Collusion: Chapter XXXIX

All things end it is said. I suppose it could be better that way. But I'm not the type to give up. I looked for any sign that I could save us, that I could do something to change the way we were drying up. I reasoned that I must feel it so much more deeply than he did. In retrospect I know he felt it too but maybe was even less able to produce evidence of emotion... I think too that the fighting had worn on him more than me. He made me stop trying in the end. He didn't want to but Im glad he did. If he hadn't made me stop I would have kept on and on and worn the skin off my hands and knees from crawling after him. I was sick.

I rolled out of bed half panicked that I was late... I'd fallen asleep in my clothes again. There were violet half circles under my eyes from typing a study guide last night and writing two new lesson plans for the kids at the academy. I had forgotten too about the Parker class too. Uff. Dr Parker was this inexorably tall thin man who looked like he was made of twigs. I squeezed the bridge of my nose and there was a dull ache from drinking. My closet at grampa's house was my stash box. The floor in there was littered with bottles. Vodka and beer mostly. I was still working 30 plus hours at starbucks and was part time grad schooling say 8-12 credits a semester. I felt like I rallied rather well though.

It was a 30 minute drive to school and I threw on some things from the floor that seemed cleanish and tried to quietly leave, not wanting to wake grandma or papa though in retrospect I think they had been awake for hours. It was foggy on the drive and I sped through the back roads trying to take the quick and dirty route I hated being late slightly more than sobriety those days and was pushing the white 4 door escort to the limits of it's cheap Michigan manufacture. When I got closer into town I ran up over a curb. "Shit!" I yelled not slowing down. 8:47 and I had hope to make it before the bell. I skidded to a park and tossed gravel in the townie lot. There should be a shuttle seeing as the lot is nearly the next town over. I hiked up my book bag over my shoulder like a mustang on a mail run and ran to the music building, ignoring looks of righteous indignation. It's easier to do that when you're running full tilt.
The bell rang when I sat down and I could feel their looks on me... I was the most white trash Christian in the room. Hail trailer park Jesus on your chicken wire cross.
Anyways... I hangover squinted at Parker the whole lecture. To keep from falling asleep I kept imagining what his mornings must have been like for the last 30 years... but..... in my mind it was cut into violent "Requiem for Dream" style sequences. You remember? But like with the same old coffee pot... or pen stains on his oxford shirt... or notes left on the refrigerator.

"Mr. Medlin?"

"Oh huh?" I say glassy eyed and rubbing crust from the corner of my right eye.

"I was asking what you thought about your reading assignment in a 'Christian Approach to Music..? Can you share with the class?"

Shit.

"I uh." Looked around the room at people who had books open on their desks and I suddenly hated them all. I realized in the crystallized moment of terror. I could bull shit him, or.... just be honest and tell him I had decided no to read what Jesus thought about the Backstreet Boys; opting instead to get blackout drunk wo hooo!..... So... I began speaking with the earnestness of prayer.

"I thought the author raised very important arguments for a more traditional approach to worship... I mean it's fairly clear that the contemporary influences musically boost attendance...but I found his attempts to link his arguments to scripture were tenuous...The Bible doesn't say enough about music for us to rule that it's inappropriate to allow pop influences in sacred music. I mean I think it's tacky but... we all have opinions. "

Shit.... Why do I do these things? Like why did I choose hang over day to jump up on the desk and do a little theological strip tease? I must have sounded like I had just come from Bonaroo.

"I see." He said with one of those 'poor thing' looks on his face. " Will you make sure you come to class in dress code next period please."

"Sure."

And that was that. I think some things are just funnier when there's a little alcohol left in your blood from the night before. I didn't open a note book for the rest of the period... Just kept my chin in my hand and kept imagining Parkers life. So pedantic I could only imagine getting school shooter crazy about it. But everyones different. Humans are incredibly adaptive. Its incalculable what people are able to live with and live through... Its unbelievable the amount that we can endure. The amount of toxin; emotional, physical or otherwise that we can add to our own psychological ecosystems. Parker and I were alike in that. He also colluded. His toxins were just cheaper.

Writers

I watch you blink. In the quiet.
I watch and do not realize.
The blade of morning light sings and yells and skips on your wooden floor.
We did what came as nature to us.

Writing.
Tracing out new words.
Letters. Stories.

We began to fill each others pages. Did we think of our penmanship?
At times perhaps.
Sometimes even now.
Im sitting at a stoplight.
Im washing dishes.
Im making dinner.
And maybe...
I could have left a window open or something.
A little wind will blow back some of those pages to the chapters I didn't remember.

Im cleaning maybe. Dusting. And there it is again.
Spills to the floor opening right back up to where I left it.
I never meant to always keep the book with me.
In fact I remember... I remember choosing not to.
I am the book it seems.

I don't know if you remember the same way that I remember.
But I know you remember some.
There were other writers, with different pens.
Some told happy stories.
Some could only write in panic and fear.
They wrote all the same as long as I would let them.

You write a different story now.
Different pages.
Different book.

I watch you blink. In the quiet.
I watch and do not realize.
The blade of morning light sings and yells and skips on your wooden floor.

Collusion: Part XXXIV

You know I don't think I minded being left alone. I didn't. Maybe you're one of those people who just wants you to walk past and not say anything. You know... like when you stub a toe... and that hot wave of endorphin rich pain washes over you? I'm one of those people. Id much prefer not to be noticed. If you tried to help me now I would bite your arm off at the elbow and then spit it at your mother.

I've heard from people from back then... the Senators. They've contacted me since... apologizing. Offering 'sorrys' for being 'immature'. Some sent long long emails, some through Facebook. And days after a house fire... they would likely bring me water-balloons and salt water taffy.  We went from spending hours in a big group laughing in the big empty dinning common to nothing. I couldn't speak to them. I couldn't look at them. Don't get me wrong I was mad at them for me... but ever so much worse. I was shocked stupid. I was shocked silent because they brought danger to us. Some consolation all those late dinners together were now...our jokes and snickering catching the attention of the hostess staff in the building, who on occasion would waddle over to make sure we weren't actually enjoying ourselves. Things change. Let's just say if they ran for an office now, I might do some campaigning against them. Not just because they were selfish.... it was because of what they nearly did. They nearly took my family.

Do you know though... I hit upon a little stroke of luck in those nasty times. A gift you might say. I discovered something. The fatal flaw that saved us in the end. Or at least saved us for the time being.

Work was a fuckery. I had a headache that was bearing patiently into the back of my eyes. My eyes were watery from it and I could feel the edges of them burn when I closed my eyes. I didnt have any advil, and there was none at the store. I wasnt shifting that day. Drive through had been steady. It may have been a thursay. It feels like it was that or a Tuesday. As the memory of it simmers in my mind. Either way much lunch break finally lumbered around. I had thirty precious minutes to get to publix, and buy some pain killers. Maybe something to eat and then storm back into work in time to mop the lobby. That was plan anyways.

I had located the pills I needed and was looking for something in a jar, or maybe some soup... ah that was it. I hit on a sub. That'll be fine. Someone was calling. The name on the phone was Laura Thompson. It was rare that she called. I mean she and I were friends, but we only hung out tangentially... whenever I ran into her or saw her at church. She was a very pale skinned girl with big watery blue eyes. Dark wet looking brown hair that always had just too tight of a curl to it. Or perhaps rather a shade too tangled. Some call it the natural look. I do not. She was most notable to me because she was emotionally sanguine and chiefly concerned herself with every lost cause that was just so lost as to be time wasted. She prayed a lot from what I can tell. Im sure she meant it a lot too. She dressed like an English teacher who desperately wanted to be an English person. Alac.
I picked up the phone.
"Hi."
"Josh! Where are you right now...."
"Im at publix... I cant get rid of this headache... Im getting lunch what's up?" I was baffled as to why she would have called me at that hour.
"Josh... we need to talk like right; right now." There was something itchy in her voice it sounded like panic.
"Oh... well we are talking... aren't we? Whats wrong?" I prompted. I had 30 minutes. I could eat or then not eat. I was going to eat.
"Sooo.... Ive been talking with Chris and Ray..."
My pupils narrowed.
"And Josh I cant believe it! You're totally gay... Like you're a homosexual!" She spat into the phone. Her words were making the same sounds children make when they're eating pudding.
"Huh?..." I stood still on aisle 5 at the publix on pelham rd.
" Where are you right now?"
"I just... like I said Im at publix. Ive got thirty minutes to my meal break. I dont know what you're talking about. I have to go."
"OK ok... WAIT... Josh hear me out. Im on the way to where you are stay there. Im coming."
"I uh. Ok..... "

She hung up. Undoubtedly she and her clan of other natural looking people had simply been riding around... guessing where I may be. I mercifully made it to the end of the line at check out and was on my way to the car... Maybe I'd luck out maybe she wouldnt be there.
She was. She called me in the parking lot. I saw the name on the phone but just slid the bar to ignore. She stalked up behind me in the parking lot. Eyes so much the more than watering.
"Josh! I cant believe this!... Why didn't you tell me?"  She squared her shoulders at me. This other girl that was with her hung back like back up. Perhaps its a HAZMAT thing... 2nd stage protocol, in case I escaped.
"Why are you here right now?" The pain in my head was melting away, and I could feel a strange black coldness growing in me. Swelling quickly like a summer thunderstorm. I could feel that behind my eyes now quickly wiping out what was apparently just an imagined headache.
"I have thirty minutes to eat and try to get this headache under control and go back to work. What were you hoping to accomplish here."
"Josh! You're not listening. Ray and Chris... they told me everything. They told me how you and x were together! I'm here because I don't know what to do. I mean I cant just not tell people...You have to know it's wrong right?"

You know those scenes from action films. The ones where a protagonist watches as a large structure falls. The camera pans around and the score drops out... no sound at all. In some cases just a single high pitch is audible in the back ground. This happened then. And just as quickly I knew what must be done.

"What exactly, in as few words as possible did Ray and Chris tell you?" I said quietly, hawk-like.
"Well um.... " She started forming tears. "They said that you two were like together... that you had been for a while, and nobody knew about it. They said that they couldn't be involved with it anymore because... because Ray said that he knew that it was wrong. It's true isnt it!? I mean... It has to be right? Does Amanda know about it? I want to help you!... But i dont know how....Let me help you!"

I stared at her. Remorseless. Feeling out the play. Like I was playing a game of pool. This must strike that. This angle must strike that. A little chalk... a little luck. Go.

"Laura. Im not sure what all people have been saying about me. But to be honest I don't really have time to chat with you. I don't know why Ray or Chris would have said any of that. I have to go to work now. Your concern is appreciable. I have to go now." 

All of the was delivered with a succinctness nearly absent in my other talks with anyone.
I got into my car and drove the less than a mile back to work. I wasn't hungry anymore. I wasnt anything anymore.

I carbon copied three people to a text and pressed 'send.'

Something has happened. Dont speak with anyone. We need to meet tonight. 10:30 I'll come to you.

Collusion: Part XXXVIII

"Oh but that Sarah Vogt! She's just so.... Uhn.... " I said letting my eyes roll back in my head a little. I was lazing around the dorm room on those blonde wooden chairs they leave in the rooms, as if people are supposed to enjoy sitting on them. "she's not of this world" I said shaking my head whist full. "she's.... I dunno. Some kind of perfect. "

"I know... " Said Matthew.... Also shaking his head. "I know"

"She just breathes tone... It just pours out of her and spills around. Shes not even trying. " I mentioned. We had just seen her perform and Matthew Primm and I were just giddy with it. The performance had smoke and grandeur and guts. Hell. I don't even remember what she played now. I'm damn sure it wasn't Haydn... It could have been Krystler though. The performance sparkled like a broken mirror, and danced like dune grass in the sea breeze. We were both taken a bit back by it. Like that feeling that you get when you've seen a really good sci-fi flick. You know the bit where you fall into the story nose first, like someone pushed you off a dock at the lake from behind and you didn't expect it. Just like that. You walk out of the theater all squinty eyed and imagining the world in ways that it can not be; Your mind all drenched in falsehoods.
Matthew was a sort of lanky blonde guy with a prominent nose. He was studying to be a string teacher... He and I got along very well. I think it's because we both knew school was full of silly ninny heads and we would be out sooner or later. Matthew was different from me though. He meant it when he prayed I could tell, and honestly I did it because people expected me to.

"Aaaaand she IS gorgeous! Hello!! " I proposed. Eyes wide.
" I know, I know..." he said looking lost.
"Well why don't you ask her out or something.... Buy her some coffee? " I asked. If he was so wracked with lust...then I reasoned something must be done about it.
" Well, I ran into her in the hall in the music building the other day, and I tried to chat a little after the concert." He said. An obvious reach.
Sara was the kind of good looking that happens in Klimt paintings, and had that same sort of aesthetic. All scarves and floral prints in sand colors. Tapestries. She was hung about with mystery. She was elegant. In truth she was Matthew's undoing for most of the semester. And but who could blame him.

Bells rang in the hall and it was time for prayer group. I think that was the semester that Josh Roland was our group leader. Todays lesson was about confession...
R: "The word tells us that he who confesseth and forsaketh his sin will find forgiveness. You know I know we're not the closest room and all. I mean I feel like I know you guys pretty well. But there are for sure ways that we could build room unity."
(I'm sure at this point I was pretending to read something else that had caught my attention in the Word, and typically twirling my hair which was/ is my 'go too' stress relief ritual.)
R: "Josh you look like you're thinking about something...." He said with a silly doberman smile on his face...
I really hate when people say that. It makes me feel like all the other times when they're not looking they're sure Im not thinking at all.
ME: "Oh... I've just.... had a lot of spiritual growth in my life lately.... ya know big changes"
I... I really haven't been happy with the person that I am..."
Everyone looked at me. Like it was a surprise that I could feel anything other than sadness.
The truth was I had said that without preparing any follow up whatsoever. How very impetuous.
ME: "Yes.... uh. Big big... changes" I gestured and my eyes were wide.
Matthew: "Oh really? Medlin? Change?" He was on the edge of laughing I could tell.
R: "What made you think something needed to be different...?"

I took a deep breath. Whatever my recently acquitted besetting sin was it had to merit mentioning in prayer group.... What could it be though?! ... Lust? Porn? (Oh wait those are kind of related).... Stealing? Nah too complicated... Bulimia? Guff, that ended in high school...

R: "Josh?"
ME: "Ah! yes I said surprisedly... Im sorry I must have drifted off. Well I've decided that Im a Republican now..." I said earnestly.

Matthew was laughing outright. I was aching to but didn't even smile.
Roland looked around wryly...
R: "Any other dark secrets?... Anyone?"

I jabbed at Matthew
ME: "Christ rode into Jerusalem on a donkey Matthew... show a little respect."

Collusion: Part XXXVII

Wickedness. Evil. Are these concepts synonyms? If one is evil, are they also wicked... or perhaps are the acts of those who are evil considered wickedness? I am consumed of these ideas. I drown in thoughts such as these. I believe religiously in the blackness, the inky murk endowed to us by our paternity. Why such a consumption you may ask? Why such a morbid fascination with ideas that stand in military opposition to goodness, kindness and beauty? It's not such a mystery. After all… Some consider me to be evil.

I was late back from work at Express again. This day had been more than a little unsettling... Nothing eventful had been happening with X in a few days. Summer plowed ahead. I had barely touched a piano and had given myself fully over to drinking away what little of my funds that weren't already poured into school debt or car expenses. Over the summer I was rooming with Justin and Eric in Johnson. The largest dormitory, and I think the most cheaply constructed. The school needed the housing fast due to an influx of students some time ago, and had cut corners to get the thing up and moderately functional in time for a term. The walls were sort of a slate-algae industrial grade paint color. The carpet in the halls a patchwork of much the same colored carpet that had holes gauged in it here and there from students moving their furniture in and out as quickly as they could, disregarding the consequences of property damage. As far as I could tell, there weren’t a lot of consequences for that kind of property damage. I texted Eric.

:: I'm coming in late. Prop the side door open?::

He did. Or someone had. There was part of a cinder block wedged in the side door. All the doors were big brown metal and plate glass things with key card access. They locked on timers, and I had arrived past curfew. Summer rules were different though. I wasn't exactly a student over the summer…I was an employee. The rules were a smidge different. Everyone was sleeping or playing games on their computers. The air was wet from a rain, earlier and the building took on a wet smell. It always did after weather of any sort. It just made the human smells stronger. Skin. Laundry. And very peculiar cologne choices.

I slid in through the gap in the door... kicking out the cinder block as I did. The door clicked and locked. The little red lock light snapped on in the door and a security breach was eliminated. I'd been folding clothes for hours. I felt a little numb. The thud of the sound system at the clothing store I worked at had left my cochlea worse for the wear. There's nothing sexy about folding t-shirts even if they're over priced and sold in an environment strung about with night club like sub woofers and overly embroidered jeans.  Express clothing. Club clothes. Taste for people who have none of their own.

I had fun working there. Melanie and I used to hang back after work and order hamburger quesadillas and we would gossip about the management. Who was sleeping with who. Melanie was as black as pitch. Still is. She was Haitian. An orphan. And French parents adopted her when they moved to the states. She had no accent. Black or other wise. Her mom is a tiny little French woman who to this day believes that my name is 'Jeffery'... I think that may have something to do with my eating all of the tiny pickles in her refrigerator while quite drunk. I can’t be sure.

I shrugged off my bag. Eric was wondering around the building. Justin was gone for the weekend. He lived in Sumpter I think and maybe was visiting family there. The room smelled like sulfur. Like someone had been playing with matches. I threw my things on the floor slid off my pants. I scrounged around for one of my missing flip flops and grabbed a towel. Squeaked my way down the hall towards the showers. Which was something like a giant ceramic box. The kind of place you may imagine prison rape scenes for crime dramas may be shot. Residue from harsh cleaning chemicals was thick on the ceramic tile. Cold green and yellow tiles in asymmetrical patterns coated the floor, walls and ceiling.  Poetically only half the icy blue fluorescent lights flickered on when I switched the light. In the half-light you could hear the thoink of one of the shower heads dripping.

There was a hiss a I slid back the curtain and stepped into piping hot water. I leaned my head against the cold tiles and let the heat drip down my face. Down my back and water pooled slowly towards one of the central drains in the floor. I let a glassy look come over my face. I could feel the water pooling in the cracks. The holes that had been worn into me. The water filled those spaces back up and spilled out everywhere. I thought of nothing, and just let the indomitable tanks of scalding water from the building slowly drain out over me. Just me.

There was a noise in the bathroom... Scuffling. I snapped out of my reverie.

"Medlin? That you in here?"

I leaned out of the shower.

It was Morrisey. Scruffy theater arts student I had met my first week at school. He was the first person who had attempted to learn my name. He was my height with whispy-curly ginger hair. He was always working on these projects. He made things out of paper mache. He'd been in school for years and never went home for the summer.

"What's up?" I pulled back the curtain.

He was standing there with a mask in his hand. The kind that you can get from a party store. White plastic thing that he had begun altering by adding bits of copper mesh and rhine stones. Black feathers made brow lines.

"What's that?" I asked nodding to the device.

"It's fall" He gestured grandly. Throwing a presentational gesture towards the mask. "I've been working on one for all the seasons. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. It's part of this project I've been working on over the break." Michael always seemed like he should have had a drug problem. Always with that cast away at sea look in his eye, and always with those white blue eyes of his glazed over. Maybe he was.

"Oh. That's cool..." I said unconcernedly allowing the shower curtain to gape open. I propped myself up against the shower wall. I wasn't all that concerned with how hygienic that was. Maybe I should have been. He was telling me more about this project. It's inspiration and origins. How he had always been inspired by nature. As he was talking I half noticed his eyes followed the lines of my shoulders, tracing a way, slowly... shyly... down my arm and then the line of my hip to my knee.

He was still talking about that damn mask. He was rambling about how he thought about displaying the masks in shadow boxes... blither blither.

"Are you happy here?" I cut in. Shooting him a black look. I'd had nearly enough of this chatter; this empty prattle about masks.

"I uh. What do you mean?" His fishy eyes locked mine.

"You know. Why are you here. With me. Why are you in school? Here?”

He fidgeted with his hair. Pushed it around and looked bashful. I could hear his pulse over the hiss from the shower. I could feel the hot shame wash over him. He was gobsmacked I had caught him looking.

"Oh... I mean it’s a good school ya know... Im… not exactly on good terms with my family. My dad and I don’t talk." He let his eyes follow the water as it made it's way to one of the drains in the floor.

"Why not? He doesn’t like you or something?" I softened. He had at that moment stopped being annoying. Strange how such simple statement can render a man a boy, or a boy a man. In that moment Michael was no longer an eccentric grown up. He was just a child. A silly one at that. With masks and... complications.

"Yeah. He's ashamed of me." He said shifting his weight.

"Oh I'm sorry."

Steam and water sounds filled the empty silence.

“My dad and my mom aren’t together any more. The last time I saw him was at a family reunion. He had a couple drinks and called me a ‘pathetic faggot’.” He smiled hauntingly as he said this and hung little quotations in the air.

I was taken a back. No one had ever used that word in my house. There were plenty of words that weren’t used, and I hadn’t even learned the meaning of that one until I had been in school for a few months. My mother would have slapped the teeth out of my head if I had used a word like that, and I would have deserved it.

“Why would he say that to you?”

The question bounced around the room until steam pushed it out the door and into the hallway.

“I just think he doesn’t like all the stuff I’m into. Doesn’t understand art. Why I wanna work in theater.” He shrugged about it. Like we were talking about paper weights. “He doesn’t love me.”

And then he did something so… kind. He walked straight across the room, and stood in front of me. He grabbed my right hand while I was just standing there in the shower. And he shook it and said.

“I’ve already decided I’m going to be just fine. And I’m going to do what I want.”

Then he smiled and nodded, and slogged back to his room where no doubt his roommates hated him for the amount of art debris there was thrown all over.  I leaned back in the shower. I thought about X. I tried to think if I was like Michael. I tried to decide if Michael was a child or a man… If I was a child or a man. I couldn’t tell.

Collusion: Part XXXVI

What is the human condition? Lately that's all I think about. I don't mean to sound like a stoner. I promise. But the more I think about it, the more I have to say... everything's relative. I'm not talking fringe science or family trees. I'm talking about trajectory. The likelihood that person 'A' will achieve wealth, progeny or perhaps dare I even suggest... popularity. Or to what degree a person would consider said person 'A' would consider a certain amount of pain 'excruciating' and how that's different for every person. I'm only thinking about these things because I was training for a marathon in February. I've been tricked into it by my run partner. She did the NYC a month ago or so. I wonder if I'm capable of those distances. I mean... It has to be like everything else right? You can do it... it just depends how much of yourself you're willing to give away to do that.

I've always thought that the amount of yourself that you're willing to throw into something is the driving factor in the trajectory of our achievements. And it is the degree of cost that we find   outlandish that differs person to person. There are other tangents to consider. But let's be honest... Most people earn what they get and the people that haven't should be shot in public. Or maybe lynched. Maybe I could head an advisory board for lynchings. For worthless people. I digress.

I was signed up for it. Tom Grimble didn't even ask me if it was ok. He said I should do it, and that it would give me a chance to debut the Tan Dun pieces. I dragged a bag of books into his office. His office that always smelled like melted vanilla wax and carpet cleaner. All around the room was little decorative trinkets that previous students had gotten for him. Tacky cursivy things. Thank you for this. We love you for that. I judged him for those trinkets.

"How are you today Josh?" He asked as I came in and plunked my bag on one of the chairs by the wall. "You look... tired."

I wanted to thank him for his observation. How between working full time, and part time grad work, and living thirty minutes from school I hadn't quite had the luxury of waking each morning at 9 am to the paper and a soft boiled egg.

"I'm..... alright." I said rather disinterestedly. "It's... my schedule is tight. Ya know."

"How are things?... With work?" He asked. Tom is such a curious man to describe. He had grown one of those Italian mustaches long ago in the 90's and for whatever reason allowed it to reside on his face. He's one of those larger people, that have an odd grace and fluidity to their movements about a room. So much so that I often thought to myself, that Tom Grimble moved about like the a cloud... Like the Holy Spirit who led the Children of Israel by day through the desert to the promised land.
He was desperately interested in my personal life. Who was I dating. How my job was going. You know, I can't really knock him for that. He was trying to do his job well. He was trying to be a nice guy. He's one of the few people from school that I think wanted me to be happy. Who had thought through what it may be like for me not to be happy.

"I want you to perform for Mrs Gingery. She's doing a work shop this weekend. Are you working Saturday?"

"I.... " thought through my obligations. I was in the middle of memorizing. I would spend an hour on a page. Close the book and try to play through the page without looking. One page at a time. One piece at a time. Performance time was close to an hour. That meant six months of memorization for me. 2 Hours a day with the piano. Me. The piano and a book.
"I think I'm not working until later that after noon? Tell me about Mrs. Gingery..."

"Well" He was checking his email with his back to me. "She's retired from the music faculty here. I want you to play Tan Dun for her. The pieces haven't premiered at this school, and I think she could be very interested to hear them." Tom always spoke with a kind a lethargy. Due in part to acute back pain from a horrible fall some time ago, and also... That's just how musicians are. They speak as if they are imparting the divine secrets of the universe. It's something that happens as a result of whispering to one another during performances.

"I guess I can do it.."
"Well of course you can do it."

"I'm... just not so sure about some of the rhythms on this page..." I pointed to a folio I pulled out of my book sack. "I've been listening to the recordings for days... and I still don't think I'm getting it right. Can we look at it?" I wouldn't have been happy half-assing it. Workshop or no. Music school is like a quiet pageant. We each take our turns performing at different venues. There are those who get nods from teachers... and there are those who don't.

"Listen. I can't be there either. I'd like to go to introduce you to Mrs. Gingery, but there will be two others from the studio there. She's a lovely woman."

We spent the rest of the hour after praying briefly re-working the rhythm of the first page of the Tan Dun. 8 Memories in water color. Delicate and precise little wood cuts of pieces. Dun had said enough, but not too much. The works were sharp, and they turned quickly from one idea to another. They rushed about spilling money in the street and ending quietly... stealthily even. Reworking the piece was tant-amount to pulling the stitching out of a garment because a line wasn't correct... and re-stitching by hand. Think about teaching yourself to type all over again if the letters swam around and re-organized themselves at will. That's it.

The day was at hand. I was going to be late as well. I tripped up the steps to Stratton Hall and nearly ran around the corner into David Landon who was skittering off on his lanky legs heading towards the Dinning Common.
"Hey Med-head! Just you watch where you're going!" Nasal tall person voice.
"Shut up Landon. Im late for a show."

I was trying to do some sort of controlled panting as I closed the door to the Orchestra Room. There was a echoing 'chunk' from my closing the door and the sound bounced around the room. Eight students sat in chairs around the piano and Mrs Gingery stood one small white hand rested on the piano. She looked exactly like Mrs. Doubtfire. Every last hair. The voice was different though. She was of course a musician. She breathed sunlight from the mountains.

"Mr. Medlin. Will you please come sit down? We're just going to go around the room. And discuss each piece as we come to it." She said this quietly and here eyes sparkled in a watery old-person kind of way.

Each of my associated took there turns. Chin held high. Elbows up. Perfect. Perfect.
As my turn came, I slunk to the piano and announced my piece. Gave a brief description of the artist and genre. Sat down and began. Clipped through the piece like a pony at the state fair.

There was a little stretch where I was applauded. Just a little one.
Then Mrs Ginger began to speak.
"Well... There's certainly some explaining to do here!" She chuckled a little.
"Oh?" I said... I could feel 16 eyes on me. The room was hot. Suddenly.
"Did you perhaps notice... " she began again... "That here and here," She pointed with a red pen... "you botched the triplet patterns."
"Oh?" I felt like I was getting smaller. Like I was shrinking into the leather bench. My eyes widened and my vision glossed. This was gonna be bad.


I was right. It was bad.


She kept on talking. About how my tone was too dry. How my articulation could have been tighter. How if I had been an adequate student I might have performed well. How one day I would ascend to the great heights that she had. As she spoke in my mind she walked up steps... up a high mountain of judgement. And.. I guess I deserved it.

I hadn't prepared like I wanted to. I hadn't checked my performance against a metronome. I wasn't a serious artist. I was a hack. I was a hack in front of 8 of my peers.

Later that week I consulted with Tom. We talked about how I got lynched. And why.
He and I worked it over again. Cut the stitches. Pulled out the thread. Re-stitched the entire piece. Sewed it back together like it should have been.

Later that week, I wrote a piece myself. I learned what it meant to place a tempo as you intended it. Rests where you wanted them to be. And pitches exactly perfect. And then it made sense.

Composers weren't doing this because they wanted to be assholes. They didn't write things because they wanted you to be gap faced at their magnificence. (I'm talking about everyone but Franz Liszt. He was an attention whore. ) They wanted you to feel what they felt about a sound. They wanted you to be convinced that a sound was just as beautiful as they thought it was. They wanted you to believe I think that for a moment, you weren't listing to music. You were listening as an Artist called down sunlight from the mountains, and imparted the divine secrets of the universe.

Collusion: Part XXXV

The room stunk. It smelled like years and years worth of male sex hormones, plus no ones mom doing laundry for them.  There was something else though too… cumin? Coriander? Egg rolls?.... Perplexing.  That was the first thing I noticed. And then, Eric. He turned his thin vaguely Asian face away from the origami cranes he was hanging around the room. Hanging them here and there… wherever I suppose he thought one might walk into them.

“Hello.” He said.

“Hi.” I was dragging a duffle and shouldering a pile of clothes on hangers. It never crossed my mind back in those days to throw away clothes that didn’t fit properly or looked jarring. Consequently I nearly always dressed like I was going to clown school… For all intents and purposes… I suppose I was.

“Hi, “ I heard as well. This time from the chair by the desk. Justin was reading something… a small paper back. He had a round face and tightly curled blond/brown hair. You know, the kind that sometimes bi-racial children have.  Or baby Jews.

“How’s it going?” I grunted. I’d take the top of the double I guessed. There were no paper cranes there. 

I dragged my things in. Sweating. The room was stuffy. I would have suggested opening a window. But it was hot outside too. “Jesus, God,” I thought… “Why is it 1,002 degrees?… it’s May.”

I had signed on for a work stay over the summer. Mostly cause I was a stupid a-hole, who believed that there was such a thing as true love… and it could last through college and beyond. Even college at “Praise Yaweh University.”

I smirk as I write. Because 1. Nobody should be that stupid…. And 2…. Just see #1.

And also because I knew things had happened over the semester that I was ashamed of. I was… a kind of *gross* now. And I didn’t want to have to hide that from my family. I knew that they would be able to smell it on me… That going back would be crazy talk and that no amount restitutionary painting for 7 hours in the blazing sunlight would hide those facts from those people. My people. All the residents of crazy town.

I chatted with Eric and Justin. “Oh… yeah, looks like we’re going to be rooming together over the summer… oh… and looks like we’re chatting about it… “ Yawn.

I’d been fighting with X again. Yet another facet of my fantastical stupidity was that I had assumed that staying in Greenville over the summer would be seen as a kind of romantic gesture and that X would be shocked, amazed, and appreciative. Erp. NO! ROFL ROFL! No fucking way!

Another thing that I was stupid about in those days… Having tense conversations via SMS.

DON’T DO THAT IDIOTS! PICK UP THE PHONE AND HAVE AN ACTUAL CONVERSATION LIKE YOU’RE A GROWN UP!!

Sorry. Just… needed to yell.

I wish present me could flash back in time and just sort of float over ‘past me’s head in a small cloud with a gavel. I would plunk past me on the head and yell. “Gotcha Bitch!”

On second thought… Past me would have just gone in for psychiatric testing.

“Where are you working?” Eric had asked… I looked up from my phone, from yet another disappointing text message from X.

“Uh… Museum & Gallery”… I said vacantly. 

Eric glided over to one of his drawers. One that had been meticulously arranged and was filled with folding papers, saved discarded trinkets from Christ knows where… and I think cumin. At least that’s where it smelled like it was coming from.

Eric Inafuku is such a curious little man. He is so thin to the point that we must assume he has only ever eaten three grains of rice at each meal and he has a willowy tendency to move about a room with an uncommon fluidity.  I would learn later that this was due in part to his belief that he was in fact, a geisha… and partly because that’s just how Asians are.

“And you’re working….? Where?” I asked… for a moment distracted by his stealthy movement…

“At the press. I read things… Edit things…” I was mystified. And presently distracted from my worries over X.

“Things like?”

“Oh you know… Just things… This and that. Books. Text books.” He replied with a raised eyebrow as if to suggest that he could possibly be editing anything though…. Like perhaps even more risqué books… novels perhaps... or picture books perhaps…

I would grow to find that Eric was like this about a lot of things. Elusive. Evasive. It was going to be an interesting summer.

I was distracted again by my phone…

X: “All of this is just making me crazy…”

X: “I just don’t  think we should be together anymore.”

ME: “Are you joking? I mean I know maybe we’ve been spending too much time together… don’t you think that could be it?”

X: “Yeah I dunno I’m just tired of fighting.”

“Soooo… didn’t wanna go home over the summer?” The curly haired one asked. There was a lump in my throat.

“Yeah… I mean. No.” My voice was thick and wet and I was walking out of the room. I walked down the hall heading to the back of the building. Johnson was the largest of the dormitory buildings and two of it’s four story wings stretched backwards towards parking lots and the field house. There was a loading dock back there that I just sat down on the dock. I was dripping with sweat and I felt… so so empty.

Apparently I had just given up the next three months to live in a stinky box with Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and Curly Fries.

My phone was ringing… It was Dad.

D: “Hey my little fat buddy!”

Dad always called me this. I attribute two years of anorexia to it.

ME: “Hey…” My voice was flat and wet sounding.

D: “How ya doing?!”

ME: “Oh… well…. I’m alright….”

D: “What’s wrong bud?”

ME:  “Oh… I just have this feeling that I may be here for the wrong reasons… Can I just…. (Swallow) Call you back?”

D: “Yeah sure ok…”

I hung up and stared out at the heat waves rising up out of the asphalt parking lot. Cocked my head to the side as water slid out of my eyes and splashed onto the loading dock. I was quiet out there. I stayed there for an hour.