Plain Black Tee

1

“Decision time, O’Connor. What’ll it be?”

I looked at the pile of same-ish white shirts again. And the two sitting before me. I held one up, then the other, bringing the soft cotton uncomfortably close to my face.

The whole concept, I suspected, was bullshit, so I approached it like those standardized tests, back in high school when plaid flannel dinosaurs roamed the earth: process of elimination. Half the shirts smelled like the inside of a gym bag left in the hot sun for a week. No. Half of the remaining ones I ruled out because they’d tried to cheat the assignment by adding cologne. If all I can smell is Axe body spray, I’mma assume you have the same depth and personality as a can of that.

That’d left three, and one of them had B.O. that I wasn’t about, which left two. Whoever owned these, I thought, gave a halfway fuck about hygiene. One was, I guess, a little more ramen-y and the other a little more garlic-y? I was splitting hairs by now; these were notes so faint I might be imagining them. Guess I’ll go with Mr Garlic.

I turned to Jessa, and with exactly the same confidence with which I’d have read tea leaves, I proclaimed, “Uh… this one. Yeah. This one!”

My peers in the circle gleefully chanted: “O-pen it, o-pen it!”

“Arright, arright.” Tucked in the shirt’s breast pocket was a scrap of paper. Rather buzzed myself, it took a while to find the crease, and unfold it one, two, three times…

“A. R. We gotta A. R. up in this bitch? Oh… right,” I said, trying not to look crestfallen. “It’s you.”

Let me back up a bit, though.

When I was in high school in Asheville, NC, I went through a mean girl phase. Neglectful but well-off parents, check. Pink velour tracksuit, check. Trailed by one or more hopeless suitors and enjoying it too much, check. And honestly I wasn’t even a first tier hottie. I was just normal good looking and played it up well, thanks in no small part to my precocious skill and boundless imagination for makeup.

One of those would-be suitors was Adam Rzeznik. I appreciated Adam. He was kind of all over the place–social climber one semester, trenchcoat mafia the next. He had a winning smile. He was on the track and swim teams, so he had a decent build. Unfortunately for him, he also had serious social awkwardness and a tendency to run his mouth.

Sophomore year, some footballers got a hold of a little poem he’d written titled “Ode to That Ass.” Knowing he was into me, they took the liberty of renaming it “Ode to Millie O’Connor’s Ass.” And putting his name on it. And printing lots of copies.

Our entire graduating class could smell blood in the water. Adam and I both braced ourselves for the shitstorm.

Predictably, kids ragged on Adam incessantly. They tried multiple times to scam him into going places to meet me out for a supposed date, and got the nicknames “Ass Pirate” and “Dread Pirate Rzeznik” to stick. His response to this coordinated abuse was atypically subtle. He blank-face ignored the teasing, answering only when necessary, with benign or vaguely snarky answers that gave the vicious social climbers little to grab onto. Years later he explained that he was already in therapy, and his psychologist had taught him this strategy, which he referred to as “gray rock,” to deal with the narcissists in his life.

Only once, when someone publicly tried to drag me into it, did Adam lose it. He threw a single well-placed punch that got him suspended for a day, and shut up the offending kid. Then, when the initial hubbub had died down slightly, he surprised everyone by showing up to lunch in a pirate costume, complete with tricorn hat.

At a well-picked moment when most of our grade was coming to or from the cafeteria, his antics drew a crowd. “The trenchcoat mafia is dead!” he declared. “Long live the tricorn mafia!” He even had nonsensical flyers that advocated “redistribution of booty” and mocked some of his bullies in limerick form. In one moment of bizarre spectacle, Adam got on top of the narrative.

Meanwhile, all the mean girls had stumbled all over each other to feign sympathy for the embarrassment I must no doubt be feeling. Nobody asked how I was feeling. I was feeling a lot of different things. I’d been quietly a fan of Adam’s poetry for years–we were both contributors to the Jr. and Sr. high school lit mags–and when I read that poem, I got all kinds of red in the face. I hadn’t seen any Internet porn at that point. The things he was offering–very politely–to do with my body were shocking.

If I weren’t so mortified by the public scandal I might have said it was sweet, in a typically fucked-up Adam sort of way. But admitting this would be social suicide. Being anywhere near him was social suicide.

So, I made a spectacle of my own. I politely and very publicly turned him down.

I went on to date a boy at school who also wanted to play with my ass, and wasn’t gentlemanly about it. Whether fair or not, I blamed Adam: the bullshit had rolled downhill, fındıkzade escort and I had become typecast as “backdoor Millie.” I told that boy to go fuck off. In response, he tried to assault me. So I decided all boys could fuck off. Stupid and rapey and presumptuous and you can never be too guarded around one. I drifted away from friends who didn’t understand my plight, and made connections instead with the queer girls and the weird girls.

Alexandra Carson, for instance, with whom I bonded over make-up stuff. Alex identified as a radical bimbo. She fought unsuccessfully to make her senior quote “Hoes can do anything.” So it shocked nobody in our circle that she got full-ride to Chapel Hill for computer science.

It wasn’t until college that I found people to date who treated me and my body with respect, who helped me to open up and grow into my hoe self.

College was, among other things, a great palate cleanse after the disgusting drama of primary school. My makeup and art portfolio won me a scholarship to the highly exclusive Vitesse Institute in NYC, my folks paid for an apartment in Bushwick, and the City did its thing to my parochial southern brain. Not only did I learn I was bisexual, I learned that I was a leftist. Honestly I couldn’t tell you which was a bigger shock to the folks back home. At any rate, I could tell the Apple was a little too big to be my permanent home, so ultimately I jumped at an offer I received to work on the Atlanta production of RENT.

At a mere 3.5 hours from Asheville, Atlanta was perfect for me. It had all the things I held dear as a southerner, and as a makeup artist, but with a population of four hundred thousand, a modern urban vibe, and politics to go with it. Plus I was at advantage with my family. I could jump in my Civic (or later my old Yamaha PC800) and see them any old weekend, but it was a little more involved for them to gather up my baby sister Christine and their Yorkshire terrier Phyllis, and pile into the Town Car.

So long as it was on my terms, though, I did love to visit. I liked the music scene in NC and neighboring Tennessee, and I still had some friends in the area. Most people my age who’d stayed had become insufferable neoconservative little shits. But some turned out alright. A few had never really bought the bullshit, they’d always been out ahead of me on the road of political self discovery.

One of those was Alex, who by now had emerged with a master’s degree in network engineering (after exchanging Matrix or Ghost in the Shell-inspired looks with me on our webcams all through undergrad). She quickly scored a high-paying remote job and got herself a gorgeous house in the quiet suburb of Marion.

It was Alex who convinced me, one sunny day in April, to drive up from Atlanta to meet her, not in Asheville but in big city Charlotte. I love Char, she has a special place in my heart as well. While not the famous theater hub that is Atlanta, Charlotte is actually a much bigger city, the second largest in the southeast. It’s a place where you can find and do anything in the space of a day–shop big label, eat a fancy lunch, go to a museum, shoot rifles at the range, and then score some tasty barbecue and a milkshake.

We were on our way into the Queen City Outlets that day, to look at dresses for a club opening that night. Alex had raved about it, and I’d used my theater industry connections to get us spots on the list. (I was getting a little old to drive multiple hours and cross state lines in the hope a bouncer notices me.)

As we rounded the corner of the mall entrance, a man passed by us. He was our age, kind of in the gray area of being my type or not, and I wouldn’t have said I was instantly attracted to him. But there was something jarring about him. I couldn’t figure out what.

He looked like your typical metal and punk guy, for the most part. He had straight-fit black jeans and Docs, despite the 90 degree heat; a white-on-black band shirt with the name in unintelligible demonic scrawl; square rimmed black glasses; a smattering of visible tattoos, most notably the “bXe” on the back of his left wrist; a clean shave, and short jet-black hair. He had a hint of a gut, but his arms were jacked. His face radiated health and joie de vivre.

I didn’t even realize I was staring until he hit back with an ambiguous grin. Then he was past us, and it was over. Or so I thought. Alex had latched onto my forearm and was shaking it insistently.

“Mil! Oh my god, do you realize who that is? That’s Adam!”

“Son of a b–I thought he looked familiar.” I turned and watched him go around the corner.

I hadn’t thought about Adam in a couple years. I had to admit, gut or no gut, the kid had glowed the fuck up.

Thus, I was vaguely aware that Adam was out there kicking around southern NC. But we didn’t cross paths again for another year and a half. Once again, the blame lay with Alexandra.

On a rainy Thursday morning, I was going aksaray escort over some concept art in my Atlanta studio when I got an inscrutable text message from her:

“Two words. Pheromone party. U in bitch y/n”

I called her half an hour later. “Phero-what-now, bitch?”

“Girl, remember how we said this is the year we level up our hoe game? Welp opportunity is knockin. You remember Jessa Pickens?”

“Lemme think. Ah, yes, I remember Jessa Pick-Me, vice queen of the pick-mes. A real horse’s ass.”

“She’s better now. Honest. And she’s throwing one of those parties, where the guys all throw their worn t-shirts in a pile, and you gotta pick one out that smells right to you. And whoever that shirt belongs to, you go home with!”

“Alex, that is a terrible idea. Like scientifically shaky and practically ill-advised.”

“It would be, but I’ve seen the guest list and FB-stalked every man on it. They’re all hot. We can’t lose!”

And so it was that against my better judgment, I found myself filing into the living room of one Jessa Pickens, whom I once hated. And to my astonishment, also filing in, along with a host of other well-built men our age, was Adam Rzeznik, incidentally the main reason I’d hated Jessa. She had been so unkind to both of us that year in high school, all in hopes it would benefit her station. From what I could tell, it hadn’t. But ultimately, thanks to family, she had landed on her feet back in Asheville, where she managed at Trader Joe’s and owned a lovely flat.

I strode up to her and said, “Seriously Jessa? Him?” I’ll admit, I was feeling uncertain and it made me at least 50% more surly than usual.

Jessa rolled her eyes, a motion she’d elevated to an art form long ago, and said, “Nice to see you too, Millie. And since you asked. Yes, Adam and I have some mutuals now, and when I saw his picture, I messaged him to apologize for being such a godawful bitch in high school. By the way, Millie, sorry I was such a godawful bitch to you both in high school… But I mean Jesus, look at him, he’s swoony!”

I nodded. “Not bad, I guess, if you’re into hardcore kids. Look, I’m sorry, that is no way to greet a hostess. I’m glad we’re reconnecting. Glad you seem to be doing well. That said… if I were Adam, I’d never trust you after the shit you pulled in school. I gotta know. How did you bury the hatchet?”

In response, Jessa flashed her trademark yokel grin. Years of braces had straightened it out quite neatly. She leaned over to me conspiratorially.

“We hooked up last fall. I sucked his dick, hee hee hee hee hee! It’s nice.”

Bless that girl and her dorky disarming laugh, it always feels like a breath of fresh air.

I moved on through the room, to where Alex was standing. Her look tonight was a vague homage to Dr Frank N Furter, unless I missed my guess.

“Oh Alex dearest, you forgot to mention one little thing,” I said. My anger was melting away, but I still felt I had to at least make note of my annoyance.

“What. Him?” she said, cocking her head vaguely in Adam’s direction. “Sorry not sorry, bitch. He’s hot, and hot does a hoe good. For what it’s worth, I earnestly hope you do not get Adam. Because I want him. I’d let that poet fuck me in the ass in a heartbeat.”

“What if I do get him?”

She shrugged. “We’re all adults here. If you’re down, you’re down. If not, I’m sure you’ll find somewhere to let him down discreetly. Oh, shit. Girl, I’m sorry, you know I didn’t mean anyth–“

“Don’t worry about it, let’s just do this thing. Hoe goals, right?”

2

I didn’t want to show it, but that last remark from Alex really burned. I did regret the way I’d ended things with Adam. I didn’t think he would still be sore about it, but it was a point of shame. I’d taken a hard look at myself after that, and resolved not to be like my folks, not to be like, say, Jessa. Not to be like the herd.

Hence, when it came time for selection, and most of the guests had recently had their one drink for the night, so they could be of relatively sound mind and body before leaving… I had just pounded my third.

“A. R. We gotta A. R. up in this bitch? Oh… right. It’s you.”

And Adam, bless him, he just smiled kindly and said, in his gorgeous manly tenor: “Yep. It’s me. Shall we talk in the hall?”

Someone in back, whose face I couldn’t see, began snickering. But he cut off with a curse when Jessa elbowed him in the gut. Everyone else either didn’t know about the elephant in the room, or followed Alex and Jessa’s lead and kept their respectful silence.

“NEXT!” she shouted.

It was blessedly quiet out in the hallway.

I kicked myself for the words that spilled out of my mouth first, but I went with it:

“Did you know we would both be here?”

Adam waved his hands in innocence. “Nope, nope, nope. Jessa didn’t tell us guys who-all is coming. That’s apparently how it works. Still, I am sorry it played out eyüp escort like this.”

“It feels a bit on-the-nose.”

He nodded. “I would really like to get to know each other again. But for tonight, maybe we should just go our separate ways.”

“That’s, uh, not gonna be possible. I need you to be my designated driver. I couldn’t possibly take the Yamaha home in this condition.”

“You ride? That’s badass. I wish I rode.”

I waved him off. “You? Think I’m badass? Get outta here. Actually, let me show you the old hog. And then we’ll get outta here.”

The sky over Asheville proper was cloudless, but as light-polluted as ever. I had a moment of nostalgia for the summer when mom, dad, sis and I went RV-ing in the Smoky Mountains. We’d really pulled together as a family after the whole Adam-gate thing had left me so distraught I had to go into therapy. Practically unheard of for our family. O’Connors solved their problems in the traditional ways: fucking, fighting, drinking and target shooting. Sometimes in that order.

Anyway, it prompted me to ask:

“Where d’you live nowadays? Somewhere with more stars than this, I hope?”

Adam tilted his hand in a so-so gesture. “Morganton. It’s still pretty washed over, but drive out 20 minutes into the Blue Ridge and you can see the Milky Way real good.”

“Shit, I would love to see that. Take me up there and I’ll suck your soul out your dick.”

“Hm. Let’s start with a trip to the nearest Waffle House, to see if we can’t suck the booze out your stomach with some carbs.”

“Make that Cook Out, and you got yourself a deal.”

One chicken sandwich with fries and a peach cobbler milkshake later, I was, in fact, feeling a bit more like myself. I’d narrowly avoided becoming a sloppy emotional drunk in his presence; I thanked my luck and his quick action for that.

“So,” I said in the drive-thru lot, in the passenger seat of his Forester SUW.

“So. Talk to me, Millie.”

I took a deep breath.

“Okay. For starters, let’s get the obvious out of the way. I’m sorry how things left off Junior year. That was shitty of me.”

He sort of shrug-nodded. “It was, but… we were kids? And I’m sorry too. It’s my fault we both ended up in that situation. I should have never put those words to paper, knowing how words have a tendency to get out.”

“About that. Not to be rude, and honestly no judgment, but… Are you…”

“Still the Dread Ass Pirate Rzeznik?” he asked. I nodded. “Well, yes, but actually no. You’re no townie, so I might as well say it: I’m bisexual. So I’ve given and received plenty of ass. But, like, also calmed the fuck down about it. How about you?”

“I’m also bi, amusingly enough. And, uh… I did try anal sex. Doesn’t do it for me, though.” I took another deep breath, and sighed. “It feels really good to have all that off my chest, and know we both turned out alright. I’d had this fleeting, crazy thought that you were still out there nursing a crush.”

Adam grinned. “We’re too awesome to be kept down like that.”

“You are so right. Say. Do you remember when we ran into each other last year at Queen City mall?”

“Whuuut? Get outta here. I think I’d remember you looking this fine.”

“Pssh, you flatterer. So can I hang out at your place for the night? I don’t know if I want to do anything sexually, but I could at least take a load off, and catch up.”

“I’d fucking love to.” Adam practically flung the car into reverse, and I had to brace myself to not spill my shake.

We talked the whole ride about what we’d been up to. My years at Vitesse. Adam’s time at UNC, where he dual-majored in history and communications. It turned out he and Alex had partially overlapped there, though of course, it was easy to not run into someone on a campus that size.

“Before I enrolled, I lost three semesters to a dark spell,” he explained. “I had an incel phase, I had failure to launch, and in retrospect a lot of issues from denying my queerness. I got depressed. Then I got into coke. Luckily I hit bottom fast. I am not cut out for that world. Got beat up, got busted, went into rehab, picked myself up.”

“I’m glad you made it out. How’d you stay out, keep yourself from relapsing?”

Adam raised his left wrist from the wheel in answer. “I found a better drug. This.”

“Not a bad choice of drug, I have a few tattoos myself.”

“Oh, I meant the X. For Straight Edge?”

I smacked myself on the forehead. “Right, fuck, of course. I knew that looked familiar.”

And he wasn’t preachy about it, either, which I appreciated. Personally I liked to smoke the occasional joint. But for Adam, a drug-free community, and the prospect of getting his ears absolutely pummelled by death metal and hardcore punk, was worth far more. He’d settled in Morganton, where he started Dead Joara, ‘an alternative coffee shop and progressive straight edge hangout’, and was within a reasonable drive of every music venue from Asheville to Charlotte.

For his part, he was enthralled by my gradual transformation from Millie the fake plastic mean girl into Millie, the hog-riding makeup artist who Gave A Fuck™ about people. He was especially impressed that I’d designed Angel and Maureen’s over-the-top makeup looks for the Atlanta production of RENT; he and a Larson-obsessed boyfriend had gone down to see it.