Okay, Byyyyyye

On June 8th, 2010 I wrote that I would make an effort to begin posting more often to this blog.

On February 21st. 2012 I am acknowledging the fact this will not happen.

Goodbye, blog. This was fun, I guess. I dunno, whatever. We basically broke up like... almost two years ago, whatev. I'm over it. Seriously. If I cried about it, that was forever ago. I'm over it now, who cares?

Quick Update

I'm finding it hard to take the time to keep this up. But I want to do it. I'm just in the process of motivating myself.

Also, my right armpit itches something terrible and I got a mad grease stain on my shirt from work.

Also, a co-worker of mine, cute 20 year old Bible schooler Katie who likes to make unintentionally comical and overt flirtation with any and all male co-workers, randomly walked out of the dish room today while myself and two other co-workers, Eric and John, idled, and declared that she didn't find blowjobs appealing. I laughed and made an attempt at empathy. She blushed and slapped her hand on the counter, smashing a rotten cucumber that had been set aside.

I found this to be hilarious.

Consider that story shared.

Something Else

It is the summer before Junior year of high school. I'm a dorky kid, but I'm figuring it out (this is a clever way of falsely implying I've 'figured it out' by now) and I'm sporting some impressively unimpressive side burns and a hefty head of hair courtesy of I'm 16 Years Old And Barely Trying.

I was in the Troupe program at the Masque, this was my first and final year in the Storyteller Troupe. For two years prior I had been in the Mime Troupe. Every summer the three troupes (the Puppet troupe being the missing link) would take separate weekends to travel north to the Renaissance Festival and perform for two straight days.

I'm making an executive decision to not expound upon what the Festival amounts to. Those of you who have been there know what it is, and those of you who haven't probably have a good idea. It's a silly place, really, and I know what it was to me is not what it really is, but I loved it lots.

This summer was the final year the Masque Troupes would be making the annual journey to Ren Fest, and while it was always something to look forward to, this being the last hurrah made it something of an extra big deal.

We arrived that Friday evening, ready to spend the next two days clothed in our pluming white costume and frilly colored collars and hats (I was the blue clown, thank you) traveling around the grounds from stage to stage to perform semi-clever original pieces in front of small, unforgiving audiences.

Past years we had arrived early enough to spend some time in character on the grounds, but due to chaperon confusion there was a delay, and by the time we rolled in it was near closing time and most of the patrons had filed out. We set up camp, pitched the two tents, and ambled about for the rest of the evening.

I was the only guy in the troupe and was good friends with most of the others. The Red Clown, however, was something of my nemesis and I did all I could to avoid her. The youngest two, the Green and Orange clowns, were the best at playing nice with Red, so I generally would leave them to it and wander off with Purple Clown and Rachel.

Oh, Rachel...

She had just graduated that June, and it being near the end of August she was about ready to head off for college. She hadn't been able to commit the time to rehearsals to be in the troupe itself, but it being her last summer with us all she had to do was ask and she was along for the ride.

I had always had a dorky crush on her. I was in awe of her, in a way. We never hung out outside of the Masque, but when we spent time together at the theatre I always felt like we got along swimmingly.

She had said once, during rehearsals for the spring play months before, while we joked about something or another:

I had always thought, Andrew, that if you were only a few years older we would make a super couple.

Well fuck, I thought. No problem. But no matter how hard I focused, I could not will myself a few years older.

But we wandered off, Purple, Rachel, and myself, onto the grounds. It was well after close now and, aside from a few handymen here and there, the place was deserted.

We three made our way to a small stage hidden by a cluster of trees. There was a small bridge that jumped off stage left over the small pond that Little John would fall into time after time day after day because Robin Hood is such a silly trickster.

We sat around, the two ladies did most of the talking, Rachel apprehensive about college, Purple Clown excited to be a senior and politically active member of society. I just sat there through most of it. Until Rachel turned to me after a time and asked:

'Do you still hang out with Alex?'

I did, of course, still do. Alex was my good friend. One year my senior, one her junior, Alex and Rachel had pseudo-dated for a short time that had ended only weeks before. The details of their relationship were always curious to me; the two were so terribly different, Alex being a nut-scratching burnout and Rachel a romantic cynic and future philosophy major. It had, in the end, turned out to be not much of a relationship. They spent most of their time together at the theatre, and the rest was, as far as I could tell, delegated to secret activities. Such as kissing and hugging.

'I don't know what he said to you about our relationship or whatever,' she said to both me and Purple Clown. 'But I feel like I need you to know that it's a weird thing for me. Like, I never considered him my boyfriend or anything. I just liked hanging out with him for a while, but he's an ass.'

He certainly can be.

'Did he talk to you about us at all?'

'Not really,' I said. He hadn't. 'He was pretty smug about it for a while.' I hesitated. 'He said you gave him a blowjob on his birthday.'

And she slapped me. I had never been slapped so hard (though I can proudly say we've topped it since). I remember it taking a moment for me to remember where I was and I squinted up at her with an
'aauuughhh the hell?'

She stared at me for a moment, held eye contact with me for an uncomfortable amount of time. I cocked my head. 'I'm sorry?'

'He's an ass,' she said. And she stood up.

We walked through some paths, the three of us talking, but not talking. Purple Clown occasionally proving she reads books by sharing an unsolicited fact or two.

We eventually made our way back to camp. The sun was all gone, and it was prudent to get some sleep because waking up would come very early.

Clowns Red, Orange, and Green had already taken refuge in their tent, and I jumped in the empty one while Rachel and Purple wrapped up their ladies room business. Rachel came back first, tucked in to her sleeping bag quickly. She was very quiet and very sad. I scooted up next to her and asked her what was wrong.

'I don't know...'

I wait.

'I did give him a blowjob on his birthday,' she continued. 'That's why I slapped you.'

'I figured.'

She was quiet, sniffling through tears. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I lay there for a long while until finally I moved closer, lay my head by her shoulder and wrapped my arm around her belly and hugged her.

'It's just something so stupid,' she said eventually. 'I feel like I'm always upset about something so stupid. Something so trivial. And I know that in a year, two, maybe just a few months, it won't even matter. I'll have forgotten all about it.

But that's no comfort.'

And I didn't say anything. I just hugged her a little bit tighter, because I know what she means.

Part One

The dog won't stop barking. She kneels down by the small crate and sticks her finger through the grate. The dog is quiet for a few moments, slobbering on her knuckle, but then is bored and barks some more. Because, why not?

She groans and lets him out. He shuffles around anxiously, tail between his legs. I squat in front of him and let him sniff my hand. This is what I had to do back when I visited regularly, just after her dad brought him home. She didn't like him much at first, always felt he was a poor replacement for the dog she grew up with as a kid. But she likes him fine now, just isn't too keen on the fact he makes a puddle when he gets excited.

I reach to pet him. "Don't let him pee," she whispers. "I'm not cleaning it up."

It's just after two in the morning. I'm dropping her at home. She doesn't have a curfew anymore because now we are adults.

I haven't seen her in months. Briefly back in June when I stopped in for my sister's high school graduation.

We had been more friendly back then, for the first time in a long while. More open, at least, about the things that make us different now. And more open, perhaps, about the fact we both wouldn't mind if we somehow worked our way back to square one.

But it had been a very short visit. Enough time to hand her a mix CD I made out of habit. A pathetic habit maybe, but I'll forever cling to the hope it's at least a little bit cute.

She was so sad. I always see her when she is so sad. I seem to be, and this is in no way self-congratulating, the only person who knows what to say to make her feel any better. And while this is a bit flattering, sure, it's also a bit hard to see the little lady you pine for ever so blindly only when she is wiping tears from her face.

(I would love, so much, to be once more the man who gets to see her smile)

But we got along fine. And I went back to Chicago. And we talked more regularly, though still infrequently, on the phone and sent a few innocent letters through the post.

My final innocent letter, just before Christmas, made a rather forward point of stating we should spend some serious time together when both back in Rochester and also that I maybe was ready to stop pretending I don't still think about her the better part of always.

Saturday the 26th, free all day long.

I have no car, so she comes to me. We sit in my basement, talking. She'll be moving to Chicago in a little under a year. Off to grad school. A four year seminary. Out of habit, I hide my excitement. We are pleasant. She brings up Jason, Mr. Jason Gass, the Gass Man, her college ex-boyfriend of two years who allegedly broke it off with her for reasons similar to mine.

It's a little hard, she says. Being with someone you want so badly to be with who just isn't sure.

Well, just give him three years, I say. If he's anything like me, and I feel like he is, just give him three years and he will have no doubts.

You know I'm not much for waiting, she says.

We're quiet for a moment. I rise out of my chair and move to my room.

I have something for you.

She stands. Am I ever going to get a hug? she asks.

I stop, halfway across the room. She cocks her head and waits. I sigh and walk towards her, arms held out. I drop to my knees and we embrace, my head on her belly. She holds me tight until I let go and even then she takes a few moments to release.

I look up at her, still on my knees. Are you getting taller?

Stand up, asshole. She jabs me lightly under my chin. I stand and run to my room. I return with a CD. Old habits die hard.

She smiles and drops it in her purse. You wanna go to the mall? she asks.

Do you wanna go to the mall?

I wouldn't mind. I've got a gift card to get rid of.

Let's go to the mall.

Okay. But no talking to me while I'm driving. I have to focus.

Haven't gotten any better behind the wheel?

What do you want from me? she asks, running up the stairs. I am a woman, after all.

There are three small squares of cork-board mounted on the wall by my bed. Originally, a fourth hung with the rest, but twice now it has fallen and as I am a man who prefers to pick his battles, I concede this one to the cork-board.

Pictures of family and high school friends are tacked to the squares, a few sketches and postcards, and a giraffe my sister drew for me when she was five. I wonder, always, how it is I still have that.

On the square hung highest on the wall (next to an old poem written me by a middle school crush and a group photo from a Halloween piano recital, in which a scowling fifth grade Andrew is dressed as Count Dracula three years running) is a program from a play I had been in, A Christmas Carol brought to you by the Masque circa Winter 2002. On the back, amongst a few scribbled signatures, in nearly illegible writing I have signed "Andrew Haynes, Scrooge. To that punk kid."

Clipped to this is a note:

Andrew,
This was on Mitch's bulletin board in his room. Please keep it and know you're a good role model.
Thank you,
Kim.

Next to this on the highest cork-board square is a program from a funeral.

Mitchell James Henderson

July 15th, 1992 to April 20th, 2006

2006 was the year I graduated high school. It was the year I finally had a social life outside of the Masque Theater. It was the year I finally had a girlfriend. It was the year I finally got out of Rochester.

I was a relatively active kid, far more so than I am these days at least, teaching classes and acting in shows at the Masque, taking Century High School by storm with my boyish charm and laid-back-cool-dude attitude (right guys?), and serving as a senior high representative on my church's youth committee. I wasn't a particularly religious guy, in fact by my senior year I was fairly certain I could call myself an atheist, but the church was an important place to me. I had a fair number of friends there, a great relationship with the minister and her husband, and the youth group was genuinely fun to be a part of.

Mitch was a junior high representative on the committee. He was in 8th grade, angsty but good mannered and the funniest fuckin' kid I have ever met. The monthly committee meetings were jokes to him and I, the two of us scolded on a regular basis for throwing pennies at whoever wasn't looking and trying to sneak out the smelliest of farts.

I didn't see him often. Once every week or so for church, the monthly meetings, and whenever the junior and senior youth groups would embark on joint adventures, but he was a genuine friend of mine. And I knew he looked up to me in a way any young boy looks up to an older boy who is a little bit cynical but also makes fart jokes. I would give him the occasional ride home from a meeting and he would talk about the latest R rated movie he had seen or which swear word was his new favorite.

I remember the moment my mom told me what happened. She had picked me up from school to take me to the doctor's office on my lunch hour. There was a small chance I might have lymphoma, so we thought it best to find out for sure. Turns out I didn't. But right as we got to the doctor my mom parked the car and turned to me. Mitch was dead, she told me. For some reason still relatively unknown, he had gotten a hold of his father's gun and shot himself in the neck. His younger sister found him bleeding out in the study. His mom was gone, off to his school to pick up homework or a book, something he had absentmindedly forgot but needed that night. They had gotten into a brief fight before she left, him and his mom. And the last time she saw him, the one time after she had chastised him for being lazy or irresponsible or whatever it is moms say to teenage sons who don't really feel like getting their shit together, was with a hole through his neck and his eyes rolled up into the back of his skull.

I was devastated. And I was furious. And I was sobbing. And when the doctor told me I didn't have cancer I didn't really care. And I didn't go back to school. And when I went to see Sara I didn't say anything, I just held my eyes shut and pushed my head into her belly and tried to think about something else.

I didn't understand it. I don't understand it. And I missed him immediately. I missed the goofy man he was going to be. And that was the moment I finally decided that, no, I do not believe there is a God. Not because he let a 14 year old boy die. Not because I was mad at him. But because as I sat in church and tried to grieve I felt nothing. No comfort. No understanding. No invisible pat on the back. And I know that the power, wisdom, and glory of God is more complex than that. I know that there is more to faith than seeing those selfish, human moments of need met with some divine intervention. But so was there more to my grief. So was there more to the emptiness I felt in that sanctuary. And I am sorry that I cannot find the words to fill that emptiness, but my rejection of the Heavens was not a knee jerk reaction made out of spite and rage. It was the declaration of how I had felt for the better part of my life, now reaffirmed.

I have not been back by choice since.

Mitch's mother, Kim, gave me the program at my graduation party less than two months after he died. Her eyes were sad as was her smile and she hugged me for a moment before leaving.

I see it everyday, the program. Hanging in my room always since June 2006. And still three months until it has been with me as long as it had been with him.

I stare at it sometimes, think about how old he'd be now, what he'd look like. I try to imagine how he'd talk, what fads he'd have fallen for, what he would be wanting to do with himself now that he'd be graduating high school so soon.

But sometimes, most times, I wonder... if he were still alive today, if he had never gone, would I still know him? Talk to him? How often would I see him?

And, really, would he still mean so much to me?

mostly just because no one likes having that talk

no, i'm not mad.
i'm confused.

because i'm pretty sure just a week ago
i walked you home in the rain
and even though you only live two minutes away, i got soaking wet for you.

don't get me wrong, i understand.
you have very pretty eyes that get really big when you laugh loud
and you're plenty fun to be around
but when you tell me
'i mean, yeah, okay, there are feelings, but i just don't really feel that pang to be exclusive you know? so, i mean, what's the point?'
all i can say is 'yeah. okay. i mean... yeah.'
'cause, you know

i mean. yeah.

'cause no, i'm not mad.
just surprised.

because i'm pretty sure the other night
the night i went down on you for the better part of an hour
you were pretty into me.

and yeah, i was pretty into you
more into the fact that you were pretty into me
and more into the fact that i could finally say i was seeing somebody again
but there wasn't a long list of cons
though the pros weren't really tipping the balance.

so no, i'm not mad.
just overwhelmed with a crippling sense of inadequacy

is that too dramatic?
because i'm pretty sure nothing stings more
than slow, cross-eyed rejection
and when i'm certainly not devastated, you still got me to hole up in my room and write another passive aggressive poem.

would we call these poems?

but no.
i'm not mad.
just, you know.

Part 1.3

We arrive at Jeff's later than most. A pile of shoes block the door and we force our way in, adding our own footwear to the mountainous obstacle.

It appears I do know Jeff, or at least met him in passing. I had, as has become expected, forgotten his name immediately after we shook hands.

A large group of people have congregated in his room, sitting two asses to a chair, crowding atop his mattress, standing awkwardly in corners. She and I sit up against the wall near his door.

I take my position as silent observer, speaking only when spoken to. This is a role I do not mind playing, one I used to reprise frequently at social events I was dragged to by my high-school-days lady friend.

"You don't have to stay here with me if you want to socialize, you know," I say to her. "I'm a big boy."

"Believe me," she says with a smile. "If I wanted to be out there I would be. I will be. But sitting here with you right now is just fine with me."

"Okay."

Across the room, a lanky, long haired boy eagerly stuffs weed into a bowl and begins passing it around. When it gets around to us she dutifully declines but waves it my way.

I take it and, well... when in Rome.

Soon, a young man by the name of Brett, the other lead in tonight's canceled performance, makes his way to the center of the room with a clip board. He is probably under the influence of something or another, taking frequent pauses in his speech to stretch his eyelids and cock his head to the left. Jeff stands with him, and another long haired, this time bearded, fellow sits in a folding chair nearby.

"If we could just take a moment," Brett is saying, "to talk seriously to you all about something we've all been thinking about."

"Yes," says Jeff.

"Because we are all very serious about what we are here to discuss."

"Yes."

Pause. Eyebrows raise, head ticks to the left, and we continue.

"There are five of us, myself, Jeff, Billy," he motions to the beard in the folding chair, "and two others thinking about moving into a house--"

"A commune," adds Billy.

"Yes, sure, a commune of sorts, this summer. Through next year. We are looking for people--"

"Artists," adds Billy.

"Yes, sure. Yes. Artists of all different walks and fields--"

"Painters, sculptors, photographers, actors, writers--" adds Billy.

"Yes--"

"We are looking," says Jeff. "To start a revolution that will bring students and young artists to the forefront of the Minneapolis art community. We are looking for people interested in and serious about this goal who would maybe like to come live in or work with this house to mold a studio space, rehearsal place, and gallery space to get this ball rolling."

"Yes," says Brett.

"Right," says Billy.

"Cool!" someone chimes from the crowded mattress.

Spatters of applause.

People begin to talk excitedly about the prospect. Jeff and Brett explain a little more, but I tune out.

She looks at me. "I could never do that."

"Me neither."

"Yeah, fuck it."

"Yeah."

She smiles. "It's kinda cool though."

"Yeah, I just could never operate that way."

"Me neither."

"Kinda cool though."

"Yeah."

She rests her head on my shoulder. "Welcome to my world."

I laugh. What's funny is as I look around the room I can easily attribute names to all these faces I see that match up with friends I have back in Chicago.

It's interesting to see all these people in the same room. Back home I run into everyone in smaller pockets at various gatherings. It's strange comparing the artsy community here to the one back home.

It's also strange that I refer to Chicago as home now. But that's fine with me. Just strange that the change has become so definite in the last year.

But a real niche has arisen from the traditional college experience at the U of M so much more concrete than what has come out of art school. There's a greater urgency here. A need to define oneself as an artist. Whereas, at Columbia, it's something always apparent and easily taken for granted.

I don't know which I prefer.

Brett approaches the two of us and crouches next to her. "I feel like we should do something."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Create something."

"Okay."

"Okay..." He looks around. "Any ideas?"

"Nope."

"Okay..." He stands up and spreads his arms. "Hey, uuuh... people? We should like... do something."

"Yeah!" someone shouts.

A large mass of people arise and rush out to the living room.

She looks at me and smiles. "Welcome."

Time passes, she's talking to a rotund queen about why he hated her play and he's blushing and laughing and trying to convince her he didn't hate it.

I get up and wander out to the living room, curious about the laughter that has begun to drift down the hall.

I'm feeling pretty okay still and as I squeeze through the crowd another bowl is thrust my way.

Cheers.