Some part of my brain knew that most of the books I pulled off shelves and read as a teenager were in no way age appropriate. I bought Glamorama in the Sydney, Australia airport when my mom wasn’t looking and spent the summer confused as hell and way more knowledgeable about the nature of blood patterns than any 18 year old should be.
I tracked backwards to American Psycho. Then some Burroughs. Some really twisted John Irving. Bleak Tom Wolfe rites of passage. True short stories about the Vietnam war and heroin-addicted news anchors in LA and HIV. Valley of the Dolls. And as bright as the sun shown in my cancer-happy Floridian playground, my books made a play to blot it out with a darkness I haven’t cared to revisit.
Those summers I’d float around on a rubbery pool mat, my CD player humming The Beach soundtrack from a shady corner of the patio, a highlighter between my teeth. Bestsellers bloomed open like friendly flowers for miles up and down the beaches, but I never made time. I mimicked faces described in the pages while the lawn guy edged grass along the pool’s edge feet away, his t-shirt sleeves cut away into long, drooping holes. I’d mouth dialogue, and opt not to dissect Bret Easton Ellis’ imagination.
In the unforgiving glare of noon-day sun, I stowed away bits of darkness I’d harbor against my will for decades to come. And I’m totally grateful for them. They make things interesting.
My books were small, fluttery-edged roofs steepled over my face. And I squirmed under their violence.
As it goes with most of my adolescent memories, I recall more the way I felt than details: Afraid. Lost. Untethered. I read satire as gospel; I held tightly to words like ‘spores.’ A book didn’t have to be labeled ‘horror’ to affect me the exact same way. So, as it went, I opted out of beach reads altogether—a beach-born kid, myself. Forced organ donations and three-ways-turned-shower homicides and adulterous fellatio in car accidents that ended in severed penises. I read it all. I stored it away, then I went to smile and make small talk with friends at parties like these scenes weren’t gnawing away at my bean.
Some of us will always have things gnawing away at our minds—books or not.
My book choices shielded me from the sun, but they tore my perspective apart at the seams. Once you let that dark in, man, it’s there to stay. But it’s so much more interesting. I could never put those books down; their little sonars beeped away in the corner when I wasn’t reading them.
I think what I’m trying to get at is this piece of truth I hold on to, and it’s an obvious truth: things aren’t always what they seem. Especially when it comes to what people have going on. I wear my emotions on my sleeve, but I also don’t, with much practice. But I won’t pretend to celebrate phoniness—in fact, I’ll celebrate its opposite, whenever I can.
And this universal notion is about the only thing in this social media-driven world that keeps me sane: there’s something way more real going on under the surface. To get there, though, isn’t always pleasant.
[Deets for the cheap seats: Top, Rails Hunter striped button-down; Bottom, Free People Beach Dreamin’ Tunic, Rag and Bone floppy brim fedora.]
Leave a Reply