Collusion: Part XXXIII

It was raining. Those slow... ridiculously mournful rains. The kinds in films about suicide, or genocide. Some sort of 'icide.' I had taken to being the consummate recluse. I had completely devoted myself to my studies, and piano. And to be honest, I was convinced that any day I was going to be called into the Dean of Men's office at school and explain to a perfectly awful stranger, how I wasn't a homosexual.

There was an alcove at the back of the museum that I was fond of. A wooden statue of the virgin Mary stood at the end of a very long very dark hall way. Rooms twisted and split off from it here and there. Here a place to sit... there an ancient set of panels from a church long sunken beneath the grass in eastern Germany. Rooms on and on forever. All half lit, and bruised with the deep reds and purples of thick thick carpet that ate up all the stray sound. I loved this place. I got paid to sit and study note cards for hours. Days on end. There were quite a bit of really great art too. There had already been that falling out with the rest of the members of the Senate, and as a result I had pulled back and cut off all contact with these malicious people. I reasoned that if I had been their friend for this long... and now they were after me... what next? Would they slap a jew? Would they eat their young? I couldnt tell.
So... I stayed away. I read things. I journaled ferociously. In various colors of metallic inks. Angry words. Bitter words. Wounded words. I should have felt sorry for Hannibal. Pressing and jabbing into his spine everything that made me uncomfortable. It wasn't a fair fight that's for sure.

I was terrified. What if... the worst came to the worst? What if... I was expelled? I'd be out a job. Out of an education... and ya know, with the gun slingers in my family ... out in the street.

There was a window that ran from floor to ceiling behind Mary. Double pained plate glass. The rain had caused most of the window to fog. The window was dressed in lengths of wine colored satin that dropped from the ceiling on either sides of the glass. The whole bit was impressive. Serene, I thought.  I stood there staring up at Mary. She'd been cut from wood some time ago, and was beginning to split down the back. No doubt the temperature and humidity had been something of a challenge throughout her life. A fight she wasn't really winning. She was painted. In dark night-black blues. Her face a pearl and varnish color. She looked so very removed. I wished I could have followed her down whatever paths she had taken...

I stood there for some minutes. My expression blank as I thought about all the things that had come to, in the past few weeks. How X and I needed back up plans. And plans to back up those back up plans... Weighing my options with numerous outcomes. At each turn of an idea, there would be another possibility that I hadn't thought of. A new piece of data to add to the algorithm. All of it... had left me... blank. I looked out at all of the limitations of my abilities. My finances and my emotional fortuity. Against it all I felt so very much like a sand castle. No one is just sure when it's going to get swept out. But... It's going to either way.

"Medhead."

I breathed in quick and deep as I heard her voice.

"What are you looking at?"

I didn't reply for a moment. "I was watching the water. It's beading up.... on the window..." I said. Still very much inundated with my own thoughts.

"I haven't heard much from you for a little bit... tell me. How have you been?"

I turned around to face her. Tall. Thin to distraction. Large oval eyes, with heavy lashes... doe-like and inquisitive. A pert face with perfect ivory skin and a tiny little mouth. She was beautiful. Everyone said so. Everyone. And no one could argue. It's just what she was. She always kept a ratty little hair cut that you couldnt decide was more mod, or more lesbian. And she dressed like a gypsy.
Today though she was all in black as dress code required. Her name is Louretta.

"I've... just." I was terrified of this girl. This girl with her mind and her wit. He attention to detail and the sorts of questions she asked. In truth there was a time when I had felt such a kind-ship with her. I loved how painstakingly intelligent she was... How actively her mind begged her to create and how easily she slid from one social group to the next. But as I would learn later, that is precisely what a moth feels before it scuffs a flame and becomes a cinder.

"I've been trying to keep up with my practice regiment." I pushed out. Putting all of my secret thoughts away... far far back on the shelves in case she could read minds as well as she could read a face.

Louretta reminded me of the girl that I had seen in my dreams the other night. They were both thin with razor sharp chin bones.

There were many afternoons since she and I had the fortune to become gallery guards here in meandering halls of the museum, that we would chat pleasantries. We had made a game of things. Surrounded by so much opulence, we had imagined ourselves to be courtesans. The gentility of our conversation was as tedious and as thick as the tapestries that hung mute from the walls and passed silent judgment over the modern era.

We talked about poetry. About what she was working on in her creative writing classes. About her boyfriend Ronny. About whatever. But not so today. Today words had reached her. Today the pleasantries had a different bent. And… what was that new scent that she was wearing? It smelled like…. Malice.

“You’ve seemed different lately…” She said. Leaning gracefully on a door jam. The cocked her head a bit to the side and pouted a little bit. “You’ve been quiet. It’s not like you.”

Louretta had grown up in Britain. A missionaries child, and every now and then to add salt to her conversation, she allowed a bit of this accent to peak out from behind her vowels. She thought, I believed that it added an aristocratic edge to her presence. And you know, at the time it was a bit intimidating. Whenever she was around I felt too small for my clothes. And I fidgeted ever so slightly with my hair.

“I’ve been thinking about things. Ya know, and practicing an awful lot. I have deadlines… and I’m worried about not meeting them.” I offered fingering the flash cards that I had brought along. 

“Well that’s a very wise of you to devote so much time to your studies. I wish I could boast such fortitude.” She said. She always spoke this way. As if an encyclopedia had slipped on ballet flats and started menstruating.

“Don’t you think you should be investing in a small group of friends? You know, people that you may stay in touch with after school is over?” She asked as she began walking heel-to-toe in a pattern on the thick carpet. She had let those British vowel sounds peek out when she said “you know…” I sighed.

“I would if I found there was anyone worth putting any time into. I would if I felt… certain liberties that do not exist in this… penitentiary.” I offered back to this bleak little fish… swimming in circles in the hall.

“Ah…” “Oh I see,” She said. She stopped her walking for a moment and raised one eye and looked at me. Then she went back to walking.

I had no idea who she’d been speaking to. And like I said. The Senate had wasted no time in speaking their minds about my relationships. Why is everyone so interested in penetration? Who’s getting it. Who’s doing it. So very carnal. People are crass. Especially college kids. Especially college kids who haven’t gotten any in a while.

“Something just seems changed in you… Something’s different.” She continued. Half to herself. I was begging to be a bit tried of her. “Something’s gone.” And with this she looked dead at me. Oh Louretta. Always with the flair for drama.

I have to say, If it was anyone else with these vague concerns. These ominous observances that seem like the types of things  you might say to a stranger after you had tossed a bunch of chicken bones and read their fortune, I wouldn’t have minded. Mostly I wouldn’t have listened. But this was someone different. Someone I felt I could… trust.  

“It’s your eyes.”

“What?” I asked…

“You’re eyes.” She said. “They’re all black now… They used to be green…. There used to be light in them, and now… there’s nothing.”

“Oh…” I guess I hadn’t noticed.

There was a sound of a group coming in the hall. We moved back into the positions we were expected to hold. Statues in black suit coats. Arms folded behind our backs.

I was boiling with mute anger. Someone had spoken to her.

Black eyes. What did she know. There was nothing wrong with me. Nothing.

And if there was… I didn’t want to fix it.

 


 

Collusion: Part XXVII

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. What a curious phrase. Are we to suspect that all Romans behave in roughly the same manner? Are we to emulate these toga wearing hive- minds only when we can amass the small fortune which it now requires to make the pilgrimage to Rome? Is it meant to suggest that what happens in Rome, like things that happen in Las Vegas, stay in Rome? I can't be certain. I do not know the origin of the phrase. But like most things that become cliche phraseology, I am certain that there is some sliver of wisdom down deep in its origins... and that should we wander down the old paths to Rome, we would surely find the thing that inspired such a phrase and we would doubtless agree with the wisdom at its root.

And why do I mention? Well you see. In a sense, Bob Jones is... as I had come to see it, Rome. With architecture no less idiomatic and a populace no less united. I came to see as well that I, like Caesar... in forging a relationship with X, had made new and dangerous enemies in the Senate... and soon by degrees they would join and make a calculated effort to end me. The floor of the Senate however would look remarkably like the Dean of Men's office, and the little daggers that my former friends the Senate would make use of... were short but no less quick little tongues. Sharp. Wet with truth... with one simple desire. My blood. Et tu Jesus? Et tu? 

As that small little coven of my friends washed frenetically through their own irrelevant schedules summer was at the front of everyone's mind. Expulsion was happening at a rate that might have alarmed me had I not experienced it's reality in the years past. Like pop corn that you cook on the stove... one might draw a correlation between the ambient heat of the burning season change and a witless students demise.
I couldn't make it to a recital. I didn't really have time to meet them for lunch. I couldn't have been less interested in their final project for Interior Design 101... Congratulations, you have successfully furnished a dolls house. Certainly this means you were born to win? I could feel it in the looks that I got. Those friends that I was unwittingly making into the ghouls from an espionage film. As I think on it though, I wasn't making them into anything at all. My decisions were simply the catalyst... the one true chemical, the acid that would burn away the charming tarnish of their exteriors and leave them bright and shining... and... a vulgar sort of ugly.

Melodie was taking a class with me called "Story Telling," the main goal of which I think was for her to eventually ensnare me firmly in the vice like grip of the lips of her vagina. A concept which had all the appeal of being thrown down a flight of steps. We spent hours non the less, in a large conference room high up on the third floor of the Gustafson Fine Arts Center. The room looked like the kind of place where you might be called in to do a presentation on global warming or some other mind numbing pig shit.

MC: "I know, but do you think my interpretation of the witches voice might be a little too... scratchy?"
ME: ... I was responding to a text from X and could hardly remember what story she was referencing. Oh.. right Hansel and Gretel. "Uh... well. I thought it was fairly accurate. I mean... I was really convinced that you sounded like a witch." M took this as a compliment, and I'm afraid did not get the sense that I could have been remotely back handed.
MC: "The only thing is... I don't want to go hoarse. If I talk like that for too long.... Maybe I just need to bring a bottle of water to class." She chewed the end of a ball point... distressed.
I've been rather straight forward in my descriptions of Melodie, in the interest of honesty. To be fair, she was unflappably kind to me and I had begun to think about our little practice times as sort of vacation. Up here in the conference room I was mercifully free from prying questions and suspicious member of the Senate. Namely, Ami Jasperson, Eric Inafuku, Christine Dodd, Raymond Swope, Louretta and David Landon... and arguably Tim Johnson. These people are as real as oxygen, and at the time seemed just as dangerous as trying to live without it.

MC: "Joshie! Im just nervous about all of this! I mean, I can talk... you know that! (laughing) But I want to really move people... ya know?"
ME: "You are moving though... Like, I think in a sense.... the goal should be to disappear... and let the story tell itself... right?"
MC: She gave momentary thought to this and then gushed... "You're so right Joshie. I hadn't even thought about it like that."

The conversation bore on... and I was looking forward to getting back to my room and jogging to the Field House for a run on the rubber track up stairs there. Mel started putting away her note books and binders into her big snake skin bag. I noticed she wasn't chitting away like she usually was. I asked her what was on her mind...
She pranced on those ubiquitous black stilettos of hers over to the head of the long dark wood table at the center of the room and firmly gripped the edge of the table as if to brace herself.
She ran her nails through her shiny long hair and tossed it back looking me dead in the eye.
MC: "Well, you know joshie... how you're really my best friend in the whole world. I mean we spend pretty much a lot of time together every day. There's no one that I've been quite so fond of in a while."
ME: "Well I feel the same about you Melly..." I hadn't a clue where she was going...
MC: "Well... seeing that you're not dating anymore... ya know and Im glad about that. That silly Christine was just no good for you..." She was smiling with just a hint of malice...
ME: "Well... that's true..."
MC: "I was just.... I think that there's something between us... Ya know?"
ME: ".... .... (blink) like... the table?"
She laughed at this. Rather cloyingly.
ME: "I guess I don't really see what you mean..."
MC: "There's something really sweet about you! And you're so clever and funny... I've started to have a crush on you... (hair toss) and... I just know you feel it to!"
ME: "I... I. (I was at a loss) I really guess I don't feel the same way. I am... Flattered, that you could feel that way about me, and honored even... but I don't think I can return the sentiment."

There was a silence, and I felt intuitively that I had somehow wounded her. errrrr. uh.

MC: "You're sure... there's like... nothing there? Nothing at all?"
ME: "Yeah... Im sorry... but yeah."

I left the room without ceremony. Congratulations Medlin. Look what you've done. Yet another log on the fire. Yet another sharp knife. At least, I thought as I started my run, when you're on the floor bleeding out... you'll simply have to roll your head to the side to see your own blood pooling ironically around the heels of her gorgeous shoes. 

Collusion: Part XXVI

Every single experience of our lives in a new layer of paint. Some clear like varnish. Some opaque. Some black. Some layers should be chipped off, and some of them should be painted over. All the same they are what makes us individuals. They are what give us color.

But you knew this already. We don't wander around stagnant... forced to stumble into what and who will be our next mistake.

The sun beat down relentless. Kids from the south develop a certain tolerance to heat. Not just heat like a sunny 78 with light breezes. Heat like a fever in the Sahara. South Carolina cares for no one. She believes firmly that it is her job to prepare all the baptists that live within her confines for the strong likelihood that they will at some point forget a prayer before bedtime and thus be sentenced to a little swim in the lake of fire. Oh yeah,  and the humidity cranks up the heat index so that being outside almost always feels like a sweat lodge.

I was one of those children who was almost always out in this heat, and as such was most nearly always sweating and playing happily. It was that part of the late spring just before the first days of true summer where all the wild vines that plundered their ways across ditches along the sides of the roads were gushing blackberries. Big fat, thumb sized remnants of their more gentrified bacchanal cousins, they gushed with a tangy syrupy sweetness. They tempted simple country children to cheat their sharp thorns and if they were so brave, to claim the high prize of their fruit.

My sister and I left the house yelling out to mom that we were going to pick berries and taking with us big squeaky Styrofoam cups from the pantry. We had made plans to pilfer and pluck only the best from this rush of berries and bring them back home... We had planned to make them into pies or tarts. Silly children we were then so easily amused.

The torrential heat and blinding sun were no match for out bright laughter and determined delusions of culinary mastery. We tripped and tumbled and frolicked down the side of the highway looking for the best vines with the biggest berries. Only the best would do for our tarts. Our big yellow dog, Minnie followed along behind us. She kept up well, never mind that she was nearly 12 years old. I think she felt like we were her responsibility and that there would be no berry picking without her.

ME: "Did you buy anything when you went shopping with Ashley the other day?"
BETH: "We got some pizza and road the carousel in the mall... it was really big! It was fun..."
ME: "and you didn't bring me back anything! haha. How dare you!?" I replied impishly...

My sister was eight and I twelve. She's one of the most beautiful people I know... and at that age had flawless sheets of shiny honey brown hair that ran down her back. Bangs that stuck to the sides of her forehead in the heat, and big doey brown eyes that were so brown that sometimes they looked black. We picked through the brambles in our ill fitting pre-adolescent clothing that had been handed down and handed down again. Happy as puppies.

We worked our way from thorn to thorn, and vine to vine. Following the line of ditches that lead from our house over to the church where dad was working.

BETH: "Stop eatin all of em! We're not gonna have enough!"
ME: "Oh whatever... there's plenty... look at all of them!
BETH: "I know but we aint gonna have enough if we keep eatin em all."
ME: "Ha ha.... stop bein a lil mama!"

We made it all the way over to the church and decided to go in and wash the berries and see what dad was up to. He was most days bunkered inside his office. Books spread all over the place and pages of scribble falling off the sides of the desk as he stacked things in piles that only made sense to him.

BETH: "Daddy! look at! Look at all the berries!"
DAD: "I see that. Were ya'll get those?"
BETH: "They're all along the sides of the road!"
DAD: "You're momma know ya'll walked down along the side of the road?"
ME: "I told her where we were going."

Dad got up from his desk and walked us down the long main hall of the church building. Back towards the kitchen. The lights were kept off in the hall during the day to save money... so it was all dim and gray. We walked slowly. I could tell dad was upset. But we were just having fun.

DAD: "I told yall about leavin the house and not tellin momma where you're goin. I don't want you kids gettin hit by a car. You ain't got enough brain between you to look up."
BETH: "We didn't stay by the road very long..." She started cryin a little. That made me angry. Me and my short fuse. Being twelve is sort of a curse.
ME: "It was my idea in the first place... "
DAD: "That's even worse... you should know better."
ME: "Know better than walking into traffic? Well... I do..."

That was just about enough snark from me apparently. Dad turn quick on his left heel as he was walking in front of us slapped me hard across the face. Thwap!
I wasn't quite expecting that... I was walking and trying to make sure not to spill the berries we were going to wash. Slapped or no, I fell down hard on the gray floor.... I tossed the berries and they scattered across the floor...

I didn't say anything. I just bobbled back up and started crying too. I hated when I let myself cry. But I wasn't expecting him to be that angry....

DAD: "Clean those up. I'm calling your mom to come get you."

Collusion: Part XVIII

Hours and hours of painting. Days of it. Another day, another trip to Columbia. Another Mountain Dew, and another pack of miniature chocolate donuts. Columbia is a dirty industrial city that has stretched and grown faster than the city planners had allowed for. Its state house is surrounded by tall hundred year old black palmetto trees. They look like spiny coconut trees and give the old downtown area the appeal of an old-south inspired dime novel. In the middle of all that nostalgia is the city library. A big gray cinder block looking building all pieced together with enormous slabs of mirrored glass. The other buildings in the city are a similarly ill patched together assortment of modern architecture, antebellum estates, and suburbs filled with cookie cutter houses made out of red and brown brick that seemed so perfectly adorable to baby boomers. I always felt like a tourist on these painting expeditions. The kind of cheap tourist that doesn't buy key chains or post cards.... but perhaps the occasional Zero bar and a diet Pepsi.

At the end of the work day I never wanted anything but to return home and shower gobs of paint spatter off and practice piano. There was plenty of pressure to return to school in the fall with a good head start on my new fall repertoire line up. And I would practice too... I just never felt quite satisfied with what I was accomplishing on a daily basis. It's difficult to work in sweltering heat every day and then force new muscle memory from a weary cerebellum. But I would do what I could. If dandelions can grow through cracks in sidewalks, then I could most certainly memorize a Mozart sonata. Tom Grimble and everyone else who had anything to say on the matter had made it painfully clear to me that sophomore year would be the year that would decide if I could stay a piano performance major. Sophomore Check was the platform that I would pass in order to continue study in my major. I imagined that it would take place in a very dark room. Black walls, black ceilings, one spot light... the judges draped in black.... hoods and pale faces and you probably wouldn't be able to see their eyes. If my performance pleased the gods, then they would allow my continued study. If not... they would require that I bring forward my academic torch and extinguish it. That or if i met disapproval they would perhaps begin a chant of sorts and then bash in my skull with a conch shell.
I spent my free time taking all the pains necessary to memorize my Bach. A prelude and fugue that i was working on. Layers of melodic lines. Delicately sewn together. Twisting and undulating. Dancing around and behind one another. Doing their routine with formality, sophistication and old-world gracefulness. Sometimes on the drive to Columbia I would trace out the patterns of the music on my thy... hearing the expected corresponding sounds in my head all the while. 

Every night before falling off to sleep I would pray my little prayer.
"God, make me stronger and faster. Make me sin less and make me sharp like a knife. Help me whittle away at myself until there's nothing left that isn't perfect."

The rest of the summer melted away like ice-cream on tarmac. I thought how different times where now than they had been.
I was eleven and John was nine. Beth was just seven or so. We would spend those summer days, not working and saving... but we had built little kingdoms in the woods behind our house. We would rake away the pine-straw and thick leaf layer that blanketed the floor of the woods. All the cast away leaves from seasons past. Hundreds of yards of little trails that snaked away into the wood, far away from our house. There were seven or eight acres and we took advantage of each one. And we would find twine, and lash together fallen limbs... so heavy that it sometimes took the both of us to lift and tie it off to a standing tree. We made little wigwams. We raked away the leaf floors of our forest homes. We almost never wore shoes. We would spend hours and hours gathering sour weeds from a nearby field and bundling them together with the twine. Hanging each small parcel upside down from the branched roof of our imaginary homes. We would develop pretend personalities.We would gather ripe scuppernogs and save them for the impending winter. Or the hard under-ripe green ones... we would gather and sling-shot them at one another... or pelt them at waring tribes of saber-tooth tigers that had wandered into our territory to eat our livestock and pillage our stores of weeds. You must be very careful not to attack a tiger without help. At least take Mini along. She was our fat old golden lab... and she was not afraid of tigers in the least. We grew up with the woods all around us... we all ran fast and climbed high, high up into the arms of the holly trees, who's smooth brown skin looked just like ours.

Later as we grew into teenagers.... our fantasy play time evolved. It became more violent and less forgiving. We replaced our wigwams with bunkers built strong and solid out of wood scavenged from the saw mill. And in place of the spears we had fashioned to fend off raiders from opposition tribes, we bought slick black semi-automatic paintball guns, with load hoppers that held enough ammo to last you through an hour of heavy fire. There were bunkers here and there dotted in the woods and two in the grassy field in front of the house. Three or four friends of equal age to us would come over and we'd split into teams. Objects of the game play changed. At times the objective might be to capture a flag from the opposing team. John and I were nearly never on the same team. The other kids considered us equivalent marksmen and it would be more than a little un-fair. Beth played sometimes.... but I'm sure it had a lot more to do with romance and the neighbor boys then winning a violent game of 'who's the alpha male?'. My Dad played along too... being short and round he found shelter mostly at ground-level or in one of the bunkers. Dad was a crack shot though and could light a match with a shot from 50 yards. I was deeply emotionally invested in these games and had secretly loosened the CO2 valve on my gun. This increased my range of fire by about 30 yards and left ugly bruises on my fallen opponents. During game play I would pull out a tiny octagonal wrench and quickly adjust gas pressure from "ok, i'm hit." to "I blacked out and my spleen is leaking." The other kids hated me for this, but I always managed to pull out the tiny wrench and re-adjust the pressure back to something a little more normal, so that I couldn't be accused of un-ethical game play. During these games, I would often be named a team captain and be responsible for organizing a defensive strategy. Poor marksmen and short or fat kids would remain close to base to pick their noses and over heat in all the armored clothing they were wearing. Lean fast running kids would run quickly well outside of the legally decided limits of decided game play and creep stealthily behind the enemy base. The fact that this strategy was not immediately obvious to the other members of my team was exquisitely painful, and I couldn't help but morn the fact that the rest of my team mates were clearly cave dwellers. Didn't anyone ever watch Alias? You know... where Sidney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) suits up in black leather and dies her hair bubble-gum pink in some tragic public restroom to avenge a fallen comrade who was gunned down on a mission in Uruguay? Christ! What a woman! .... None of my team mates had the drive to discover the accepted uses for a television.

I was usually responsible for these long winded runs across the field of play.... I would dart panther-like behind large trees. Bunker to bunker. On this day my brother was the opposing team leader and was responsible for slaughtering everyone else on my team except me. It was nearly a hung game seeing as he and I were the only players left. I was the last to stay close to the bunker where our flag was hidden. It was close to dusk and I was hiding behind a very large felled tree. I was waiting for John's approach. I would let him get within 10 feet of my hiding place and then easily snipe him. I listened intently and slowed my breaths so that I could be absolutely silent. He walked with purpose and without fear. He assumed that I would be using my limited resources to search for the opposing flag, and followed a little ATV trail directly towards me. Closer. A little closer. Come on.... He stopped for a second... fifteen feet from me and looked around. Perhaps sensing impending danger. I silently propped my gun on the tree... put my brother in my cross hairs and fired. (TWUP!) A neon green ball rocketed out the barrel of my gun and plastered across John's protective visor...

"AAAAH!" he yelled surprised.... and shot back at my tree in retaliation.
"You can't shoot people at point blank range! You're an idiot!" He screamed at me enraged. "You're gonna hurt some body!! What's wrong with you?"
I packed up my things and walked emotionless back to the house.
"Whatever. You lost." I said as I walked past him.

Collusion: Part XV

Doubtless you readers might find the preceding happenings a bit difficult to believe. Such a structured environment must be designed to protect its members, no? So I had thought too. I thought here i would have been safe. I would be safe from drunken frat parties. I thought I'd be safe from being labeled anything but a christian. I thought it would be a place for me to grow and experience a sort of society, without having to worry about hazing, or alcohol poisoning, or roofies. Or perhaps being dragged out of my bed in the middle night and lynched for looking queer. Alas. It was not so to be. I say this all with a sort of wry smile on my face... hind sight is a bit less dire.

The great thing about almost bashing someones head in with an oak chair, is that in societies which still operate by rule of the dominant male, (see last 14 chapters) the more a man such as myself can assert physical dominance over the others, the less likely he is to be maligned by surrounding males who are also competing for dominance. Tale as old as time and all that. For a while the bullying stopped. I had learned enough spanish from my classes that I could fire back slurs at the room-mates mothers... calling them prostitutes; and not the classy kind either. Antonio Banderas wouldn't have approved of this tactic, but Antonio was busy filming 'Zorro' with Catherine Zeta Jones.

Control. Always control. I would fight to maintain it. I had divided my life into cubicles like an office space. Piano was in one, Room-mates in another. Running in one, Classes in another. My friends had a space of about four cubicles; one of the largest rooms... but i still wouldn't let them see what was happening in all the others. Everyone hated it here, but I didn't want them to know that I was seriously considering homicide as a legitimate solution to some of my problems. I would check the status of activities in each of my cubicles, and take the positive activity, and weigh it against the things that weren't going so well. Its part of how I managed. I worked hard at my studies. I would even call my Mom and ask for her help in studying something. E-mailing her a copy of a list of terms that I would need to define. I was one way of trying to stay in touch with the family. I would walk back and forth in front of my dorm talking and talking, papers in my hand or reciting a speech. I think my mom liked those long conversations... I had hoped that those phone calls would make here feel less like an era hand ended; even though it had.

Ramon Nieves would spend roughly forty minutes each morning sculpting his very short very black hair into a desired shape. I was unable to comprehend the amount of pride that must be at the back of this practice. I reasoned that no amount of hair gel would change his race, or make him less of an asshole. Either way I refused to give input. I suppose if your hair is roughly the texture of burlap, then your styling options are quite limited. Ramon was curiously vain and most of our conversations consisted of him regaling me with romanticized stories of his academic triumphs and amorous conquests. I supposed that this must have been some sort of attempt on his part to compensate for the fact that he was nearly 5 feet and 2 inches tall... and perhaps also that 60% of the words I used were beyond the scope of his understanding of the English language.

One evenings conversation was particularly revealing of my relationship with him. He stood at the sink preening in front of the mirror as I read an engaging chapter out of my Harmony text book lounging on my bunk. He pulled out a couple of outfit options from one of the three closets he had spread his expansive wardrobe out in.... to get my opinion on them.

ME: "Where are you going? Whats all the fuss about?" I could hardly have been begged to be interested.
RAMON: "Oy, my societies dating outing. Mayn I'm going wid dis girl.... ah Chelsea I think? What do you dink about dis?" He displayed some garishly colored button-down. Latinos are partial to button-downs. Particularly silk button-downs.
ME: "ummmm. Maybe you could mix it with dark jeans i guess. But don't wear the white shoes. It's too much. Especially if you're going to be playing paint-ball."
RAMON: "Oh yeah right! You're good at this mayn..... Brown belt, or the black one?"
ME: "El negro. Es mas simplé." I had taken to assuring the other members of the room that I was learning Spanish faster than they could hope to learn English.

Ramon puttered around for a few more minutes and sprayed himself down with the most god-awful cologne. You know the kind that leaves a dense cloud of musk after? The kind that leaves you licking the roof of you mouth because of the alcohol at the back of your throat. Ramon left in a hustle, more or less content with the way he looked.

I was feeling particularly wicked. I slid off my bunk and marked and closed my Harmony text. Vanity is punishable I thought.... and I'd nothing better to do. I opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out a liter of hydrogen peroxide. I uncapped the bottle and poured about a half of a cup of the magical bleaching liquid into Ramon's bottle of hair gel... then gave the hair gel bottle a shake to incorporate my mischief. Shake shake shake..... gurgle. plop. I placed the hair gel bottle precisely on the shelf as Ramon had left it, and went back to reading my homework.

Collusion: Part XIV

/kəˈluʒən/ Show S[kuh-loo-zhuhn]

                                                                                                     –noun

• a secret agreement, esp. for fraudulent or treacherous purposes; conspiracy: Some of his employees were acting in collusion to rob him.

  

Three months past, and things continued much as they had started. Ritual dinners with the friends became even more ritualistic and more members were added to the group. Tisha and Richard were the quietest members of the group, preferring to silently eat cereal for dinner, and eye rape one another as the rest of us ate normal things for dinner and rolled our eyes at them. I can understand their frustration. Research supports the idea that men and women are most fertile in their early twenties. Do not forget dear reader, that here behind the walls of khrist's kastle, sex is absolutely forbidden. I give you a demographic of ladies and gentlemen that are primed for copulation, whose very bodies have evolved to seek mates and reproduce, and should they attempted to fulfill that evolutionary imperative and are discovered by the authority... their academic pursuits will be instantly terminated. Their belongings will be immediately collected and dumped onto a sidewalk (day or night) and their nearest and dearest relative will be contacted and informed of their loved ones shameful actions. That's not to say that students weren't having 'relations.' On the contrary. Students were boinking in every nook and cranny. It's more the fact that if students wanted to engage in sexual activity they had to go through hours and hours of secret preparations, tell lies, find an abandoned movie theater somewhere, lock themselves in a cleaning closet... or pull in a favor from a Wealthy Townie. I cannot begin to imagine the circ de soleil style maneuverings that it must require to accomplish successful copulation in a small room filled with vacuum cleaners and bleach, but I assume Tisha and Richard had burned that bridge when they came to it. 

I was so naive then. My parents were so uncomfortable about the idea of explaining normal sexual relations to me, that at long last when I was 15 years old, they were finally brave enough to leave a copy of 'Dick and Jane's Guide to Your Changing Body' on my bed one sunny afternoon. 'Dick and Jane's Guide' was so amazingly ambiguous as to be worthless. Cartoon characters had conversations in little speech balloons about growing pubic hair and feelings that the rest of the world called being 'horny.' I already knew that I had a penis, I just had no idea what to do with it. Thankyou Dick and Jane for your mindless dribble, but I had finally turned to the internet for the most expansive over-share an innocent 15 year old mind had ever experienced. 

Dear Parents:

         I know you feel embarrassed about telling your spawn about how you created them. I understand. The fact of the matter is your child is going to grow up to be a very fine lady/ gentleman and the sooner we get this uncomfortable little bit of information out of the way the better. Don't wait for your children to start asking questions about sex to have a frank discussion about it. Regardless of the social stigma that your own archaic development may have placed on human sexuality, the conversation doesn't have to be awkward or frightening! Plan to tell them in a casual and perhaps humorous way sometime before they turn 12. Be specific, blunt and nonchalant. It will keep your children from developing silly ideas about intercourse and having ridiculously inaccurate conversations about it with their playmates. I know you're scared! And it's normal to feel that way.... but trust my professional opinion. I am after-all an acclaimed blogger.

Most Sincerely Yours in Christian Love, 

Josh Cupcake

Would that my parents would have received this kind bit of encouragement from the grown-up me. Would that I were able to fax that little psa back in time to my anxiety fraught care givers. I can only image that I would have had a much more normal outlook on sex in general and not have developed to consider the act barbaric and vulgar. Nay disgusting even. It's a shame there's not a more enjoyable way to create offspring I thought. 

We were drawing quickly to the close of the school-year. Christine and I had become quite chummy and did nothing but tell each other amusing stories about the other goings on in Khrist's Kastle, and send long laughably romantic notes to one another in glittery ink. We were quite the couple. Never apart. Never fighting. Always carefree and fun. I loved her. She loved me back. It was simple. We could easily waste 3 or 4 hours talking on the phone about class or pranks that we had be playing on fellow members of our dormitories. I remember those times fondly.... but Im quite doubtful that she does. I'm sure that now she prefers not to remember them at all. 

One Saturday's developments came to stand out in my memory as one of the defining moments of my first years schooling. The members of my room were all milling about doing their morning activities. Laundry. Larry was not present. I had decided that this was one of those mornings that I wasn't going to do anything much but attempt to sleep in. Devin had been busy about his mocking me well into the wee hours of the morning and I was getting to the point were I was having long day dreams that centered on creative ways to light him on fire without being incarcerated. I was laying in bed texting friends to find out who might wanna go walk around the mall and spend money on things we couldn't possibly need. Chester was polishing a pair of his shoes filling the air with that acrid smell that waxy shoe polish always has. Ramon was just ending an exited phone conversation with someone who either understood spanish, or was amazingly good at pretending they did. These days I'm nearly fluent in espanol. I thought learning the language would have been helpful for me to understand the slanderous insults that were slung at me, and perhaps discover any plans that these brutes may have to cause physical injury or perhaps even my death. Everyone from puerto rico has clearly had experience in a violent street gang, i reasoned; as my first experiences with them seemed to support. I imagined also that in order for a young puerto rican boy to ascend to man-hood, he must complete a series of rites of passage. Fabricating a car-bomb from found objects. Successfully selling a kilo of crack cocaine. And/ or clubbing at least two baby seals to death... providing food and clothing for the tribe. 


Without knocking, in pops Devin. I rolled over in my top bunk and pulled the covers over my head to indicate my disapproval of his presence. Christ! Didn't this boy have a hobby? Perhaps classes? Anything? Meh. Devin would not take the hint that i would rather not have conversation with him. This time to aid in his attempts to get my attention, he had brought a 5 ft long 2 inch by 2 inch piece of hardwood trim that he had broken off of some piece of furniture in his room. He drug it into the room... the wood making a rasping sound on the carpet. This time in addition to his insults, he proceeded to jab at me with the stick, with quick impish jabs.


DEVIN: "Wakey, wakey! Awww..... Little Joshie is sweepy?"


OOOOOoooooh no. No. No. No. This is not how this is gonna go. Devin's actions had caught the attention of Ramon and Chester, and they stopped what they were doing to watch this new entertainment. They were laughing. In one smooth motion I rolled over and jumped the 4ish feet to the floor. Tossing my cell phone away. I was so angry that one of my eyes was twitching as adrenaline poured into my veins, brushing my heart rate up to match that of a field mouse. I am a small man. I say that without shame, but it bears being mentioned. Im 5'6'' and weigh 130 pounds. Devin had a few inches and twenty some pounds on me. But these facts were well beyond my logical powers at the time. He took a couple more jabs at me with the stick, landing a crack on my shoulder as i attempted to snatch the stick from him. 
DEVIN: (Laughing) "Oh! He's angry now!.... Mira! Mira el pato!"
The others got comfortable. This was obviously going to be a scene. There was a struggle for a moment as I was able to wrestle the stick out of his hands. "Get out of my room!" I yelled at him as it was I jabbing at him to try and scare him out. The laughter continued as I pushed him toward the open door. 
DEVIN: "Oh look! He's good with a stick eh?" he said getting more laughter from the other boys.
It was at that moment that seemed to lose all sense of control of myself. What ever part of me that was good and kind slid away and some other me took over. I put as much tork into swinging this ridiculous weapon as i could and landed a sharp blow to his right clavicle. People who behave like dogs, should be punished like dogs. The blow hurt enough that he was enraged now too. 
He sulked back across the hall cussing at me in spanish. I went to close the door... and planned on returning to my bed and my texting, thinking that the little fight was over. Not so... just as had turned from closing the door in charged Devin. The bastard grabbed my neck from behind and used his body weight to push me to the floor, which we both landed on with a thud. "Think you're gonna push me around ya little fag?" He yelled as his grip got tighter and tighter on my throat. I couldn't get my knees or elbows underneath me for a few long seconds as he weighed so much.... and I was choking and trying to squirm away from him. I was starting to think I might black out. I couldn't breathe and my vision was starting to go white a little. Finally I was able to flip over and i used my feet to kick him off of me. I jumped up quick before he could get his bearings from being shoved off and flung a right hook that landed just under his left eye. He fell back to the floor and I looked for a new tool to use in the fight... I snatched up a wooden chair and was about to start bludgeoning when Ramon and Chester seemed to realize I was going to kill Devin. 
"Whoah! Whoah! Calm down!" They were yelling... trying to get in between him and me. Ramon started trying to help Devin get up, and Chester made himself into a big black bouncer and held me back as i tossed the chair aside and struggled to get at Devin... who was now cowering...
I was still livid... "Stay the fuck out of my room you little shit-stain!" I screamed at him wiping blood from my lip as Chester push me back towards the other end of the room. 


Ramon helped Devin stagger out of the room as i was left shaking from rage. I went to the sink to see what damage had been done. Chester was quiet as usual. Just as if these types of goings on were absolutely normal. I washed the blood off my face and spat the rest of it out of my mouth still shaking, looking in the mirror. Ramon returned from the hall and quietly shutting the door.
"Man, I think you gave him a black eye...." He said. 
I didn't reply. I wished I had done worse.

 

Collusion: Part XIII

Going back to school was no where near the tooth pulling-experience that it had been when i arrived at the campus for fall term. Everything got boxed or shoved into a suitcase and thrown into the Suburban.
I was no were near ready to return but filled with an unadulterated desire to survive and maybe come out on the side of it with a piece of paper with my name on it. A piece of paper that mentioned just how fantastically talented I was. Preferably in gold calligraphy.
I was mute for most of the return trip.

My mother is a delicate, and quietly passionate woman who is just a hair over five feet tall. She has deeply brown hair that will probably stay the same shade of mahogany forever due to a brigade of chemicals at her employ. She enjoys pruning roses, playing the flute, reading the holy word, and taking exhaustive bubble baths. I have always thought that she was beautiful. But then again, I suppose that anyone who's not a sociopath probably thinks the same thing about their mother, and perhaps in that I'm not significant. Mothers are the link in the chain that connects us to the rest of our culture... right back to where time began.... 

MOM: "What are you taking this semester?"
ME: "Oh something about Harmony again. Something about another Bible class."
I sat listless in the back seat...
MOM: "Well are there any of them that you're excited about?"
The questioning was well intended, but not exactly helpful. Dad was driving. He drives with his knees and elbows and this is reason enough for a healthy prayer life. By ways, or die ways.... from my vantage point it was a little un-decided.
ME: "Well. I guess so."
I was developing a bit of a persona with my parents. I wouldn't even consider telling them about some of the initial bullying and hostility. For one thing, there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it... and on the other hand if i were being marginalized, there was something clearly wrong with me. I wasn't working hard enough on making influential friends. Perhaps there was a certain smell about me that i hadn't worked hard enough to mask... that was no doubt the reason. Expansive orchestral arrangements of hymns were playing in the cassette deck as we made the drive. It was one of those days in January when it's brisk and clear out... and all the scenery was brown and forlorn looking.

I arrived. This time there were no tearful goodbyes... no heartbreaking feelings of being set adrift without a clue of how to carry myself around. I unloaded everything and set about the business of setting my things in order in my little nook in the ant hill. I returned my alarm clock to its precise place on the head board on my bunk and flipped out my silver MOTORazor to find out which of my friends might be back in town. There was a knock at the door as i was re-filling my drawers with my clothes.
The door swung open and un-ceremoniously; in barged Roland.

ROLAND: "Hey man! (beaming) "How was Christmas break!?
I never quite understood the continual vigor which this person poured into every mundane conversation; nor did i understand why he would want to talk to me at all. We have nothing in common! Why are we talking!?
ME: (not looking up from my unpacking) "It was good. It was nice to be away from here for a while."
ROLAND: "Ha ha! I know what'cha mean dude! It's nice to kick back and relax for a while."
I hate being referred to as a 'dude.' Absolutely hate it. I am not a stoner... and i would appreciate it if everyone would just try and respect that.
ME: "er.... right. Well what did you do for Christmas break?"
ROLAND: "Me and the fam went skiing in Vale. It's like an hour away from where we live."
(Why do popular people feel the need to abbreviate words that do not require abbreviating? Isn't the english language deteriorating fast enough without all of us trying to sound like a valley girl?)
ME: "oh wow? really... that sounds like a lot of fun actually." (compared to chopping wood to keep from freezing....)
ROLAND: "Yeah its pretty awesome." (eyebrow raise. general look of self appreciation. he stares off for a second as if to calculate just how wonderful he really is.) "Did you get anything cool?"
ME: "I got some money?.... Yeah. That was about it."
ROLAND: "Sweet dude! I got, like, three different Bible concordances that I was asking for.... a bunch of cash.... and.... hm.... like a bunch of small things. Socks and stuff."
Bible study tools and undergarments. Thankyooou Santa, I thought.
ROLAND: "Did you get a chance to witness to anyone over the break? What's god doing in your spiritual life lately." He asked, as if it were a question about the weather.
ME: "oh..... uh..... witnessing? Yeah... yeah. Seems like I did some of that. I actually got to spend quite a lot of time working in a local soup kitchen, and rescuing tiny kittens from trees for old ladies." I said remembering to add a little smile that i tried to make look honest.
 "Oh... and I've been reading an aweful lot of the Bible! In.... James!" These statements seemed to relieve him of his concern for me... as he began checking for particulates in his teeth in the mirror over the sink, and pushing his super man hair-cut around.

ROLAND: "Yeah man, I been thinkin' that it would be great to start a little Bible study after light bell with any of the guys on the hall that might wanna join. Yeah know... to support hall unity and help us get to know each other a little better."
I stopped putting things in their places for a second to give him a blank look.
ME: (catching myself) "Oh! uh..... that could be good.... . . . . . . . . . . " (wondering how long i would be able to continue this line of conversation without laughing hysterically.)
Roland was now flexing his biceps in the mirror and admiring his profile. I sighed. Yes... what a wonderful idea. Let's start a Bible study. That's going to make my life soooo much easier. Heck.... my room-mates could even stop calling me 'the faggot' in their devil language. This was clearly the next rung I would need to climb in the fame ladder. Look out Ryan Seacrest.... Here. I. Come.

I would realize somewhere in those next few months... that Roland's mind was filled with cotton candy. And he's from a place were smurfs and dolphins are our friends.

ROLAND: "Hows everything going with the room? You guys getting along?"
ME: "... . . . . . . why yes. We are developing into quite the little family." I said flatly enough that i think he finally understood what I actually meant.
ROLAND: "HAHA! DUUUUDE!! I love your sense of humor! its like.... so dark!"

I sighed again. This person was intended to enforce light-bell... not to engage in meaningful conversation.
Thankfully the silence was broken just a few seconds later by one of my friends popping his head into the room. Eric Inafuku. I had met Eric back in first semester... friends of Amy and Christine. He was the first thin Hawaiian that i had been introduced to here. A willowy snarky thing who had changed his major no less than 23 times during first semester. He and I had similar views about school and Handsome Soccer Players such as Roland, and thus got along swimmingly. He was passionate about asian independent films, learning Cantonese....and origami. He also seemed to like photo shopping photographs.... though I have yet to discover why. He always had a way of lightening the mood in a room. I think it had something to do with the fact that he was so outspoken... and that he was so thin, but always always wore black boots with very thick soles.

ERIC: "MERRRRY CHHHHHRRRRRRRIIIIISTMASSSSSS!" he screamed... landing in the room as if he had just dismounted from a pommel horse. "MELE KE IKE MAKA! Hi ya Roland!"
ME: "hey eric."
ROLAND: "Hey." (still looking in the mirror.)
ERIC: "Wanna go to dinner? Everyone's meeting at 5. Tonight's chicken patties!" he exclaimed with mock excitement.
ME: "Sure, yeah.... Christine and I were going to meet anyways I think."
ERIC: "Well it's nearly ten till! Let's go.... we're gonna be late!"
ME: "Ok.... " grabbing a jacket and heading out the door.... leaving Roland alone with his reflection. They deserved one another.

Eric and I made our way down the hall of the dormitory, and across the long walk to the Dinning Common. Chattering and laughing about Roland, Christmas happenings and whatever else we could find to chatter about. Dinner was to become a little ritual for the group. We would work out our class schedules so that we could eat together... enduring the vegetables that had been boiled silly, and the swarm of other students that would crowd the gigantic room. We shared stories from how we spent our Christmases... I didnt have a whole lot to add... but everyone else's stories were funny and touching. These people were my family now it would seem. These people made me feel a little bit like i wasnt so abnormal. We were the loudest group in the football field sized room. Quirky. Nerdy. Mal-adjusted. Those were the days. We created sculptures out of mashed potatoes that were thick enough to glue a glass to a plate. No lie.
Work and class would begin again soon and there were new adventures to be had. Oh, yeah.... and i would have to find a way to punish my room-mates for their behavior. It was way over the line. If the Authority wasn't keeping them in check, I'd have to do it all by myself.




 

Collusion: Part XII

Words. Powerful words. They take shape and leave our mouths. Such harmless little things made out of carbon dioxide. Little puffs of a toxin and a bit of vibration made with teeth and tongue. Or little symbols on white paper. These are the tools that we use to fabricate community. How odd that stubby doses of poison should give us so much... should become a deity of sorts making so many choices for us.

Collusion celebrated 1,000 page views this week and I cant think of a better way to slide into Christmas than by inviting my friends and my foes to collude with me. To follow the pied piper. To admit to ourselves if only for those moments that we share with our thoughts and a computer screen that corruption is everywhere. It is who we are. It's the one thing that you can be sure of in any new person that you meet. And why is corruption so pervasive, you might ask? That's simple! because its so delicious.

Christmas break droned on. We chopped wood for the fireplace. A great hulking thing that's the centerpiece of the largest room in my house. Enormous 13 and 15 foot logs my dad had chainsawed into submission were piled up in my back yard at the edge of the woods; and every other day or so my brother, or my dad or myself would take an axe and cut away enough wood for the next couple of cold nights.
I'm from a very close-nit community. In a town that cant have a population of more than 3000 people. Its so rural as to be cliche. As ive mentioned before, people farm there. They have all their lives. Their fathers did, and their father's fathers did. Our neighbors all came to church with us. A church which my father had left the sins of his wild youth to found, and one which he continues to lead to this day. As i consider it, most of my early musical training was intended for use in worship. As a result, I have a mental database of hundreds of hymn tunes that I can play with my eyes closed, in any key. When I was home over Christmas break I fell neatly back into the roles that I had played before. At home and at church as well. All told it was a congregation of about 40 people. The number changed from season to season as southern people tend to have disagreements about such highly important religious matters as women who wear pants and those obviously diabolical members of the congregation who attend movie theaters. No joke. Anyways, our church services met twice on sundays and once on wednesday nights. We all met in a beige corrugated metal church building in the middle of a seven acre field of green lawn, behind one of those stone and metal church signs that you can rearrange letters on. You can make them say whatever you like...

"POT LUCK THIS SUNDAY!"

or

"DO RIGHT 'TIL THE STARS FALL"

or

"CHCH. WHAT'S MISSING!? U R!"

My dad was mostly responsible for these messages. One could always rely on them to be inspiring. The members of the church were the most fascinating group of people on the planet. All ok, plain folks with thick syrupy accents. Loud women who wore too much mascara, and ate too much red meat. And quiet men who sat beside these women.

I liked church. I loved the routine of it all. The ritual. We gather... sing old old songs about christ's blood and its power to make us perfect. We'd pray, or be lead in prayer... and then my father would preach a message about sin. Faith. Or the evils and destructing force of extra marital sex. His sermons were all peppered with his own brand of gawdy obvious humor. I have so memorized the lilting pace of my fathers sermons that i can predict what he's going to say next. It's a type of relationship that not many people have the opportunity to experience with their fathers and as such I feel quite lucky to have grown up that way. Each facet of my fathers belief system was made plainly evident written out in hour after hour of monologue. Layers and walls. A labyrinth of hedges looping and twisting into a maze of 'do' and 'do nots.' Sermon after sermon I received a powerful view of this bank of rules.... Fascinating and complex.

The music leader at my church is named Charles. Charles McMillan. He's a man of colossal girth. I estimate that he weighs very close to five hundred pounds, and oddly enough is still mobile. He's been a friend of the families for as long as i could remember. Apparently at one time he was quite average size, but from what ive been able to gather; a love interest in college left him with emotional scars that he had tried to patch up with lots and lots of brisket. Charles is roughly 46 years old. He has been in charge of all the songs sung, and all the notes played at our little community church for very close to 10 years i suppose. Charles and I had been cordial to one another since I had met him until one day when I had prepared a little piano piece for church, he told me that i was "never going to be a good pianist unless i learned to read music." As you can imagine... the comment did very bad things for a cordial relationship.  My playing from sight was remedial at best. Lessons had been cast away patch work things with hit or miss training from country bumpkins who owned pianos. Ah well.
From that moment however Charles and I became mortal enemies. If the both of us were in a room you could feel the temperature drop. The water vapor in the air would instantly crystallize. Charles was part of the reason for my pursuing piano so decidedly throughout highschool... and undeniably had something to do with my two year stint with bulimia when I was 17 and 18.

During holiday services Charles and I danced our icy dance of cordiality and hatred like two quiet little pageant queens; needing attention much as daisies need sunlight. And so i passed away the few days that remained of my break from school. In a very few days i would return to what was sure to be hostile environment. I would be stronger than those boys at school though. They'd see. They wouldn't break me.

Collusion: Part XI

6 or 7 thousand of us students and faculty piled row upon row in Founders Memorial Amphitorium. 'Amphitorium' is a made up word...Perhaps it was invented in an attempt to convey the idea that this was a building like no other. I know not. Either was its what the mammoth building is called. Its roughly 6 stories high and wide enough that it would take you 6 minutes to walk from one end to the other at a normal pace. There are hundreds of rows of rainbow colored fold down theater-style seats that follow a gradual decline in the floor towards a grand stage. A balcony seats about two thousand more. I've been in the building at night before... when the lights were out and no one else was there. The space can give you the feeling of being in the largest cave imaginable. One could very easily play baseball here and not feel like they were lacking space.
The building was used every day for something or another. At eleven a.m., Monday through Thursday everyone is required to attend 'chapel' here. All students report here from the far reaches of campus, which may require a bit of running or brisk walking to get there in time. You must be in your seat at precisely 11 a.m.. If you're late you will be given demerits.

The service begins and a chorus master walks onto the stage. He instructs the mass of students to find one hymn or another in the blue hymnals that can be found in little brown wooden cubbies on the back of each seat. The gathering raises quite a lot of sound, filling the august space with a rich albeit somber music. Precisely we praise mystic hebrew god. In less clinical metrics... all together. After two hymns another speaker emerges from the row of ancients that find their seats lining the back of the stage. (Theses are all the highest member of the authority... many of them of a great age.) He would make a few remarks on the day and the lead us in chanting the university creed. A monologue that all first years had to memorize within the first three weeks at school. Together we stood and recited.

"I believe in the inspiration of the bible. both the old and the new testaments. the creation of man by the direct act of god. the incarnation and virgin birth of our lord and savior jesus christ. his identification as the son of god. his vicarious atonement for the sins of mankind by the shedding of his blood on the cross. the resurrection of his body from the tomb. his power to save men from sin. the new birth through the regeneration by the holy spirit. and the gift of god, which is eternal life."

The chant had become such an integral part of campus culture that it was often spoken in a hollow and conviction-less tone. No matter. Conviction or not... when seven thousand people chant something everyday... it has a tendency to stamp itself into your mind. It becomes the sediment and silt of your thoughts.

The day that we were all set to be released for Christmas break there was one of these such services. We sang Christmas tunes and chanted our chant. And Dr. Bob Jones III took the stage to wish us well and safe travels to our homes. And that was that. Semester over. All my exams had gone well.
I said my goodbyes to my little group of friends and of course thought the better of saying anything at all to my brown skinned room-mates. It's such a burden being Caucasian.  

Mom and dad picked me up at the appointed hour. All my bags and things that i was taking home were waiting expectantly in a neat little pile on the sidewalk in front of my dormitory. The two hour drive home was as quiet as a funeral. My brother and sister had tagged along. Mom and Dad offered questions about how I was and how my final test scores had gone. I was at best non-committal about it all. I would not complain about how things had been. This was a choice that i had made. I would present the bucolic ideal of my introduction to college as best i could. I began a collusion of sorts with my family. That is what this story is about after all; isnt it? I would only let them see what they needed to see. Besides... it would be nice to put everything away and just have a nice Christmas. I sat in the back seat of the suburban and stared out the window as the city retracted and trees and fields began to fill up the space left by buildings and parking lots.

That first Christmas was so welcome. It was nice to take a look at my family dynamic in comparison to the building full of testosterone driven repressed cave dwellers that i had been living with. This Christmas was a new one. A different one. I savored the relics of my childhood and yes even mourned their loss.

I baked cookies and wrapped the gifts that I had saved and bought for my parents, brother and sister. My carefully controlled existence had begun to reveal itself to be far from my ability to govern. So that Christmas i learned perhaps the most valuable of life lessons... that we are but the students of life's changes. That adaptation is to be considered our greatest strength. That true godliness could be found in the simplest of acts of kindness, one person to another.

Three weeks of yule therapy had got me into a better state of mind. I had plans for these who opposed me at school and they would suffer the consequences of standing in my way. My optimism was no where near weakened. I would return to the kitchen, and the piano, and my books.

My sister and i were very close then and many nights during the break we would spend out in the night time chatting on the trampoline... Talking about everything. It was nice to know that some bonds stayed strong no matter what... and would never need mending.

Collusion: Part X

And so it began. It was written out in red letters. I had my suspicions confirmed. Not everyone here was my friend. I was a rogue program... The others that fit more perfectly into the matrix were taking notice... they would find a way to have me deleted.

I should not have been surprised. I had seen this type of behavior before. The data was already part of a working map.... a grid that exists in all societies. It is part of our genetic programming to instinctively isolate the weakest member of our group. To chase them out of our social network and prevent their weakness from infecting the gene pool. We instinctively consider the disabled, blind, weak and ill less a part of society... and for thousands of years this instinct has taught us to put our best genes forward.

Flash backwards ten years:

My family had gotten the idea that we should raise chickens. We should have fresh eggs that we wouldn't have to drive thirty minutes to the nearest large town and buy them. It was that convenience and the fact that my dad was overly fond of the idea of housing animals. My house was well situated off of a major highway.... thirty minutes south of the capitol of South Carolina. It was the largest agrarian county in the state. You could drive for miles and miles and see nothing but fields of cotton... soy beans and fields where the stubble of corn stalks remained from the year before.

12 Rhode Island Reds. We had raised them from chicks.... bought them from the seed store. I know what you're thinking... Laura Ingalls Wilder.... "oooooh paaaaaaw!" and all that. Not exactly. We didn't have horses. Either way we raised the chicks to adult hood... and even though i had taught them to behave, they were not so different than human beings. We kept them all together in a rather large coupe with little wooden boxes affixed to the wall where they could have a little privacy to lay their eggs. Much to my 13 year old horror.... I learned that these creatures looked out for not only their own interest... but apparently also the genetic health of the whole species. If one of the hens was discovered to be wounded... the others would mercilessly attack it... pecking at it to drive it away from the group and the food sources. It would seem that regardless of brain size; some tendencies stay the same cross species. The wounded hen would have to be guarded. Kept separate from the flock... otherwise the bullying wouldn't stop. And eventually the other hens would kill her.

I should have remembered these observances. And in truth i hadn't forgotten them... I just didn't realize exactly how helpful the memory would be. Alright... back to the story.

The end of the semester wash rushing nearer and I couldn't be more thankful for the fact. I pushed past Ramon on the way out of the room to dinner. Ever since Devin had taken such an interest in terrorizing me (he and his genitals had become a recurring late nite show) Ramon and Chester had taken it to mind that they would follow suit. But not in such a violent or dramatic way. I would over-hear an insult or two; or part of a funny story involving me and gang-rape. I couldn't make it all out... Even though i was picking up Spanish quickly; I wasn't what you'd call fluent. Of course it was embarassing... but i just thought that the best way to deal with it was to ignore it. Id never been bullied before. I always pretended not to hear... and left the room.

The group was getting together for supper... it had become a little ritual. We had made a little family. Me. Christine. Ami... Richard; Tisha... who by now were a lot more like Richard/Tisha. Gross. Affection. Christine and i had become good friends i would say. She and i were regulars to all the required campus events. We were both odd... and a good match as friends. I hadn't let any of those in the group know about the bullying. After all, if i showed weakness in either group... wouldn't it just incite more aggression? I was new to the game. So very new.

In a very few days the school would hold its annual lighting ceremony. One of the biggest cultural events of the Christmas season. Thousands of people would pile onto the front lawn of the campus. Choirs would have been in place on a stage and some figure head would lead the masses in prayers and songs.You know those obnoxiously feel good Christmas choral works? The ones that stores play all December in efforts to have you buy everything in the store? Those. Huge speakers everywhere. And and chunky mezzo soprano would eventually sing 'Oh Holy Night.' When she reached the most painful highest note.... some one would flip a huge switch and release millions of mega watts into the lights strung all over the place. Thousands of people would gasp... either from electrocution of because the combination choral music and intense lighting gave them the experience of communing with the divine. It was a spectacle. It was an event... The school had opened its arms to thousands of the unsuspecting public. Baked them cookies; gave them a show; and then told them how to go to heaven. It was marvelous to behold. It was fantastic. It was a colossal bear trap made out of fairy lights and guilt.   

The group went and more or less had a good time. It was fun weaving through and around the crowds. Taking photos together and laughing about the goings on. The diversion was much needed. Finals were very soon approaching...

I was academically gifted. I guess that's what you'd call never studying. Maybe it was just that I really didn't have time to study. Meh. Either way i was looking forward to getting away from here for a while and returning to my little house in the big woods... it was so quiet there. I wanted the quiet for a few weeks.

Tensions in the room were getting higher and higher. I was getting closer to having a pretty nasty blow up. I try to steer clear of violence, but sooner or later you get tired and angry about a jack-ass swinging his dick around at you whilst flickering the lights at 1 am. I looked for ways to make peace. I tried talking Ramon, and less often Chester. I tried to discover personal interests and goals.... hobbies even. Chester seemed to enjoy lifting weights. But lets be honest... that's really not a conversation point. Ramon had more than enough to say about himself... but i found it difficult to be interested. The two had affectionately taken to calling me 'el pato.' Which i could only translate to meaning 'the duck.' There were worse things to be called i reasoned... and was too busy about my own business to give much thought to it. I just assumed that was their way of accepting me. Ramon had a birthday on the way. He'd be twenty soon. Kinda old to be a freshman i had thought. Ah well. Maybe they get a later start down mexico way.

My mother has the most beautiful hand writing. Really i'll have to show you a sample of it sometime. She writes in perfect, unbroken cursive. She always had a stash of stationary on hand... and never every misses a chance to send a birthday card or thank-you note. This was a habit that she had tried her hardest to pass on to us children. She had always stressed the importance of letting people know that you're thankful for what they've done for you. There was an elegance to it. An old-world gentility. Its one of the things that I love about my mother. She will always be a graceful thoughtful thing in my mind.

I decided that I could try and bridge the gap in the room a bit. I would get Ramon a birthday card. And so i did. I wasn't anything fussy. It was simple and plain. It mostly wished him well in black ink.... It congratulated him, I imagined, for making it thus far without having been killed in drug related violence in puerto rico. That was something he deserved to be congratulated for. My spanish skills at that point were ever so limited... but in an attempt to further bridge build.... I signed it.
"El Pato Magnifico"
-the magnificent duck-
I handed him the envelope. He looked at it suspiciously... but tore into it. He read it quickly... and read the signature. I was smiling. Hoping to see a thread of friendship being made. But I didn't understand. Something wasn't right. There was a black and serious look on his face...
He said thank-you. But that was it.
Ah well. A hit and a miss i thought.

I would later learn that 'pato' was a slang term used in puerto rico. It meant something akin to our english word 'faggot.' I was mortified. But by the time i had garnered this information it was something that the latino members of the room had been laughing about for weeks. They had no souls, i decided. Their hearts were black and loveless. I was beginning to understand genocide.

I never spoke of the incident again. I stayed to myself... in a very few days everything was over. I had Christmas to look forward to. Home. The home that i had taken for granted until now. I returned to the little house in the big woods and thought about all these things. There in the dark, in the wind in the pine trees i grew stronger. I vowed to make fewer mistakes.

Collusion: Part IX

 First semester barreled on. Time is contagious. In the first few months at school i had begun to re-tool myself. Each new day had been scheduled and designed by people who sat in desks... People of devotion. Wholesome men and women who had given their lives to follow a beautiful collection of rules designed to save the masses. Rules that were meant to preserve order. Truth. Beauty. Chastity. It was the perfect place for me to be. I longed to control myself.

Through years and years of teachings as a child my parents had taught me that the heart was unruly. A wickedness above all things and not to be trusted. I remember fondly that always was my instruction taken directly from the hebrew Bible. My thoughts wander back to an every day scene from those days.

Me, my brother and sister sat around the breakfast table. Mom would put the finishing touches on scrambled eggs and bacon... toast. After we had prayed over the food, and eaten Dad would turn to a passage in the 1st John. He read about wisdom, justice, and lust.

For all that [is] in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

What is lust i thought? I pushed the last of the scrambled eggs around on my plate. Lust seemed like a word filled with dark foreboding. It was the dark messenger. The bringer of death and destruction. As a child i hadn't remembered feeling anything quite so powerful as what lust must be like. I imagined that it must be alot like the feeling of falling from a great height. I was afraid of falling. 

I thought of these things as i waited outside an office on the second floor of the fine arts building. The hall stretched from one end of the building to another and was lined with gray textured wallpaper, and a low nap gray carpet. I fiddled with my book sack and waited on one of the wooden benches that were placed up against the walls here and there for just the purpose that I gave it now. Tom Grimble. My piano teacher. His name was cut into black plastic with white lettering.... with a little cork board by his door.
The door swung open and the previous lessons student walked out. Thankyou! see you next week!
Ah. Here we go.

Tom Grimble is a plump man. My height and very fond of wearing navy blue blazers and maroon ties. He always has this way of speaking to you where you feel both like he's listening intently to you.... and like he's not listening at all. Like someone that sees all of you... but is perhaps so far seeing, that he might be able to see right through you. I wondered what he was able to see beyond me.  His office has two pianos. A baby-grand, and an upright. Both black. There's his desk. A window. Built in shelving. And always the very delicate scent of floral candle wax. Tom carried himself with an air of dignity that one would associate with a collegiate level piano professor.

Tom sits at the desk:

Tom: Hey. Come on in. (Phone rings) Do you mind if i just take this for a second? It's my wife.
Me: Oh no.... go ahead. (I never protested his taking phone calls.... it wasn't like i was paying for his time or anything)

He would discuss something that sounded very very dire and then end the conversation seriously, and politely.

Tom: How is everything going? How are you settling into your room? (This was accompanied by that intense and benign knowing stare.)
Me: Oh... everything's fine. Going well i suppose. (Happy face. Fake happy face)
Tom: What are you roommates like?
Me:.... er. hm..... well. They're puerto rican. (As if that should explain away all these questions.)
Tom: Do you like them? Are you all getting along?
Me: ... ... ... well. Yeah. Everything's fine i guess. I don't really talk to them much and they don't talk to me.
Tom: How's work?
Me: Oh its fine... it's hard work.... but i don't mind.
Tom: Where is it that you work again?
Me: Oh, i work in the Dinning Common. Im a cook. (Brightly)
Tom: (Eyes widen) Oh... Oh right. I don't know how i could have forgotten that. Do you.... enjoy it?
Me: (I thought for a moment before answering.) Enjoy it? No i don't guess that would be the best word for what im doing there.
Tom: Well. I just worry about my students who work around heavy machinery. It's not safe. I just think about all those grinders and mixers. They could end a career.
Me: (blank look.... eyes widen... Im silent. I hadn't thought about the possibility of getting my hand stuck in a hobart. I scream. The other cooks look on in horror.... Blood everywhere.)
Tom: (Seeing the little scene playing in my mind) Well! Why don't we have prayer and then start!
"Father... we thank you for your unfailing love for us. I pray that here in this time you've given us, you would help me to be instrumental in Josh's learning... I pray that you would help him with his 'room situation' that you would show him ways to be helpful to those around him... I pray for Kendra that her Aunt would be able to find an apartment quickly... and for all of those that are without you today... that you would bring them to yourself. Amen"

OK.... what should we start with. How's the Bach coming?
Me: It's going well. I'm making headway. The reading is difficult, but I really like the piece.
Tom: Ok. Have you marked the theme throughout? All four voices?
Me: Yeah.... they're all marked. But i wasn't sure about the inversion of the theme here... if that was something you wanted noted as well.
Tom: That's fine. I don't think that's essential. Let's hear what you have.
Me: Alright. (I find my bearings. and begin playing.)

It wasn't a perfect performance by any means. There were misread notes. Rhythms that were a hair short or long. And it has always been difficult for me to be emotionally involved in such a precise type of music. Bach is clinical and elegant. Bach never had a shouting fit in his kitchen with a jealous lover in which china was thrown.

The rest of the day continued as scheduled. I thanked Tom for his help. I had also begun to refer to him as 'Mr. G.' How highschool. How 'Mr. Holland's Opus' of me, I thought.

Night fell and I was looking forward to sleeping. I would get up early... I would shower and start studying for the Introduction to Music Lit. test that i had coming up in two days. Christmas was getting closer and closer and i didn't have enough seconds in the day. I'd had dinner with the gang... The same old gang from when we had picked up trash. And there were a couple of new members that I'll introduce you to soon.
All the last bells had rung and it was starting to settle down in the room. It's nearing midnight and I'm starting to drift off.

The door swings open with a THUD, and light from the ever-florescently-bright-hallway pours in. In stalks Devin. Crap. All sleepy feelings are tossed away. Devin was yet another puerto rican... and some back wards relation of Ramon. I will not attempt to describe him physically, as I will be un-kind. He stalks into the room with gaucho swagger. He's dressed in nothing but his boxers. He flicks the room light on.
Devin: (Grasping his genitals and shaking them violently.) "Oy! Mira! Mira Pato! (He does a little dance and laughs as if he has been named the Anit-Christ.) He does all this while glancing out the door and down the hall to make sure he isn't alerting the attention of Roland.
He continues making noise and flickering the lights until he gets a response.

As fortune would have it... i was the only one who flickering the lights actually affected. I slept on the top of the double bunk.... there was no way for me to build a protective light barrier out of sheets and blankets. My blood pressure had almost instantly reached boiling. I yelled at him to get out of the room. His response was to play with himself, and the light switch a bit more.... Laugh and chatter at me in puerto rican. Then slam the door as the Authority approached.

The experience left me a bit rattled. This was my first experience with what i would come to learn was called 'hazing.' I wasn't fitting into the social fabric well enough. And this was my punishment.
This wouldn't be the last of Devin's little dances. This wouldn't be the last time he prattled himself around like a little brown gay dolphin.
This was only the beginning. And no one flicks on the lights and shakes their genitals at me. No one. I have a schedule. I have goals. I will not be toyed with.
This would be the beginning. I would burn down whatever village he had crawled here from. I would raid the filthy streets and allies he had played kick ball in.... His mother would beg for mercy... but would have none.