venturing backward: the engine driver (written December 13, 2014)

a post from my old blog “venturing backward”

I knew this was one of my last real Rochester summers. I knew a day would come when people wouldn’t be home in the summer anymore.

An era would emerge when we’d all really grow up. We’d live in other cities, in other states, in other countries.

I was afraid of that. It was hard to imagine the new friendships I’d build in college.

Sometimes, it felt like the universe was ending.

I wanted to make sure I enjoyed this graduation summer. I wanted to make sure I built the strongest foundations possible with my high school friends.

These were relationships I couldn’t allow to die in adulthood. They were friendships that existed despite all I had done as a Christian fundamentalist to destroy them just a year and a half earlier. They were infinitely valuable.

All through July, I would go over to Kate’s with Jess, Amy, and others. Sometimes, we would all watch Sex and the City for a few hours. They always commented on how funny it was that I joined them. But it wasn’t about the show for me; it was about spending time with my friends.

Sometimes Kate and I would have Sealab 2021marathons in her living room as well. It was an Adult Swim show; her older brother owned a bunch of the DVDs. I’d come over around eight. We’d watch until maybe midnight.

Now and then a bunch of people would come to Kate’s for an afternoon pool party in her backyard. Large groups of theater kids would be there, including Amy and her boyfriend Steve in addition to Jess and her boyfriend. We’d talk about vegetarianism and Democrats, Republicans and wars in the Middle East. We’d discuss how Wal-Mart treated workers.

Israel was bombing Lebanon. It was the same kind of debate as today. Some people kept repeating how Israel had a right to defend itself. Others emphasized the number of civilians being killed – and the amount of Lebanese infrastructure being destroyed.

We carried the discussion forward in Kate’s living room, in Jess’s basement, at the Musson playground. It was good practice for the more serious discussions we’d all have in college.

We’d never voted before in a major election. Our first midterms were coming up in November. These things mattered even more now.

I tried to read the news every day so I’d be informed for these debates.

We’d go to Rochester Park. We often played a game over a bridge there. You had to pick a twig off the ground. Then everyone would line up on one side of the bridge and drop their twigs at the same time. We’d run to the other side to see whose twig won the race.

That kind of stuff was enough to keep us all connected and happy.

We saw a lot of movies together. We went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean at midnight on the night of July 6th. A couple weeks later we saw Lady in the Water one night at Great Lakes Crossing. Afterwards, we went to Steak and Shake. We enjoyed milkshakes and fries.

Sometimes we went to Movies in the Moonlight, a summer event put on by the city of Rochester. It was hosted in a parking lot downtown. We went there with a big group of theater kids and saw Spiderman.

I had Chockley, Jess, Kate, and Amy over to my basement some nights. We would sit on the couches and on the floor. We'd get under all the blankets and lean on the pillows. We'd chat about college and Rochester and politics. Eventually, Jess would doze off into sleep on the rocking chair. Chockley would leave his empty Caribou iced tea on the table as usual.

We showed up one night in my backyard. My little sister Kenzi was home alone in the living room, watching a movie. Chockley walked up to the window and knocked on it. That scared the shit out of her when she turned around and saw him.

Sometimes, I’d leave my house around midnight to go meet a bunch of the theater kids at Ram’s Horn. It was a 24-hour diner on Rochester Road.

Jess, Julia, Amy, and Stephanie had a singing group together called The Pink Ladies. I went to see them perform at an event once. I thought it was cool how they could sing like that. I didn’t have any artistic talents, and it made me wish I’d done something like theater early on.

I was really glad that people like them would hang out with me. I never wanted to lose that.

But I didn’t see Graham as much as I’d like.

Because Graham wasn’t allowed to drive after he almost got me and Rachel killed.

He lived about 25 minutes north of Rochester. So I’d drive up there some nights. I'd cruise down dark dirt roads while flanked by dense congregations of trees.

Once I got there, we’d watch a horror movie or hang out chatting in his living room. One night he showed me a file of an AIM conversation he’d saved as “CrazyAsShitConvo.” It was a 12-page transcript from an exchange we had when I was a fundamentalist Christian.

It meant a lot to me that I had escaped that dark time. That now I had so many friends.

Sometimes Lindsay and Rachel would be up there with us, too.

I’d drive home, usually alone, around midnight.

The Decemberists’ album Picaresque was my go-to for those drives. Some of the songs came across as bleak prophecies of my life.

I listened to the song The Bagman’s Gambitand imagined a life of diplomatic intrigue gone wrong. It was an epic song about a guy working for the government. He falls in love with a Soviet spy. He gives her all the documents she asks for. Their final encounter is at the gates of the American embassy in Russia, where they touch hands through the bars.

I knew I was about to go study International Relations and maybe become a diplomat. I wondered if a girl could get me to betray state secrets like that.

Something about the concept excited me. It added an element of tragic adventure to my life.

Then, with my headlights illuminating the blackness ahead, I’d listen to the song The Engine Driver.

That song was so dense for me.

In The Engine Driver, I’d hear the lyrics “I am a writer / a writer of fictions.” I hoped I could be a real writer in my adult life.

Then I’d hear the repeated chorus line – “If you don’t love me, let me go.” And suddenly I’d fear a future in which Renee didn’t feel my love for her.

Finally, I’d hear the words “I’ve written pages upon pages trying to rid you from my bones.” I’d immediately think of Renee. I imagined a distant future in which all that remained of us was whatever I wrote about us.

I thought that one day, if we broke up, I’d have to write a whole novella about these events to make them finally go away.

It made me sad because I knew I wasn’t spending enough time with Renee that summer. She might very well conclude I didn’t love her.

I knew that, in my hypothetical novella, everything would go to shit because of me.

I was trying hard to strike a balance between seeing her and seeing all my 12^th-grade friends. I thought of these two as separate spheres.

I even tried to keep them separate. Because I felt like to maintain independence, I was supposed to have friends that were separated from my girlfriend.

“Why don’t you invite Renee?” Jess would ask me.

I knew I was being stupid. But I also knew that my love for Renee was absorbing and powerful. So if I invited her, I would annihilate myself inside of my love for her.

She would be everything to me; I would be present for her, but not present for the others. I wouldn’t care about anything but Renee. And so I would lose out on my other friendships.

I wanted to build a strong foundation for both worlds. But in the process, I knew I wasn’t building a strong enough foundation for at least one of them.

And so The Engine Driver would come true.

I didn’t know what to do. Renee hated how I approached all of this. She didn’t like that I often reserved nights for friends and afternoons for her.

Because the nights had always been hers by default, and night was far more special. Night was when imagination accelerated, when feelings were amplified, when the red lights at intersections illuminated her face and made me want to kiss her. Night was when we could get under blankets on my couch and cuddle, when we could put on a movie and watch it together, when we could drift into a nap together without feeling like we needed to be somewhere.

Even as I declined them, I wanted those nights back. They were some of the best in my life.

My whole family was gone for about five days one week. I had the house to myself.

It was scary at night. When I was alone and left to my imagination, I still believed there were aliens out there in the peaceful Rochester darkness.

I would park in my driveway. I’d turn on my brights to see if any aliens were standing in front of the trees in the backyard. I’d open the garage remotely. I’d get out of the car and walk quickly to the door before anything could pop out of the trees.

I was glad my dog slept with me in my bed. Because if any of these beings got into the house, I knew he’d sense them and start barking.

Having Renee sleep over would have stopped my fear. But that was never an option. We knew her parents would somehow find out.

So, in the absence of Renee, I slept with a knife in the drawer next to my bed. Just in case an alien broke into the house.

On one of those nights, I went to The King and Isummer musical with Graham. Just because Renee and all the 12^th-grade theater kids were in it.

While I was sitting in my big empty house one night, looking into the blackness of the windows, I got a text saying I could come to the cast party. Renee was there.

I drove east on Tienken, a dark Rochester artery, until I arrived. I parked down the street, at the end of a line of cars.

But moments like these – in the midst of so many other people – were not enough to sustain what Renee and I had. This wasn’t like the autumn of 2005.

Our make-out sessions in my basement, our hang-outs in the CVS parking lot, our journeys to the swings at Brewster… that type of stuff still happened, and it was good when it did. I still picked her up from rehearsals all the time. I would get lunch with her, go to the park with her, drive around with her, look for books at Borders with her.

But this stuff didn’t consume our social lives like it used to. And it all had competition now.

Sitting in the dim light of my empty house, I’d listen to songs like Animal Collective’s Banshee Beat. I’d hear a lyric like “I don’t think that I like you anymore.” I’d imagine Renee saying that to me if we continued down this road. Then the singer said "Well I found new feelings at the feelings store." And I'd imagine Renee finding some other boy - one who paid her more attention.

Our one-year anniversary came on August 12^th.

There wouldn't have been any purpose to my senior year if it hadn't included Renee. The idea was lunacy.

So I made a photo album for her. Each section of the album represented a different season of our year, and was decorated as such. There were pictures of us from the season on its pages, and each page had a song written down – always a song I associated with her and that season.

Yet now, with college fast approaching, I still kept doing things without her. As much as I wanted her, I also wanted my newfound high school social network to be eternal.

I had risen from being an isolated fundamentalist to having so many people who liked me and wanted to hang out with me. It was a situation I must nurture and defend.

And my brain just wouldn’t allow Renee to be linked with this new world. They were separate spheres, and it was a zero-sum game between them.

I went to various basements – Jess’s, Steve’s, Stephanie’s – to watch Project Runway with all the 12^th-grade theater people.

I didn’t even like Project Runway; I just wanted to maximize my time with my friends before everything we had in Rochester faded into oblivion.

I went on a camping trip with all of them. We had a great time sleeping in tents, playing volleyball on the beach, and walking around in the woods.

We sat around the campfire having hours-long conversations about politics. We were pumping ourselves up for the voting life ahead. I always made a case for a socially liberal, economically conservative viewpoint.

At one point on that camping trip, Jess described me as one of the most informed people she knew.

I felt such a thunderous thrill when she said that. I had come so far in just a couple of years, and she was acknowledging me as having done so.

Sometimes I went to Kevin’s house to hang out with him and Rachel and Lindsay. We sat in circles on the floor playing a game where you took turns putting the word “poop” into movie titles. We produced movie concepts like Lord of the Poopand Lady in the Poop.

I remember the last night I saw all of them. We all hugged each other goodbye on a dark subdivision street. We wished each other good luck. We planned weekend reunions in Rochester. We talked about Thanksgiving, which was the next time we’d all be there at once.

As I prepared to start at Michigan State, I was filled with regret.

In the aftermath of summer, I realized it would have been so easy to include Renee in so much of what I’d done. All my justifications for having excluded her seemed like pure bullshit now.

But I couldn’t change it. Time marches forward, regardless of our nostalgia and regret. So the damage was done. The precedents were set.

And I had arrived at Case Hall in East Lansing.