Hello, hello bottlerag.org readers!
It’s good to be back with another chapter of TCHoMRLaaBWot21C! I apologize for the long wait; I know things keep coming up! This time, I was celebrating my 26th birthday, and then I went on a wonderful trip to Alaska!! I am sure you all did fine without me!
Live radio will be back soon! I am still getting that all sorted out, so just keep your ear to the ground!
I was recently notified that I am running out of storage on the site, so I may have to go through a few more archival options,,, or pay 50 DOLLARS A MONTH to update my site storage. If anyone has $600 dollars they feel they want to donate to that endeavor, let me know, but until then I will be looking into alternatives. Either way, expect updates about all that fun stuff.
This chapter is a longer one to make up for the wait! I hope you all don’t mind. I am expecting to be back posting this blog with more consistency for the foreseeable future.
Finally, I want to wish all my readers a happy LAST DAY OF PRIDE MONTH (of course, we will continue to celebrate all year long)! I hope you all partied hard and loved yourselves to the absolute max. To my Colorado readers, remember that today is your last day to turn in your ballots! So get those in before seven PM!!!!
Okay, ttfn, enjoy the post.
-Milkweed
*****************
Rosa’s aunt, Linda Botticelli, was a fabulous and formidable woman.
I’d already heard about her from my mother— Botticelli had been her theater director and English teacher less than fifteen years prior. Because of this, the first meeting with Botticelli I can remember was actually our reintroduction. Although I’d already been to her room on the first day, it wasn’t until the second day of 10th grade that I actually introduced myself.
I made my way into her room before the bell for first period rang. When I saw her, I was surprised by how much she reminded me of my mother, but older. They had the same mess of curly dark hair I’d spent my whole life envying, the same witchy clothes, the same clutter of miscellaneous books and papers crowding their desks.
In past sections, I’ve compared my mother to Fran Drescher, which I stand by, but that doesn’t give a full or accurate picture of who my mother actually is. Fran Drescher is half of it; the other half is best described as Augra the Keeper of Secrets from the 1982 Jim Henson film The Dark Crystal.
Botticelli was from Connecticut and educated in New York City. If she’d had even an ounce of Jew flowing through her blood, that might have brought her closer to Fran, but of course, she didn’t. She was from an Italian, Catholic family. Botticelli was an Augra through-and-through.
That made me, as I entered her space, sort of a Gelfling. Lost and lonely, maybe even the last of my kind.
I was intimidated by her powerful energy and the way she commanded me to “enter,” as I hovered at her threshold. I introduced myself with all the stuttering strength I could muster.
“Hello, Doctor Botticelli, it’s very good to see you. I’m not sure if you would remember me, but we’ve met before. It’s been a very long time. My name is Milkweed Milkweed, and you knew my mother, Penny Drecret—”
Before I could even finish the speech I’d rehearsed, she was holding up a finger to hush me, and she was digging through one of her desk drawers. After a moment, she brought out a wallet-sized photograph and held it up to my face.
I was looking at a picture of myself, a picture I only ever saw framed in an ornament on my mom’s Christmas tree. I couldn’t have been older than two, though I already had my first pair of glasses on.
“Yes, that’s me,” I confirmed.
“I remember you. I guess I’ve been holding onto this picture since about the last time I saw you.” She looked at the picture with pride, then looked back up at me, “It’s good to see you again.”
“You as well,” though I couldn’t remember the last time we’d seen each other, so my ‘again’ felt slightly disingenuous. I pushed on, “I heard you’re the person I should talk to if I want to audition for the play.”
She grinned and clapped her hands with delight. “That I am, and I am very excited about this year’s production, but the first thing you need to know is that almost no one in this building calls me ‘Doctor Botticelli‘.”
I nodded.
“I am a doctor, of course, and don’t you forget it,” she continued, “but pretty much every student and every teacher calls me Miss Bee. You can call me Doctor Botticelli if you would like, but it’s kind of a mouthful, don’t you think?” she said, her grin turning sly for a moment.
“The play this year is called She Kills Monsters…”
She began summarizing the play to me, while I stood there receiving and trying not to let my mouth fall agape in shock. I knew that high school in Denver would be a different story than West Ashley, though I didn’t know just how different everything would be. She Kills Monsters was all about a twenty-five-year-old woman, Agnes, getting to know her fifteen-year-old little sister, Tilly, posthumously by playing through a homebrew Dungeons and Dragons module discovered while cleaning out her old house. As Agnes plays through the campaign, she discovers that Tilly was a lesbian as well as a victim of continuous homophobic bullying.
My last drama teacher, at West Ashley High School, was cool with the gays, and she would tell you that much if you asked— it’s rare to find any thespian who isn’t cool with the gays— but I also knew people at WAHS who’d gotten in trouble for wearing “pro-LGBT” t-shirts to school. A play like SKM would have never flown, even in our wildest dreams. I was amazed and thrilled at the opportunity to be a part of an overtly queer production, and I was hopeful that I might get the part of Tilly. I figured if I did, the only thing I’d really have to play was dead.
Auditions were to be held over the course of two days; the Wednesday and Thursday of the second week of school. The first day would be an initial cold read— just one scene for everyone. The second day was for callbacks, where we would all read for every part we were called back for, over and over, until final decisions were made. The cast list would be posted the following Friday. That gave me roughly a week to emotionally prepare and focus on further grounding myself at my new school, before I really had to put myself out there.
***
I saw a lot of familiar faces at the initial audition the following Wednesday. Rosa was there, of course, and almost all of Rosa’s friends that I’d already been acquainted with. As promised, I also saw Able Maker.
Rosa introduced me to several more people, including all of her ex-boyfriends from the following year— all of whom were apparently baby-rockstars (which made me admire and envy her all the more). Rosa was on good terms with all of them, though she was apparently still sore about her most recent ex, a senior called Lucky Hendrix.
Lucky Hendrix was wondrous and stupefying upon first glance. First of all, he was the tallest high schooler I’d ever seen. He wore his hair in a combed-out afro, which added at least seven inches to his staggering height. Second, he had a beard (a real beard), which was even more shocking than his height. Third, he had an acoustic guitar that he was, apparently, physically attached to. Lucky played this guitar whenever he spoke or was spoken to, like an ongoing musical accompaniment for whatever conversation he happened to be a part of. If it had been anyone else doing it, the playing would have been downright obnoxious, but when Lucky played, it was like a gift. He was just that good.
Rosa was pissed about him for reasons I still wasn’t privy to, but when she spoke about him, she still spoke like she was in love. It wasn’t in a desperate or secret way either; it was more like an unavoidable fact. Like there was nothing she could do about it, and she knew that. I understood it, from her perspective. Lucky wasn’t just cool and tall; he was also nice and earnest. Everything about him reeked of authenticity. Even when he said something as common and simple as ‘it’s nice to meet you’, it felt like he genuinely believed that by meeting me, I’d added something to his life that wasn’t there before. I could see in those open, honest eyes of his that he felt the same way about Rosa as she felt about him.
For the cold-read, I read for the character Evil Tina. Tina was the muscle in a duo of homophobic succubus cheerleaders that torment Tilly throughout the play. Her counterpart, the brains, was Evil Gabbi. Tina and Gabbi, despite only appearing in three scenes, are Tilly’s main bullies and the closest thing SKM has to actual antagonists. They also call Tilly a “dyke” nearly every time they walk onto the stage.
I don’t think I’d ever said the word “dyke” myself. Though I’d recently taken to identifying more and more with the term, it still didn’t quite roll off the tongue. I’d been called a dyke by my own homophobic bullies countless times since the 8th grade, so in my reading I tried my best to channel their same jeering-yet-disgusted tones. It was a struggle still, but that technique made it a little more believable.
I walked out of the audition feeling confident about the reading overall, and I walked out of the school with my head held high. I was making all sorts of new friends with all the kinds of people I always dreamed of meeting in South Carolina. I felt good about my odds at scoring a callback, and that just made me feel all the better.
I was just about strutting down the sidewalk when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I whipped around. It was a girl in my grade, and I’d just startled her with all the drama of my spin. She took a step back, but still gave me a hesitant smile. She had thick, black hair in a low ponytail and dark brown eyes. She was wearing a black hoodie and black jeans to match.
“Sorry,” I said, embarrassed.
She laughed, “You’re all good.”
We were just staring at each other. I was waiting for her to say something, and I guess she was waiting for me to say something too.
At last, I asked her, “What’s up?”
Then it was her turn to apologize. “Sorry…” she chuckled.
I felt a tension between us, though I didn’t know what kind. I was assuming that she was bracing to tell me I had toilet paper on my shoe or a blood stain on my pants or something equally awkward and horrifying. Something karmic that would bring me back down to Earth. A cosmic punishment for feeling too good about myself.
But no punishment was dealt, not then.
“I just saw you walking…” she began, “and I thought you were really pretty. I was wondering if I could get your number?”
I could have launched into the atmosphere like a rocket ship and spent the rest of my days out in orbit. I was bewildered and amazed. A girl asking for my number??? Just like that??? No hassle??? No drama??? No trauma??? Less than two months prior, I was in hiding and being gay was life or death; now a girl was asking for my number like there was nothing to it! Yet another example of just how different things were in Denver. A not-so-small part of me wondered what Solaria would think. A fraction of the part wanted to make her jealous, another fraction wished we could have been together in a world like this one. All these thoughts flashed through my mind in a millisecond.
“Yes, absolutely,” I said as I grabbed the girl’s phone from her hand, typing my number into an empty contact page. I handed her phone back and said “talk to you later,” in the chillest-sexiest voice I could manage, before spinning back around and strutting away.
***
Things at home weren’t quite so merry.
I was adjusting fine to living with Grandma Marge and Aunt Nakina, but Grandpa Homer was dying. His decline was both rapid and sluggish, and I was struggling to find the right way to feel about it.
For context: Grandpa Homer was a veteran of the Vietnam War.
He was present in my life. He was at every family gathering. He picked me up from school sometimes. I spoke to him; I knew things about him, but they were just the facts. I could tell you his birthday (May 5th, 1949), I could tell you what politicians he rallied for (a staunch and active democrat, ever since his first election), and what nonprofits he donated to (mostly the ASPCA). I couldn’t tell you what music he liked, because he only ever listened to talk radio on CPR. I could tell you that he somehow always smelled like coffee and cigarettes, long after he quit smoking.
Still, I always felt like I barely knew the guy, and like I maybe never would. I loved him because he was family, but I didn’t have the same sort of soft, tender relationship with him that some of my peers had with their grandfathers.
He battled with emphysema my entire life— hence why he’d had to quit smoking. He was on oxygen by the time I was six, and by the time I was ten, he was spending most of his time in bed. His illness was the norm to me; it was just the way he was. I think this is why when he truly began to decline, I was so caught off guard.
It was difficult to accept. It was both logical and completely illogical.
Logically: If a person is battling a terminal illness for long enough— eventually they will get sicker, and then they will die.
Illogically: If a person is one level of sick for as long as you can remember, you expect them to stay that level of sick indefinitely, which therefore makes dying an unpredictable outcome.
I knew he had to die in my lifetime; I just wouldn’t have expected it to happen so soon.
The Milkweeds aren’t emotional people— I’m emotional, but that comes from my maternal grandmother’s side. The other 3/4s of my family are white Catholics. In my experience, white Catholics don’t let themselves experience pain in front of other people. They have an absurd amount of stoic discipline, especially when it comes to grief.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen my grandmother or my aunt cry. If I have, I can count occurrences of both on one hand, and I can guarantee that all of these occurrences took place in the weeks following my grandfather’s death.
The week leading up to his death was another story.
We all knew it was coming days before it actually happened. While the shift from mostly alive to nearly gone happened quickly, he danced in the in-between for longer than expected. I said my goodbyes multiple times before he was gone for real. Each time I told him that I loved him and that I would miss him. Each time, a couple of tears slipped down my cheeks, but it never felt like the correct amount of tears.
I felt guilty— I felt guilty for not crying more. I felt like I needed to be torn up about it. I felt like the sadness was supposed to linger. I felt like I was supposed to feel gloomy at school, not excited to make new friends and do new things. But when life at home was all business as usual, and when I needed so badly to start my new life, it was difficult to find time to be torn up.
I don’t have control over when I am able to compartmentalize like a Catholic. It just happens to me sometimes. Like sorcery.
At home, I cycled through every emotion so rapidly that I never had to feel any of them to completion. I felt excited about my new beginnings. I felt sadness about my grandfather’s coming demise. I felt anger at Solaria about letting things end. I felt nervous about the girl I’d just met and the audition. I felt guilty about not feeling bad enough. And repeat.
***
The next morning, the callback list was posted. When I found my name, I felt a flood of pride and relief. Getting a callback meant that I was still in the running to get a lead in the play. It also meant (at least in my own mind) that I’d proven myself truly worthy to my new theater friends. It meant I really had the chops to keep hanging around them.
I knew that if my name wasn’t on the list, they probably wouldn’t have fully excommunicated me from their clique, but I still wasn’t secure in my place yet. All of Rosa’s friends were artsy and talented and creative. I wanted to prove to them that I was in their league. I wanted to prove I could walk the walk as much as I could talk the talk.
That lunch period, I was reassured and felt myself fully begin to settle in. I didn’t have to white-knuckle every interaction. I had yet to hear back from the girl I’d given my number to…but the validation I felt from getting a callback was enough to make that feel inconsequential… at least… that’s what I told myself.
Able Maker was a theater kid with an established reputation as such, but he did not eat lunch in O’Malley or Miss Bee’s classroom with Rosa and her friends. He roamed the halls with his friend, Pedro Pete (whom I knew from chemistry class and had seen at auditions), during lunch. I knew this, because I’d seen them walk past Miss Bee’s room every day, but never enter. That second Thursday of school, they did enter.
“We are conducting a survey!” Able announced. His voice and posture were that of a gameshow host. “Are you pro or anti Oxford Comma?”
He and Pedro Pete split up and made their way around the room in opposite directions, asking people for their opinions on the matter. I observed their behavior as they did this. Their energy was similar to the other theater kids that I’d come to know (something akin to an indie-sleaze-era wannabe-greaser), but they had a certain haughtiness about them that the other theater kids lacked.
Able approached me. He was holding a tissue box that he’d picked up on his journey around the classroom. He was tossing it in the air and catching it like a football. If it could have bounced, I’m sure he would have bounced it like a basketball.
“Oxford Comma. Yes or no?” he demanded.
I was too distracted by the airborne tissue box to answer right away.
He asked again, “Are you for or against the Oxford Comma?”
This time I answered, “I guess I’m for it.”
“Wrong!” he said. Then he pretended to throw the box at me, not letting it actually leave his hand.
I flinched.
His voice softened. “Did you think I was actually going to throw this at you?” He appeared genuinely hurt.
From across the room, Pedro Pete shouted: “Did she say ‘yes’ on the comma??”
“No!” Able lied, winking at me. Then he went on, “I wouldn’t actually throw something at you.”
Then he immediately threw the tissue box at my head for real. It didn’t hurt, but I still said “Ow,” and then “What the hell, man?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, not seeming very sorry at all. “That was an accident. I don’t know how that happened.” Then he was laughing, setting the box far away from both of us, as if it had hit me of its own volition.
He changed the subject. “I saw you at auditions yesterday.”
“Yeah, I told you I would be there.”
“Right, right. Did you get a callback?” His voice was back to being superficially cool and arrogant. Something about the way he asked made me feel like this actually was a temperature check.
“I did. Did you?” I already knew the answer, because I’d seen his name on the callback list. He didn’t need to know that I’d given it any thought, though.
He rolled his eyes like it was obvious— and maybe it was. “Yeah, I got a callback.”
“Cool.”
“Cool.”
As if their business there was done, he straightened himself up, called for Pedro Pete, and they left the room together.
“See you after school,” he said over his shoulder to me or everyone. I couldn’t tell. Everything about him was confusing.
“What’s their deal?” I asked Rosa.
She answered simply, “They love each other.”
“They’re gay??” I asked.
She laughed, “No,” then paused, “maybe.”
***
At callbacks, I read for Tilly Evans, Kaliope the know-it-all dark elf, and both Evil Tina and Evil Gabbi. Notably, I was not called back for Lilith, the sexy-lesbian-demon-princess, but while I was out-and-proud enough to play an overtly queer or homophobic character, I couldn’t even fool myself into thinking I had the skill to play a sex symbol.
I read the most for Evil Tina and Evil Gabbi. I struggled with Tina mainly because of my height. Tina was meant to be physically threatening, and at barely 5’2’’, I wasn’t very convincing as the muscle. Anastasia Romanov, the beautiful tenth-grade heiress to Dazbog Coffee, stood at a towering 6 feet tall. When she took over reading Evil Tina, and I took over Evil Gabbi— our chemistry was undeniable. While I was still hopeful about nabbing Tilly Evans, I couldn’t deny that I felt good playing bad.
***
My grandfather died the next morning. I know now it happened around 4:30 a.m., but in the immediate aftermath, no one told me what was going on.
I knew it had happened. Or I knew something horrible had happened. I knew this, because my grandmother didn’t let me past the kitchen that morning. She told me that she was going to walk me to school and briskly ushered me out the back door and up the alley.
My grandmother knew I was smart enough to understand what this meant, but she also knew that in the Milkweed family, if the obvious wasn’t stated, it wasn’t meant to be discussed. She would tell me what she had to tell me when the time was right. To her, the Friday morning of the second week of school, when the cast list would be up and when I would have my first tests and quizzes, was not the right time.
We both knew that had I gone out the front door, I would have seen an ambulance. A fleet of healthcare professionals. Maybe a covered gurney. Trigger after trigger for my brain to actually start feeling things. Signals for me to actually start thinking about death and grieving. There wasn’t time for it yet.
So she walked me to school, and I allowed myself to feel like everything was normal.
When I got inside the building and saw the cast list posted outside Miss Bee’s room, I went from feeling fine back to feeling good. Rosa’s name was at the top of the list; she’d scored the role of Tilly Evans, and I was happy for her. I knew she would do the role justice. I quickly scanned for my name and saw it printed in bold under the character Evil Gabbi, beneath the character Evil Tina, I saw Anastasia Romanov. The perfect pair. Lucky Hendrix was cast as Orcus (Ex) Overlord of the Underworld. Able Maker was cast as the Narrator. All the other names on the list were still strangers to me, but I was eager for that to change.
When Anastasia appeared next to me, I congratulated her and told her I was excited to be evil with her.
“Likewise,” she said. Her voice was poised and airy like a true princess. Nothing like the monster she would be portraying.
Able appeared next to us, his finger tracing over his own name on the list. “Narrator?” he was incredulous.
“What’s wrong with the narrator?” Anastasia asked.
For the first time, he seemed bashful. “Nothing… It’s just…” he scoffed and turned away. Suddenly, Rosa was there, consoling him.
“I know, I know,” he was saying before she could even speak to him, “No small parts, just small actors.”
“Sure, definitely, but Narrator isn’t a ‘small part,’” she said, stroking his ego in a soft voice.
“It’s not?” He looked up at her with puppydog eyes.
“No! Of course not, I mean you probably say more words than all the other characters combined, you’re in more than half the scenes, and you tell the whole story.”
He weighed those facts against the one that appeared to be bothering him, “But he doesn’t even have a name.”
“Neither does the narrator of Fight Club, but he’s still the main character,” I said.
Now it was Able’s turn to look at me with confusion. “I’ve never seen Fight Club.” Still, the point seemed to resonate with him. He turned back to Rosa. “You’re right. It will be good.”
“It will be great. We will all be great!” Rosa said, giving him a hug, then turning to Anastasia and me. “You two will be fabulous.”
I was excited, and I wondered if it was wrong to feel that way.
***
Able and Pedro Pet returned to Miss Bee’s classroom for lunch that day. By then, my excitement was beginning to fade, leaving behind a residual complacency and a displaced desire for comfort. Everyone was chittering about how rehearsals would go when they started the following week. Pedro Pete was talking about his hopes for the set, and Able was still coming to terms with his role as Narrator.
I announced to no one in particular that I really wanted a milkshake, and that I was thinking about going to get one after school. I think I was hoping Rosa would offer to join, but she didn’t, so I forgot about it.
***
Toward the end of the day, I received another small mood booster when the girl I’d met two days before caught me in the stairwell. I was on my way from Spanish 2 on the first floor to Algebra 2 on the third floor.
“Hey, you,” she said with a smirk.
I still hadn’t heard back from her, but by then I’d almost actually forgotten about her. Seeing her reminded me of how excited I was to give her my number, but also how embarrassed I was that she hadn’t texted me. “Oh, hey,” I said.
“I’m sorry for never texting you, but I realized I never got you name. I’ve had your number saved in my phone as Girl with the Beautiful Smile.”
I would have called her bluff, but before I could, she was showing me the contact page with my number, and that very name typed up above it. I could feel my face get hot with scarlet blush. I couldn’t recall a time when anyone, let alone another girl, had been so forward with me. I was too stunned to speak.
She chuckled and pushed a piece of hair behind my ear. “So what is it?” she asked.
“What’s what?”
“Your name, silly.”
“Oh!” I was sure I probably seemed like an idiot. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten to give her my name, or even ask for hers in the first place. “It’s Milkweed.”
I spelled it out for her, then asked for her name in return. She told me her name was Bella, and then she winked.
When we got to the third floor, I said, “It’s good to officially meet you.” I grabbed her hand and gave it a firm shake. “My class is this way,” I gestured over my shoulder.
“It’s cool, my class is on the second floor,” she said.
“Why did you walk all the way up here?” I asked.
She laughed and shook her head, as if I should have known. “It was nice talking to you. I will text you later.”
I felt my face get hot again, but luckily she wasn’t there to see it. I shuffled down to Algebra, my eyes glued to the floor in front of me.
When the bell rang at the end of the day, I went to my locker looking forward to my upcoming text conversation with Bella and semi-dreading the bad news that I knew awaited me at home. I was taking my time putting my books away, and I intended to take my time on my walk home too.
“Milkweed!” I jumped at the sound of my own name. People at South seemed to have a gift for spooking me.
I closed my locker door to find Able standing on the other side.
“Milkshakes?” he asked.
I was moved. I didn’t think anyone was listening to me at lunch, but I suppose he was, and he’d thought to do something about it.
It was morbid, I knew, but I certainly wanted a milkshake more than I wanted to go straight home. I wasn’t sure what the right decision was, but I also knew my grandmother was still allowing me to live in a world where nothing bad had happened yet. So I texted her and asked if it was alright.
She responded right away:
Sounds good. Have fun!
“Okay,” I told Able.
“Great!” He grinned wide, “Now we just need to find Pedro Pete!”
He linked his arm in mine and whisked me away.
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