A List of Things That Didn't Kill Me (50 page)

It never happened though.

At some point I ran into Brandon's cousin Ian—the guy whose arm I'd maybe dislocated on the night I asked Maria for her phone number, all those years earlier. I bumped into him on Broadway, on Capitol Hill. He looked the same in most respects, but his eyes were strung out as hell.

“What've you been up to?” I asked.

“Not much,” he said, scanning the street over my shoulder, not making eye contact. “Joined the Army. Rangers.”

“Yeah?” I asked. “I've been thinking about doing that. How was it?”

“I got discharged,” he said.

“What?” I asked. “Like—thrown out?”

“Yeah.”

“What for?” I asked.

“Well, you know,” he said. “Those guys are a bunch of fucking hypocrites. They're supposed to be training us to fight—to kill—but then they get all freaked out when you want to get good at that part of it.”

“Uh,” I said, “so … what actually happened?”

“Officially it was some weird subclause in some regulation. But really it was because my sergeant found out I'd sharpened my entrenching tool.”

“Your entrenching … you mean those little shovels? Like they use to dig foxholes?”

“Yeah,” he said, his eyes focusing on me for the first time. “You sharpen one of those up, it's basically a battle ax. It'll split you from here … to here.”

As he finished the last sentence he put the first two fingers of his hand on my left collarbone and slid them down my torso to my right hip. Something about the gesture was disconcertingly intimate.

“Okay,” I said. “Well, good to see you. How's Brandon doing?”

“He's still with Maria. They've got a place up the hill.”

“Right,” I said. “Well, that's good. I'm glad they're doing well. I'll see you around, man. You take care of yourself, okay?”

“Roger that,” he said. He was already looking somewhere else, and I was glad to get out from under those eyes.

It wasn't until I got home later that night that I started to wonder if most people would think Ian and I were pretty much the same guy.

*   *   *

The idea that I might come across the same way Ian did bothered me for a lot of reasons, but one of them was that even I knew I wasn't totally beyond help. There were days—sometimes even two of them in a row—where I still wanted to be Han Solo, and believed that was possible. I just didn't know how. And I worried what would happen if I joined something, like the military or some church, to try to find my way. Because I recognized in myself the potential to be a zealous convert to any organization or philosophy that promised me direction—and it scared me. Better to stay away from those who might claim to have all the answers; messed up as I was, I knew I'd probably believe them.

Still, I felt like I was waiting for the universe to give me a hint. Left to my own devices, I cobbled my divine mandate together from cheesy movie dialogue, fortune cookies, and things I saw spray-painted on walls or written in bus shelters with felt-tipped markers. When I was walking down the Ave, in the University District, and some gutter punk handed me a homemade leaflet that said, “Why pay the government to tell you what to do? Take back your life!” I knew that was a message I should think about. When I heard George Carlin say, in a stand-up routine, “That's the whole secret of life: not dying!” I thought, Yeah, that's the stuff. A few years later,
The Shawshank Redemption
came out, and no lesser personage than Morgan Freeman told me to “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” I knew I had my walking papers.

Of course I also knew that I was making the whole thing up; that my intermittent bouts of optimism were just a reflection of my own gradually improving mental health. But, functionally, I didn't really see the difference between taking my cues from Morgan Freeman or from Jesus the space alien. Emma Goldman's advice, that “The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and well-being,” seemed as complete, to me, as anything I'd read in the King James Bible or heard at Grandma and Grandpa's churches.

Mr. Freeman had told me to get busy living, but, just like before I went to Evergreen, I struggled to understand what a happy ending—a real life—would mean for me. When I'd asked my dad how regular people went on about their business while a family in Cambodia was being trampled by elephants, he'd implied that ignoring suffering was a core tenet of the straight paradigm. Calliope had told me that our secret superpower—hers and mine—was to hear all the screaming and horror that straight people tuned out. The cheerleaders for the American dream told me that if I worked hard and sacrificed, I could be normal someday. But I couldn't bring myself to want that. The rage I'd felt toward the straight world, for standing idly by while AIDS destroyed my home and my community, wouldn't allow it. I could feel the crashing of giant feet on the earth and hear the sounds of human suffering. I had an obligation to listen, even if it kept me from ever being normal.

But what was I supposed to do, then, in order to get busy living? Join the patent-mafia and start strong-arming inventors?

I found my answer in the gospel of Frank. And it was only when I was out on my own, lost and looking for direction, that I realized I'd already been baptized into his religion.

Frank and I had lost touch while I was at Evergreen. Or it might have been more accurate to say he'd let me go. Not because he wanted to, but because it had been our arrangement; there were no strings attached to the help he gave me. So he sent me a few letters telling me I was welcome at his house for Thanksgiving, or for Christmas, if I happened to be in town, but that I shouldn't feel obligated. And when I didn't respond, he let that be that. I appreciated his forbearance. Those years had been hard enough without having him watch me stumble and fall, over and over again. But I understood now that Frank's gift to me wasn't the money he'd given me, or the help with my school applications. It was the promise he'd let me make, that I'd pay it all forward some day.

In a certain light, Frank was as straight as they came. He was an old white guy, a retired professional, married, with a grown son. But his career path, as an educator, had been in public service. And when he retired, instead of going on cruises or traveling in Europe, he'd volunteered to clean houses for a group of people that the rest of the country wanted to banish to quarantine camps. He hadn't done any of it because Jesus told him to. He'd done it because it was right. Or maybe because someone had done it for him once. He would have been a good example in any case. But then he helped me, when nobody else could or would. And when I took his help, I promised to follow his example.

When I was three, my grandma had told me that all I needed to do in order to be saved was to invite Jesus into my heart. Later, I understood that the ritual she was talking about was really just a metaphor for internalizing a value set or an idea. I hadn't been willing to take the plunge with Jesus the space alien. But Frank W. Ross—there was a guy I could commit to.

*   *   *

Once my path was clear, I just started to put one foot in front of the other. I enrolled in a community college. I set my sights on a four-year college. I got back in touch with Kris and Lizzie, and the three of us got a house in Ballard. We did Christmas and Thanksgiving together. Whenever Kris bought ice cream, I ate it all—and they let me get away with it. They teased me about it.

I built bookshelves in my room. I decorated.

I didn't just turn into a happy person overnight, and I never went straight. I was still angry. I still had days and nights when I imagined some unnameable doom hanging over me. But when the fear came close to paralyzing me, or I thought about taking a step closer to the cliff edges that seemed to surround me on every side, there was always my promise to Frank to pull me back.

I couldn't save a life from prison. I couldn't save a life if I was dead.

I started putting one foot in front of the other. It really was that easy.

It was the hardest thing I'd ever had to do in my life.

 

Acknowledgments

A guy like me, writing a book like this, needs to thank people who helped me with the book, and people who helped me live long enough to write it. Rosina Lippi has the distinction of being in both groups. She's read multiple drafts of my work, provided invaluable feedback, encouraged me, and made introductions. This book wouldn't exist without her, and it for damn sure wouldn't have been published. So for this book, for things that have come before, and for anything that comes after, Rosina—thank you.

I give my heartfelt thanks to my agent, Jill Grinberg, for kicking ass, taking names, and being so very, very patient with me. I'd also like to thank my editor, Joy Peskin, who looked at my one-page bio and saw this book underneath it. If it weren't for Heather Hobson, my hands wouldn't have stopped shaking long enough for me to type any of this out. Her honesty and trust helped me write about things I usually don't even like to think about. Stephen McCandless, the enabler, helped me get out of my head and get going.

My wife, Tricia: to say she deserves my thanks doesn't begin to cover it. The spouses of writers are a uniquely underappreciated breed of survivor.

John Damon got me started loving stories; Corinne Schmutz convinced me to try my hand at writing some.

Frank W. Ross saved me once, and a thousand times since then.

 

 

A portion of the proceeds from this book has gone to establish the Frank W. Ross Memorial Scholarship Fund. You can support the fund with a tax-deductible donation. Please send your check made out to Pride Foundation, with “The Frank W. Ross Memorial Scholarship Fund” on the memo line, and mail to:

Pride Foundation

The Frank W. Ross Memorial Scholarship Fund

2014 E Madison Street #300

Seattle, WA 98112

Or go to
www.pridefoundation.org
and click
DONATE NOW
to make a tax-deductible credit card donation. Be sure to enter “The Frank W. Ross Memorial Scholarship Fund” in the comment box.

 

Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers

175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010

 

Copyright © 2015 by Jason Schmidt

 

All rights reserved

First hardcover edition, 2015

eBook edition, January 2015

 

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Schmidt, Jason, 1972–

    A list of things that didn't kill me / Jason Schmidt.

        pages cm

    Summary: “In his searing, honest, and ultimately inspiring memoir, Jason Schmidt tells the story of growing up with an abusive father, who contracted HIV and ultimately died of AIDS when Jason was a teenager”— Provided by publisher.

    ISBN 978-0-374-38013-7 (hardback)

    ISBN 978-0-374-38014-4 (ebook)

    1.  Dysfunctional families.   2.  Drug addiction.   3.  Sexual abuse.   4.  Family violence.   I.  Title.

HV697.S347 2014

362.19697'920092—dc23

[B]

2014013170

 

eISBN 9780374380144