Nick
I remember elementary school Nick.
In particular, one night we shared when we sat on the bleachers at the corner of the schoolyard where many a soccer game was played. The tough kids smoked pot, tobacco, pot + tobacco, scraps of the school yearbook, blades of grass, dogshit, their own hair, ANYTHING smokable and buzzable… all while looking all Spicoli-like.
I was an outsider wearing pink lace hightops and blue glitter in my hair and you lived for Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran even though your brother thought that Nick looked like someone more suited to be a someone’s girlfriend rather than that he-man from the videos prowling around jungles, pouncing on nubile Brazilian models or that jaunty Brit-boy tip tapping on synth keys while Jose Eber hairspray-laden gazelles walked the platform around him to the bass heavy, showtune ‘Girls on Film’.
You guys had the same name. I always loved that it made you smile having that connection. It made you goofy and human. Like me.
We sat aimlessly looking at the sky, thinking of what we’d end up doing with our lives. Where we’d end up. Who we’d be with. Nick Rhodes?
I kept it to myself that I hoped things would get better for me. That I’d be taken care of and I could finally find escape from being a scarred, scared kid.
You were always smiling and laughing and it made me laugh to make you laugh even when I felt like I had no home and no reason to laugh. The sky seemed so big and so did the world it covered. Not a scary big, but a big that would protect and support me as I discovered it ,
myself
and myself + it.
I knew you’d turn out well Nick and even though the school councilors weren’t so sure about me, I had the feeling that I would too.
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