Published in NO TOUCHING MAGAZINE, January 2008

When I moved to Chicago, I thought my life was going to be like Carrie Bradshaw's from Sex and the City.

It was fall and my first semester of college. I was nineteen, naive and believed I was going to own rows of shoes that cost more than my rent and only freelance so I’d have enough time to sit around to contemplate my relationships. I’d have a theme song that followed my morning routine. I even picked out a studio apartment, one that was a square and had a bathroom that shot off in the back through a walk- in closet. I gave up a one bedroom because Carrie Bradshaw didn't need a one, so why should I?

This is what gay guys do. They pretend they’re imaginary female characters. Let it go.

But reality set in after a few months. I realized that I was lucky if I could make enough money to pay for my studio, let alone buy a pair of shoes that cost the same. Contemplating your relationships all day will drive you to a place where they lock you up and don't allow you sharp objects. And let's face it – that theme song they play as Carrie struts down Fifth Avenue – it gets old after the tenth time you hear it, especially when you don't have the cute shoes you thought you were going to be strutting in.

My life was not Carrie Bradshaw's. Not even close. The truth: I was making myself miserable with my high expectations and I wasn’t happy. Home was supposed to make you happy; therefore, Chicago could never be my home.

And so there was a time when I almost gave up. I almost packed my things back in the boxes I brought them in and picked up the cell phone, the one I could barely afford, and dialed my parent's number to move back home, back to the small town I grew up in. I even had the imaginary conversation with them rehearsed perfectly in my mind. I wasn't, of course, going to allow them to think that I had given up, seeing as they were totally against me transferring to an art school in Chicago and living alone in a slightly "unique" neighborhood. I had to prove it was "uncontrollable circumstances," and not that they were right all along. That conversation would go like this:

"Mom, yah, hi... yup... Got your voicemail... Sorry I didn't call back... Yup... I'm alive... I know... I know... The city can kill you... You've said it a million times... Anyway.... uh... I got something to... uh... well... I’m moving back home because… I know… it’s only been a few months of living here… but… I… I need you closer in my life…”

With that, mom would’ve scheduled herself a trip from Wisconsin to save her son from his poor decisions.

So I set a deadline: finish the rest of the week before I made that call. That was three days away.

And I was OK with this. I was OK that within three days I was going back to the small bedroom I grew up in; that I’d always dreamed one day I’d escape from. The room that used to have posters of Alanis Morrisette and Fiona Apple; with burgundy carpet that was matted in places where furniture had sat for too long. I was going back to the house and the city and the state and the safety that I’d been planning on escaping from all through high school.

But really, I wasn't OK with it.

And so that night I called a friend who seemed to always have money even though she never worked (don't ask) and had a plethora of fake IDs (don't ask) and always, I mean always, knew how to make a boy feel good. Her name was Rachel and she looked like Penelope Cruz without the accent. I’d met her in my Intro to Photography class at Columbia where we bonded over the fact that we both thought Posh Spice was so obviously the best Spice and had hung out on whims ever since. She wasn't one of those dependable friends – the ones you call when the seventh boyfriend breaks your heart or when your electricity goes out because you haven't paid the bill. She was one of those friends that called you in times she needed you and those times always came with booze. Wasted. Puking. Hangovers.

Exactly what I needed before I headed back to the prison I had chosen to return to: Home in Wisconsin.

"Meet me at 2455 North Ravenswood at eleven tonight, ‘k babe?" Rachel screeched into the phone, as she was already at some bar when she answered. I could hear loud rock music and the sounds of people playing pool. I imagined a cigarette in her hand.

"Why? What's there...?" I yelled back.

No response. She had already hung up.

I stood in my closet with a towel wrapped around my waist and water dripping off my body contemplating whether it was worth my time to go out and meet Rachel. If I was leaving for good, I’d most likely never see her again as she had openly admitted, “I don’t do suburbs or anything without a Prada." As I flipped through shirt after shirt on wooden hangers, I decided that I had nothing better to do than see what this Ravenswood was all about. See, I was still new to the city and didn’t know much about the neighborhoods. I was willing to give this a try.

Don't get me wrong – Ravenswood was cute, but had nothing. I found this out after I was dropped off by a cab at the address she had given me. The area was desolate. There were houses with porch lights on but looked like no one was home. The fall wind pushed leaves over the shadows from trees that decorated the sidewalk with the use of the occasional street lamp. Power lines hummed. Yeah, it was that quiet.

I stood there in a cute, black, tight-fitting “man gett’n” t-shirt and jeans and looked at the note with the address, written on the back of a grocery list, and then looked up at the area again. I was in the right spot but there was no one around. I had imagined it to be like Wicker Park: booming with late night bars and the scent of spilt beers and cigarettes and the sounds of people laughing or yelling and the scuffing of expensive shoes on the sidewalk.

I was snapped from my daydream as a car’s headlights raced down the quiet street. From a distance, I could hear tires squealing at the turn and heading right for me. I jumped off the curb to a yard and then the car screeched to a stop. It was a green Jeep Wrangler with its top down. Two people were in it. One was a guy with black dread-locks who introduced himself as Ted. And the other was my Penelope Cruz-looking friend, Rachel.

“Get in!” she screamed as she threw open the Jeep’s door and pulled me in to the backseat. The radio was blaring some looping techno beat as I was raced off to some unknown location with Rachel, probably on too many Vodka tonics, and the guy driving the car, Ted with Dreads, screaming lyrics to the beat of the music coming out of the stereo while high.

"Where are we going?" I asked over the wind layering itself on our bodies as we drove faster down a quiet one-way street.

No one answered. Rachel lifted her arms over her head like a belly dancer and kept her eyes closed like she was in her own trance. Her black hair blew over the Jeep’s seat and wild around her face.

These kids were fucked up on something and I had only two choices: be a nerd and spaz out or share the buzz. I chose the first.

"Guys! Where are we going?" I squealed again. I was about to freak out from the fact that Ted With Dreads was driving with his eyes closed and singing down a one way street in the wrong direction, when the car came to an immediate halt. I didn’t have my seat belt on so I tumbled to the front of the car from the backseat, right on top of the stick shift.

"We’re here, yo," Ted With Dreads said as he pulled the chunks of his black matted hair behind his ears and hopped over the Jeep's closed door on to the street.

"Where is here?" I asked brushing my shirt’s wrinkles out. Rachel finally came out of her trance and said, "Here, man... here." She pointed to this giant elementary school. The building was historic and in the late night dark looked like it was a million years old, with its column pillars and its many steps that led up to the large wooden door set under an awning that said "Barker Elementary"

"A school? I don't get… it,” I said. I was shaking from the chill of the wind the Jeep ride had given me and suffering with nausea from the sudden stop of the car.

"Let's go," Ted With Dreads said and raced up the stone steps to the front door. His baggy jeans rode low on his ass and exposed his boxer shorts. Rachel followed. She was wearing this evil white short skirt that showed plenty of leg and these red heels that like, clicked at every jump she made up each step and a top that barely hid her breasts.

"We're going to a school? Seriously?" I was ready to run the other way and get back home in just enough time so that I could get up early the next morning to start packing and get the hell out of the city that let me down. Being at an elementary school was proving the fact that this city was lame and that the only way you had to have fun was to play at a school.

"No. We're going to dance!" Rachel screamed, pulling lipstick out of her purse to reapply. Ted With Dreads got to the large oak front door and rapped on it with his fist loudly.

"What the hell, you guys? This is fucking ridiculous!" I whined again.

The door creaked as it pulled open. In the distance I heard a repeated thump. Aa bald guy with tattoos and his lip pierced peeked through the door.

"What's up?" The guy asked.
"Willy Wonka," Ted With Dreads said.
The guy looked him over, then Rachel, and then me.
"Go ahead."
"Willy Wonka?" I whispered to Rachel.
"Yeah, it was code word."
"For what?"
"To get into the party, silly!"

As we walked down the dark hallway surrounded by metal school lockers, we finally reached these double closed doors; you could hear the bass of the music beating into your chest. We opened the large wood doors and there, inside what was the school's gym, were hundreds of people, dancing to a DJ who was spinning records in the middle of the room.

The space was dark, but highlighted by these shooting laser lights – blue, pink, green, yellow – that hit all the walls and bodies who were dancing in clumps to trance-like music. There was the smell of pot. There were kids with insane haircuts. Then there was me, in utter shock. It really was a party.

"Are we supposed to be here?!" I screamed into Rachel's ear. A cocktail had magically appeared in her hand. "That's the fun!" She screamed back. "They totally broke in here... no one knows we’re here!"

Holy. Shit. I had just broken the law.

This was scary for a boy who just moved to the city and hadn't even been out drinking and partying at legal places, let alone places that were, um, breaking in to schools (where little kids play dodge ball!).

"We have to go!" I yelled to Rachel. She was smoking a cigarette that had also magically appeared into her fingers and was now eyeing up some sweaty-looking guy that was wearing chinos and flip-flops with curly hair and licking his lips to get her attention.

"You go!" She screamed. "We're staying."

Pissed, I started heading towards the door to leave. In that moment, I pulled my house keys out of my pocket. I looked at the apartment keys laying in my palm. For another few days this apartment was still going to be mine. Then I was leaving everything. Was that how I was going to end the story of Chicago? Packing and giving up?

I decided to give the rave a try. I looked back towards Rachel's direction to tell her I was going to stay, but she was completely gone. I frantically searched for her, and then one of my favorite songs came on and I had this feeling of relaxation swish over me. It was like fate, where you feel like you have to participate because it was like you were meant to participate—some other power was in control.

I swayed my body towards the middle of the dance floor. No dance partner. No friends. Just the music and me and the shooting colored lights hitting my face at uncalculated times. My eyes were closed and the smell of pot and sweaty bodies and the feeling that we were all there sharing the same moment vibrated through me. I felt free. I felt forgotten about. I felt like I could just be whoever I wanted to be. For the first time, I was happy. I didn't want to be Carrie Bradshaw, be anyone else, or have any expectations. I just wanted to feel bliss – like this moment – forever.

But suddenly, the fluorescent gym lights flickered on and some girl shrieked, "POLICE! RUN!"

I looked toward the doors we had entered, disoriented by the bright lights, and saw at least twenty-five cops dressed like they were raiding a riot, with large bullet proof shields blocking their faces and beat sticks and guns aimed at all the chaos of dancers and druggies and partiers scurrying around like ants that just had their hill crushed.

People were stomping on each other and screaming as if they were being chased by rabid cougars, pushing to get closer to exits, any exits. But I was frozen. I’d never been caught by the cops doing anything wrong and my first instinct was to stay put because running from the cops was a bad thing. I had seen it on that reality TV show "Cops."

But my other instinct, "Fuck, I don't have bail money," kicked in and I darted toward the door.

I ran to where a slew of people squeezed out of one door, which was opposite of where the cops busted in. I could hear the officers barking, "STAY PUT OR WE WILL SEND IN THE DOGS!" then barking as German Shepherds were sent in to collect us perpetrators, shredding our jeans and pants by the ankles and gnawing at the sensitive skin on the heels of our feet.

But I just focused on the door, pushed my way out through the drunk and drugged mess.

Then, as I was just about to kick a hippie girl and some skinny gay kid wearing glitter and butterfly wings, I felt a huge hand grasp my shoulder. I squealed and my stomach dropped. I immediately imagined my pristine permanent record that in my mind was held under glass somewhere, clean and crisp and white, now marked up with red-penned PERPETRATOR and set on fire. The good kid I was, deleted in flames!

I turned around and it was Ted With Dreads, showing me an exit on the other side of the gym that no one had noticed.

“We’ll get in the Jeep, but I lost Rachel, man!” He told me while we ran alongside each other.

But as we raced toward the door, I turned to find that Ted With Dreads was taken down by a giant German Shepherd that was shaking his leg in its jaw. Ted screamed in pain and as I exited the building, I could hear him scream: “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Not the pot!!!!!!!!!”

Escaping in to the night felt like drinking a glass of cold water when you've been sweating for hours. I was breathing heavily and shivering from fear and my brain swirled with all the possibilities that could’ve happened: jail time, fines, a scar on my permanent record, major dog bites…

Then, in the quiet walk home with the chill of fall tackling my bare arms, my head began to calm. I was blocks away from the mess and realized this had been the best night I had in all of the time I’d lived in the city. I had expected nothing and that was the key. All the expectations I was putting on the city and on myself were blocking the moments where life was actually happening. For the second time that night, I felt happiness. I realized that I couldn’t move back to Wisconsin. Because Wisconsin was no longer home.

I then imagined a new phone conversation with my mom in my head:

"Mom, yah it's me. I'm staying in Chicago. I know… I know... You hate me being here. But, you know what... this is my home."

[This piece was read at R.U.I reading series June 6th 2007 held every first Wednesday of the month at Sheffield's Bar in Chicago. Four readers are chosen from a stack of stories that are submitted. I was one of the lucky few chosen and offered a lovely spot to read. Oh. And they make you take shots. Two of them. Before you read. And if you are still standing while you read, that means you are a real writer. No. Seriously.]

Ricky Jones has just joined his high school diving team. People thought he joined this team because he was agile and flexible and enjoyed feeling chlorine dry in his thick muddy brown hair. But Ricky Jones, a skinny freshman, joined his high school diving team for another reason. For penis. OK. Not just penis. Ricky Jones isn't a perve. He joined for a particular penis. Michael Groom's penis.

Ricky remembers the first time he met Michael Groom in his trigonometry class. The first day of class, blonde haired Michael smelled like sweat and Abercrombie and Fitch cologne and asked Ricky "Dude, can I punch this in to your calculator?" Ricky was in love.
Two periods later, Ricky told his bestest friend Melinda Gowers about the guy of his dreams in the cafeteria while sharing a Lunchable. Melinda was a freshman but her sister was a senior--she knew all the juicy gossip. She gasped:

"Oh my God Ricky! You have a great eye! How did you know!?"

"I...I don't know what you're talking about...How did I know what?"

"Wait...you don't know about Michael Groom's penis?"

Ricky's mind raced. He hadn't even thought of his penis...yet. But what's there to know about penis? He hadn't seen any penis other than his own. Ever.

"Ricky, Michael Groom's penis...I mean...it... it can talk" She was licking her lips in excitement.

Ricky burped a little of his bologna and cheese on a Ritz cracker and started coughing. A... talking penis? Was... that normal?

"You're lying. Penises don't talk! Trust me. I have one." Ricky responded with narrowed eyes at Melinda.

"Well, Ricky, maybe yours is broken...I mean, I heard really good penises can talk...like...all the time."

A week later and all hope lost that Ricky was ever going to be the gay man he was meant to be, a penis with a vocabulary, he was walking in to the school when he noticed a poster that said "Diving Team Sign Up Today". Ricky tingled a little. He always had a thing for Speedos... and then Michael Groom walked by and opened the door for him.

"Hey dude." He said.
"Uh, hey...hi..." Ricky Said back. Avoiding all eye contact, you know, below the belt.

"Saw you reading the sign. You gonna join our team this year?"
"Oh...totally...yup...absolutely..." Ricky said. Totally regretting saying that, he knew he couldn't join the team. He knew nothing about diving and he would have problem hiding the fact that he enjoyed being around guys wearing Speedos.

"Great...we'll, see you there." Michael walked in to the school. Ricky swooned and then realized this was it! This...this was going to be the moment where he could find out if the guy of his dream's penis actually could hold a conversation!

That afternoon, he entered the locker room. It smelled like moldy towels and chlorine.. The floor was slippery from the showers. As he walked past each locker cove there were the guys gearing up for practice. All the way at the end of the cove was Michael Groom wearing flip-flops, his neon green goggles strapped to his head and a white towel wrapped around his waist..

"Hey...Michael." Ricky said.
"Yo, dude. What's up! Michael leaned in and put his hand in the air to get a high five."

Ricky put his backpack down on the bench and started taking off his shirt. He instantly became insecure. He looked around noticing the other guys having good muscles and body hair and...he had to chill out. Breathe. Breathe. It was working. He was chilling out.

Until he heard it, a little voice. Ricky turned around. There was Michael with his white towel dropped on the floor. He was completely nude. Ricky gulped. There it was. Michael's penis. A little penis. But not only was it just chilling there, being a penis. It was...well, it was talking...in a very little voice.

"Psst...yo...psst...Michael's penis said."
Ricky starred at it. He looked up at Michael to make sure he wasn't seeing that Ricky was staring at his little penis and looked back down. In amazement.
"Um...yes?" Ricky said back to the penis.

"What up, yo!" Michael's penis yelped.
Ricky was sorta surprised.
"Um...nothing...um, what's up with you?" He said back.

"Oh you know...yo...just chill'n like a villain."
Chilling like villain? That's all a penis could say? Seriously, a penis can talk and it says that?
"Oh...I see...that's...um...that's cool. So, how are you?" Ricky had never had a conversation with a penis...he didn't know what to say. It was awkward. He looked up at Michael's face again...he was still in mid-conversation.

"Well, you know bro...nothing..." And the penis just starred back at Ricky.

Ricky and the penis just starred at each other for a couple of seconds. Very awkward silence. It was like being in on a blind date with nothing to say. Then Michael picked up his towel off the ground and wrapped it around himself again. He looked at Ricky and said: "Dude, is there a problem?"

There wasn't a problem...not at all. Ricky smiled and knew that if he couldn't hold a conversation with Michael Groom's stupid little penis, this, of course, meant that he could not be the man of Ricky's dreams.

[This piece was performed at 2nd Story's 'Story Week' Festival. The three week festival held at Webster's Wine Bar brought in crowds by the hundreds. This piece was performed on "Fear" night.]

So, I'm at this hole-in-the-wall tattoo place the other night with my friend Veronica. She's like this punk rock carefree alternative girl who I met when we worked at Urban Outfitters together. She left after she decided fake vintage t-shirts weren't punk rock enough, but we still keep in touch. See, she calls me her safe friend- you know, safe friend...the one that always pays bills on time, the one that eats his vegetables, the one that calls his mom often, the one that remembers to send birthday cards...the do gooder, the safe friend. Which I totally am. Because we are at a tattoo place and I'm like freaking out. I mean, I am lame. I have no adventure bone in my body. Plus, like, there are needles, germs, and blood...oh my God blood and did I mention needles? And there are people wearing leather pants, hi people, leather pants--no no...not in anymore...and it smells like rubbing alcohol and sweating bodies and pot. And the art on the walls, the stuff people tattoo on themselves...it's just…awful, people I'm a designer!!!! It's ...it's just so not my place, you know?
Veronica with her smoker kinda punk voice, goes:
"You ready for this?!"
Then I go:
"Um, No. Why are we here?"
Then She goes:
"I'm getting a tattoo and I want you help me pick one out."
[ENTER Roxette, "Dangerous"]
See, see! That is SO Veronica. You know that song by Roxette, "Dangerous... that's totally Veronica. The complete opposite of me. She didn't go to college and I graduated on Dean's List. She smokes and totally hates on her liver and when I drink, I remember how my skin gets all puffy and worry about aging. She doesn't even pay her electric bill!. And she gets tattoos and doesn't even know what they are gonna be until she gets the...and I...well, I Oh my got...they just totally look like they hurt. I am jealous of her life. She seems so free.
She is so dangerous... and I...I watch Nick at Night.
Veronica totally notices that I am like freaking out because every time I hear some girl in the corner chair wince from the needle over the insane phsycobilly music that is playing in the speakers as she gets hers done or you know do that "ssssssssssssssttttttttth" sound when people suck air between their teeth when something hurts--my eyes dart towards the door in pure panic.
So, Veronica tries to distract me and is all:
"How about this as she point on two skulls looking like they are making out."
And I'm all:
"Um, no. That's trash!"
"How about this one", I say and point to a really pretty Lilly that looks like it is in full bloom
And she goes:
"God, queer!"
And then she sees it...her destiny.
It's a frog flipping you off. Its webbed fingers are up in front of its face and it is giving big old healthy middle finger action and its long amphibian tongue is dangling out of its mouth like it looks like it's totally saying "ROCK ON, FUCKERS!"
"This is it."
I go:
"NO!"
And she smiles and when Veronica smiles it means she going to either one of two things
1) She's gonna go get high or
2) Has her mind SET on what she is going to do. No arguments.

So, finally three of the trixies before us are done getting their names tattooed in Chinese on their hips and it's Veronica's turn. I'm tired. I'm ready to go home and call it a night.
So she goes:
"I need you to hold my hand while I do it."
And I was all:
"O.K." but I'm in shock cause she is totally a tough chick!
And then the guy, the tattoo guy, his name is Gus and he has no hair on his head but lots on his tattooed arms looks at Veronica and says "Baby, where are we getting this."
Like a slow scene in a move...Veronica lifts up her shirt and shakes out her hair and says:
"Right here, man, on my tit!"

And there they are Veronica's boobs. OH. My. God. Veronica's boobs...O.K. You need to understand something...I DON'T DO BOOBS. I hate boobs...I...boobs are like goblins to me...they can be mysterious and then can be mystical and they can be totally cool, but when one pokes their head out--like a monster from under a bed--I, it scares the shit out of me. I don't like how they look. I don't like how they bounce. I don't like how they look like they have eyes. Oh my God, boobs FREAK. Me. Out.
And here's the thing. Somehow, they seem to show up when I just don't want to see 'em like...a zit.
Times I've totally seen boobs:

1) New Orleans, three girl friends I was sharing a hotel room in, liked getting those free beads by showing guys, and me, their ta tas.
2) My cousins birthday party, my aunt, feeding her baby a little snack…boob out and in full force...right in front of me
3) Abercrombie and Fitch, a customer, I totally and accidentally walked in on a woman who was trying on a swimming suit. They were huge.
But there was this ONE time that I saw boobs...that, well, it scarred. Me. For. Life.
It went like this:
For the first year of college, I went to a state school. And if you went to a state school, you understand that people of that genre of schools like to do two things:

1)Go to parties
2)Get reallllly wasted.

So, picture it:

[ENTER: Jay-Z "Big Pimpin' "]
There's a keg. Loud Rap Music with huge bass speakers. There're posters of Dave Matthews Band and Bob Marley on the dingy frat house walls. You have drunk American Eagle too much makeup wearing chicks like totally making out with each other while they get their picture taken by backward hat wearing Tommy Hilfiger cologne-smelling dudes. People spilling beer all on each other. People start making out or totally just start having sex in the middle of the room. The place smells like a guy's locker room sprayed with cheap perfume.
And really, some of you may have totally digged this college experience...that's fine, you know, this trashy, pathetic, gross college experience...but totally fine...I, though, did not dig this. I mean I didn't belong in any of that, I mean I was a gay creative writing major who loved ass-fitting jeans and enjoyed a good cocktail...not Pabst Blue Ribbon. Geez.
But you do things because your friends make you...so I got dragged to one of these parties and it was all the same...except for this ONE time, at a skuzzy frat house where the carpet was stained with, well, we can only imagine...and posters of John Belushi wearing a t-shirt that says "college" were pinned to these frat house walls. The place is full of the same types of people...drunks, sluts, and beer bongs...doing the same types of things drinking, making out, and puking...but this particular party...
This one girl suggested truth or dare.
I'm not very good with that game...I'm not so good with unpredictable You know, "HI! Mr. No Adventure Bone Guy here!" Hey!
My stomach was in knots. I just didn't want to get picked to do anything...I mean, it just can't happen.
So, a few people go...people have to make out and others have to chug beer... all of the sudden the girl makes eye contact with me--the one running the show--and she goes...
"You! You with the hooded sweatshirt!"The blonde girl pointed her beer cup filled hand right at me through the crowd.
Oh. Shit. That's what I said to myself.
"Hmmmm...what am I gonna have you do...ummm..."
Her face lit up as soon as she got the idea.
"Come up here."
I started to go up there turning my head to my friends glaring at them...like my eyes were saying "assholes". They just laughed.
Then, she lifted up her shirt exposing both her breasts and says:
"Hold my boobs for a minute!"
O.K So, wait...don't women WEAR BRAS?! No seriously, aren't there fucking stores dedicated to those things? I mean, what? What?! Are bras optional...are boobs the new black...wear them and be proud?
The crowd cheered. Like, they fucking roared in excitement. Like if some football player had just scored a run...or whatever football players do to win.
I kinda vomited in my mouth a little. Cause, it was almost as if she knew I was the gay guy in the room and I wasn't even out yet, I mean, I was eighteen...I was playing straight guy still!!! And THIS moment, this would be like the top three worse things for me to have to do...you know, aside from having to you know actually have sex with a girl and pretend I even like girls! I mean, this was any other dude's dream! But for me...it was like...it was like a son touching his own mother's boob. Yah, not so much fun anymore is it folks?!
But. I had to do something. I couldn't just stand there shaking and looking away from the chest. I had to make a decision: play the game or...be a wuss...
I started walking up to the two boobs. It was like they were snakes...like they were eyeing me up to strike...like, they were ready to wrap themselves around me as soon as I got close enough and then smother me...yeah, smother me to death.
I got closer. My hands out like they were about to turn doorknobs.
The crowd cheered. Some dude yelled, "That a boy Byron! Get them knobs!"
And then...I was like a centimeter close to her left nipple. I had my hands ready to cup them. I was going to do this. I was going to hold some scary boobs in my hand. I was going to be a tough guy. In my head, I was thinking "PENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS" but what were coming at me looked NOTHING like a penis. Closer. And more closer I could see the round fleshy skin and that was it...these boobs were no longer connected to a girl...they were a creature...a creature that I, like a Jedi, had to tame with only the powers of my mind...and just as the tip of my index finger was about to touch the nipple...I stopped, made eye contact with the girl, then looked back at the boobs, then back at the girl, then at the boobs...
And then...I turned in the other direction...and ran.
I ran so fucking fast out of that party, down the street, around the corner, and past the 7-11 and dodged cars as I ran to campus and then back to my dorm room...and hid.
The rest of my semester was awful. Did I mention this was a small college? Everyone knew everyone kinda thing. So, like, everyone knew about "Byron" the guy that feared the "twins!". Or the guy "who had the world in his hands...almost!"...or the guy who was totally a pussy.
Yeah, it was bad.
And I think that lameness transferred on to my life for good...because it really never went away. I mean, not that I am forced to grab or look at boobs often...but I think I just have allowed myself to be the wimp...
And then I snap out my daydream when I hear a sharp wince come from Veronica...I am still looking in the other direction. Away from the nipple action.
Veronica can't stop laughing because she says:
"Dude, you haven't even looked at my chest in like two hours...come on! LOOK AT IT!"
[ENTER CHUMBAWUMBA- "I Get Knocked Down"]
When she says that, I totally realize how big of a pussy I am being. I mean,...sure I'm gay I'm not a guy guy but, to be afraid of boobs...perhaps, THAT was why my life was where it was at. Safe. Dependable. What if succeeding is all about liking boobs...or at least learning to like boobs...or you know, facing your fears! I'm mean, what if that was how I could be a Veronica? PUNK.ROCK.
I know...either I am going to stay "pussy Byron" or I'm going to Indiana Jones this moment...and and stand up and show who I really am...not just some weasely do-it-by-the-book kinda guy...I'm Byron...the guy who can totally overcome his fears and prove I have it in me to kick ass...to totally and comfortably...look at boobs. It's just muscle and skin, right? I mean, just fleshy balloons! Balloons!
And then, I do it.
I turn my head and I stare at that lump of flesh for the next half-hour as the tattoo guy, Gus, fills in the frogs body with a leafy green color. Then he is done...it is exactly what she picked out...a frog with a long tongue flipping you off looking like he was saying "Rock on FUCKERS!"
And I look at that frog and I look at the finger he is giving me. And I think, I am a new man. If I can take on a boob. I can take on anything. I am AWESOME.
And I look at frog one more time and totally think to myself, "Fuck Yeah! Frog, I'm fucking punk-rock."

When Lindsay Anne fell in love with a tree, it was quite a curious incident.

See, if you knew Lindsay Anne, you knew that she fell in love too easily. But she was not always interested in trees as this interest came after many years of losing love with men or boys or boys that acted like men or men that acted like men or both.

Her first love, Michael Alexander Mcaukee, the neighbor boy that canned his own night-crawler collection in his father's garage, was where it began. She played with him after school and one time when they were coloring in encyclopedias that children should not be coloring in, she looked at him still holding the green crayon (her favorite color and the color of Michael Alexander Mcaukee's eyes) and kissed him. He pulled his lips away and told her he was a monster who could eat her and began biting her arms and so she ran out of his house swearing off Michael Alexander Mcaukee and any boys that had green eyes.

Thomas Lewis Larkenson had blue eyes and wore sweater vests that his mother picked out for him. But most of all he had fantastic tough legs. Lindsay Anne adored this about him, that his mother picked out his clothing and that he had legs that looked like they could dance for all hours, and asked him to her first formal dance while they stood in line in the cafeteria and spooned both themselves faded and sick looking creamed corn. When he was about to pay with all dimes, Lindsay Anne looked at him grabbed his spork holding hand and asked if he would take her to that weekend's high school dance. He responded with a silent nod. And later, on that weekend, did not show up to take her to the dance. And Lindsay Anne did not feel like dancing alone to Cyndi Lauper and music kids danced to at that time.

Lindsay Anne then swore off boys that had legs.

Finding boys who did not have legs was something of a nuisance because legs were something pretty much anyone had. And since she had also sworn of boys with green eyes and legs this was limiting to her selection for her first date in college.

Carl Timothy Henderson was in a car accident when he was sixteen years old. Lindsay Anne knows this as she asked him why he was in a wheelchair without legs and that was the response that Carl Timothy gave her. Then, when he looked at her she realized that he had deep brown eyes that were nothing close to green and then, and only then, she knew that she was in love.

It actually went OK for Lindsay Anne and Carl Timothy. For an entire two months Lindsay Anne pushed Carl Timothy's chair in to his classrooms and bent her back forward when she wanted to lean down to kiss him. She looked like she was bowing when she would do this and could hear applause in her ears. She imagined it was cupid giving her a hand for finding love.

Carl Timothy was a good kisser and was going to college to be a teacher. Lindsay Anne always loved teachers and loved a man that had no legs and not green eyes but had a brilliant mind and was also brilliant with sex (since by now sex was something Lindsay Anne was very OK with if it was with the right guy). But, of course, Lindsay Anne found out (on a very overcast day) that Carl Timothy was really in love with Steven Walter Richardson and she found this out because of the first night when they had just come back from the college cinema and saw Rocky Horror Picture Show together, she tried to put her hand down his pants as she had always known he had at least a penis down there. But instead of him enjoying this, he used his hand to grab her hand and told her he was hoping they could just be friends. When she asked why, he looked at her with his chocolate eyes and said that he wanted a boyfriend and not a girlfriend.

Lindsay Anne then swore off men with penises.

If you know anything at all, you know that a penis is what makes a man a man. And Lindsay Anne did not like women (in that way) and knew that her love and all the love she could give would have two choices. She was either to kill all this love she was filled with and try to defer it in to ceramic pottery classes at the local recreation center and buy a lot of cats and try to love cats the same way you can love a man—with out sex of course because if she swore off penises she was not going to have sex anyway.

Or she was to use her love blindly and follow her heart.

She decided the later and fell in love with a tree.

There was no particular reason, really, she just always had liked the way trees looked--safe, strong, and rugged like a good man. She fell in love with the tree that grew in the front yard of her apartment building. It looked like a hand growing from the soil. The branches drew themselves a pattern like breaking ice in the sky. It was a feeling she got. She knew she loved it the moment she walked up to its thick skin of bark and used her finger tips to get her hand to its roughness. When she leaned in to smell the trunk of the tree she realized that this tree had nothing: No eye color. No Legs. No Penis. And that this tree was safer than any man she had ever taken the chance to know. The tree would never love another man. The tree would not taste her breath after a kiss and tell her to brush her teeth. The tree would never give its phone number to another. This tree, unlike all the boys she ever loved, would be predictable and always there for her and never ever surprise her with things she did not want to be surprised with. Or though she thought.

This tree would change in the seasons and be predictable because seasons are predictable and predictability was safe to Lindsay Anne.

Lindsay Anne told no one about her tree. And on a very lovely summer warm day when life was hard, she decided she would live in the tree. She knew this was the best. And this is what she did: She climbed that tree with a blanket, a bottle of water she had filled from the tap, and an apple. She ate the apple and sipped the water and wrapped herself in the blanket. She sighed often as that is what people do when they are in love. Sigh in happiness. All summer long.

But in life, like with boys, there are changes...or for a tree, there are seasons. And winter came...and the tree began to change something she least expected. She realized that the tree was becoming cold and dead-like and did not gently show her its moves like it did in a warm breeze in summer…but whipped her around aggressively to the ice cold winds of winter until she fell out of the tree. The tree did not know any better, as this is what trees do. But Lindsay Anne would have none of it…
And told the tree she was leaving it, for good.

Lindsay Anne moved out of the tree after the first snow fall. She left the tree to continue moving and growing and sitting in the front yard of her apartment in the city with out. She would go out the backdoor of her apartment, as it was too painful to see the tree she used to live in. She realized what it meant to know somethings are not meant to work out, as it is easier to see this when you are in control. And that is OK.

She then decided she could love boys again, even boys who had all their body parts.

Unpublished, March 2007

You are lost in some darkness of Third Street and Raymond Avenue. The pushing of wind saddles your back as layers of clothing shield your chest from the cold. In the distance the wailin gof a fire engine reminds you of a child's cry .You shudder thinking how cold fire can be in such a wrong place.
Buildings pace themselves to your side. Each curve and strip its windows and brick steadiness into your peripheral vision. Your eyes water like summer hoses. The cold gorges through them.
Now, winter brings hours to halt, and your know that. You know your toes curl in your shoes. Your legs warm themselves through the swift steps. But no matter how many minutes pass, you feel like you are back to where you were. Back where you don't belong.
You stake your way, still in the alley. Noticing the further in you go the darker night becomes. Light is pressed upon by shadows and the stench of caught exhaust fumes. The other side of teh street thriving a couple of feet down.
You picture your bed. Sweet like pears calmmed into the four corners. An apartment in downtown where rent burns, singes into your pocket.
You dream of this comfort, this illusion of steady success. Your each step toward home.

STEP STEP STEP

like a heartbeat. Warmth, safety, sigh...then a draft. When you don't realize his is behind you. You hadn't even noticed it. He had behind you the entire time, you suppose. And is about to take away those

STEPS STEPS STEPS

and turn you in the wrong direction. You don't see what he looks like. You don't really want to. But you know what he had for dinner by the smell of his breath.
Liquor.
Liks sweet rolls, you don't forget that smell.
"Give me all of it." He says. "Or I slice" He shows you his knife. It shines.
And you can't help but think, all of what? Your money? The money you have to give to the landlord with the missing teeth and breath the smell of rotting flesh. The money you worked so hard for. You can't stay above water. Your rent eats you alive. And he wants? That is what he wants. He wants you to be eaten alive. You don't put up a fight.

"You can take it all," you say. "Just don't hurt me". You say it in a little voice. Like a twig, stepped on.

He preys on you and takes it all. Patting down your legs, colder than unthawed chicken breasts. You hear his grunts, like a fate pig stuffing himself into all your pockets on your body. He plays his strong structure to you. You are pushed against a wall. You can feel the brick scatter across your face. You feel naked or stoned. You feel warm. Like a sunburn that cooks you inside out. He knocks you over. Your jacket, your watch, your wallet that has your baby's pictures in it. Your wedding ring, your money. Your smile. Your life. Gone.

And all you can think of is how cold it is tonight. Your ears sting.

Liquor in the air, toes that curl in your boots and not knowing the time since you watch and sanity are with him. The man that ripped your steps from

CLICK CLICK CLICK
to...
SILENCE.

And he takes your steps with him as he runs down the street, shoes squeaking across the black pavement like a soft slip of a tongue. He took those steps and slipped a fire in to your chest; one that will never keep you warm.

Published in N.O.T.A