I am now 19, a bit over 2 years removed from when I first got my license: the suburban liberation. It was that way in the movies- the turning point in a young man’s life is when he gets his first set of wheels. I am 19 now but can vividly remember my first drive on my own. It was in the same rusty Chevrolet that still barely gets by. I could go anywhere that my spirit would let me when I sat behind the wheel. I could drive far away from everything- leave it all behind. But instead, I went to the grocery store; the one I would normally walk to from my house. It was a two maybe three minute drive, a short and quick little bout to a spot that would take me about 15 minutes to walk to. I could go anywhere in the world, yet I chose the place I always go to: the grocery store.
I was hoping to pick up my favorite snack for after a concert that I was planning on attending that night. It was an old folk singer named Stephen Vonnegut who fell out of favor with the beat poets, but still grew to prominence in New York in the late 50s. I listened to him incessantly when I was younger because he made me feel mature. It would be my first ever concert, and I was heading there alone. In my mind I hoped I would meet someone who loved Stephen Vonnegut for the same reasons I did and would embrace me and tell me that they loved me and thought I was cool or something. Maybe Stephen Vonnegut would acknowledge me. Maybe I’d come off as mysterious and nonchalant, but someone who looks like they know their place in the world and who wears their heart on their sleeve. Wouldn’t that be dumb. I knew in reality I would probably lean against a wall, bobbing my head, and talking to no one.
I wanted my first drive with a license to be to the concert, but admittedly my head was in a bad place, and I thought maybe I’d feel better if my first drive was a little more familiar. Albeit a grocery store was a pretty boring first drive. Though, I was always fascinated by the general landscape of grocery stores- a strangely majestic place. The most boring beige building with almost no windows and one central door held the substance of people’s lives. What that substance was you could determine for yourself inside, a unique experience in every shopping spree… as their marketing suggests. As I stepped out of the creaky car door I was struck by the awe of a beautiful sunset, blots of pinks and purples and oranges and yellows. Straight from some sublime Monet painting. Every time I went to the grocery store, the sun appeared brilliantly against the neutral storefront. I couldn’t tell if this was relative- the brilliance of the sun against the monotony of the store. Maybe it was just something about this store that made the sun glow brighter. Maybe I’m just romantic. Who was I to say?
“Welcome to Saver’s Mart, home of your grocery needs!”
I was greeted with this as I walked past the automatic doors. I knew the place like the back of my hand, and I never wanted to waste time speaking to the old greeter who would subtly judge me as they repeated their script as the next customer shoved past. Nods towards my clothes, my hair, my appearance. Like they could see something that I wasn’t showing. I hated it. I also kind of weirdly believed I didn’t have time for small courtesies because I had recently discovered something that totally consumed my mind: Friedrich Nietzsche. I found a copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra at a rummage sale and never realized a book could say what Nietzsche had to say about, well, everything. Living to be your best self and killing the God in your mind sounded amazing to a confused 17-year-old. There was so much to think about that I ignored the important things, and that would soon become clear.
I walked briskly on the yellow stained linoleum floor. Past the cash registers. Past the snack aisle. Towards the alcohol section that was always well stocked. When I reached the untouched non-alcoholic spritzer, I took a right into the frozen goods. I was looking for my favorite snack. Though, “looking” would be the wrong word as I knew exactly where it was and how to get it. Maybe “securing” would be a better word? Who knows. I didn’t care. I walked with a purpose down the frozen goods aisle searching for pistachio gelato- ice cream for pretentious people. For me.
“Is that who I think it is?”
My head jerked suddenly down the aisle. Past the cheeses, creams, and butters. A small hand was holding a container of something off-brand. That hand is connected to a frail arm connected to a face I had not seen in years: Mrs. Joyce.
Noel Joyce was my middle school friend, and frankly my only childhood friend. I was the weird kid with a peanut allergy and so I sat alone at the allergy table until a mid-year transfer student with the same affliction was forced to sit next to me. We liked the same things: video games, old music, playing instruments, good books. Things we thought made us mature.
When I first met Noel, it was in a weird spot in his life because his father died about a year prior, and his mother moved on rather quickly, picking them up across the country and putting them down in my little suburb. I could tell Noel had weird suspicions about his new stepdad. He wouldn’t even call him ‘stepdad’, just Mr. Greg. Incredibly formal and very unfatherly. Mr. Greg would try to win over Noel’s affection by buying him video games and forcing him to listen to Steely Dan for mandated bonding time. Noel never bought into it. I thought it was sincere. Sometimes I wished Mr. Greg was my dad because he acted like a kid who was trying to impress another kid. As a kid I was impressed.
Noel always had this tall and powerful demeanor to him, and a very sensitive soul behind a handsome face- something I picked up on very quickly. He deeply cared about his interests and the world, and he could do these amazing things at a piano that I had seen no one do before. I could sit in awe for hours as he improvised jazz chords and passing melodies. He’d play at our church, and I’d sing as a cantor. Only when he was my accompaniment. We would talk about how mature we were for being such strong musicians and how girls could never understand something like that. I was beginning to think that despite what everyone had told me, I maybe wasn’t interested in girls. There was something about Noel that interested me, and I spent as much time as I could walking to his house to play games and listen to him on the piano.
His mother, Mrs. Joyce, the widowed and remarried wife of Mr. Greg was a very nice lady who looked exactly like her mini shih tzu dogs. She had this short disheveled blonde hair that made her look like she was struck by lightning or something. She also had these massive librarian glasses; she must’ve been blind as a bat beneath those thick lenses. She looked exactly like I remembered as she said my name in that grocery store freezer aisle. I hadn’t talked to her since the end of my time in middle school. Noel and I were going to different high schools, and the last time we saw each other was at his older brother’s high school graduation.
His older brother, Clark Joyce, was going to Purdue to become a computer engineer- an incredibly competitive program from what I was told. Clark had been a bit of a high school shut-in from what I could gather. He never had a girlfriend, got a driver’s license, or held down a part-time job. Instead, he would code his own video games and make weird things in his room.
About halfway into Clark’s graduation party, Clark had finished making his rounds of mingling and slumped on to a couch next to me and Noel. His mother, Mrs. Joyce, came behind and asked him why he wasn’t talking to the pretty girl she had invited on his behalf. Clark gave her a sardonic sort of look and became enthralled with his phone. His mother began to pester him more that he never dated, never asked anyone out, never even showed interest in girls even when they went out of their way to come to his graduation party.
“I don’t need to prove my worth by being with someone. I’m fine on my own.” said Clark in an almost piercing tone in a clear attempt to ignore his mother. A short silence followed.
“I think he’s a faggot,” Noel whispered to me out of earshot from Clack and his mother. I was shocked that such a vulgar word could leave such sensitive lips.
“But that’s fine, isn’t it?” I questioned back at the suddenness of his statement. A sweat took control of my face, and I imagine a concerned pink blush painted my cheeks. My parents had said things like that about Clark before, but Noel loved his brother, how could he say such a thing?
“I don’t know. But he’s gotta be a fag.” I remember Noel responding before silence took hold of the conversation between the two of us. I went home and cried later that day and I stopped seeing Noel, seeing his potentially gay brother Clark, seeing his Steely Dan loving Step-Dad Mr. Greg, and seeing his mother Mrs. Joyce. I vowed not to cry over anyone again the way I cried over Noel.
But now Mrs. Joyce was staring at me in the store. I had my nails painted, dyed black hair, cuffed jeans, and a rainbow pin on my jean jacket. I dressed like this on the off-chance that someone else who was queer could see my bat-signal and know that I was one of them. It was kind of dumb, but it felt reassuring to me- up until the moment Mrs. Joyce saw me wearing this outfit.
“How have you been- it’s been years since you and Noel saw each other!” Mrs. Joyce chimed from her end of the aisle. I was in my alternative nihilism fake-internet-goth phase and I didn’t want her to think I was cheery, and more importantly I didn’t want her to know that I think about her son. I asked myself what Nietzsche would do- maybe he would say that he stared down into the abyss, facing the nothingness and found joy in his own apathy. That would sound cool to say, and she definitely wouldn’t appreciate it.
“I am doing alright thanks.”
-Shit. That was lame- I thought this to myself as I attempted to turn my head away from her, inspecting the frozen food to avoid her. I knew I couldn’t- shouldn’t- avoid her, she already acknowledged me and was probably starting to perceive me. I worried she’d go home and tell Noel she saw me and my look, and he’d think that his middle school friend was a faggot like his brother.
“How have you been Mrs. Joyce?” I asked somewhat hesitantly as I turned my head back towards her. If I wanted any control over how Noel thinks about me- a futile exercise- I needed to be proactive in this conversation with his mother.
“We’ve been doing well! Noel is thinking about going to Ohio State for marching band and biology, he’s still so into his music! How about you, honey, still singing?” She said this to me as if she was excited to see me, something I wasn’t exactly used to.
“Still singing- I’m in a musical this year, actually. I’m trying for an acting and vocal performance program in a conservatory a bit North.” I don’t know why I felt like these details were necessary for her, but I think I felt more mature when I told her I had equally grand plans as Noel- even if I knew I wouldn’t go through with them.
“That’s fantastic! I think Noel was always impressed with your voice, that’s something he could never do, stand in front of a Church and sing his guts out for people, wear his heart on his sleeve. It’s a talent you got!”
After she said this, I thanked her, but I didn’t know how to move on. I was terrible at accepting compliments, especially from the mother of a childhood friend who I always wished thought of me as more than a friend. I knew it was silly, and I was holding on to a past I chose to make distant. Erasing those memories and thinking about big ideas, like Nietzsche, was what was really important to me at that moment. I didn’t want to remember, and my emotions seemed distant and something I could do without. I bet Nietzsche would think that was something cool to say. Yet I knew I had to continue our brief conversation.
“And how’s Clark doing?” I asked out of curiosity- both for his sexuality and for his time at Purdue. I really wanted to know if her son was actually a faggot like me or if Noel had been rude for no good reason all that time ago.
“They… actually dropped out. They’re making a video game now, but I don’t see them much. They say it’s best for themself. They’re living with a lot of friends now.”
As Mrs. Joyce said that I knew what must’ve been left unspoken. I could imagine Clark was living the twenty-first century white-queer identity struggle. The polyamorous genderqueer anarchomarxist d.i.y. punk house or something. Where everyone was creative all the time and everyone drank and smoked weed while talking about messed up capitalism is. The picture was so clear in my head- I imagined a that Clark ran away, left their past behind, and became the Übermensch… maybe the Über-ihnen? A person who could be proud of dropping their labels and just living authentically. They didn’t need to live in the restraints of a society. It sounded like my dream: likeminded queer people who all deeply cared about the creativity of one another. A room full of Über-ihnen… or something Nietzschean. Nietzsche would probably hate that I describe stuff this way, though. Plus this was just all in my head.
“That sounds nice… I hope they’re doing alright, say Hi to Noel and Mr. Greg for me, please.” I said after a brief pause.
“I haven’t heard that one in a while- Mr. Greg. Noel just calls him Dad now.” Mrs. Joyce smiled and finally placed her item in her cart and made her way back down the aisle from where she came from. I never ended up grabbing what I was looking for, the pretentious ice cream or whatever. I walked back out to my car past the old greeter as Nietzsche and Noel and Clark swirled around in my head. I stared at the magnificent sunset illuminating the parking lot. I wanted things to change, but I stopped for a second and appreciated where I was against the layers of orange and pink and purple that were painting the sky.
I cried. For the first time in years. I didn’t like to let myself cry. It was emotional, loose, dirty. If I cried, I admitted guilt to something. I was stoic, I was strong, I was too smart to cry just like I assumed Friedrich Nietzsche was. But it felt good. I needed it. It felt like my skin was one large callus being rolled back in layers until the fresh pinkness beneath was revealed. I couldn’t handle what was inside, so all I did was cry.
As every tear left my eye I felt as if the music of memory flooded my Chevrolet. Beautiful piano melodies like Noel used to play. Rachmaninoff. Chopin. Gershwin. I was reminded that when Noel wasn’t there when I sang at church how I was made fun of for my high voice by my male classmates, but loved by the old mature men who lingered too long around children. Old men passing by who would accidentally grab my shoulder, touch my ass, graze my neck. I felt safe with Noel, and I hadn’t let myself ever move on and feel safe with someone else. It was too much to take as symphonies continued to descend down my cheeks. I don’t think I ever told anyone about the old men at the church, and I don’t know why.
Later that night I rescinded the new usage of my driver’s license briefly as my mother drove me to a psych ward where I stayed for a week. I missed the concert. I wanted to change for the better and that was the only first step I knew how to take. It was a good first step, but still only a step. I am 19 now and realize that better is unattainable, but I think since then I’ve learned to live with what I am. I’ve had a date or two and didn’t feel like I was unworthy to be there. I’ll call that progress.
But the one thing I can’t move on from is that Noel went to that concert on the night I went to the psych ward. We both loved old music like that. The concert would end with nearly 50 people dead from a mass shooter who went on to kill himself. Cold blood. If I was at that concert I would’ve seen Noel again, failed love and all, and I maybe could have embraced him before he died. I could have told him how I once felt, how I saw his mom earlier, how I hope his fag sibling Clark was doing well. But I couldn’t. I felt like saving my life was taking his. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help myself. I missed his funeral as I was in the psych ward. I heard the cantor at his mass was one of the old men who lingered around the young boys, and everyone said the old man was so touching for memorializing a saintly young boy, gone too soon.
My mother told me about the homily the priest said that day. He began by muttering the word “hagiography”. The story of the life of a saint. He called Noel a martyr, but I don’t know what Noel died for. I don’t know if anyone knew what Noel died for, if anything at all. My mom teared up as she described how the priest pointed up, implying that in heaven the angels must be glad to gain a musician worthy of their ears. My mom said they played a recording of me singing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, with Noel accompanying me on the keys.
I am 19 now and understand that Noel was never gay and maybe Clark wasn’t either, but it didn’t matter. We all live individual lives and how we ram into each other like unbound bumper cars is all just chance. Maybe from a God. Maybe not. If there was a God, I hoped they weren’t anything like the old men of my church, the ones who lingered around the young boys. I was 17 and gay and didn’t know what mattered. I am 19 now and I still like the grocery store sunsets, Mrs. Joyce’s shih tzu face, Mr. Greg’s Steely Dan obsession, and Noel’s music. I don’t like linoleum floors, beige walls, or Nietzsche. I still drive that beat up gray Chevrolet. I still wonder what really matters, but all I know for certain is that Noel mattered even if the world never got to see what he could become. And I guess the best I can do is to keep on singing.
Sean Ogrosky is a current undergraduate student with majors in Writing-Intensive English and Public Relations.
Ogrosky says about his piece: “This piece first started as a prompt for a brief writing journal for a class with Dr. Flack. This piece took inspiration from many places, including medieval saints lives tales, Kushner’s Angels in America, and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.”
“Two Women”, The Book of the Homeless, edited by Edith Wharton (1916).