.. vim: set syntax=rst nosmartindent spell spelllang=en_us: It's really late, and I'm tired, but I want to write this down. =============================================================== Tonight after work I rode with McCall to Rich's, that gay club in the warehouse district. Penny and I used to go there; we thought we were so edgy. Two straight teenage kids driving into the big city and dancing like uncoordinated maniacs in a gay club. We were so innocent. * Add more detail about how Penny and me would come here. Add more notes about how oppressive the small town where we lived really was. Talk about it in terms of foreshadowing for why Luke also was so miserable and had to hide his nature. Maybe I always tag along when McCall mentions he's going to Rich's because some part of me holds out hope I'll run into Penny there. And the nostalgia from when we were younger and infatuated with each other will hit like a wave and we'll be back together again. Yeah, that's almost certainly why I always go. Tonight after we got in, I got a bottle of water from the bar. I watched McCall and Jake move right away into the crowded dance floor. McCall is like 40 something years old, but he dances with such innocent joy. I think this place has that effect on everyone though. This is maybe the only place in the world where I don't feel too awkward to dance. Maybe it is because I'm not here to meet anyone, or impress anybody; I just listen to some loud music and lose myself for a little bit. I think if there were cute girls here, I would get self-conscious and paranoid. But they're not here! Just an army of dudes, all in tight shirts, and so many of them are bald, all dancing silly. I still have to psych myself up a bit before I can dance stupid on the dance floor though. So I walked to a different spot. During the walk through the crowd some guy touched my chin and whispered "damn" and smiled and we shared a glance and I smiled back at him. I kinda love those flirtations. When somebody that has their shit together shows an attraction, it feels nice. I turned back to the dance floor and I watched McCall, twirling around, moving his hands like some kind of flamenco dancer on way too much crank. I was grinning, reflecting his glee. I heard McCall say on the drive over that dancing at gay clubs feels like recess. I love that idea. McCall looked up at me, and then waved, and Jake waved at me too, and I waved back. Then I saw that right next to the two of them, the guy that was dancing was Luke! As in, Luke, the kid that I was totally best friends with until he moved away! Almost every day after junior high, he and I used to ride bikes and talk. Tonight, Luke was wearing a tight tank top (which is pretty much the uniform here), and had crazy short hair (also very much the uniform), and lots of earrings, but it was definitely him! I watched Luke dance and it made me so happy. Back when we were young, I never got why he was so quiet. He seemed to have everything: his mom was such a cool lady, and girls at school always told him how cute he was. I never got why he wanted to hang out with me of all people, but I was thrilled to have somebody that liked listening to my weird ideas. And watching him tonight, it all became clear to me. Of course Luke was gay. Dang. In our shitty one truck stop town, that must have been so hard! Now I remember kids picking on him. Even calling him slurs. And yet I had absolutely zero suspicion. Dang. I'm really naive. Now he's here, tonight, grinning, writhing like a snake, eyes closed. He's safe here and loving every minute of it. I went to the floor, stood in front of him and then I touched his shoulder, and it was such a joyful moment to watch his face go from puzzled to maybe a little annoyed at maybe getting hit on and then him seeing me and recognizing me. We hugged and he kissed my check and the music was so loud I couldn't hear him laughing but I felt it. Luke and I went upstairs, and we must have talked for like two hours. He was just the same as I remember, but louder. I mostly listened to him talk. He is doing really well! He doesn't live here; he's in town to visit his mother. He lives in MacArthur now (of course, because that's where all the cool people move to). He said he could tell when we were young I had no clue at all. I really didn't! Now looking back it was all totally obvious. Then he asked me if I ever published any of my stories. I had no idea what he was talking about. He looked shocked. Then I remembered what he was talking about. I used to write science fiction stories and I would talk about plot lines and characters and imaginary inventions on our bike rides, or when we would go to the woods to explore. He told me that to this day he still thinks about one of my stories. He repeated it back to me because I couldn't remember it. * Change this next part to use dialog between me and Luke to describe the story. * Also explain WHY Luke remembered the story. One easy explanation: he sees society first programmed to hate gay people, and then suddenly programmed to not hate them any more. He's amazed and disgusted by how malleable everyone is. It was about a kid that notices how TV is controlling everyone around him. All the kids in school repeat lines from TV shows without even realizing it. People repeat jokes and everyone laughs but the jokes aren't funny. They often don't even make any sense. And it goes the other direction too -- he notices lots of people wearing the same strange hat one day and then that night he sees the hat in a bunch of TV shows. Nobody believes him when he tries to point it out. He feels totally alone. Then one day he hears somebody yelling how TV is programming everyone's brains, and he sees a crowd gathered in a circle, so he pushed to the center of the circle, and everyone is looking into a shop with a bunch of TVs, and the voice is from a new trailer for a new TV show about a kid that thinks television is mind control. I think I said out loud something like "That REALLY IS a FUCKING GREAT STORY!" I totally forgot about all of that. But now I remember all the spiral notebooks, full of sketches and story ideas and notes. Yeah, what a night. We exchanged phone numbers. He said how he didn't like a lot of growing up, but he loved when we used to spend time together, even though he could tell I had absolutely no idea what was going on with him. We hugged again, and he whispered in my ear something that I could barely understand. I think he said something like "you're a beautiful fucking genius" and he kissed my cheek again. Maybe that's not what he said. I didn't want to throw off the moment and ask him to repeat it. If that's not what he said, well, anything else is gonna be a disappointment, so that's what I'm going with. He ran back to the dance floor and I left with McCall. My cheek feels nice. Not like if Penny kissed it, but it's still really nice.