There's nothing quite like the feel of something new, and I know this because Carlis and I used to drive around DC in the middle of the night singing along with Nine Inch Nails at the top of our lungs. It was 1990 or '91 somewhere across the winter between the two and the year I learned how to say fuck perfectly -- round and coy with a bit of bounce on the k. Playful like. And with the insinuation of a perfect smile, which neither Carlis nor I actually had, but that's okay, because sharks lie.
I don't remember how Carlis and I met, although it was probably at a club and probably Tracks at that. But I do remember that for a little while he chose me in a terribly particular way no one else ever really has. Not before. And not since.
Back when I was a kid, I was always missing out on the good stuff. At least it seemed that way, and it was probably even marginally true. I had a bedtime of seven when it was at least nine for all my classmates, and I didn't have peers so much as my parents' friends who were never as veiled as they thought they were when they talked about swingers' parties and their ex-playmate girlfriends, while my parents, as lost socially as I would later be, just smiled tightly and nodded as I ate my vegetables.
Stories are currency for the lonely, so I learned the world and managed not to miss the '70s by saying I was afraid of the dark and sleeping with the door to my bedroom cracked open just enough to hear the tales I'd been exiled from. I'm afraid to say that it mostly left me wanting nightclubs and VIP rooms and a range of unfortunate upholstery.
Carlis used to come to my dorm to watch me try on club clothes before we went out.
"You," he said, "are going to be my Edie Sedgwick, but nothing terrible will happen. Not for us. I promise."
He would drawl it, and I always grinned and nodded rapidly as if I had the faintest idea who Edie Sedgwick was. I didn't, but Carlis wasn't ever really paying enough attention to care, and that was fine - really, really fine - because I didn't need his attention, I just needed him to save me from begging for tiddlywinks. That is not a euphemism for anything.
Slightly transparent tiddlywinks in a rich blue were, you see, the token needed to get into the VIP lounge at one of the clubs we, along with our friends Cat and Nik, frequented. Carlis made sure I looked good, and Carlis made sure everyone knew we were all with him: the fat girl from New Jersey who spoke such lovely French; the awkward stoner from Bakersfield, California who was a terrible dancer; and me, who lived those nights with such yearning I stank of it.
But when Carlis and his fabulous cheekbones received a token for the VIP room, he always snapped his fingers and stared down the queen with the box 'til the rest of us got ours too, and I will never stop being grateful to him for that, even though it was a child's game, even though it didn't matter, even though I will probably never entirely believe that.
This year I went to Dragon*Con for the first time, and I was a Guest. It wasn't my first con, but it was certainly my first con with major non-literary celebrity guests, and it was certainly the biggest con I've ever been a Guest at. And oh I was proud, and pride, you know, always goes before the fall, even of the most private sorts: I have a million unbelievably fucked up stories about Dragon*Con and not a one of them actually involves me.
Because I spent Dragon*Con looking for the cool parties and not even being able to catch an elevator in the criminally busy Marriott to get to the Green Room.
In fact, I led people on a wild goose chase for the cool parties that had us waiting in line for the lameness that was the Mad Scientists Ball (DrinkBot 2000 is not serving drinks to you); loitering briefly at the Pirate Party; being stymied by the sound problems at the Browncoat Ball (which felt like crashing a wake); and missing the celebrity guest appearance at the Yule Ball, all before winding up camped out in the Marriott bar several hours and a couple of days too late listening to other people's tales of celebrity shenanigans that if no less ridiculous than my own failed attempts at awesome, at least sounded a hell of a lot more efficient (which, oddly, isn't saying much).
As I listened to it all, I tried to be fabulous and never blink, never miss anything and always, always keep a watch out of the corner of my eye for the story I felt sure must really and truly be coming to choose me.
It was the way I used to keep my eye out for the queen with the box of tiddlywinks on Sunday nights in downtown DC, and I found I desperately missed Carlis and the random pride he insisted on showing in me and my misfit friends back when he was beautiful and we were not.
I wanted to lounge against him again and tell him what it was like, sitting on the floor of my bedroom in the dark of 1979, peering through a crack in the door to watch television and hear the stories - that I was too young to realize weren't cool at all - of the grasping desires of my parents' friends.
You see, Carlis chose me. And I don't know why, and I doubt it was with much intent and certainly no long term interest (we lost touch within a year), but it was something unique in my experience: like the way Robert Redford once bought my mother a drink.
Maybe it's being raised a girl-child, but it's like my cells can't help but turn anything they can into an audition, and Carlis chose me for no good reason and no particular purpose when I was an awkward virgin with acne and a desire to be more so strong it always made me less. So in my mind that will always have been kind of him.
The truth, of course, though, is that I actually get chosen all the time. I know that now. Hell, I got chosen when I asked Steve to the prom before I'd ever even met Carlis, and I got chosen when I asked Patty to live with me. I get chosen - maybe the way men do - when people say yes. I'm not sure. It is something I'm still learning.
But I am learning it, and maybe that's what's important. Because I was able to wish people well on adventures that were absolutely not mine to have at Dragon*Con and say to Patty, let's go home; let's go to bed.
And we did. In the dark. In a strange city. In the midst of stories that happened to be hunting other people that night. And I didn't need Carlis's help or a crack in the door to do it at all. Because Patty had smiled at me. And said yes.
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marchek
