Im making a written record of these events because, well, I’m not really sure why. Maybe so someone will believe me, maybe because I am not sure *I* believe me. And the way things are going, well...
My name is Daniel Brown. And my life has taken a strange turn.
To this day, I don’t have any idea at all of what triggered it, beyond perhaps a long simmering desire, held deep in my subconscious, to be like them.
Like the rippled, sexy, carefree boys I saw, the ones in high school for whom gym class wasn’t a fresh hell each day, the ones for whom social interaction was simple, the ones whose brains weren’t working overtime over analyzing everything, the ones whose bulging crotches meant never being pee shy or being tormented by classmates. Like the college guys who suddenly grew tall and lean in the middle and bulky where it counted, and who could relax and grab a tan in the quad or play frisbee or just...be. Not throw themselves into academics or hide in the theatre or computer lab.
So much unlike me. Mousy brown hair that tended to get unruly. Unremarkable skinny bod until puberty hit, then tall but pudgy. Never in shape. Plagued by asthma and allergies, eating badly out of habit and poverty, overworked by the time I was seventeen. My family..well, they tried, but any good my parents attempted was usually undermined by the toxic dynamics of the Brown family. Poor, drunk, white trash, most of them, and Mom’s family wa snot much better — she sadly remarked once that she and dad had both managed to marry up. The two had found each other and saw an escape from the relentless Fox News MAGA bigoted nonsense that their families constantly spewed. Unfortunately, they both believed in family obligations, so every holiday was spent exposed to that toxic stew of ignorance and hatred and blind religious intolerance.
College set me free of my family and looked like it might finally pay off my investment, but aside from a bit of parental pride, there wasn’t much support. I was still poor, and overworked, and out of shape. If anything, it got worse, and while I made some good friends, I went to a big school and tended to get lost in the shuffle. I stayed shy, because I knew I’d always be outshone by the boys in the quad, or the talents on stage. So I worked hard at class, did tech for theatre, and worked night jobs to cover my bills, barely. I think I went to two parties in all of college, and never got asked out on a date. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to ask anyone else, because I had no free time and nothing to offer physically. I wasn’t exactly self loathing, but near enough to see it from my window. I just knew, in a gut level, that if they were casting an average guy to make the star look better, I’d be passed over for the other folks at the audition, because they didn’t want quite THAT generic.
Graduation was fast approaching, and my birthday was a few days after. I’d saved up enough money for a weekend at the beach, where my entire plan was to go out, have drinks, play skeeball, and watch the sexy bodies parade around in almost nothing from behind my dark sunglasses.
My parents threw a little party, but none of my college friends were close enough that they could attend — most lived out of state, or so I told my family. In fact, I hadn’t asked more than two people, my friend Jane, who was in similar straits with a poor and embarrassing family, and Chris, whose family really did live out of state. I was almost shocked when both of them suggested that they were up for joining me at the beach, and Chris had a place we could stay for the week. So instead of wasting money on a crappy motel and risking bedbugs, we would use Chris’s family time share place.
I’d met Jane and Chris freshman weekend, and he was .. well, unlike anyone else I’d met personally. His family were wealthy, he was kind of cute and fit, and on the surface, he had it all, but he’d been abused as a child before being adopted by the Marshalls. The scars ran deep, I could tell, but I never pressed him and he seems to appreciate that. We weren’t best buds, but we had been roommates junior and senior year and we got along okay. Both quiet and studious. And Jane, well, I think she had a crush on Chris, and I wasn’t sure if he felt the same, because he was so emotionally closed off. Friendly but a bit mysterious. I appreciated both of them, but it would be a stretch to say we were super close.
And so, with three hundred bucks to my name, a disappointing family gathering (where any momentary joy was summarily squashed by an overbearing drunk uncle who was unimpressed by “nerd stuff”), and a long overnight bus ride later, I was sitting in Starbucks with a cheap duffel bag full of clothes and my usual black backpack. It was hot already, but it had begun to drizzle when I got off the bus, and was promising to be overcast all weekend, now, unless something changed.
Waiting. Waiting for my friends to arrive, waiting for my iced coffee, waiting for my life to begin. Staring into my coffee and wondering where to go from here.lost in my own little sad world.
My cranky old cel phone blooped a text message.
Hey doofus. Look out the window.
There they were, being silly, making faces through the window. A genuine smile managed to force its way onto my face.
We greeted each other warmly, and even though they’d driven down, they were up for grabbing cold drinks before we drove over to the condo, so we sat and chatted about nothing for a bit. I remember being envious of Chris, because as usual he was wearing board shorts, sandals, and a worn out old white camp button down shirt, which he didn’t have closed, and his modest pecs and abs were showing. He wasn’t tan, yet, but he would be soon. And Jane, bless her, had oversized sunglasses and was wearing a nice blue sundress.
Jane ran off to pee before we left, and as we tossed our trash, Chris leaned over and said something, almost uncomfortably close to my ear.
“Man, I have this feeling. I dunno.. Like something is finally going to happen this weekend.”
“You and Jane?”
But he didn’t get a chance to answer because, well, Jane popped up.
We squeezed into his car — some kind of Jeep thing, I was never good at that stuff — and headed off.
I remained quiet as they chattered excitedly, but I was thinking that things may have soured. Not unexpected, really, but if the weekend was going to be all two of them getting together, I wasn’t really thrilled about being a third wheel.
Little did I know.
My name is Daniel Brown. And my life has taken a strange turn.
To this day, I don’t have any idea at all of what triggered it, beyond perhaps a long simmering desire, held deep in my subconscious, to be like them.
Like the rippled, sexy, carefree boys I saw, the ones in high school for whom gym class wasn’t a fresh hell each day, the ones for whom social interaction was simple, the ones whose brains weren’t working overtime over analyzing everything, the ones whose bulging crotches meant never being pee shy or being tormented by classmates. Like the college guys who suddenly grew tall and lean in the middle and bulky where it counted, and who could relax and grab a tan in the quad or play frisbee or just...be. Not throw themselves into academics or hide in the theatre or computer lab.
So much unlike me. Mousy brown hair that tended to get unruly. Unremarkable skinny bod until puberty hit, then tall but pudgy. Never in shape. Plagued by asthma and allergies, eating badly out of habit and poverty, overworked by the time I was seventeen. My family..well, they tried, but any good my parents attempted was usually undermined by the toxic dynamics of the Brown family. Poor, drunk, white trash, most of them, and Mom’s family wa snot much better — she sadly remarked once that she and dad had both managed to marry up. The two had found each other and saw an escape from the relentless Fox News MAGA bigoted nonsense that their families constantly spewed. Unfortunately, they both believed in family obligations, so every holiday was spent exposed to that toxic stew of ignorance and hatred and blind religious intolerance.
College set me free of my family and looked like it might finally pay off my investment, but aside from a bit of parental pride, there wasn’t much support. I was still poor, and overworked, and out of shape. If anything, it got worse, and while I made some good friends, I went to a big school and tended to get lost in the shuffle. I stayed shy, because I knew I’d always be outshone by the boys in the quad, or the talents on stage. So I worked hard at class, did tech for theatre, and worked night jobs to cover my bills, barely. I think I went to two parties in all of college, and never got asked out on a date. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to ask anyone else, because I had no free time and nothing to offer physically. I wasn’t exactly self loathing, but near enough to see it from my window. I just knew, in a gut level, that if they were casting an average guy to make the star look better, I’d be passed over for the other folks at the audition, because they didn’t want quite THAT generic.
Graduation was fast approaching, and my birthday was a few days after. I’d saved up enough money for a weekend at the beach, where my entire plan was to go out, have drinks, play skeeball, and watch the sexy bodies parade around in almost nothing from behind my dark sunglasses.
My parents threw a little party, but none of my college friends were close enough that they could attend — most lived out of state, or so I told my family. In fact, I hadn’t asked more than two people, my friend Jane, who was in similar straits with a poor and embarrassing family, and Chris, whose family really did live out of state. I was almost shocked when both of them suggested that they were up for joining me at the beach, and Chris had a place we could stay for the week. So instead of wasting money on a crappy motel and risking bedbugs, we would use Chris’s family time share place.
I’d met Jane and Chris freshman weekend, and he was .. well, unlike anyone else I’d met personally. His family were wealthy, he was kind of cute and fit, and on the surface, he had it all, but he’d been abused as a child before being adopted by the Marshalls. The scars ran deep, I could tell, but I never pressed him and he seems to appreciate that. We weren’t best buds, but we had been roommates junior and senior year and we got along okay. Both quiet and studious. And Jane, well, I think she had a crush on Chris, and I wasn’t sure if he felt the same, because he was so emotionally closed off. Friendly but a bit mysterious. I appreciated both of them, but it would be a stretch to say we were super close.
And so, with three hundred bucks to my name, a disappointing family gathering (where any momentary joy was summarily squashed by an overbearing drunk uncle who was unimpressed by “nerd stuff”), and a long overnight bus ride later, I was sitting in Starbucks with a cheap duffel bag full of clothes and my usual black backpack. It was hot already, but it had begun to drizzle when I got off the bus, and was promising to be overcast all weekend, now, unless something changed.
Waiting. Waiting for my friends to arrive, waiting for my iced coffee, waiting for my life to begin. Staring into my coffee and wondering where to go from here.lost in my own little sad world.
My cranky old cel phone blooped a text message.
Hey doofus. Look out the window.
There they were, being silly, making faces through the window. A genuine smile managed to force its way onto my face.
We greeted each other warmly, and even though they’d driven down, they were up for grabbing cold drinks before we drove over to the condo, so we sat and chatted about nothing for a bit. I remember being envious of Chris, because as usual he was wearing board shorts, sandals, and a worn out old white camp button down shirt, which he didn’t have closed, and his modest pecs and abs were showing. He wasn’t tan, yet, but he would be soon. And Jane, bless her, had oversized sunglasses and was wearing a nice blue sundress.
Jane ran off to pee before we left, and as we tossed our trash, Chris leaned over and said something, almost uncomfortably close to my ear.
“Man, I have this feeling. I dunno.. Like something is finally going to happen this weekend.”
“You and Jane?”
But he didn’t get a chance to answer because, well, Jane popped up.
We squeezed into his car — some kind of Jeep thing, I was never good at that stuff — and headed off.
I remained quiet as they chattered excitedly, but I was thinking that things may have soured. Not unexpected, really, but if the weekend was going to be all two of them getting together, I wasn’t really thrilled about being a third wheel.
Little did I know.
