Party of One (28 page)

I put my iPhone on shuffle, and the drugs absolutely worked in that I felt each song deeply. Dawes's “A Little Bit of Everything” made me think about our interconnectedness and the fragility of life and the importance of hope. Mayer Hawthorne's “The Stars Are Ours” reminded me of my friends all over the country and how lucky I was to have them. The Hold Steady's “Our Whole Lives” got me thinking about Catholicism and how it shaped me, whether I continued to embrace it or not. And then I drove home and Ben asked me how it was and I told him we'd talk about it later, but right now let's make a YouTube playlist of all of Janet Jackson's videos, in order, and watch them on the big screen with our Apple TV. And he immediately said yes, because I am absolutely with the right guy.

The next day, I woke up early, with a fresh, clean mind and a newly cleansed chakra system. I had two unread e-mails, one from Shamaness Pam to the whole group with a photograph of some items that had been left at the house: a feather earring; a leather cuff; a colander; a small, fine-mesh satchel with a baby tooth inside. The other was from my friend John in Ireland, asking for a full rundown on how the whole thing went. I said: “I didn't get any answers. I didn't learn anything about myself. All I wanted was to get away from these people and be on my own and listen to music. I think I did it wrong.”

And he hit me back immediately: “What if that's your answer?”

And I stood right up out of my chair.

What if that's my answer? What if I took a shaman-approved jungle hallucinogen that is supposed to give you insight into your soul, and my soul told me: “Rather than try to fit in somewhere that's not for you, you're better off on your own, wandering, writing, listening, observing?”

What if I've been trying to join teams and wear uniforms and live by other people's rules my whole life, when what I should have been doing is trusting myself, like the Indigo Girls told me over Singapore Slings at Applebee's?

What if I
am
my whole team, and what if I always will be, and what if that's enough?

What if the millennia-old soul of Saint Peter really was in that cactus, and the secret he had traveled through time and over dimensions to whisper into my ear was:
Do you?

As sacred pseudo-religious epiphanies go, it was as good as any.

I chose to believe.

I was working in the office at
Esquire
in New York City on June 26, 2015, the day the Supreme Court issued their decision in
Obergefell v. Hodges
and made marriage equality the law in all fifty states. The decision came down in the morning, and we had to get the news out and write our instant takes and collect the best Twitter reactions, all the musts for a magazine these days. There was rejoicing, and because it was 2015, we expressed it by sending one another Chuck Norris GIFs in HipChat. (But we meant it. It was a great morning. Those Chucks had never been more sincere.)

Once we'd gotten all our content up, I made the decision to relive the '90s and make it a Summer Friday, like in my advertising days, and I CitiBiked down to the Stonewall Inn. It seemed right: the modern gay rights movement had started with a riot there forty-six years before, nearly to the day. Plus, Pride Weekend was about to start. Say what you will about the Supreme Court, but they really know how to create a moment.

Just about everybody in the media had had the same idea. There were cameras and crews from all the local stations, radio reporters roaming with microphones, photographers clicking away. Everyone looking for a quote, a face, a fist, the perfect picture. I was, too.

But the windows were rattling from the thumping bass inside, and this was too important a day just to stand and observe. So I went in.

It was shoulder-to-shoulder inside, and the music was louder than the speakers could handle. You couldn't hear anyone talk, which was okay because what was there to say? We'd won. We just looked at one another: couples, groups of friends, people like me who'd come alone just to be there. We looked at one another and smiled. People sang along—Calvin Harris had bumped Robin S. from the rotation since the last time I'd been in a New York City gay bar—and jumped up and down. We had all taken our own winding, treacherous path to that place on that day, but we'd all made it. A few decades ago we would have been thrown into paddy wagons just for being there, but as of that morning, we were a part of the American family.

My people.

I jumped up and down with them.

The ground shook.

It felt like a new beginning. And as Semisonic has taught us, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

I had to run up to Mamaroneck for a friend's engagement party that evening, and after I'd been there for a couple hours, my friend's nephew came up and introduced himself. “I'm Justin,” he said, a jubilant, braced-and-pompadoured kid fit for YouTube. “I heard you were coming. Have you had any of the seven-layer dip? That was me.” We chatted for a good long time, me and Justin. He was twelve, about to start eighth grade at the local Catholic school. “Ooh, junior high,” I said. “That was a rough one on me. How do you like it?”

“Are you kidding? I love it.”

I said: “That was the age we all started going to mixers. Are there still mixers?” He said there were. Because I honestly had no idea of the answer to this question, I asked: “What do they play at a mixer these days?”

“Hip-hop, mostly. But, like, the hard stuff. Big Sean.” And then he leaned in and stage-whispered,
“the clean versions.”
Just a hint of an eye roll.

“When I was your age,” I told him, “we wouldn't actually
mix
for about the first hour. The boys would be on one side, the girls on the other, and then someone would finally go out into the middle and dance and everyone would follow.”

“Oh, we dance,” he assured me. “Me and my friends?
We dance.
” I believed him.

I had met Justin's dad earlier in the night, and I saw him looking over at the two of us talking, and I may have been imagining it, but I thought I saw a look of
okay, good
on his face. I got the feeling we were supposed to be talking, Justin and I.

Now, maybe young Justin is a gay kid, like I suspect he is. Maybe he's not. What he definitely is is an exuberant twelve-year-old boy who will never spend five minutes of his one life thinking he shouldn't be.

I like that I grew up uncomfortable. It gave me the fuel that powered me through a very weird life. It made me want to succeed, it made me want to work hard, and it got me where I always wanted to be. But it's not for everyone.

Maybe Justin will have his first crush and be able to tell his friends and parents about it. Maybe Justin will make an ass of himself falling in colossal stupid love with someone when he's fourteen, when you're supposed to make your embarrassing mistakes, and he'll get to shake it off, the way everyone else does. Maybe Justin will stay this confident and composed throughout his youth, and when he's my age, all he'll be able to say is that his life is pretty plain. What a luxury.

He's part of the family now, and while being in the family is no guarantee he'll be treated well, it does mean he'll be treated like everyone else.

I wish Justin the very best, and I believe he's going to get the very best, and I have to believe it because it would be unseemly for me to follow him on Instagram and make sure.

All I can say is that I think we're both lucky guys.

To everyone in the insane Crown posse, particularly my brilliant, patient, and perceptive editor, Matt Inman. You are the best, and I am the luckiest. To my agent, Michael Bourret, for believing I had something to say, and to Michele Rubin for being the first to make me think I could do this. To John Sellers for all of the encouragement. To Joe Armenia, Caryn Leigh Posnansky, Veronica Robledo, Rod Aissa, David Katz, Amanda Schatz Kitaeff, Dave Strevens, and literally everyone at MTV. To all at
Esquire, Vulture,
and SiriusXM. To Grant Goodeve. To Steph Edwards, Katie Reap, Sarah Brick, Teddy Harris, the day shift at Longman & Eagle, and the entire city of Chicago. To everybody at iO West, NerdMelt, and
Maximum Fun
. To Andrew Lear. To Bryan Johnson. To Fr. Ralph. To Josh & Shell, Scott & Jules, Derek & Debbie, Irene, Crowley, Nick & Elise, Mike & Allison, Lee & Hannah, John & Hank, Mike & Bret, Dave Park & Matt Mercer, Damien & Grasie, John Butler, everyone whose name I mentioned in this book, and all of my friends on both coasts and everywhere in between. To the cast of
The Friday Forty
. To Jensen Karp for being an ear and a shoulder. To Kara Baker, but not to Matt Braunger. To everyone who ever had me on their podcast, especially Jimmy Pardo and Matt Belknap. To Betsy, Susy, Burke, Cady, Caroline, Tommy, Danny, Chip, Mary Kate, and Libby for making our family even better. To Ben Wise and Junior for moving into my heart and immediately getting busy on renovations:

Thank you.