Read Online Any Resemblance to Actual Persons by Kevin Allardice - Free Book Online Page B

part of my brain—when I was a kid at summer camp leaving the showers one crisp foggy morn when my thick-necked bunkmate came up behind me and ripped off my towel and pointed at my hairless cluster just as a group of girls walked by, the air redolent of kiwi shampoo, while I just withered in shame.) I looked at the other Vivian Darkbloom, then at all the other literary hopefuls milling about the famous author’s living room. Everyone’s collective attention turned from the various bric-a-brac that signified all their high-brow aspirations, and in their collective gaze I saw—or at least imagined I saw—the ambivalence of the literati toward everything pop culture: the class-infused loathing mixed with genuine envy of recognition, no matter how egregious and vacuous that recognition might be. But then the other Vivian Darkbloom laughed, and everyone went back to sneaking glances at our host’s bookshelf. I’d learn later that no one in that room aside from Oliver had any idea what Loose Cannons was, and they were reacting more to Oliver’s loud and sudden outburst, but at the time all I could do was stand there and try to cover my suddenly exposed, chill-shriveled genitals. “I’m gonna buy this man a beer,” Oliver said directly to me. There was no beer in the house, just plenty of free wine, and Oliver was suddenly intent on notjust getting a beer for me but actually buying it for me, so he announced to the room that we were going to a bar and that anyone interested in the history of television could follow. Our cohort was presented with an option: stay here to meet-and-greet in the living room of a Pulitzer winner, or follow Oliver and me to a nearby watering hole where he would ply me with beers and questions about life in L.A., obscure TV stardom, etc. No one came with us. Oliver in effect befriended me and alienated me from everyone else before the first day of classes had even started, and I’d come to suspect that this was just his MO, that when he decided someone would be his friend he must also assure that no one else could befriend them with the same level of intensity, a freaky way of saying, You’re mine and no one else’s. At the bar, I was at first put off by him, confused by his aggressive friendliness and questioning, wondering if he was simply fucking with me, but at the same time I couldn’t help feeling flattered. This was, after all, attention, approval, even if it was approval for something I no longer approved of. One of the less touristy questions Oliver asked me that day was about my family: Did I have any siblings? Yes, I said, an older sister. He said he had a younger sister; she was in high school. An odd and seemingly pointless point, but looking back on our friendship I think it’s an important one. That’s when I realized that just about everyone who’d befriended me in my twenty-seven years had been an older sibling. As a younger sibling myself, I’d always sought the friendship and approval of people who had that older-brother mien, just as I’m sure Oliver, despite being my junior (he was twenty-two, had graduated from Princeton at twenty-one, a fact that made me rabidly insecure about my own academic achievements), always sought younger brothers to take underhis wing. And that’s exactly what he did. He taught me to appreciate fine scotch and obscure punk, often at the same time, sitting on his couch at three in the morning after the bars had closed and he’d whip out a bottle of Lagavulin sixteen-year (“Smells like a campfire, right?”) and LPs by the Dictators and Double-Sided Dildo (“You can actually hear the feedback from the singer’s mike picking up the guitar amp”). At twenty-seven, I suppose it was a little late in life for me to suddenly start appreciating punk, but I latched on to the stuff, missing all the angst and anger I’d had to set aside during my late teen years,