Today I am wearing a flannel shirt I have had since high school. I had quite a few then, because remember grunge? That was awesome. I stole it from my stepfather’s closet. I remember walking into JC Penney’s and seeing the sign hanging over the teen section: GRUNGE. Pre-shredded for your convenience. This shirt is the only soldier left from what used to be a whole army of shredded/plaid/hideous clothes.

One time I was in the car with my mom and she looked back at me in the rear view mirror and narrowed her eyes. “You are always wearing flannel shirts now,” she observed. “Do you want people to think you’re a lesbian or something?” I looked down at my thrift store flannel, which was covered by a plaid men’s hunting coat that had a pink triangle button affixed to it.

“YES!” I thought to myself. “I must be doing something right!”

Later that winter I got drunk for the first time at a party somewhere in the suburbs of Chicago. I was spending the weekend at my grandparents’ house and my aunt was home from college and offered to take me to this party on the condition I could keep my fucking trap shut (I could). My aunt was only five years older than I was, the baby sister of my stepfather. She was like a cool older sister to me, and introduced me to concepts such as The Cure and giant 80s hair.

We climbed into her red Fiero and zoomed off to a house whose owners had foolishly left for the weekend, leaving their young adult children behind. As soon as we walked in, someone stuck a Lynchburg lemonade into my hand, which I quickly followed with five more. I sat around with my aunt’s friends, trying to be cool and maintain since they were all at least college-aged. I didn’t want to be the kid who party fouled and everyone hated. “She’s cool,” my aunt kept saying, which was part assurance to the other party goers and what I suspect was partly a reminder to me. Be cool.

My head started spinning and I blacked out. The last thing I remember was someone passing me some pot and taking a deep inhale, another first. My aunt watched me with a glazed smile on her face. I suspect it didn’t have much of an effect, considering how trashed I was and the fact that it was my first time. I didn’t cough like a noob though, since I was regularly nicking smokes out of my mother’s purse and was just a few months away from buying my own packs.

[Aside: A year or so prior I had alienated some of my friends during a casual conversation late at night at the park by admitting that I would try pot if it was offered to me. I had made early decisions about drugs I would try and drugs I would not try, and I was sticking to it. A couple of years later the girl who had slagged me the hardest ended up doing acid at school every day for a month until she got caught. Life is like this sometimes.]

When I came to, I was standing in the kitchen eating bread straight out of the bag. I was starved. “You drank too fast,” one of my aunt’s friends said. “Classic beginner’s mistake.”

“What happened?” I said.

“You threw up in the bushes and a little on the patio. Someone hosed it off already.” She stuck a glass of water in my hand.

“Ah,” I said, feeling partly ashamed for being a guest who puked and partly amazed that I had disappeared for a while. Where had I gone? What had I said? Was I nice? I had a scratch on my arm, presumably from the bushes.

“Where’s my aunt?” I said. I was told she was off with someone whose name I didn’t recognize. I suppose I could have been introduced to him. A small circle of college girls surrounded me there in the kitchen, sizing me up, looking at my hair and my clothes. I looked down to see I was still wearing my coat with my pink triangle on it. Closer in to Chicago, people actually knew what it meant.

“Your aunt’s slept with almost everyone here, you know,” one informed me out of the blue. I did not know that. “Including the women.”

After a couple of awkward starts with high school boys, my secret was that I was dating my first-ever woman. She had a job and a motorcycle and an apartment, all facts which never ceased to amaze me. I was astounded that I seemed to have something in common with my aunt, who wore at least two inches of makeup daily, a string of messy-haired boyfriends who were often on BMXes, slathered herself with baby oil and broiled herself outside in the summer in neon bikinis, and would never be caught dead in the dykey coat I was wearing. She was like the poster child for straight young women everywhere, or so I thought. Were there different ways to be gay? I had no idea. The women I had met through my girlfriend seemed decidedly more wash and wear.

Could I talk with her about any of this? I didn’t think so. My mother had already told me I would grow out of being gay and being an atheist. I knew that what I did and thought and felt was supposed to be a shameful secret, and should be kept from my stepfather at all costs. Would my aunt tell him? I didn’t know.

Later as I was alone sobering up and dozing on a couch an older guy who had been kind of macking on me all night came in and made half-assed attempts to fool around with me, which I found amusing and somewhat annoying. One of the women who had appointed themselves my protector in the mysterious absence of my aunt stuck her head into the living room.

“STEVE. She is fifteen!”

“Oh, whoops,” Steve said.

“How old are you?” I asked him.

“Twenty-three.”

“BYEEE,” I said.

My aunt reappeared around 4 a.m., cheery and without explanation.

“Heard you barfed,” she said. “Hang on, I have to get ready for the drive home.”

My aunt whipped out some coke and did a few lines in the bathroom. “Want some?” she said, holding out a little straw.

“No, thanks,” I said. So much no. Coke was on my No list. She drove me home as the sun rose, Violator banging out of the giant speakers behind the seats of the Fiero and my mind raced as I tried to fall asleep. I had smoked pot! Some guy had felt my jailbaity ass up! My aunt was a gay coke snorter with friends who evidently resented her! That party, like most in high school, was an accelerated education in how weird the adult world could be, and different ways to have a double life, something I was already refining.

Fresh to Death in spite of unpoppable collar.