Earth to Me

The time had come to decide where I wanted to live for my sophomore year of college at UChicago. Even though I had to deal with a community bathroom all year at Hitchcock Hall, it was a pretty nice place overall even if I got lost in it a lot at first. It ended up being my second choice behind Breckinridge, and my other choice was a dorm with an actual bathroom.

We couldn’t officially sign up again until a little later in the semester, but it never hurt to start thinking about it, and my mind was already pretty much made up.

Somehow, eventually, I would get the guts to ask Murray to be my roommate again.

I didn’t know how to approach it, though. He might already have friends he wanted to room with, other people he hung out with when I wasn’t with him, people he saw when he would go home on certain weekends. How pathetic would I look if I asked him and he already had someone lined up next to him?

I just had to bite the bullet and ask him eventually if I wanted it to happen. It was a Friday night, right after I got back from the floor bathroom for a shower, and after tossing my clothes into my hamper, I stood at the foot of Murray’s bed and said, “Hey, uh, Murray,” to get his attention.

He had a notebook open in front of him, colored with a ton of different highlighters, and he looked up at me and said, “Hm?”

“Uh, can I ask you something?” I choked out. My hands were a little sweaty as I leaned against his bed, my arms crossed over the mattress inches away from his knees.

“Sure, what’s up?” He put down the pen in his hand.

“Well, uh, have you thought about housing next year?”

I wasn’t sure why, but he broke out into a big grin and leaned forward. “I think I know where this is going.”

“Where do you think it’s going?” I laughed nervously.

“Well, I was gonna ask you about it,” he said. “But I was gonna do it with a little more…pizzazz, I guess.”

“What do you think I’m gonna ask you?” I repeated, backing away since he was sitting up and hanging his legs off the bed.

He got down with a thud and stood in front of me, hands on his hips. His Fire Motion t-shirt was wrinkled from him using it as a pajama shirt for a week straight, but his face was unwearied and bright like it always was. “I dunno, what were you gonna ask me?”

“Well, I was gonna ask if you wanted to request to be roommates again next year,” I finally asked, folding my hands in front of me. My nerves were settling a bit, but there was still heat in my face.

He tilted his head, rolling his tongue all around in his mouth with a hand on his chin. Squinting at the ceiling, he hummed in thought before just finally saying, “I’m just kidding. Of course I’ll be your freakin’ roommate again, dude. Shit, I was gonna ask you.”

“When were you gonna do it?” I asked, leaning against his bed again.

“I was gonna do it tomorrow, but I was gonna do it in a fun way,” he laughed. “I wasn’t gonna do it in public or anything stupid like that, though. It was just gonna be, like, different.”

“What do you mean?” His smirk was contagious.

He held out his hands in front of him and motioned me to stay put. “Well, okay. Stand right there.” Then, he got on the floor, propping himself up on one knee. He took my hand. “Oshie Diego Avila Olayos…will you do me the honor…of being my roommate next year?”

I shouldn’t have laughed as much as I did, but it was just too weird not to laugh at him. For starters, the fact that he remembered my full name was impressive in itself, and when he was on his knee in front of me, it was hard not to react to it.

Murray squeezed my hand when I started snorting, standing back up and punching my shoulder. “I can’t say I was expecting that reaction, though.”

“C’mon, I said yes, technically,” I assured him, punching him right back. “I was just worried you’d say no, so I didn’t make a big deal out of it.”

“Well, I know you love me, so I didn’t have any doubts about that little stunt, so ha,” he whined, sticking his tongue out.

I cocked my eyebrow at him. I knew he didn’t mean it in a literal sense, but it still snagged my attention. “How do you know?”

“I’m irresistible,” he joked.

“Right,” I just laughed.

He pushed the hair out of his eyes, and then his face fell a little bit. “Well, I mean, there is another thing I kinda wanted to talk to you about, but I guess I can do it now, if you don’t mind.”

“What’s on your mind?” He wasn’t usually seen without some sort of smile, so seeing him shrug around the dorm was a bit off-putting.

“Alright,” he huffed, “okay, see, um…I probably should’ve said this a lot earlier, but it never really came up. And I just kinda told myself you wouldn’t care, so I didn’t mention it. But, um, yeah.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I kept quiet and gave him a look of concern.

“I’m gay. Er, yeah. I’m gay.”

My first instinct was to just shrug it off, and so I did. “That’s cool, dude.” I can’t say I saw it coming, just like when Andy spoke to me that night, but it still didn’t slap me upside the head.

He let out a breath he’d been holding and rubbed his face. “Oh, thank God, thank you, Oshie. One more person who hasn’t disowned me after coming out to them,” he gushed, bright red and shaking at the hands. “Are you still okay with being my roommate?”

“Yeah!” Oops, too eager. “I mean, yeah, man. That doesn’t matter. You’re my friend.”

“Good,” he smiled. His freckles stood out starkly against the redness of his cheeks. “I was scared you’d think I’d come onto you or something, but I consider you my best friend right now. Thank you.”

Once again, his smile was contagious, and the relief in his voice spread over to me. He even hugged me for a second, afterwards apologizing – I said he didn’t need to – and after that, he just stood near his bed, leaning against it with a dazed look on his face.

“Shit, dude,” he finally said after clearing his throat, “I know Tegan’s gay too, which was why I probably shouldn’t have worried about you, but it’s still awesome to know that you don’t hate me now.”

“I couldn’t hate you if I tried,” I rolled my eyes. I really couldn’t. (Unless he murdered my family. Or Tegan. But that’s a whole other ballgame.)

“Just let me know if I make you uncomfortable or anything like that. That’s the last thing I wanna do,” he told me.

I shrugged. “Nah, you never make me uncomfortable. But tell me if I do something wrong and I’ll stop doing it, okay?”

“Well, you never make me uncomfortable, so we should be good,” he grinned, cocking his head.

“Alright then.” I sat on my bed and put on a pair of socks to keep me warm in the night, smiling back at him.

He was quiet for a few seconds, then he uncrossed his arms and softly said, “You’re a good dude, Oshie. I’m glad I got to know you this year.”

Suddenly, a bunch of flashbacks slammed through my head – eating lunch and dinner with Murray and Tegan whenever I could, conversations about music and art with him, waking up from nightmares with him at my side, making sure I was okay. I could definitely say the same thing about him.

But I chickened out and went with a small smile and a red-faced declaration – “You’re a great friend too. I’m glad I ended up rooming with you.”

The silence between us wasn’t awkward, yet we could feel it and it was heavy with a whole bunch of corny stuff. Murray broke through it when he said, “Okay, just because I’m gay doesn’t mean we have to be gay about this.”

“It’s an important event! It shouldn’t be brushed off,” I bargained, laughing.

“Yeah, I know,” he agreed, “but still. I dunno, I’m weird, just ignore me.”

“Well, you wake me up whenever I have those stupid dreams, so the least I can do is be nice to you,” I countered, laying back and yawning.

“I’m just making sure you’re alright. That doesn’t mean you have to be super nice to me.”

“Yeah, well, I’m doing it anyway,” I said once and for all.

He pulled himself back up onto his bed and reopened his notebooks, while I got my laptop and surfed the Web until I was tired enough to go to bed. Every time I looked over at him, he was smiling at nothing in particular, and when I went to sleep that night, he said goodnight and thanked me again. For what? I didn’t know. I was horrible in social situations, a mediocre artist at best, and easily stressed, but one thing I was pretty good at was being a decent human being.

-------

Murray told Tegan he was gay the next day when we went out to lunch, and when he said it, she just stared at him for a moment.

And she said, “And…?”

He looked at her, confused. “And what? That’s it.” Murray, sitting next to me, was bright red again.

“Oh.” Her eyes went wide and she glanced at me. “Oh, okay, that’s it? Never mind, I…I, uh, thought it was going somewhere else. Anyway, that’s awesome!”

“Where’d you think it was going, Tegan?” I said sharply yet jokingly, giving her a look.

“Nowhere! Shut up!” she laughed, covering her face.

Murray sipped his drink with a smile. “Now I’m curious.”

“Well, I thought – you guys are roommates next year, so I thought – well, um. Yeah.” Tegan didn’t normally stutter a lot, except when Shira was being oddly romantic (it was happening more and more lately, and it was pretty cute, actually), so to see her like that was a little weird. “I thought you two were gonna come out and say you were…never mind, I’ll shut the hell up.”

“Ohhh,” Murray snorted, burying his face in his arms.

“C’mon, it wouldn’t be a shocker!” Tegan said a little too loudly for my liking.

“Shhh! Teeg!” I hushed, as red as a baboon’s butt.

She just rolled her eyes and kept on laughing. “God, I’m glad you guys at least made friends with each other. I still don’t even know my roommate’s major.”

Murray went back to eating his fries. “Maybe you’ll get lucky next year and get an awesome roommate like I did.”

“Oh, shut up, you are so gay,” she mocked, narrowing her eyes at us.

The three of us just laughed as if we weren’t just weeks away from finals, and as if I wasn’t still plagued by surreal nightmares that caused Murray to jump away from all the studying he was doing. God, I didn’t know what I’d do without him that summer.

Oh, man, that’s right – I was on track to hit the road with Put’emup, Put’emup that summer. Well, so was Tegan, and she’d already agreed to it as well, but there was just one little hurdle I had to leap over before that was all set in stone, and it involved the person who I missed the most all year: my dad.

In what felt like a few days, the end of the year had happened. Finals week whizzed by in a blur of studying and final drawings, and although I felt like I did pretty well on everything, I wouldn’t know immediately. That didn’t matter at the moment, though – I had all my crap in boxes yet again, and I couldn’t be more excited to see my own room once again.

The day we moved out was the day after our last final exam, and it was one of the longest days of my life. I woke up early because Murray woke up early too, and even though my dad didn’t get off work until the afternoon, I still got ready. Murray’s mom showed up right before noon and I helped them haul it all to his car; she was a ginger just like him, and she was just as friendly as he was.

Before we knew it, his side of the room was empty, and he had turned in his key. Murray’s mom said goodbye to me before she went down and started her car, carrying half of his stuff, and so it just left me and my accidentally-awesome-roommate standing in the middle of our home away from home.

“I’ll text you this summer, dude,” he said, “and I’ll message you on Facenook and all that stuff. We gotta keep in touch.”

“You should come visit sometime. I’m like right outside Chicago so it’ll be like driving here,” I suggested, my hands in my pockets.

“That’d be cool. Really, I’m just fine with any sort of contact with you and Tegan this summer,” he laughed. “Let me know what’s happening, alright? Tell me if anything interesting happens. I don’t wanna be a shut-in like I always am. And if you end up going to one of those Put’emup, Put’emup shows this summer, let me know and we can meet up.”

Of course. A few days ago, they’d finally made the announcement that they were touring that summer with Violence Ladies, and as usual, a plethora of hype exploded within the pop-punk sect of the music industry. Of course Murray had heard about it – I had become so used to it all that it slipped my mind.

“Alright, I’ll keep you in the loop, Murray,” I said, glancing out the window. Students like us were moving out wherever we looked; the campus looked like a zombie infestation. “And you better keep me in the know, too. I don’t wanna spend like three hours catching up when we come back in the fall.”

“Of course,” he smiled. He held his arms out wide and I mirrored him, and then he had pulled me into a hug that honestly probably wouldn’t have been so long if he hated my guts, so that was cool. Right by my ear, he added, “I’m gonna miss you, dude. Keep drawing, ‘cause I wanna end up studying your art and teaching it to people.”

I can’t lie and say that didn’t mean a whole lot to me, because it did. It struck me right in my heart and made warmth shoot all through my arms and legs and fingers and toes, and it’s what made me smile so wide I could hardly formulate a sentence to say back to him, so I just said, “Thank you,” in place of something intelligent.

He was beaming when he let go, and then before things got too cheesy, he had to leave, but he kept waving even as he exited our room.

I knew I’d see him again at some point in the summer, though. People like that just don’t leave forever, even if I’d see him in just a few months.

Tegan and her mom finished up a half hour later, and Tegan came over to my room and asked if Murray kissed me goodbye. I said no with a deadpan stare, and she just laughed and said she’d see me at home before she left.

Then, finally, my dad arrived, his old pickup truck cramming into a narrow spot fairly far from my dorm. I met him by his car and he hugged me right after he saw me, holding on for much longer than I anticipated.

“Goodness, I am glad to see you for the summer! I’m so happy to have you home again!” he gushed, his smile echoing mine.

I didn’t have anything to say so I just laughed, glad he was in my life again.

Moving out was just as painful as moving in, and by the end of it all, our shirts were soaked through with sweat (Dad was still in his mechanic uniform, too). As we hauled the last of my stuff out to his truck once my car was full, I took the chance to ask maybe the biggest question of that year.

“So, um, Papá,” I started, opening the trunk. “There’s something I sort of have to ask you. It’s…it’s about a job this summer.”

He looked bright and cheery, glancing over at me from over the mound of boxes on the hand cart. “Did you get an internship? That is wonderful!”

“N-no, it’s not an internship, but, I mean, it might have to do with…with what I wanna do. I mean, graphic design or something. Entertainment.” I was just floundering around at that point and I wasn’t sure what I was trying to say. “Er…yeah.”

“What is it?” he asked, still a smirk on his aging face.

I sighed and put my hands on my hips as he hauled one of my cleaning-supply-boxes into the bed of his truck. “Well, Put’emup, Put’emup is going on tour this summer.”

“Oh yeah, I heard about that on the news. Big tour.” He mirrored me, his hands also on his hips.

“And…they invited me and Tegan to go with them. To sell t-shirts and stuff. I’ll get paid, and they say that people tip too, and so I mean it’s a real job, so…” I trailed off, expecting the absolute worst.

Dad stared at me for a really long time. “You are going on a tour with four men in their mid-twenties who play rock music?”

“I mean…if you let me,” I bargained in a small voice.

He sighed and crossed his arms, but then he peeked out from his hanging head and smiled. “I will have to think about this. But you are a smart young man, and…I mean, you have done much bigger things with these people.”

“I’d be safe and everything, and I’d stick by Tegan the whole time,” I assured him, already getting ahead of myself by begging a bit, but I kept my cool.

“I will think about it.” He said it with finality in his tone, and then he smiled again.

I guess loading your only child’s junk into your car after being away from them for half a year was enough to put any middle-aged single dad in a good mood. And I have no problem admitting that I was in a good mood from the getgo. The sun was out and warming the whole city, the wind was picking up and breezing the heat away, and I was leaving school for the summer to just relax and make some extra cash. It was gonna be a good summer, I thought.