Well, as previously noted, I was wandering the hallways Gloria-less and fell into my seat in Langley’s class somewhat somnambulant. Aristotle had been invoked before but today was something new. Langley told us about one of big A’s big theories. And I perked up a little and noted in my mind’s memory stick a lecture that went something like this:
“Aristotle, as you remember, lived 384 to 322 BC. If you lived BC the years went down each time a new year came around, but, of course, they didn’t see it that way. Aristotle suggested that in order to understand anything, you could ask four questions. It’s call the Theory of Causes but the word ‘cause’ is misleading. But then many things in life can be misleading. I’m sure you’ve noted that in your mere fifteen or sixteen years of human existence. So, let’s suppose you come across, I don’t know, let’s say a non-human sentient being during lunch in the cafeteria. Aristotle would suggest you not be startled but instead try to answer the following. One: what is it made of? If the answer is mozzarella cheese, you have a start at understanding. But let’s move on. Question two: what is its form or essence? It appears to have a head, eyes, arms, legs, and is speaking a language that is not English. Three: what produced it? Does it have a mother and a father or was it created by a demented genius cheese maker? Four, and here’s the really tough one: what is its purpose? This, Aristotle and others refer to as ‘final cause.’ What is the reason for this sentient being’s existence?”
We were all, I suppose, a bit bug-eyed, if for no other reason, by the way that Langley had become animated, excited to a point that little bits of frothing white spit appeared on the corners of his mouth. “Now, if we apply Aristotle’s fourth question to our own existence, what do we come up with?”
A very special kind of silence filled the room. Cynic that I am, you can understand that it takes a lot to impress me. I was having a bad week, all existence filtered by the sadness and confusion of Gloria’s running away with her mother. But it occurred to me that the very silence that filled the room just then was the pure unadulterated sound of real education. We were in the thirteen percent territory. And this subject matter was edging onto my own turf here. So I blurted it out. “The fourth question can’t be answered. We can never truly know what our purpose is.”
Those fierce eyes were upon me now. I had broken the silence. “Why would you say that, Joseph?”
I held his gaze for once. “Because we are human. We search for meaning; we settle for easy answers so we won’t go crazy; and then we get lazy. We ignore the obvious truth.”
“Which is?”
“There is no meaning. No purpose.”
A few more seconds of good educational silence. I expected to be crucified. After all, wasn’t I suggesting Aristotle’s theory was futile? But Langley let me off the hook. “Anyone else care to dive in here?”
There were no divers. So Langley moved on to other Aristotelian notions. When class was over, he called me to his desk before I could sneak out of the room. “Do you really believe what you said?” he asked, his demeanor much softer now.
“Yes,” I said, “I think I do.”
“I know it’s fashionable to say such things when you are young but you seem so confident in the way you said it. Why?”
“Did you ever lose anyone very close to you?” I heard myself say, shocked that I had leaped to this.
Totally out of character, Dr. Langley dropped his eyes to the floor. “A son,” he said. “A long time ago.”
“Did you ever lose two people that were very close to you—both at the same time?” I heard myself ask and I don’t know why I said what I said just then.
He looked up. “No,” he said.
Students for the next class were now coming into the room. “I’m sorry,” Langley said, now sounding nothing like a teacher. And I’d heard a lot of sorrys in my time but his was one of the most sincere. It was too bad the school was going to lose this guy after this year. Thirteen percent was about to drop a bit lower.
Of course, the rumors of Dean’s gayness (not by him but by gossipers and creeps on the Internet) had spread and I had to decide if I could handle being seen with him, walking the halls or going into the lavatories to take a pee or sitting with him in the cafeteria. A lot of people thought I was weird enough already, and if they decided I was both weird and gay, I, too, would suffer the slings and arrows. I admit I avoided him once when I saw him in the hallway. Then twice.
Then I was angry at myself and—maybe it was loneliness without Gloria around or something more noble—I met up with him at his locker one day not long after the Aristotle session.
“Deaner,” I said. “Where ya been all week?” As if I wasn’t the one avoiding him.
“Joe. Good to see you, man.”
Two girls walking by just then winked at me in a funny way. Oh, great.
“We gotta talk,” I said.
“Yeah, that’d be great. I’ve been doing some research.”
That was just like Dean. Not all that great at school, a monumentally poor speller, a total-panicked white-knuckled test-taker, a kid who lost his ability to speak when called on in class. But if he got something new in his head—whether it was life on Mars, the Mariana Trench, or homosexuality— he’d read some books and look stuff up on the Internet.
It was the end of the school day. I should have been out front waiting for my bus, but the truth was I didn’t want to go home and be by myself. Dean had been my friend through thick and thin. In fact, he had been my first friend when I moved here and started school. True, he had grown a little stranger over the years I’d known him. I don’t mean the gay thing. Just the way he withdrew sometimes and the way he acted.
“Let’s go get some coffee,” I said.
“Really?”
“Really,” I said. It was true; everyone would see us walking away from school. It would all be reported on someone’s idiot blog site. Someone would see us at the Second Cup as well. I, too, would be a target for the local cyber bullies and I didn’t look forward to that, but then, Dean was Dean, whatever sexual persuasion he was.
Dean wanted a cappuccino and I ordered a black coffee. I picked the table by the window for us to sit at. I was feeling defiant. As if on cue, a couple of guys from school—Tim and Devon—the two most obviously gay guys from our class, walked in and past our table. Devon just nodded but Tim gave us both a broad smile. A couple of Rachelle’s girlfriends were at a table near the back and had already had us in their sights. I figured that this pretty well sealed the deal.
“I read that it’s at least ten percent of the population,” Dean said. “Probably more.”
“Then it’s no big deal,” I said.
“Yeah, but it is. If I’m gay, it changes the way I see myself. It changes the way people see me. I’m pretty confused.”
“What exactly makes you think you are gay?” I asked.
“I like looking at guys. Not all guys. Just some guys.”
“Like who?”
“Well, like you, for example.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Sorry,” Dean replied, now looking a little embarrassed.
“Well, do you like looking at girls?”
“Some of them, too.”
“Ever make out with a guy?” I asked.
“No. But I never made out with a girl, either.”
“I’d say you’re ambivalent.”
“Oh, no. What does that mean?”
“It just means you’re uncertain,” I explained. “Maybe you are gay. Maybe straight. Maybe bisexual.”
“I’ve thought about that, too. But it seems pretty complicated. I’m confused. I’d like to know for sure.”
“Maybe it doesn’t work that way,” I tried to assure him.
He nodded toward Tim and Devon, who were trying not to stare at us. “Some people seem confident.”
“But that’s not your style. I think confusion is okay. Uncertainty is okay. I’d give it all some time before starting to change your wardrobe.”
>
“What do you mean?”
“It was sort of a joke. I mean, just take your time.”
“So if I decide that I’m sure that I’m gay, would you still be my friend?”
“Hell, yes,” I said. “Just relax and give it some time. You still thinking of being a marine biologist, or does this change things?”
“No, I’m still thinking that’s the way to go. I’d like being out on the ocean.”
I got some of those looks the next day in school. At first it bothered me and then, after a while, I got used to it. I started giving eye contact to the girls who stared and they just smiled, most of them. But when I did it to a couple of the guys, they looked right away. It was funny how it made me feel. It was like I had some kind of power over them, and that made me feel just a little more at home in the world than the day before.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Suppose someone is listening to this one hundred years from now. Suppose this is all that is left of the world I grew up in. Imagine trying to mine each entry for information about the early twenty-first century from my life, my thoughts, my lunatic ravings. If I could step outside of myself and listen to my entries from the beginning, it’s possible I would begin to detect a pattern. To my thoughts. To my tangents. To my ramblings and ravings. But, as you can see for yourself, there are many loose threads, many unanswered questions. In a random universe where lives like mine are ruled by random gods of chance and change, you keep your eyes open and watch for the next stone thrown at you.
The random universe giveth and taketh away, to use a Biblical phrase.
Gloria returned to me today. But she was an altered Gloria. And, at first, I feared I had lost her for good ... if I had ever had her at all.
Our night of sleeping together seemed to both of us like something that had happened a hundred years ago. Her eyes were kind of dull and her skin looked pale. She walked rather slowly and she slouched. She didn’t seem all that excited to see me when I caught up with her in the school hallway.
“How was your week with your mother?” I asked.
“I survived it.”
“Survival is good.”
“Not always,” she said.
“Gloria?”
“What?”
“What happened?”
The sigh. The great, hopeless human sigh. She stared at the wall.
“Please,” I said.
Another sigh. She turned towards me. “My mom already has a lawyer.”
“Divorce sucks,” I said. I had a flash of my own first parents for some reason. And I felt that twinge of anger at their loss.
All those other parents out there. All they had to do was work it out, not throw it away. The silly bastards. All they needed to do was work out the details. Not toss it away, not ruin a son or daughter.
“She wants us to move.”
“No way,” I said, feeling anger rise.
“I told her I wouldn’t move. I said I’d stay here and live with my father.”
“Is that want you want?”
“No. I said it to hurt her. I want to live with my father and my mother. She said that will never happen again.”
“You’re sixteen. You should get to decide where you live.”
“What if I have to live back and forth—one week here, one week there? Wherever there is.”
“You shouldn’t have to do that.”
“My mom made me go to the doctor. She said I should go on medication.”
“Antidepressant?”
“Yes.”
“Does it make you feel stoned?”
“No. It makes me feel a little numb. Emotionally, that is.”
“Is it better?”
“I’m still depressed. I just don’t seem to care as much.”
“Kind of takes the edge off, takes some of the hurt away?”
“It kind of takes everything away.”
“Not good.”
She shook her head. “No. Not good.”
“Stop taking it.”
“I don’t know. I may need it to get through this.”
“Come sleep with me again,” I blurted rather loudly so that a couple of our classmates heard.
At least that took her out of the fog. “Shh,” Gloria shushed me. “I can’t do that. Not now, anyway. I have to try to stay with my mom and help her through this. And I have to spend some time with my dad, who is living in an apartment over top of his friend’s garage. I have to try to let him know I still care about him, too.”
“But I want you to fall asleep with me again sometime. I want to hold you in my arms.”
She smiled now. “I loved that part.”
“I promise I’ll be good,” I heard myself say. Which I guess meant that I was offering up some code of good behavior. I wouldn’t try to turn sleeping into sex. Maybe someday but not now.
“That’s sweet,” she said.
“Gloria,” I said. “I’ll help you get through this.”
“I know you will.” And I thought she was going to kiss me on the cheek or something but instead she just hugged me. It was a good hug. She held on for what seemed like some very long seconds.
There have been a few phone calls from Dean. He’s still confused. Identity issues. Not sure one way or the other. He hasn’t discussed it with his parents. “Why let them in on my confusion?” he says. He’s started working on a list of famous gay people. He even claims Aristotle was gay. How would anyone know this? And the list continues. “James Dean. Melissa Etheridge. Elton John. Edward II of England. Peter the Great, who was a Russian czar. Rock Hudson. J. Edgar Hoover.”
I call it the Dean’s List. He’s enlightening me about famous gay people. Maybe this information will be useful to me someday if I end up on a TV game show. I decided to look some of these people up. Rock Hudson. J. Edgar Hoover. They were alive at the same time and, of course, this was before gay marriage was acceptable. But what if Rock Hudson, the suave, sophisticated Hollywood actor, had married J. Edgar Hoover, the brutish head of the FBI?
I can’t help but compare my own state of affairs to both Dean’s and Gloria’s. I am fairly secure in my sexual identity and can only begin to imagine how confused Dean must be. I mean, Dean has always been confused about almost everything, but this one must really have him befuddled. And Gloria, trying to adjust to the breakup of her parents. And then there is me. What about me?
Not gay. Dependable parents. Feeling a little stronger. But there is this thing ahead of me I have to do. Some illusory quest. I know only vaguely what it is.
I open my closet and take out the Stratocaster. It’s way out of tune. I do a rough job of tuning it. I haul out the mini-amp that’s been in there gathering dust. I never really learned to play guitar very well. I know a handful of chords. I plug in the amp. I find a guitar pick. Plug in the Strat. I hit an A-minor chord and then a G. I hit them over and over. When I look up, I realize the photo of Henry and Seal on my dresser has been lying face down. For how long, I don’t know. I set the picture back upright and look at the smiles on those faces. I look for me in their faces. I see my nose, my lips. Dad’s hair. Mom’s eyes. I keep hitting the two chords over and over. I don’t think I did a very good job tuning the guitar. And I’m back there all of a sudden. The living room of my old house in Riverside. There is a fire in the fireplace. My dad is practicing on the guitar. He’s talking about starting another band. A “garage band,” he calls it. A weekend band. My mom looks up from the book she is reading and says she thinks it’s a great idea. Dad starts to make up some words for a song he is attempting to write. He was not a very good songwriter and never a great singer. He wrote down endless fragments of songs he got in his head, most of which he never finished. I have this feeling they are in a box somewhere.
I keep hitting those two chords over and over and feel a surge of something powerful welling up within me. I can’t label this feeling. I really can’t. All I know is that it scares the hell out of me. So I stop playing. Unplug the amp. Put the Strat
back into the case.
For the hell of it, I Google my name on the Internet. There is, of course, nothing posted about me. I am a nobody. But nonetheless “Joseph Campbell” brings some interesting results. Joseph and his brother founded the Campbell Soup Company in Camden, New Jersey, in 1897. Not long before they went into the business and turned the Delaware River red with leftover tomato pulp, most people thought tomatoes were poisonous. It’s a funny world, this one we live in.
But then there is the other Joseph Campbell. Born March 26, 1904, in White Plains, New York. Died October 30, 1987. An author. Had something to do with mythology and world religions. There is a quote there by him. “Mythology is often referred to as other people’s religions, and religion can be defined as misinterpreted mythology.” What the hell does that mean? I try to make some sense of the write-up here. It seems that Mr. Campbell pissed some people off by writing that all religions are concerned with the search for the ultimate source from which everything comes. And here’s the kicker. That source is “unknowable” because it existed before words or knowledge. Oh, boy, I think. These are large ideas. But the “unknowable” part starts to make some crazy kind of sense to me. I swallow hard. There is something else here. My eyes go blurry.
There is a list of books the man wrote, this other Joe Campbell, the one who did not produce tomato soup. The titles sound academic and totally unfamiliar. All except for one. I feel something akin to an electric shock race down my spine. I see my father sitting on the floor of the living room with handwritten pages scattered around him. Those fragments of lyrics for songs that will never be finished.
And I see my mother again, sitting in a chair by a lamp. She is reading a book.
I stand up and realize I am sweating. I can feel it dripping down from my armpits. I leave my room and go down two flights. The house is empty. I’m home alone. I open up a closet in the basement. A place I’ve been avoiding for years. I turn on an overhead light with the string hanging down. The unlabeled boxes are stacked neatly. There is dust. I know which box I am looking for. It is different from the rest. It once held a television set. The TV that once sat in my old living room. The TV is long gone but the box is still here. It’s heavier than I expect as I pick it up, set it down on the floor, and open it. More dust.
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