Should I tell you why I love him? No. How about some stories I have already told a million times? Uh-uh. This is after all, a blog project where I strive to unearth a fresh story about my friends. I suppose the only thing I can do is try to dig up a story from when Marky and I were just friends.
Before I start, I want to emphasize my belief that friends make the best love relationships. Before getting involved, we knew each other's entire history, and we were past the point of putting on airs to impress each other. Before we dated, we were friends, but before we were friends, we dated. OK, old news. Unearth...
Mike, a mututal high school friend, was a major proponent of our relationship. He was the one who pushed the high school junior to call the college freshman on her spring break to ask her out. Even after that didn't work out, Mike gave us plenty of opportunities to be in the same room at the same time. Roar Night, graduation party, loitering in Nob Hill, etc. Where am I going with this story?
The summer of '97, Marky and I went on a big road trip with Mike and his then g-friend Lucretia. In hindsight, it was only a baby trip to Santa Fe, which is a scant 45 minutes away from Albuquerque. We felt very independent, though. We piled into Mike's red VW, cranked up the Erasure, ate mexican food, and shopped at Hastings. Sure, there was Hastings and tacos in Abq, but we were on the road man! As the sun began to set, we drove home, chatting about urban legends. Pop Rocks and Coke, highbeams, the wedding gown infused with embalming fluid, and the like. Then the subject turned to childhood fears. We all seemed to have unreasonable fears of physical deformities as children. After some divining, we decided that we had all been exsposed to the movie "The Elephant Man" at too young of an age. It may sound funny to those who didn't have the same experience, but I was so terrified by "The Elephant Man" at age 7, that I became obsessed and drew pictures of him at every turn. My mom took me to see the play at NMSU, and it only fueled my horrible obsession. Anyway, I remember the car falling silent as we regressed into our juvenile phobias.
Lucretia announced that the only way we could move past this terror was to watch the movie. That night. We rented it and plopped down in front of the TV at Lucretia's boss's house, which she was housesitting. Again, we all sat, mezmerized, childlike, in front of the movie that was imprinted on our young minds. The movie ended, and we all had the heebie-jeebies. At the end, we had to part, but it was dark. I didn't want to move from my seat. Even though it was out of his way, Marky generously drove me home. I couldn't get out of the car alone. The 30 foot walk to my door was too frightening. Marky walked me to the house and hugged me. He was almost as freaked out as I was, but he acted like such a gentleman.
It was not long after that day that I began illustrating graphic novels about me and Marky. The story lines took place mostly in Village Inn. I looked like myself in the pictures, and really, so did Marky, except for the fact that he wore a cape. Songs from that summer suck me right back into that car, the weather, my back porch. That was such a fun era, and I will never forget it.
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