From "Hair"

            I am your typical guy.  My friend Allison once told me that she was really stressed out and wanted to relax a little and get a haircut.  This feeling doesn’t really apply to me.  Relaxing and getting a haircut are two distinctly different activities.  So when I arrived at the H20 Salon and Spa at 7:00 in the morning for a haircut, I couldn’t help but feel a little feminine.

            I know this doesn’t make sense yet.  Let me explain.  My father is a celebrity to those who know him.  He is that high school teacher you always wanted to keep in touch with, and did.  Harry Connick Jr. did.  As did Holly, the owner of the H20 Salon and Spa.  My father taught her when she went to Chapelle High School, and the two have remained friends.

            I was preparing for a vocal masterclass with baritone Gordon Hawkins.  Gordon Hawkins premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in a production of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera starring Luciano Pavarotti.  Nothing is more impressive in the opera world than saying “What Luciano told me…”  Gordon has a famed career in his own right and in my hopes to impress him, I decided to look presentable and get a haircut.

            My hair has been the source of much controversy in my life.  Before getting it cut it was a large, fluffy, tangled mass of cuticle, cortex, and medulla.  Whenever singing in a choir, I would have to stand in the back row, because it would block other people’s view of the conductor.  I once reached back to scratch my head, where my middle finger was greeted viciously by a wasp.  A friend told me, “If wasps are nesting in your hair, and you can’t feel it…it’s time for a haircut.”

The Hunt

The summer before Junior year I took a quick trip to New Orleans with my soon to be roommate Josh in hopes of finding that perfect New Orleans three bedroom apartment.  We thought July was the right month to find an August lease, but we really had no idea.  This was our first venture out of the dorm and we didn’t know what to expect.  A mutual friend Allison was hardcore house hunting at the end of spring semester and her troubles and stress gave Josh and me the willies.  We decided that our only standards would be price.  Everything else we would be able to live with.  Low ceilings?  We’ll spend our time sitting down.  Flooding?  Those floors needed a cleaning anyway.  We would be flexible. 

My father was putting a lot of pressure on me to get the house situation organized fast so that I could get back home and help the family move.  We had been moving since May and we weren’t getting any closer to relocating.  The problem was that we were moving from a larger house to a smaller house.  Any space we are given, we will fill.  It should come as no surprise that around the time we started filling boxes, my mother started watching Hoarding: Buried Alive on TLC.  Without my bringing it up, she would approach me and start listing reasons why she wasn’t a hoarder.  “We could actually use all these things.  We’re just so busy that we don’t get the chance.”  Very convincing.  The house-hunting trip to New Orleans would be a nice break from the move.

My girlfriend didn’t know I was coming for a visit so after a surprise dinner the real hunting began.  Josh and I woke early and set out for Broadway.  We were about as prepared for a house hunt as we were for a real hunt.  No pencil.  No paper.  We were helpless against the ruthless For Rent signs.  But, thanks to modern technology, our phones recorded the phone numbers.  We collected five numbers at a time and crossed our fingers that we would remember which houses they went to.  Then we called.  Sometimes we got an answer, sometimes we left a message, and on some occasions we got to look inside the houses in question.

Then we arrived at Broadway and Hickory.  By this time Josh and I had gained the company of mutual friend Allison who would be looking on behalf of her boyfriend, our third roommate, Randy.  We called the number and spoke to the owner, Carlos, who said that his wife Maria would give us a tour.  We walked up to the front door where Maria greeted us with her less than perfect English.  She gave us the tour and we were happy.  It was exactly what we needed.  It didn’t have the New Orleans flair we were secretly hoping for, but it was small, simple, and, most importantly, cheap.  After the tour Maria said that rent was 400 a month, utilities included.  We asked her to repeat this a number of times and in different ways.  We didn’t want this amazing fact to be the unintentional lie that only a foreigner can make.  But she spoke correctly.  We had heard all we needed to hear.  Josh and I ran to the bank and came back to, what would become known as “The Hickory.”  Armed with money, we were ready to sign the lease.  But Carlos informed us that he didn’t use leases.  He has always preferred to just shake hands and whenever the tenants planned on moving out, just give him two months notice.  The simpler the better right?  We exchanged smiles and kind words and were off on our way.

Stand-up Comedy

            I want to be a stand up comedian.  That’s one of the things I want to be.  I was voted wittiest in high school, so I guess I’m on the right track.  It took me until last week to realize that stand up comedy is a form of creative nonfiction.  I’ve spent all these weeks trying to write about pain and emotions, when I should have been writing about that thing at the end of your shoelace (what do you call that anyway?).

            I wouldn’t really do a bit on the thing at the end of your shoelace.  That’s a little too Jerry Seinfeld.  I wouldn’t put myself in the Jerry Seinfeld school of comedy.  I like observational comedy, but he gets a little too observational.  I have wondered what the thing at the end of my shoelaces is called about as many times as I’ve wondered about Justin Bieber’s flossing habits.

            I have a personal love for Robin Williams but could never pull off his style.  It’s too rapid fire.  He throws out a thousand little jokes and closes off the major sections with a big punch line.  It’s fast, clever, and beautiful, but that’s Robin Williams, not me.

            The king is definitely Richard Pryor.  Richard is the perfect mix between observation, characters, physicality, and meaning.  He was the first one to get in the grind.  Nothing was off limits including race, sex, and drugs.  Other comedians had used those topics in routines, but never with the flair or power that Richard did.  There’s everything to learn from his timing and his wide range of topics, but his voice was so original that copying it would be like trying to copy the Beatles. 

I guess the only way to get an original voice would be to get up and give it a try.  The real problem is that I cannot think of a worse audience for a first standup attempt than a bunch of serious writers.  I can already feel the silence of a failed joke.  What face would Emma give me?  Would I get the embarrassed this-is-so-bad-I-can’t-look smile?  Or would I get the dazed I-don’t-even-give-a-fuck stare?  I guess there is only one way to find out.

Ode to Steve Harvey

            Did you know that Steve Harvey is the new host for Family Feud?  This is shocking to me.  Steve Harvey seems to get around.  I remember him when I was a child and he starred in The Steve Harvey Show.  Later there was Steve Harvey’s Big Time.  He hosts an Atlanta radio show and had a small role in the smash dance movie You Got Served.

            This new gig strikes me as a downgrade.  Drew Carey is the new host of The Price is Right, but that’s The Price is Right.  There is a big difference between The Price is Right and Family Feud.  The Price is Right has a personality.  You can expect to hear about pet ownership at the end for no apparent reason, and, even though Bob Barker is gone, the overall Price is Right mood has not changed.  Family Feud is a compromise.  Oh I’ve already seen that The King of Queens repeat?  And the Friends repeat?  Yeah I guess I’ll watch Family Feud.

            What happened Steve?  Did that male sass and ironic stare get old?  I still love it.  It’s not me Steve I promise.  I believe that I have encountered Steve Harvey at a crossroads.  He is moving from TV to, believe it not, books.  I looked him up on Amazon and found something special.  Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man and Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment both by Steve Harvey.  I don’t think I’m the only one whose Christmas list just got a little longer.

            I will say I was a little too critical when I first found Steve Harvey hosting Family Feud.  I guess I was afraid he was giving up.  Doing anything for a little money.  Maybe money was his motivation, or maybe not.  Either way I found myself laughing out loud as Steve gave these families a hard time for their foolish answers.  So congrats Steve on your new hosting job and for being a published author.  May the road rise to meet you, and You Got Served be always at your back.

I had a plan

            I was going to go to the early as shit Black Friday sales.  The ones that start at midnight.  I was going to go to Best Buy.  I was going to watch all the shenanigans and make a killer blog post about it.  It was going to be really good.  I was going to bring a recording device with me and ask parents some questions like, “What are you buying?  Who are you shopping for?  Did you trample someone on your way in?”  I was going to talk to the workers too.  I was going to ask them for their craziest Black Friday story.  Those were going to be really funny.  I was going to hang around Best Buy for a while and then maybe I’d go to Macy’s and see how much Justin Bieber merchandise was already gone.  Maybe I would have made a comment about how fast Justin Bieber’s Christmas album had sold, but how something a little more intellectual like books had sold very little.  An observation like that is creative nonfiction gold.  I would have crossed my fingers for a mother on mother tug of war for the last copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 or Twilight or whatever was selling fast.  I was going to notice the ratio of women to men present for the experience and make some cunning insights.  It was going to be very convincing, or at least mildly offensive.

            I was going to close with a reflective conclusion.  I was going to bring up the spirit of Christmas.  I probably would have asked some rhetorical questions designed to make you think about your own Christmas beliefs.  I would have closed with a few forgiving remarks for all the uproar I witnessed and defended their actions for the sake of a child’s happiness.

            I was going to do that.  Instead I got food poisoning.  So thank you Camellia Grill.  That’s the last time I ever get a fucking Cherry Freeze just to make a few friends laugh.

Virgin

            I consider myself a proud virgin.  I have my reasons for being one.  I do not look down on those who are not, unless they give me reason to.  I think about the fact that I am a virgin relatively often, but it has not been a source of stress or anxiety in my life.

            I didn’t think so.

            I had a dream last night.

           

            I was in a bedroom with my ex-girlfriend, Blythe, a black stranger, and a vocalist in the music department, Chelsea.  Chelsea told me that after a girl has sex for the first time all she wants to do is get fucked as hard as possible.  Blythe starts coming on to the stranger.  Hard.  She starts to remove her clothes slowly.  I do not remember it being stated concretely, but the feeling of the dream informs me that she is doing so because in the two years we dated, we never had sex.  To make me feel jealous and inadequate, she will fuck a stranger in front of me.  She continues to tease him and my blood boils.  I walk to Blythe and whisper, “I would have had sex with you.”  She moves her body away from the stranger and when she is turned toward me, I hit her across the face as hard as I can.  The stranger jumps at me to beat me up and I reach my fingers into his mouth and pull up on his hard palate.  I run out of the bedroom and onto the streets of Central City New Orleans where I continue to run, suddenly shirtless.

Burn

            Beep.  Beep.  Beep.  I’m awake.  Beep.  What time is it?  Beep.  Can I sleep through that noise?  Beep.  7:00.  My door opens.  Beep.  Long curly hair.  Slight beard.  Roommate.  Beep.  Josh.  “Dude.  There’s a lot of smoke out here.”  Beep.  Do I have time to put pants on?  Beep.  Yes.

            Alison broke up with me in the palm court.  She did the standard “It’s not you…it’s me” routine, but was smart enough to not use those words.  She said she didn’t want this right now.  She said I didn’t do anything wrong.  I told her it wouldn’t make me feel any better.  We sat in silence for a moment.  She said she was going to go inside.  I knew she needed to practice.  We had opera rehearsal in a few hours and she has a lead role.  She stood up and lingered in front of me for a moment.  She wanted me to get up and hug her, but it wasn’t that easy for me.  She bent down and gave me a hug.  I stroked her back the way I always did.

            Ok pants are on.  Beep.  So it’s in the kitchen.  Beep.  Walk out of my room.  Beep. What’s the problem?  Beep.  Down the hallway.  Beep.  Into the kitchen.   Smoke.  Beep.  Smoke.  Beep.  Smoke.  Get out of the house.  Beep.  Outside.  Morning.

           

            I didn’t think I’d be one of the guys killed by a break-up.  I guess it’s a pride thing.  I thought I was stronger than those guys, but I’m not.  Classes with her are the worst.  We were both invited to be in an invitation only choir with Dr. Frazier.  This was one of my favorite classes.  It’s nice to sing in tune, but to sing in tune you need to breathe.  Breath is the key to proper singing.  If you don’t get a good breath, the following musical phrase will be lackluster at best, under pitch at worst.  How am I supposed to sing if I can’t control my breathing?  She made a facebook status the night we broke up saying that one of the pieces we were working on, “The Cooling,” was warming her soul.  The first line is “Come with me, under my coat.”  I couldn't control my breathing.  I pulled the bass section under pitch.

            “What should I do?”  Call 911.  “Should I get the fire extinguisher?”  Don’t go back in there.  The dryer is right next to that gas line.  “Dude this is all my fault.”  No it’s not.  “Is their house gonna burn down?”  The firemen will get here before that.  I hope it doesn’t.  What if all my stuff is gone?  What if their house burns down?  I bet you can see that smoke cloud from down the street.

           

            My landlord installed a streetlight outside my window.  I used to have a bathrobe taped over my window to keep the light out because the blinds didn’t do enough.  The firemen pulled it down when they went through the house after the fire.  The whole house has been repainted.  Jungle green living room and blood red bedrooms.  Red for the color of the sun on the horizon at five in the morning.  Red for the color her cheeks turned when the cold front came in. Red for the flames I never saw.

My Name

            My name is Simon Cross.  One would expect my father’s last name to be Cross, but this is not the case.  My father’s last name is Fecas.  My mother’s last name is Toomer.  My sister’s last name is Cloud.  Let me back up. 

George Robert Fecas and Catherine Anne Toomer decided to get married.  The free spirited Catherine decided she did not want to take her beloved’s last name.  The possibility of a hyphenated name was squashed soon after it was brought up.  Fecas-Toomer sounds like something malignant.  So, post-marriage, Catherine shall remain Catherine Anne Toomer and George (Bob as he is commonly called) shall remain George Robert Fecas. 

After a few years of passionate lovemaking and furious argument (or is it furious lovemaking and passionate argument…) my sister and I came into the world.  Instead of giving the patriarch’s last name or the first name of a distant relative, Bob and Catherine decide to start something new for the new.  After a number of discussions and comic strip light bulbs, the first child was given the name Mary Cloud.  Just under two years later, the second was named Simon Cross.  Catherine and Bob came from religious ways and those are reflected in the names of the children.  Every Simon in the Bible has been cited as an influence in the picking of my name, perhaps the most obvious being the one that assisted Jesus on his way to Golgotha.  Rumor has it that my mother wanted to name me Socrates, after the obvious, or Yeshua, a Hebrew spelling for Jesus.  But they landed on Simon Cross.  Simon Cross period.  I am the reason middle initials are not required on a W-4. 

This is my baseline for family names.  I have never met someone with a story like mine.  I recognize my situation as separate from the norm, yet it feels like home.  And when the time comes, I can already hear myself telling my beloved, “Why don’t we just give her a new last name?”

Parkway

            I ordered an alligator sausage poboy.  Not my normal choice, but one I pick when I can.  French bread is solid.  A crunch followed by a sink.  Dressed just right.  Cooked just right.  Parkway Bakery is everything people say it is.

            Saints/Bears Sunday.  Saints win.  I sit with an old roommate.  We talk.  I didn’t get the lead in the opera.  I should have.  I’m good enough.  I’m a senior.  Why am I doing this?  Why am I doing this when a local theatre company is doing Spring Awakening?  A musical I loved so much it threw me into a long depression.  The kind where your parents have given up on asking you how you are and go straight to your friends.  Why am I doing a second rate Offenbach operetta when I can be doing a first rate award wining musical?  I don’t know.  John Paul didn’t know either.  But we talked about it.  I felt better after eating with such good company, though it is only a matter of time before I am alone and have only myself to criticize.

            It’s a hot day, but we sit outside anyway.  Parkway has pulled out all the tables for all the Saints fans that left the game hungry.  It was cooler inside, but it was too loud.  Sometimes high volume makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t.  We wanted to talk and joke and eat the way we usually do on our “dates.”  Crystal hot sauce bottles can be found at every table.  The roast beef is cooking.  I didn’t get the part I wanted, but Parkway is still working.  Things can’t be all bad.

            We decide to get dessert.  I jokingly advise John to just share my banana pudding instead of also getting bread pudding.  I was wrong.  Both were delicious.  While we were waiting for his bread pudding I saw two things happen.  John wanted to take a picture of the kitchen because it was so beautiful.  So he gets out his iPhone.  The girl passing poboys from the kitchen to the customers smiled.  Her smile was embarrassed but encouraging.  She knew she wasn’t ready for the photo and did not usually let herself get caught off guard like this.  She also felt famous.  Strangers don’t usually take pictures of me, she might think.  Shortly after, her partner at the window reached over and fitted her head with a hairnet she had forgotten to apply herself.  A move of love performed by another observed by another in another poboy shop.

Ode to the Milkshake

            It was a typical Sunday, and, when raised by two well-meaning, intelligent Catholics, a typical Sunday means mass.  Mass has always been a struggle for me.  My mother would suggest opening my heart, a task she has a natural talent for that I do not.  When that didn’t work she suggested that we go out to eat after mass.  That did work.

It is important to know that I lived in chain land.  I am from Atlanta.  Suburban Atlanta.  Atlanta is very big and it has many parts.  Some of them are really cool.  Some of them really suck.  I lived in one that really sucked.

            So we drove away from church, passing your typical fast food restaurants as well as a less typical fast food place called Guthrie’s, which remains the worst "restaurant" name I have ever heard.  We continue past Guthrie’s and the fast food chains and dive into the realm of casual dining chains.  We pass the Chili’s, Applebee’s, and, an Atlanta favorite, Taco Mac.  Places you can safely assume whatever you get will be edible, but not exceptional.  Somewhere within this mess lies the old married couple of the casual dining, Max and Erma’s.  Maybe you’ve seen one, but chances are the one you’ve seen has closed down since they declared bankruptcy two years ago.  It is here that I found the best milkshake I have ever tasted.

            I wish I had found this shake somewhere in New Orleans.  Like at Creole Creamery.  I would tell people that the ice cream at Creole Creamery is so unique and of such high quality that their shakes had no choice but to be the best.  Or the classic freeze at Camellia Grill.  It tastes home made, and, when paired with a diner style burger, you’ll find yourself in sugar-grease heaven.  These shakes are great, but they are not the best.  I have given that honor to the good people at Max and Erma's.

            So my mother and I sat down.  We looked at the menu.  I decided on a burger, my mother stuck to a cup of soup.  I noticed the milkshake and, just before our waitress came back to take our order, I asked my mother if I can get a milkshake too.  She showed her agreement by blessing me with a smile only a son could recognize. 

Describing the milkshake will do no good.  It is too unique and too separate from all others I have tasted.  All I can offer is advice.  Should you find yourself on a road trip to the northeast, and you need a little break from the road.  Skip the one of a kind hole-in-the-wall and head to the nearest strip mall.  If you're lucky you'll find a Max and Erma's that survived the recession.  It will look chainy, it will look average, and you won't want to go in.  Open your heart.  You’d be surprised what you’ll find.

Greyhound #1

            There are moments when things go dark.  My friend Nolan and I had just spent a week in New York.  It was the summer of 2007 and we are on the verge of being high school seniors.  We desired freedom.  This trip was taken without chaperone.  Just two 17 year olds looking for cheap Broadway musical tickets. 

We hoped for fun, and fun we had.  The cheapest way to travel was by greyhound.  A plane would have been ideal, but that money would be better spent on pizza or cheesecake, or anything “New York.”  So we took the bus. 

The trip up was easy.  There may have been moments of worry or annoyance, but those were so overshadowed by our excitement for the big city that they melted into the ever-present hum of ground transportation.  We rode that excitement all the way through our days in New York, and on the way back…we started to crash.  We were doing more reading than talking, and we both felt that yearning for the familiar.  This was the wrong time to get stuck in the Richmond, Virginia greyhound station for five hours.  And these were not any five hours this was from 5:00am to 10:00am.  Had it been 10:00am to 3:00pm, things may have felt a little better.  (Apparently those trusty greyhound authorities had forgotten to book a bus driver.  Must have been a case of the Mondays.)

            The key thing to remember is that bus terminals don’t get paid like airports.  If airports were a college graduate, bus terminals would be the failing younger brother with sociopathic tendencies.  Nothing was working for us.  The food was slop, every arcade game was broken, and, worst of all, the televisions were reporting the same five news stories on repeat.  Never anything new.  Just the same stories reported in the same way by the same people for five hours.  The perfect place to snap.

            We eventually made it onto a bus, and back to Atlanta in one piece.  We both graduated high school without scars, but we weren’t in college long before Nolan got into drugs.  He dropped out of college and worked his way through a number of rehab programs before he really desired to be clean.  I have only seen Nolan twice in the past two years, and sometimes it feels like our meeting this past summer was our last.  Things start to feel as dark as they did in that greyhound station.  But it is precisely that experience that brings the light back in.  I know that if I am ever asked what the worst place in the world is, I’m not the only one who would answer: Richmond, Virginia.

Why I Write

            Writing has not been a part of my life since I was 12.  Aside from your standard class papers, I haven’t really written since my 7^th grade pièce de résistance about a man’s last day in prison.  My high school English classes put a focus on analyzing rather than creating.  A skill worth having, but not a skill I desired.  While I entered high school with dreams of writing it didn’t take long for those dreams to turn to performing arts.  My parents encouraged me to try out for the junior high musical Fiddler on the Roof.  I got in and tried out for every play and musical I could until I graduated.  In class I was pursing every music class that would accept me.  I sang in every major choral ensemble and took music theory and composition classes.  These are the skills that brought me to Loyola.  Until a week ago I was a vocal performance major preparing for a life of opera.  Unfortunately it took three years for me to realize that opera is not something I want to chase when my dreams are most reachable.

            So where does that leave me.  Have the past three years of music study been a waste?  I tell myself it hasn’t, but it is hard to not feel that way.  I am now a music with elective studies major, with an English writing minor.  Is there much of a method to my major change?  Somewhat.  I started writing a film script and a play over the summer on a bit of a whim…and it felt pretty good.  It felt better than music had in a long time.  So why do I write?  Because I’m tired of music.