Another One (Prologue)
Prologue: The Sun Also Rises
They say that you can tell a college student by his walk. His gait carries an air
of authority, a devil-may-care saunter, as if nothing in the world can touch him. And
it should. In college, you're invincible. Where else do you get the chance to make all
of life's mistakes and still have your parents show up to bail you out?
I never learned to saunter like that. Growing up, I had it hard. No, my mom
wasn't a crack addict, and my dad wasn't a jobless loser drifting in and out of jail. We
just didn't see eye-to-eye all the time, and money was always tight. My parents
didn't know what to expect of me; a part of them must have known I was bound for
something great, but then again, I think that's a part of all parents' thoughts.
Secretly, I'm sure they thought I'd turn out to be a Joe-everybody, high-school
dropout and mill worker like the other eighty-percent of my hometown population.
Well, at least until I "outed" myself around my seventeenth birthday.
That's right. I, Thomas Delanor (don't ask) McDonald am a grade 'A', straight-
from-the-store homosexual. A faggot, nancy-boy, queermo, what-have-you.
Whatever you call it, I can't help it; I feel it from the tip of my nose to the point of my
fluffy tail. A fox has to do what a fox has to do, and I was certainly more inclined to
take home-Ec my senior year than the alternative metal-shop. The conversation
went something like this:
Dad: "Thomas, every man takes metal shop. Home-Ec is
reserved for women, and men who want it in their
ass every day from a dirty, sweaty Wolf."
Me: "I can't help what I want! You don't control me!"
I know, I know. Lame, right? Well, what's even worse is that somehow the
information from this conversation (which I admit was more-or-less mistakenly
volunteered) spread to my high school. And then around the school. I swear, by the
end of the week I was the most well know gay guy in the whole county. Not that it
matters.
Well, it does a little bit. Apparently, the faculty of my high school, along with
the state university, get together each year to give out a scholarship to the student
who has faced the most adversity and come out alive. Apparently, being the only gay
student (yeah, right. Once you're out, you'll understand what I mean. Anyone who's
ever had the slightest inkling of curiosity about it will come to you like you're a
fucking expert) automatically earns you the prize. Such was the way that I came to
attend Westshore University.
At Westshore, they stick the freshmen in one of two places: Riley Complex,
aptly named after univerisity founder Melvin Riley who, at sixty-eight, went crazy
and hung himself in his basement; and Point Royal, which is essentially a quad-
complex, complete with cracked swimming pool a crack-head manager. I was stuck
in the latter, since the nature of my "merit scholarship" suggested that I might make
a roommate uncomfortable. Ahh, good old-fashioned discrimination. But who was I
to complain?
However, this isn't about my freshman year at Westshore. No, fast-forward
three terms to my second year. After I escaped the torment of over-sized portions
saturated with salt. After I learned how to sleep during class without getting caught.
And yes (this is one of those stories, after all), after I lost that jewel called
my 'virginity' on a half-drunken dare to my now-(straight)-roommate, a coyote
named Breckin. After I did all that, I finally got to experience a more real, although
still safe, version of life.
This is that story: