cousin

Stress is nothing new in my life. Being a perfect, golden child is a stressful gig. Fredrick (my afore mentioned cousin) was one of the few people I did not feel stress with. We had an unusual relationship. On certain days, we were best of friends, and other days we would fight with the passion of mortal enemies. Truth be told, we were enough alike that we probably worked on each other’s nerves. You see, Fredrick was a golden child too. He could have taught Beethoven a thing or two by the time he was seven. Our grandmothers were sisters. Our grandfathers were related too, somehow. Hey, we lived in the Ozarks, as long as it is not your first or second cousin, get hitched, it don’t matter! Fredrick and I were born the same year and spent our first eighteen years together. We would loose contact for ten years, until we would rekindle our friendship via MySpace. Who says good things don’t come from fads?
Every year, our Christian school would have a fundraiser in the form of candy bar sells. Every year, Fredrick and I were the top to sellers in the boy side of the competition. In all actuality, our fathers were the top sellers. Fredrick’s dad took the candy to his medical practice and mine took the candy to his printing factory. Fredrick and I simply collected the prizes. It was a good thing we had going. Mutually beneficial, I am sure. One of the traditions of our school was to have a big party at the skating rink to announce the candy bar winners. The closest skating rink being in the town thirty minutes away. They had the movie theater (that we were not allowed to go to—sinful), Wal-Mart, the skating rink, and, believe it or not, a Chinese buffet. They had everything!
I loved the skating parties. I would do back flips, skate in figure eights, and skate with one leg over my head. If you believe that, you may want to go back and re-read up until this point as you obviously have not figured out who is talking to you. I couldn’t even use the break pad on the skates (still can’t). I was the fat kid you saw skating as fast as possible, arms flailing to stay balanced, and slamming into the wall that shook the foundations in order to stop or turn the corner. Still, I loved it. The neon lights, the disco ball, the limbo. Sigh. My first gay club.
Fredrick and I had our own tradition. Every year. In true perfect child and golden boy fashion, we considered ourselves better than the masses of rabble that surrounded us. We had our own exclusive club. Oh, we never had meetings or membership or anything. We didn’t need to. We were the only ones good enough to be in it, duh! We also, as any Protestant steeped in Fundamentalist tradition, loved to gossip. We would skate around, pretending to enjoy the childhood delight of skating. We had them fooled. We were really watching people out of the corners of our eyes and eavesdropping over the blare of the music. Once we had something juicy, we would catch the other’s eye and with a raised eyebrow and a twinkle, head off to our secret meeting place. The boy’s bathroom. It was dark and small. I would always slam through the door and crash into the wall. Fredrick, ever the more graceful and athletic, would make less of a spectacle of himself. In hushed tones we would relay the information we had observed. Goose bumps would cover our skins and tingles would run through our bodies in our pleasure of the precious details we would share.
We would then sneak back out of our meeting place, as low to the ground as we could get. Sometimes we would split up like the Hardy Boys (Fredrick already liked to read books; I liked to color) and go off on our separate missions. Other times, we would team up and peak over the ledges out onto the skaters who were so unaware of the secret service observing every more. We would also creep along the wall, flattening ourselves as best we could (again, Fredrick was better at this, as he did not look like he ate all the candy he sold) and we would spy on our parents, skate rink employees, and other adults. At a glance from the other’s eyes, we would rush back to our hidden meeting spot giggling and giddy with delight.
It never entered our realm of possibilities that people could see us as we spied on our targets nor that we did not become invisible when plastered against the wall. Those were all details never to be trifled with. We did not worry or stress about all the possibilities that could go wrong with our missions, we simply threw ourselves in the quest with abandon. Since we did not worry about being caught or noticed, we never were. Neither were we distracted from our ultimate goal. Oh, the nuggets of gossip gold we uncovered, polished, and stored in the vaults of our minds and friendship.