Narcissus and Goldmund

For a long time, I believed that my first love occurred in third grade. Her name was Johnna Case. Johnna was petite and blonde; her father owned a limousine company and she used to brag that she had sixty cars. Although this was patently untrue – the fifty-eight luxury vehicles were kept on a lot near the Willamette River – I believed with unwavering credence that Johnna stood at the absolute pinnacle of my grammar school’s socioeconomic circle, and told my male friends tales of my future with Johnna. We would be chauffeured from place to place in one of her parents’ limousines, sipping Cristal in the back seat while jazz music played from the surround sound speakers. I would kiss her soft lips and we would talk sententiously of art and poetry on our way to all the best parties.1

I learned Johnna’s birthday and wrote it on a scrap of paper in faultless cursive, then pinned it to my wall. Johnna, I knew, adored Winnie the Pooh, so I took a catalog from the local mall’s Disney Store and bookmarked the pages that were colorfully adorned with her favorite character. I promised myself that I would save every nickel that I earned from the lemonade stands that my friends and I held on the corner of 20th and Siskiyou St. and purchase the best birthday gift ever for my future girlfriend; perhaps a porcelain Winnie the Pooh statuette, or jangly charm bracelet. This would spark a passionate love affair between us that would last forever.2

My crush lasted for a full year and a half. Unfortunately, when I was in fifth grade, my friend Kyle informed me that Johnna was dating Andrew Neumann. Andrew was equally blond and already ripped at eleven, the quintessential jock with whom I knew I could never compete. Not only were Andrew and Johnna the hot couple of Alameda Elementary, Kyle whispered to me in one lunch-hour discussion that he had heard some particularly savory gossip from Mark Snyder who had heard it from Andy Savoie. Andrew, it was rumored, had fingerbanged Johnna in the back of one of her father’s limos.3

After some clarification on the implications of fingerbanging, a sexual deviance with which I was unfamiliar, my illusions were entirely shattered. Johnna was not the virginal pixie that I had made her out to be. She was a sexpot, a vixen who was slutting around (or so I imagined) with the entire fifth-grade class. Yet I loved her even more because of it. I had gleaned from the immortal wisdom of my psychologist mother that promiscuity implied insecurity, which led me to the conclusion that Johnna was just a lost little girl, expressing her emotional vulnerabilities through physical contact. I knew that I could fix her problems.4

On the last day of fifth grade, before the graduation ceremony, I found myself walking next to Johnna across the blacktop. I knew that this was my moment to confess my devotion with such eloquence that she would have no choice but to find me irresistible.5

“Johnna?” I asked. She looked at me and I felt my heart leap in my chest. As a child, emotions were black and white, without any of the nuance that arrived with maturity. All I felt was yearning, yearning to understand Johnna’s psychological makeup in a way that Andrew never could.6

“Oh, hi, Sam,” she said.7

“I just wanted to tell you, that, um.” The words fumbled out of my mouth, uncomfortable and without any of the fecundity that I had envisioned. There was a long pause.8

“Yeah?” she asked.9

“I wanted – well, see, I wanted you to know that, uh – I’ve liked you for a really long time. And I know you’re with Andrew and all, but just, you know, if you ever break up, I just, really like you. That’s all.”10

She studied me. I knew that this was the moment at which she would grab my wrist and pull me in for a kiss, confessing that she had always loved me too and only I held the key to unlock the darkest chambers of her heart which contained the secret insecurities that plagued her.11

“Oh. Well, that’s great. I guess,” she said awkwardly. “I’ll, um. I’ll keep you posted!”12

And with that, Johnna hitched her baby blue backpack up her shoulder and scurried quickly in the opposite direction.13

My aspirations were utterly crushed. Life could never be the same. Johnna despised me, found me repulsive – she would never return my affection, and I would be permanently girlfriendless. 14

For the years precluding my confrontation with Johnna, I had tuned the radio next to my bed to the station that played jazz music every night so I could fantasize as I fell asleep. I looked forward to it all day; my ability to imagine life with her was a guilty pleasure that I felt was mine and mine alone. But the words “I’ll keep you posted” haunted me for weeks after school ended, tormenting me as I struggled to sleep. I tried fiercely to count sheep, but all I saw were hundreds of identical leering Winnie the Poohs, flashing before my eyes in waves of orange, mocking me. I knew then, although I couldn’t articulate the sentiment, that I would be alone for the rest of my life.15

A few days after school ended, I was scheduled to head off to my first stint at summer camp. I had never been away from my parents for an extended period of time before and the thought terrified me. I understood instinctively that figuratively leaving the nest would change me and catapult me from childhood into the great unknown that was adolescence. Simultaneously, we were preparing to move from relaxed, family-friendly Alameda District with its gently sloping streets and Victorian houses up to the verdant neighborhood of the West Hills, full of dead-end roads with names that held no logic and massive McMansions juxtaposed against acres of imposing forest. Alameda was all I knew, and I felt overwhelming trepidation about the move. I left for camp with the knowledge that when I returned, I would be coming home to a huge alien house, replete with unfamiliar noises and long hallways that led to freshly carpeted bedrooms with vaulted ceilings. 16

The camp that I was to attend was managed by a subsidiary of Johns Hopkins University called the Center for Talented Youth, more commonly referred to as CTY. Placing in the 95th percentile or above in my standardized test scores had granted me access to this supposedly prestigious program, where students stayed on a college campus in dorm rooms and took a single accelerated course over a three-week period. I had chosen a class in Greco-Roman mythology, if only because the idea of taking Neurology or Etymology as a ten-year-old was too intimidating. 17

I arrived in Los Angeles in late June, full of excitement and paranoia – perhaps my first experience with an emotion that wasn’t immediately cookie-cutter, that I couldn’t name or define. I settled into my dorm room and was later joined by my roommate, a chubby Jewish boy named Cal, who I immediately wrote off as a moron. Cal was obsessed with Pokemon, a common fad that I considered to be as inane as PlayStations, sports, and most other activities supposedly enjoyed by ten-year-old boys. Often while I laid in bed, Cal would make the noises of Pokemon characters in his sleep. Just as I began to slip into slumber, a mumbled “Pika-Pika-Pikachu!” would rouse me and keep me awake. I avoided Cal at all costs, preferring to spend time in the dorm room of our resident assistant, or RA. The RAs functioned as parents, enforcing rules with firm empathy. My RA was named Larry. Larry was a chubby black college-student with expressive eyes and a lisp. I liked him because he was extra nice to me; he was extra nice to me because he knew, although I didn’t, that I was destined to be as gay as he was.18

The highlight of the CTY experience was the Friday night social. All of the students would cram into a designated outdoor arena, where a DJ was set up to play generic pop music and generally entertain the kids, giving the RAs a much-needed opportunity to escape from the high energy and pretensions of hyper-intelligent children. At the socials, the trendy raver Asians would breakdance, while the quiet bookish Asians watched a movie inside or swayed on the sidelines, already wallflowers. The sparse population of Caucasian kids milled around, dancing sporadically or sipping on the provided Kool-Aid. One of my surprises upon coming to CTY was the in carnate evidence to back up the stereotype of the overachieving Asian – more than 80% of the participants were Asian, giving me the opportunity to learn how to differentiate between Chinese, Korean, etc. At my largely white elementary school, I’d eschewed any sort of exposure to diversity; there, I was charmed to discover that Asians were really no different from anyone else.19

That said, the various specified ethnic groups tended to cling together: Vietnamese with Vietnamese, Japanese with Japanese. I had an inclination to seek out the faces that had some semblance of familiarity, and spent most of the time at the socials searching through the crowds for a potential friend. 20

It was in this context that I first spotted Ray.21

From my vantage point of Loyola-Marymount University, the Los Angeles smog tended to paint the sky bizarre colors as the sun set. On that Friday night at dusk, the sky seamed to gleam a rich hue of purple, which gave the impression that the world was either ending or beginning – it was hard to tell. I was distracted by the flashing of glow sticks as one talented Asian boy’s hands whirled, the streaks of tincture illuminated against the violet sky. But through the strange, variegated mess of color, I saw a shimmer of white. I was instantly blinded. 22

After my vision returned, I looked back in the direction of the coruscation and saw a boy wearing a t-shirt and shorts, surrounded by a gaggle of other white boys looking up at him with rapt eyes. His hands were moving and he was visibly telling a story. I wandered over, jealous of his obvious popularity, but mostly just interested.23

As I grew nearer, I began to notice every detail of his appearance. He had a shock of shaggy white-blond hair that extended down the nape of his neck and dark blue eyes, the color that I had always longed for but never been able to summon up from the murky hazel of my own irises. He was lean and tan and his teeth were even whiter than his hair.24

My first session at CTY corresponded with the apex of the Latin invasion, so I found myself straining to hear the boy over the nasal croon of Enrique Iglesias’ “Bailamos.” His voice was husky and had a classic Californian swagger in the intonation. I lurked momentarily, not listening to his words but just inhaling his persona, and then scuttled back to where the music was less audible.25

I tapped on the shoulder of a girl with whom I had class.26

“Do you know that guy, over there?” I asked, trying not to sound too involved.27

“The one with the blond hair?” I considered adding “and the eyes as blue as the sea and twice as deep,” but it seemed like that might have come off as obvious.28

“Of course,” she said, looking at me with contempt. “That’s Ray.”29

“Ray,” I repeated.30

“Yes,” she said, enunciating as though she was speaking to someone who was hard of hearing. “Ray.”31

I turned and walked to a private corner of the courtyard, then plopped down on the grass. I sounded out the name, and felt the way it stretched my lips and exposed my gums, contorting my mouth into something like a smile. I was intrigued by this Ray, but even more intrigued by my own fascination with him.32

I saw Ray multiple times over the next few days, but never felt ballsy enough to go up and introduce myself. I did discover that Ray, along with all of the other cool kids, was taking Engineering, and I cursed myself for not possessing the foresight to take it as well. I couldn’t understand the origin of my preoccupation with him, but I dreamed that I was in a world where everything was white-blond and perfect. One night, I awoke sweating from a dream in which I was cradling Ray’s shaggy blond head in my arms, running my hands through his rumpled hair, tracing the contours of his face with my fingertip. I felt sick and diseased. When I looked over at Cal’s snoring figure in the bed across the room, I knew that he never dreamed of such debauchery. Precocious as I was, I was unable to contextualize my attraction; all I knew was an inherent feeling of wrongness, like I had stolen something and the guilt was devouring me from the inside out. 33

I avoided Ray for the rest of the camp. Out of sight, I figured, out of mind.34

My first year at middle school shaped me in ways that I hadn’t imagined. I returned to CTY the following summer a year older but eons more insightful: I was sexually aware after spending months in sixth grade lusting after an entirely different boy. I believed that my brief fixation upon Ray was over.35

But as I settled into the CTY dynamic, I began to remember the dynamic of the camp; this was a universe in which hearts were broken over relationships that had lasted mere hours. The social scene mirrored the academic: as we covered a week’s worth of course material in a single day, a week’s worth of drama came and went in a similar timeframe. I realized that Ray was in my dormitory building, on my floor, his room just down the hall from mine. When I saw him again, he was standing in front of the door to the bathroom, wearing nothing but sunflower yellow boxer shorts. I noticed instantly that the boxers had a small pocket in the front, which struck me as remarkably cool – later, I would scour the mall for a similar pair of undershorts and ended up devastated by my inability to locate them. A surge of envy and lust flooded over me. The nudity only allowed Ray’s charisma to ooze more thoroughly from his body like aromatic sweat, seeping from him with each breath. On the spur of the moment, I waved to him. He waved back and smiled. Suddenly feeling so gauche in my cargo pants and polo shirt, I scampered back to my dorm room in order to catch my breath.36

Ray’s clique of friends at CTY included a short, Tara Reid lookalike named Lissa and a brown-haired debutante named Alice. Somehow, I wormed my way into this cadre of coolness, spurred on by their appreciation for my uncanny knowledge of pop culture. The four of us ate together in the cafeteria three times a day, or rather, gingerly prodded the unnervingly plastic meals prepared by the kitchen staff. I grew to understand Ray as a person, not just as an object, and learned that he was charming and almost bewilderingly intelligent, with a quick wit and a wry smile. My nervousness around him eventually subsided; if I focused my eyes on something else instead of him when we were carrying on a conversation, I could forget about his appearance and pretend that he was just a normal person. But Ray wasn’t normal. Golden, magnetic, and overwhelmingly warm, I found myself disoriented by so many positive characteristics with only one flaw: his apparent heterosexuality.37

I know that I loved him because of the complexity of the emotion, and because I never understood that it was love in the first place. When I met someone and felt an initial pull toward them, I was quick to capriciously label it as love, but the appeal inevitably faded when I discovered the blemishes in my paradigm of perfection. With Ray, the allure began as a merely physical attraction but grew to be a strange sort of appreciation, in which I was held captive by his virtues to a point where I was so appreciative of his existence in the world that it choked me. I was swollen with gratitude.38

The summer tasted like hard candy, like the sticky-sweet dust that clung to my lips once the flavor of bubblegum or strawberry had already dissipated. One lazy Sunday, Lissa, Alice, Ray and I laid out in front of the dormitory, our ankles cooling in the fountain as we argued about philosophical concepts too labyrinthine to even wrap our mouths around. Ray was patently existential, extraordinarily jaded at twelve years old, while Lissa clung to articulate idealism with as much certainty as a child who still believed in Santa Claus.39

“I just think that it’s all bullshit,” Lissa said, closing her eyes and pushing her shoulders back. The spaghetti strap on her tank tone slipped down onto one arm and she quickly adjusted it, the nervousness in the gesture betraying her sanguine tone. “All of this God-is-a-fallacy shit. I’m sorry, but I don’t think that belief in the existence of God equates naïveté. I just don’t.40

Ray rolled up his sleeves and ran his fingers through his hippie-child blond hair.41

“But don’t you think it’s inevitably going to get dogmatic to an extreme point?” he asked. “I mean, the existence of God is a poignant ideal for awhile, but then you get into all of these tenets of faith like sin and it just seems to be utterly antithetical to the entire point of spirituality-“42

“I’m not arguing for one religion in particular,” Lissa said. “I’m just saying that, you know, God has a plan for all of us.”43

“God has a plan for all of us?” Alice said with the slightest hint of contempt. “Don’t you think that’s a little bit convenient?” 44

I decided it was time to put in my two cents. “Yeah, and when you make statements like that, there isn’t a lot of room to allow for free will and the innate human need to succeed and improve – if God has a plan for all of us, then what’s the point in making an effort?” I dipped my fingers into the cool water, watching the droplets cling to my fingertip like beads of blown glass I’d seen once in Venice. I wished desperately that I could prove or disprove the existence of God right then, just to wow these children with my intellect and sagacity. 45

No such luck.46

I felt most effective when I was in my element, dissecting the formula of a Britney Spears music video with such confidence I could easily have become the next David LaChappelle, or providing trivia on the salaries of the individual members of LFO. I was happy to develop an odd symbiosis with some of the kids: I could learn about Friedrich Nietzche while teaching about Joyce DeWitt, swapping US Weekly for Dante’s Inferno. Having eventually amassed my own collection of books, I lent him my battered copy of Ender’s Game. The novel, a seemingly disposable tale of über-intelligent children engaged in futuristic intergalactic war (with portentous undertones of Christian Scientology), seemed particularly apropos in our microcosm of also über-intelligent children. But while the kids in Ender’s Game were battling aliens, I was battling my own identity crisis, a foe worse than spaceships or laser guns. Nonetheless, Ray seemed to appreciate the parallel. I spent the night in his room and lost myself in the conversation, but the attraction came rushing back as he fell asleep and I listened to his breath in the hushed dormitory.47

By the end of July, Ray and I had grown close, and I had fallen deeper in love with his remarkably blue eyes, the way he always knew the words to every song. We traded screen names and phone numbers before leaving. On the plane back to Portland, I wept quietly into my single-serving packet of honey-roasted peanuts and plastic cup of Pepsi. The stewardess came by and offered me a Kleenex, touching my shoulder sympathetically.48

“Is this your first time leaving home?” she asked. I thought about the fountain in front of the dormitory, the water perfectly clear, the way the air always smelled fragrant like watermelon and lime, how even inside the sun clung to your skin, embedded its gold in every pore. 49

So I said, “Yes.”50