Choirboy...

My grandfather bought this statue on one of the many junkets he and Grandma took to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He said it reminded him of me. I had grown up singing in a prominent Episcopal choir of men and boys that emulated that English tradition. Ten years, from age 7 to 17, three nights a week and Sunday services. I paid my dues. Grandpa liked that.

The problem, for me, was that when I was 18, I looked 15. Skinny, blond, and pink cheeked. I hated the whole choirboy image. In sixth grade, while casting for a play, I wanted to be John Raitt, Bonnie’s dad, as he had been in the Broadway production of Carousel. He was barker Billy Bigelow, a tough guy who always wore a tight black turtleneck that showed off his muscles. My own turtleneck only held a scrawny little blond kid who couldn’t scare a Chihuahua.

So when Grandpa gave me this statue, it represented everything I was trying my best to outgrow, even though as a present from him, it was huge.

I immediately stashed it in my parents’ house for about ten years. 

Then, softening to the image, I replaced the cross with a sword and made space for it in my bachelor pad. This guy stood on a wooden table beneath the undulating orange parachute that draped down and across the ceiling of my bedroom. Holding his sword at the ready, the choirboy became my own wooden Indian and hat rack, subjected to the humiliations of inappropriate head wear, eye-wear and even the underwear of a cute guest or two if I got lucky.

Sometimes he would lay down his sword and hold a perfectly rolled joint. A good boy gone bad.

Perfect, we were starting to make some headway.

Yesterday I was looking at him, just the two of us alone in the room. We talked, reminiscing about how we met over 50 years ago, his childhood in San Miguel and what a long strange trip it’s been.

No one thinks I look younger than my age anymore. He is unchanged, that bastard. These days I have no problem with being reminded of my choirboy years, nor with being compared to this guy. We’re buddies now.

Sometimes we really do change the way we feel about things.

Everything changes, Well, almost everything.

Memories of the way my mother made eggplant casserole back in the day is set in stone though. It would still be every bit as disgusting today as it was way back then.