My name is Erick and I am an entertainment junkie. It all started just before the turn of the century when my parents loaded up their car with me, my siblings, my grandparents, and a few cousins and took us to the movies. This car wasn’t a car but rather it was a box on wheels, the type that most pedophiles would drive and it could hold a significant amount of people. I remember this detail not because as a two-year old I was concerned with proper seatbelt safety, but rather because the first movie I can remember watching was screened at a drive-in theatre. For the younger readers, there once was a time when, to see a movie, a family had to leave their house and journey to wherever they were screening the film. In the 90’s a drive-in movie had one flat cost per vehicle, no matter how many cousins were squished in the back seat. So, in the year 1999, I sat on my parents lap and watched Disney’s Tarzan.
Flash forward to now and I am addicted to many different mediums, searching for entertainment. It can be said that in 2017 any exploration of the world ends at a person’s doorstep but I couldn’t disagree more. Numerous times have I been taken on a journey to a far-away land without leaving my couch. I’ve explored Skull Island with Kong and the galaxy with Star-Lord. I’ve gone to Atlantis and Mars and I continue to explore every day. Some of my greatest adventures have come in the form of musicals. In fact, one of my favorite musicals is an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel, Les Misérables. In this musical, a thief named Jean Valjean starts a new life by avoiding his parole and his story leads us through a wonderful cast of characters during the French Revolution. I learned from the protagonist that we all must face ourselves one day and have a “Jean Valjean moment.” That is, a moment in one’s existence where they ask themselves “who am I” and “what am I doing” to rise from the predicaments they have put themselves in. In my life, I have had a series of J.V. moments. One of the most notable times I had to ask, “who am I” was the summer I gave my first blowjob. As a writer, I have learned not to lead with such allegories that may be deemed inappropriate by a general audience, however I also stated early on that one of my favorite musicals has a thief, brothel-owners, a prostitute, and a lot of premature death so keep in mind that no subject is off the table in my story. So, it was the summer before my senior year of high school and I was feeling rebellious. A friend and I had gotten pretty good at staying out late and offering sex in exchange for gas money and food. Yes, we were underage and yes, we could technically be considered prostitutes, but for all intents and purposes so far, I had just played the part of the pimp with my friend (who we will call Gale) doing the dirty work. This changed when we were 60 miles from home, with almost an empty tank of gas, and Gale decided she didn’t want to have sex with any more guys. Suddenly, I was going to have to get into the game. At this time, I was still considering myself a bisexual man and I had come out to Gale only because she is the type of friend that likes sex and drugs and you must too in order to hang with her. I was desperate for friends at 17 and one thing lead to another and suddenly here I was soliciting sex for money. For anyone who knows anything about Craigslist personal ads, they may know it’s usually only guys who post them. No woman is stupid enough to put themselves in danger with a sex-driven stranger so we found a guy and we made a deal and decided that I would be giving him a blow job for 20 bucks. I wasn’t prepared for what I got caught up in emotionally. Gale was in the back seat of the man’s car and he had decided he wanted to make out with her while I did the other work. He leaned his seat back and unzipped his pants and for the first time I was putting a penis inside my mouth. No, I wasn’t sure I was gay and no, I did not enjoy doing it contrary to what many people would assume about a gay man. It was seven a.m. after a long night of being out with Gale. I remember the time because while she was sucking the man’s face, his alarm kept going off every five minutes. I can’t look at Lorde’s song “Tennis Court” the same way because that was exactly the tune that was playing while I was at one of my lowest points. It was almost a half an hour later and this guy just couldn’t get off so eventually he paid us the money and admitted he was late for work. We parted ways, I filled up the gas tank, and Gale and I were on our way home. In the car, we sat mostly quiet for almost an hour. At this point I was more confused with who I was than just 24 hours ago. “Who am I?” I wondered. I was about to go home and sneak into my room where my parents assumed I had been the entire night. I was a lying to myself and to others but I wasn’t sure how to change who I was during that time. When I got up to my room and into my bed I decided that I was done doing anything to seem cool. I decided that I had one year left before I had to face the real world, and I was going to be my best self. I didn’t figure out who I was in that moment, nor do I think Jean Valjean only had one moment of self-realization in his own life. What was important to me was that I was going to change the path I was on and become better. I pulled up my blankets and turned on the music on my phone. “You’ll Be in My Heart” from Disney’s Tarzan was the song of choice that morning.
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Erick L. Graham Wood
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