out, but it ended up being more about who I am, in some fundamental way. I am afraid of rejection. Most of us are, to one degree or another, but in my case italics are necessary to drive home the point. I am afraid of rejection. I am much more than this, of course, but this is a bigger part of the story than I had suspected. Oh the many years I spent wracked with the pangs of a desperate longing for intimacy’s embrace, only to stand by motionless, voice mute, as one after another crossed my path with soft eyes and arms open. Oh the many times my spirit cried out for release while I let each opportunity slip away, always the excuse that I was not ready, not yet, but soon.

And what if Kim Cheung had said, “Yes! Yes I will go out with you! What took you so long to ask me!”? What if I was never so badly afflicted with acne in high school? What if years before I had simply called David whenever I wanted to play, understanding and accepting that he may or not be in the mood, so nothing personal? May as well ask, “What if I wasn’t me?”

The truth is, things turned out okay. Really I’ve led a charmed life, on the whole, and I feel more and more grateful with each passing year for my luck of the draw. The pangs are still there, and I’m now grateful for them too. They lead me to where I need to go. The fear is still there as well, only now it doesn’t paralyze or silence me. I’m ready and I know it. I’ve been ready for a long time. No more excuses.