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?”