by David Crabb
“Oh,” I stammered, taken aback by the fact that even on the stair behind me, he was still a bit taller. “It’s okay.”
“There’s just so many people and—”
“Watch yourself, motherfucker!” someone ahead interrupted. I stood on my tiptoes to see a ponytailed twink being yelled at by a very inebriated Varla Rose, her left eye now fully disengaged from her right.
“You think you know glamour, bitch?!” Varla raged, teetering on her heels while brandishing a beer bottle over her head.
Two security guards rushed past me just as they began to fight. As they were dragged down the staircase, I looked over my shoulder.
“Looks like Varla’s show probably won’t . . .” but the boy in chunky glasses was gone.
On the landing, things got tighter as a horde of shirtless boys came down the stairs, their cluster too wide to accommodate for the traffic on the right side of the staircase.
“David!” I heard someone yell in the crowd. I turned as the voice yelled my name again from somewhere behind me. I looked down and saw him, four bodies away. He was shirtless and glistening, with a tribal tattoo across his six-pack abs. He was adorned with neon glow-stick necklaces and tiny silver hoops in each ear.
“Greg!” I screamed, trying to turn myself around on the staircase.
“David! Oh my God!” he beamed, his hair still perfectly coiffed even when doused in twenty remixes’ worth of nightclub sweat.
“Greg, I’m stuck,” I yelled as the flow of people moved me farther up the stairs.
“Come dance!” Greg screamed, pointing downstairs as a posse of boys nudged him away.
“I said I’m stuck!” I screamed as the crowd took me higher. “I’ll find you in a bit!”
“What?” he yelled again. All I could do was laugh as a sudden upward thrust pushed me farther up the staircase. I was trapped in the current, like a salmon during spawning season.
“I miss you!” I shouted.
“What?” Greg yelled, smiling as he begin to dissolve into the flock.
“I’ll find you!” I screamed, gripping the banister to maintain my balance. “Just go dance!”
“What are you saying?” he yelled, only a sliver of his face visible through the crowd.
“I love you! Now go . . .”
And then he was gone, absorbed into the throng of bodies and onto the dance floor, where I’d imagined him for years.
It took me another few minutes to get to the third floor, a process made easier by simply surrendering to the gravitational pull around me. Upstairs I chugged a pint of water at the near-empty bar, feeling the muffled beat of the dance floor below vibrating in my feet. Above that thudding bass I heard a new sound. A familiar song emanated from the speakers at the end of the bar. Digital flutes and wah-wah guitars built to a crescendo as a glittering harp opened the sonic doors to a new world. As the Pet Shop Boys’ “Being Boring” played I remembered that night four years ago when the idea that happiness was an option still scared the hell out of me; when the possibility of living and loving fully was still bound to my fears of isolation, rejection, and death. I pictured myself alone in that little room feeling like I’d disappointed my family and lost all my friends. Quietly, I hummed along to the lyrics in the second half of the song.
I never dreamt that I would get to be
The creature that I always meant to be
But I thought in spite of dreams
You’d be sitting somewhere here with me.
I looked out the small, round attic window onto downtown San Antonio, a truly beautiful city at night. In the dark, its taco stands and pickup trucks and shopping malls all disappeared. It looked like a galaxy, a beautiful cosmos of planets, stars, and constellations thousands of miles away.
This could be any city, I thought, letting that feeling of anonymity wrap its arms around me like an old friend. And for a moment, the solitude was nice.
“We almost died on those stairs, huh?”
I turned from the window to see the red-shirted boy from the staircase standing above me.
“Um, yeah,” I answered as he sat down. He leaned forward and smiled, his eyes twinkling with reflections of the city out the window behind me.
“I’m Jack,” he said, extending his hand. I slipped my fingers around his, which somehow felt twenty degrees warmer than mine. A twinge of anxiety descended over me as we shook hands, holding on to each other a bit longer than two strangers really should. My brain was fumbling for the right words, and in that manic stillness I needed to escape. I wanted to become invisible, for just long enough to slip away from this handsome boy in black glasses. I wished, for just a moment, to shroud myself in my old uniform: a pair of pleated khakis and white sneakers with a simple button-down. But there I was in my moth-eaten T-shirt and torn jeans, smelling of patchouli, with studs in each ear, anything but invisible.
I took a deep breath and sighed, feeling the bass from the dance floor below in my bones.
As Jack held on to my hand, I was overcome with that feeling you get when you meet someone who seems familiar and you just know you’re going to be good friends.
“Hi,” I answered. “My name’s David.”
Thanks to:
Randy Sharp, Brian Barnhart, Marc Palmieri, and everyone at Axis Theatre Company, where the solo show this book is based on was first produced. Your support and friendship made this possible. You’re like a family to me and our adventures together are some of my favorite memories. The term “lifesaver” gets thrown around a lot, but when I say you saved my life, I literally mean it. Thank you so much.
My agent, Alex Glass, who opened a door I never even knew I wanted to step through. As often as you’ve made me feel proud of my work, it bears noting how constantly impressed I am by you. You are my literary superhero. Here is not where the story ends.
My editor, Laura Brown, who’s encouraged and enriched my work with thoughtful feedback, kind words, and delicious cookies. Now that this is done, can we smear on black mascara and go dancing somewhere in a fog machine together?
The indispensable Michael Ferrante, whose constructive notes and advice-filled emails kept me trucking through parts of this process I wasn’t sure I could finish. I’m so happy to call you my friend, free lunches or not.
My copy editor, Julie Hersh, who has come to love Erasure & the Pet Shop Boys entirely through my copyedit replies. Thanks for your thoughtful comments and much-needed LOLs.
Everyone at Harper Perennial, who have been so supportive and genuinely interested in this project. I’m a lucky guy to have you all in my corner.
To my friends who’ve taken the time to read my writing, especially Diana Spechler, Julia Weideman, and Kerri Doherty. I’m honored to have friends as talented as you, let alone ones that return my needy emails and phone calls with such thoughtful feedback.
Thanks to Britt Genelin, Kelly Cox, Lucas Longacre, and Jacob Cox, not only for your amazing friendship, but for all your assistance in helping me launch Bad Kid The Show. I am consistently amazed by your wit, vision, and ability to cope with my mood swings.
I’m fortunate to have been one-half of some pretty amazing duos in my time. So much love to the abundantly talented Abby Savage, Seth DeCroce, Margo Passalaqua, and Cammi Climaco. “I learned by watching YOU!”
Every storyteller I’ve ever heard, taught, booked, hosted, interviewed, or received pointers from. I’m lucky to be a part such an amazing community. Thanks for constantly reminding me what a better place the world could be if everyone shared their stories.
To all my wonderful teachers: Kevin Allison, Michelle Walson, Julie Brister, Sara Barron, Jeanie Massie, Carl Toth, and especially Eric Weller, who reminded me that there was another world out there, and then pushed me into it.
The Moth, who provide me and so many others a platform to tell our stories. The world would be a darker place without your work in it. Thanks for giving me and so many others a microphone and a stage. I doubt this book would exist without
your support and kindness.
My Jackie, who’s my best friend and favorite scene partner. You’re my sunshine when there isn’t any. I would be a paler, sadder, even more agitated version of myself without you. Thanks for loving me when I felt unlovable.
To Charlie, even though you can’t read and have paws for hands, I want to thank you for laying in my lap during significant portions of this writing process. I think you’ll enjoy laying on this book as well.
The Perry’s, thanking you after a pet seems ridiculous. (Then again, you know more than anyone how insane we are about that dog.) I’m so lucky to be a part of your family. Thanks for all your love, warmth, and apple cake. Now forget you read any of this.
My step-siblings. A lot of kids wouldn’t have been so cool with a sisteen-year-old weirdo suddenly living in their home. Thanks for gracefully accepting me into your lives and letting me blast spooky music at all hours.
To Josh Matthews. What can I say? Who knew when we started building a little solo show that it would connect with so many people? Without your direction I would’ve never had the drive and focus to make it happen. Thanks for fifteen years of laughter, insight, friendship, and dialect practice. Like, seriously? Do we EVER speak to each other in our actual voices? Halal, buddy.
Thanks to all the great musicians whose inspirational tunes have indelibly colored the prose in this book. The Smiths, Morrissey, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Joy Division, New Order, NIN, Erasure, Yaz, Siouxsie, The The, The Sundays, The Drums, and Pet Shop Boys. Thanks for holding the torch in the corner of my room and making sure I was never alone.
To “Greg” and all the other bad kids, especially Scott, Steve, Jim, and Molly. I love you even more than I did when we were sixteen. There aren’t words to express how overjoyed it makes me to see you all so happy. Then again, to quote my father, “I’m just glad they’re alive at all!”
To my father, mother, and stepfather: I’m sorry for putting you through all that mess, but so thankful you put the lockdown on me when the time came. I probably yelled a lot of stuff to the contrary at seventenn, but I only meant a small fraction of it. And yes, I should call more. I know. I love you and am thankful every day to have been raised by such incredibly funny, complex, thoughtful people.
About the Author
DAVID CRABB is a writer, performer, teacher, and storyteller. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner and their Jack Russell/Chihuahua mix Charlie, the most Instagrammed dog in the tristate area. David is a Moth StorySLAM host and teaches storytelling across the country. His solo show Bad Kid was named a New York Times Critics’ Pick. He probably loves Morrissey more than you do.
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Credits
Cover design by Joanne O’Neill
Cover photographs: © Lucas Longacre and Britt Genelin (author); © Beau Lark/Corbis
Copyright
BAD KID. Copyright © 2015 by David Crabb. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-237128-7
EPub Edition May 2015 ISBN 9780062371294
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