That first trip to New York City was a dream come true. We saw Rent, The Life, Titanic, Sunset Boulevard, When Pigs Fly, and Gross Indecency. I didn’t see any landmarks or famous tourist destinations, and I barely left Midtown, but I couldn’t have been happier. Because I was surrounded by much older people, I never got carded in restaurants. Waiters probably assumed that I was either a white Emmanuel Lewis or being held captive by a bunch of Midwestern theater queens. In any event, they all agreed I deserved a drink. I think I drank a bottle of Merlot at every meal. And not for nothing, my outfits were a hit. I was looking great and feeling handsome. I was really able to picture myself living in New York City—dining at fine restaurants, seeing shows, walking the streets with purpose and a solid sense of direction, all while wearing a pleated pant, an oversized olive blazer, a black dress shirt, and a bold, bordering on ethnic print tie.
Then, on one of our last nights in New York, we had dinner near Lincoln Center. As we started to walk home, me strutting proudly, albeit drunkenly, in my Brandon Walsh tribute attire, I saw them. Students just a few years older than me leaving Juilliard. There was a large group of them parading across the plaza at Lincoln Center, illuminated by the fountain behind them. They all looked so…cool. Some had leather jackets and tight jeans, others wore trench coats and berets, and everything everyone wore was black. So chic. Most were smoking cigarettes and they all were laughing together, probably at some inside joke about how sophisticated they all were. As if in slow motion, I had a moment of seeing them in all their glory and then assessing my group in all their…Midwestern-ness. There were BeDazzled tops and wide-legged trousers, bolo ties and silk shirts. And me. Me at eighteen trying to look forty. I was embarrassed for me.
I liked most of the people I was traveling with. They were nice people, good people, but they didn’t have dreams of leaving Omaha. At least not anymore. They fit in perfectly where we lived, but I wanted out. That was the moment I knew I had to really change. This was a bigger project than I had realized.
My next trip to New York was scheduled for three months later, when I would return to audition for colleges. I would be coming alone because my parents had decided it would be a good chance for me to practice living there alone. I think it was probably a test my father got my mother to agree to, hoping that the experience would be so terrifying that I would come straight home and give up this nonsense dream of living in New York City. (That said, given that my dad’s conception of New York was largely shaped by Homicide: Life on the Street, I’m also a little disturbed that he wanted to give me that risky a test.) But I was ready, damn it.
This time, though, I wanted to switch up my look. I wanted to dress like those artsy, edgy Juilliard students. But I knew I couldn’t ask Charlotte to take me shopping again. I couldn’t hurt her feelings that way, mainly because I was, and still am to this day, scarred by an event that took place when I was in the fourth grade.
Picture it: Omaha, 1988. I was going to perform in Dickens in the Market, an annual holiday event during which small Omaha children dressed up like Dickensian orphans and begged for money while singing Christmas carols in a neighborhood known as the “Old Market.” It had cobblestone streets, and I imagined it was the closest thing to London we could get in Omaha. Everyone was in charge of his or her own costume, and while some people rented costumes, other mothers would make theirs. Charlotte said she would make one for me, and for some reason or other, I hated it. I thought it didn’t look Oliver! enough. I had a full-tilt breakdown alone in my room. My brother Dan tried to comfort me, but when I started blaming our mother, he quickly came to her defense. This enraged me even more, and I remember shouting at him, “She couldn’t have just rented one! She didn’t even care that much! She’s lazy! She’s a lazy mom!” As the words came out of my mouth, I could sense Charlotte behind me in the doorway of the bedroom. She was crying, and she said, “I’m sorry you think I’m lazy, Andy. I tried.” Well, holy fuck. I had never felt shame like that in all of my ten years on Earth. I immediately started crying harder, this time for a good reason. I tried apologizing, but it was too late. She was crying, I was crying. To this day I have never felt so bad in my life. And I’ve done some shitty things. Charlotte remade the costume, I thanked her profusely, and we never spoke of it again. I am aware that was a real fucking tangent, but (a) it seemed to make sense in my head, and (b) I needed to publicly apologize to my mother for that incident. I’m sorry, Charlotte. I’m sorry for acting like such an ungrateful little dick.
All that to say that there was no way in hell I was going to tell my mother I needed new “looks” months after she had bought me new “looks.” I would have to figure it out myself. Based on the new mix ’n’ match skill Charlotte had taught me, I decided to take stock of what I did have. I pulled everything that was black out of my closet and drawers. I had more than I’d expected. There was a turtleneck, some T-shirts, a dress shirt, a blazer, and some pants that I had stolen from my brother even though he was taller than I was. (I wasn’t aware of sizing yet, just content.)
I thought about the Juilliard kids I had seen. What was I missing? Oh, right. Leather! Luckily, my father had a leather trench coat that had lived in the back of his closet for decades. He must have bought it in the seventies after seeing Shaft and never actually worn it. I decided it was perfect for my trip. I asked my father, and surprisingly, Ron said yes. (He was often annoyed at my obsession with what I was wearing and how I would be perceived. He would say, “No one is looking at you, Andy.” I knew he was right. But I wanted to prove him wrong.)
There was still one thing missing from my second stab at a cool New Yorker outfit, and I knew exactly where to find it. I went to the community dinner theater where I had done many shows and snuck into the costume closet. After rummaging around, I found it: a tattered box marked BERETS. Why was there a whole box of berets? Who knows? My guess was a long-ago production of Gigi. I didn’t care. I needed that hat to complete my look. I shoved a beret into my pocket and snuck back out. Everything was ready for my audition trip.
I arrived alone at Newark Airport. I would be staying with a girl named Laura who had been the Anybodys to my Baby John in West Side Story a few years earlier. She was a freshman at Marymount Manhattan College, which was one of a handful of programs I would be auditioning for. She told me to take the bus to Port Authority, and then from Port Authority, take the subway to her dorm on the Upper West Side. I was terrified that I would miss a step on this multistep adventure and end up being sex trafficked, proving my mother right. But I remained calm. I could figure this out. On my way out of the airport I decided I should buy some cigarettes as one final prop. I thought it would finish the look and make me seem “tough.”
For those of you trying to envision this final fashion project, let me help. It went like this: black boots from a store at Crossroads Mall called “Savage,” black jeans from the Gap, a black turtleneck (probably my father’s from JCPenney), my dad’s black leather trench coat, my precious beret, black-rimmed John Lennon sunglasses I found at a thrift store in the Old Market, and now…a cigarette, not being inhaled. I thought I looked like a beatnik, but in reality I looked like a teenager playing a blind hobo in the seventies.
When I arrived at Laura’s dorm, she took one look at me and I could immediately tell I had gone too far. I wasn’t very close with Laura, but I did confide in her my fears about not fitting in. She was sweet, and in a tone that could only be described as ridiculously condescending, she said, “Andy, you don’t have to wear ALL black. I’ve been here for six months. I know.” She seemed so wise; I had to trust her. I immediately started reimagining all of the clothes I had brought. It was demoralizing.
I also started wondering when I had made wardrobe mistakes in my past. Should I not have tried wearing that painter’s cap in the sixth grade? What about the puff-painted sweatshirts I’d made? The Bart Simpson pins on my satin-y baseball jacket? I had always be
en trying to fit in. Trying was the key word. Maybe I just needed to stop trying so hard. (P.S. The following year Laura got a full-blown perm, but she referred to it as “a body wave.” I realized she didn’t know as much as she thought she did.)
After finally moving to New York for college, I decided to give myself a break and allow my own look to come to me. I started taking note of people who looked great to me. I wanted to look cool, but I also wanted to be authentic and be honest about who I was. I was a nineteen-year-old guy from Nebraska. I wasn’t supposed to look like I was born in New York. I wasn’t.
There were still several mishaps over the years though, including:
The Fifth Member of Third Eye Blind: This involved a leather wrist cuff and short tees with graphics like “The Ramones” or “D.A.R.E.” over long-sleeve tees.
Hamptons Realness: This misstep stemmed from the fact that I had never been to the Hamptons. I was convinced that people there wore khakis and very fitted oxfords and penny loafers. I looked like a slutty Kinko’s employee.
The Robert Redford Tribute: This involved blond highlights, thick turtlenecks, and a camel-colored wool trench coat.
Titanic-era Leonardo DiCaprio’s Gay Brother: I would make my hair extra floppy, and sometimes slightly wet, and wear a white dress shirt with a wide-legged dress pant I stole from the dinner theater and a pair of ill-fitting suspenders.
My Own Private Idaho, or “I Didn’t Realize That I Looked Like I Was Asking to Be Abducted”: Perhaps my most humiliating look, this featured a child’s “Large” white T-shirt underneath…wait for it…denim overalls from the Gap.
I don’t regret any of my “looks,” especially the fails. I think that I had to pass through all of them to figure out who I was, or at least who I wasn’t. Plus, I immediately had the sense that while I hadn’t quite found what I was looking for, I was definitely on the right track. Sure, maybe I wasn’t as cool as those Juilliard kids I had seen, but honestly, who’s to say they were cool in the first place? They could have been real assholes for all I knew. And besides, I hadn’t escaped the sea of BeDazzled sweaters in Omaha just to jump into an ocean of black separates in New York; I had come to transform into someone new. And if that was true, I figured that I should probably work on my personality rather than worry about how my beret fit.
Oh, but I did finally develop a tip that is pretty helpful: You can always achieve inspiration for any event by looking at outfits James Dean or Cary Grant wore and trying to replicate them. It usually works. Occasionally you look like you are going to a Halloween party, but it’s worth the risk.
The 40-Year-Old and the Virgin
Less than a month after moving to my cell at the Allerton Hotel—I mean, my dorm at the Allerton Hotel—it was nearly uninhabitable. The building’s walls were crumbling, the pipes were rusted, there were roaches everywhere; it was so bad that the New York Times even wrote a story about it. I’ll admit that I was slightly oblivious to many of these issues. I just figured that this was New York living. As long as there weren’t police body outlines in the lobby, I was good. But other students, and their parents, disagreed. The combination of angry parents and bad press encouraged Marymount to move us all out of the Allerton House of Structural Horrors.
The school’s administrators were instantly set into a mad panic to find us all a new place to live, and they found it in another old hotel, this one in Brooklyn Heights. It was called the St. George Hotel and was located right in the center of one of the most charming, most quintessential Brooklyn Heights blocks, just steps away from the Promenade. The building was beautiful and newly renovated. The rooms were spacious and filled with natural light. The only downside was that we had to share rooms, and I had to pick a roommate quickly. I chose a very quiet, very nice guy in my acting class named Tom. I didn’t know much about him, but he was sweet and, like me, also seemed a little out of place, so he was a good fit for me. We mostly didn’t see each other, but some nights we would both stay in and watch The Golden Girls while eating whole pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. This felt like college. This was what I was missing.
It was here in Brooklyn Heights, during my second month of living on my own in a new city, that I finally found my footing. I knew which subways got me to school fastest. I knew which pizzeria in my neighborhood had the best pepperoni slices. I knew that Grace’s Marketplace on the Upper East Side was stupidly overpriced, but that you could sometimes see Lena Horne shopping there if you were lucky. I felt like I belonged. In the way that only happens when you are nineteen, a few weeks away from Omaha felt like a lifetime.
Then one night, he just showed up. He had talked his way into my dorm; I think security assumed he was a parent. I was scared. I didn’t want him there. Tom could tell that something was wrong. I lied and said everything was fine and that this man was just a man from my past in Omaha who was visiting, nothing more. The man said that he had no place to stay that night, that he had traveled all that way to see me and that he needed to stay with me. He wouldn’t leave.
Let me back up and start by saying I thought I knew what I was doing. It was 1995, I was sixteen years old, and I thought I knew it all. I saw an opportunity and I decided to go for it. Sex seemed very far away. I didn’t know any other gay teenagers in Omaha, so there was no one to experiment with. I figured I would have to wait until college. I guess I could have had sex with some girl who didn’t know any better, who didn’t see that my affections lay elsewhere. But having a younger sister, I just kept thinking, Would I want my sister to have this experience with someone who wasn’t fully invested in her? The answer was no.
So here I was, crawling out of my skin with manic sexual energy, getting a boner if someone walked past me too closely or there was even the suggestion of nudity or any kind of sexuality. I also happened to be spending a lot of time with adults in my community theater circle. Adults who were sexually active and who had none of the teenage hang-ups I did. And that is where I met him. He was a bit of a star in the local community theater scene. I had seen him on stage before and he was nice to me. He took an interest in me. That’s what I wanted.
When he approached me and I felt like things were moving in a sexual direction, I just said yes. It started in his car. He used to drive me home from rehearsals, and one night, he put his hand on my leg and I didn’t say no. We went from there. My hand eventually met his leg, and it was clear to both of us what game we were playing. It was so slow. It must have taken weeks for me to eventually work my hand higher, and to allow him to move his. I trusted him and I believed that this was safe and somehow blameless. Once a certain level of touching was reached, everything came together rather quickly.
It was the day of the Our Lady of Lourdes fall festival when we sealed the deal. I was volunteering with my parents at the Duck Pond booth at the festival. After a couple of hours of passing out stuffed animals, while simultaneously fantasizing about the most explicit sex acts that I could imagine, I snuck off and met him at his house. We talked about the usual things: local community theater politics, where I thought I might end up post–high school. Then we were kissing, which felt exciting and wrong, but exciting nonetheless. Clothes started to come off, and that felt even more wrong/exciting. I wasn’t attracted to him, but it was a man’s body and a mouth and I had never experienced either. This might be your only chance, I thought, so I relaxed. And it happened. Mouths and penises and feelings and panic, and before I knew it, it was over. It was on a couch and it smelled like incense and I loved and hated it.
So much pressure was put on this moment. I was supposed to love him, right? I was supposed to feel something. But I didn’t. I felt shame and relief and a combination of feelings that probably everyone feels when they lose their virginity. I felt in control and out of control all at the same time. What I didn’t expect were his feelings. I thought it was just about me. But he had other ideas. He wanted commitm
ent, he wanted this to keep going. It should have ended there, on that sweaty afternoon, but it didn’t. It continued sporadically and messily.
Cars.
Dressing rooms.
His house.
Rarely a bed.
Sometimes I would skip the last class of the day to meet him. Ironically, the class was “Moral Values.” Catholic high school at its finest.
Another major factor in this mess was that he had a boyfriend who found out about our meetings. Rather than being concerned that his forty-year-old boyfriend was having sex with a sixteen-year-old, his boyfriend was mad at me. He blamed me for his lover’s indiscretion. I was some Lolita who had lured him away. I felt guilty and wanted to say to this guy, “Hey, I don’t want to date him. I don’t love him. Please take him back. Please take him away.” But this guy insisted on blaming me. And a big part of me didn’t blame him for blaming me. I felt like I was responsible, after all. I was doing exactly what he said I was.
Eventually the boyfriend parked his car outside my house and just sat there. I talked to him—I told him to leave. He said that he was going to tell my parents, that he was going to tell everyone what I had done to him. I was terrified. For me to be forced out of the closet at this age, because of this man, was unimaginable. I couldn’t have my parents find out I was gay this way. I knew that I would tell them one day, but not like this.
Too Much Is Not Enough Page 4