Jonathan Bradley Welch (19:38)
Just let me be myself, that's all I ask of you. I love and I love to be your. You know, as a lot of queer youth do, like you ask yourself the question, where do I belong? Do I fit in? Am I the kind of person who people want to be around? You know, so that was a question that I was asking myself A lot when I was a kid or when I was younger. I mean when I was little, like don't get me wrong, I had friends, right? I would go play baseball in the neighborhood with my friends, you know, in the cul de sac. And then like 3:55 would roll around and I'd be like, guys, I gotta go. Designing women's on at 4 and 4:30. And like those women are my friends, you know, like big shouldered ladies from the south. Love them, but I know. So as much of a like hit as I was with the neighborhood, for varying reasons, my real friendships didn't start until I was a teenager. And one of my very best friends that I met around that time was this girl named Alex. And I mean, Alex was everything, okay, Funny, pretty, smart. She was like, she was a little bohemian. She was aloof in a good way. Things would just roll off her back and she didn't care. She had style, she had flair. She was there, she was fantastic. She was, she was my own Designing Woman, but without the shoulder pads. And we did everything together the last two years of high school. She was actually the person who taught me in the Sophie B. Hawkins song As I Lay Me Down. You know that song, right? I'm not gonna sing it, but there's a little interstitial. And she's like, I think they're singing who likes tacos? Cause it goes like who likes tacos? But it's ooh la caco. Which doesn't mean anything anyway, so she was like just the best person in my life, right? And so it was time for me, senior year to look at colleges to figure out where I was gonna go to school. And when you're a closeted gay teenager in New England, you have two options, okay? You either go to an urban university so that you can have like the Sex and the city experience. I'm the Samantha. Or you go to the academic equivalent of a Dave Matthews concert and you go to a tiny liberal arts school somewhere in the woods. I got accepted with a full ride to Southern Vermont College in Bennington, Vermont. So I was door number two and I was invited up for the weekend to check out the campus to see what it was all about. And I asked Alex if she wanted to come with me. And she was like, absolutely, I'd love to. Now, Bennington, Vermont. Does anybody know Bennington, Vermont? Okay, that's good. That's a good start. It's not very big, it's very historic. My aunt and uncle lived there, so I spent summers there and I was like, I know the town, you know, Like, I'm very familiar with it. So I'd love to bring you. Like, I'd love to take you, my friend, and show you this town. So she was like, I'm totally game. Let's go. And so we were planning this weekend, and she's like, can Lars come and. Okay, Lars. You might be thinking, who's Lars? Is it her persnickety cat? Is it a stuffed animal? A Swedish exchange student? No, Lars was Alex's on again, off again boyfriend. And, you know, he was popular. He was well liked. He had all the parties at his house. He had a lot of money. He was handsome. He was a musician. He was a total jackoff. Like, he was just such a loser. Like one of those guys, like straight white guys who just fails up and up and up and up and up. And I don't even think that he had any Scandinavian ancestry and his name was Lars. So, like, this was like, a little appropriation. But we didn't know that back in 2000. And so I wasn't that good in my youth at expressing the word no or coming up with a boundary. So I was like, sure, Lars can come with us now. He had already gone to college. He was off, he was away. So we had to pick him up on the way. I grew up in Massachusetts and had to drive the four hours to Vermont, and we picked him up halfway there. So we get to his campus and I pull up in my 92 electric blue Chevy Corsica that had on the dashboard duct tape remnants that said Comac. And I didn't know what that was, so I asked the previous owner and he's like, I'm the mack. My girlfriend's the comac. And I was like, so you can't get rid of that? You know, that's just like, ingrained in the dash. Pick him up. He gets in the car, he's wearing, do you know those, like, oval braided rugs you'd see in, like, a colonial dining room in the 80s? He basically cut a hole in it and he put it over. He was wearing that. His hair was just, like, messy, mussed, like all over the place. Facial hair growing in bizarre patches. Cause he was trying that out. He forgot hygiene. So Bo was like, hello, how you doing? Like, punching me in the face. And he had gained, like, the cafeteria weight at college, you know, and he had been there for three. So, like, he was just the vision of not who I wanted in my car, but here he was, and he was coming on this weekend with us. And for the two hours from his school up to Vermont, he just talked about himself the whole time and how enlightening things were and all these people he was meeting and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we couldn't like get a word in edgewise. So I took it and I sat there and I just listened to him. And I was like, God, I can't wait for this person to get out of the car now. Also, he really wasn't treating my friend very well. They were on again, off again, and they were at this point more off than they were on. So I don't really know like why he was even part of this situation, but he was. And he was there with us. And we were going to stay with my aunt and uncle so that I could check out this school. So we get to my aunt and uncle's house, say hi, drop things off. It's getting around dinner time, so I'm like, you know what, let's explore the town and then we'll find something to eat. And everybody's like, great. So Alex and Lars in my car, we're driving through the town. I'm trying to remember things from my childhood. Remember, like, where the campus is, remember where the downtown area is. And I'm showing them everything. And he's sitting in the back of the. Taking up so much space and like, like emotionally. And also physically, he's like, do you mind if I smoke a bowl? And now I would just be like, absolutely not. Like, that's not okay with me because I was like a very. I was a good kid. I didn't really do that stuff. And it was my car. And the dirtiest thing about the car was the comac thing. Like there it was a very like clean vehicle. And I was like, sure, why not? I'll be a pushover. And so he starts just smoking so much weed. Alex and I are not smoking any of it. And we're driving and we're driving down this country road and just kind of. I'm trying to remember where we are. We're getting into the historical district of town and the car's filling up with smoke. And that's when it happened. I hear and feel this giant crash. It felt like I ran over someone, but that someone was made of concrete. And we became airborne like Thelma and Louise. In the end, like the cars just kind of like flying. And we're just like flying. And for a beautiful moment, weightless. It was really kind of like, wow, this is like a two sided coin here. It was horrifying. But also like, ooh, wow. And we're flying in the air, and then we hit the asphalt and sparks come up and we just grind to a halt. And everybody's quiet for, like, four seconds. And I just go, do you think I got a flat? We get out of the car. We're in front of this old white church, one of those beautiful old New England churches with, you know, the big white boards and, like, the two doors on either side. And it's been there since the 1700s, and we discovered that my wheel's gone. Like, I don't have a flat, I don't have a tire, and I don't have a wheel. There was a big curb right in front of that church that wasn't there when I was a kid to say, this is a one way, don't drive down here. But when you have an idiot in the backseat who's making your car, like, filled with smoke and impossible to see anything, you don't see that this is right in front of you, right? So I start just completely, like, shaking, like, melting down. I don't know what to do. And I'm kind of freaking out. And Lars comes out and he's just like, ugh, that's crazy. But, like, guys, this is a beautiful place. This is a beautiful night. It's just. This is so great. We just need to, like, take this in and, like, just kind of enjoy this experience. And I was like, I am not enjoying myself, Lars. And I just, like, I let him have it. I'm like, I never wanted to pick you up in the first place. Lars. I can't fucking stand you. You're an awful person. You're terrible to my friend. You won't shut up. You distracted me. Now I don't have a wheel, I don't have any money. We don't have cell phones. It's the year 2000, and I'm a twink and I'm alone and I'm scared and I don't know what to do. And it's called Lars. And I hate you because I keep saying Lars, and it makes me feel like I'm stuck in this Mary Tyler Moore show nightmare where I just keep saying the name Lars over and over again. So he's like, cool. I think I went to piano camp around here and just wanders around. And at this point, Alex and I are like, okay, okay, well, we need help. And everything's closed. Like, nobody saw us. Nobody's around. I don't know if any of you guys have been to Vermont, but nobody's ever there, okay? Everything's always closed. There's like one candle in the window. It's like 1789 all the time, and we don't know what to do with ourselves. And I'm having just like the world's largest panic attack. And it's just like rolling. And I just. And he's just like, I went to piano camp around here, I'm gonna find it. And Alex is like, go fucking find piano camp. And so into the woods he went and just like kind of disappeared just into the green and we just didn't see him anymore. So Alex and I were trying to find our way to, like, a motel and figure out, like, if anybody could help us. And I'm standing there and I'm looking at this church and there's. It seems like just one street light in the entire state of Vermont. And it's shining on my car completely, like, with a smashed wheel, just sitting there. And we're sitting there and we're like, oh, we don't know what to do. And I have to walk down the street and try to find some motel so I can call my aunt and uncle and hopefully they can help. And hopefully they're home. Like, what am I going to do? This tour bus comes up, like one of those big buses that is supposed to take like 65 year olds to the casino. Except they're pulling up in front of this church and it's dark out at 7 o' clock on a Saturday night. And these people come out and somebody says, and this is where the poet Robert Frost is buried. The curb had been built so that they could put a marker in, like an historical site marker in front of the church that said this is where poet laureate Robert Frost is buried. And it's like, okay, I know the guy spoke at JFK's inauguration, but, like, if you already have a headstone, why do you need that too, you know? And like, because of that, now my car is in pieces. And again, I'm a cold, scared twink. I don't know what to do with myself. So we walk down the street, we go to. We find a motel. And like, they have a sliding glass door with those vertical blinds. And the woman just like, parts it. She's like Beulah Bondi. And it's a wonderful life when he's finding out his. His mother is not really. She doesn't know him. And it's this new life that he's never lived in. And she's like, mother, I ain't nobody's mother. And that's what this woman was giving me, energy wise. She was just like, what do you want? Like, parting the vertical blinds. What do you want? And I was like, hi, I'm a very Unassuming Abercrombie wearing 17 year old boy who's scared. And my car's in pieces. Can I call my aunt and uncle to come get it? And she's like, sure, but I'm gonna watch you.
