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We were still waiting for a response to our proposed contract changes from Delious and the rest of the Trijon gang. Now that Matt and I had so much in common we began to spend more and more time together. He’d call from work just to talk. We’d get together in the evenings and go to dinner, or out to hear a live band.

One day he called me with an offer of a concert. “Hey, someone in the office just gave me their box tickets to Starwood for a show tonight. You want to go?”

“Sure. Who’s playing?” Note to self, reverse those statements next time.

“Rush,” he replied. “I really don’t know much about them, just that one song.”

He clearly meant ‘Tom Sawyer.’ I only know that because it was the only song I knew.

“Well, I’ve got an open mind. Let’s go. It can’t be that bad,” I replied, though on the video screen in my mind, ‘FAMOUS LAST WORDS’ flashed briefly.

We arrived at the show, and almost immediately I noticed that Matt and I were horribly out of place. For starters, we were both in possession of all our teeth. By that, I mean all our teeth were still in our mouths, not necessarily on display in a jar on the fridge back home in our trailer.

Secondly, despite a brief period of time in the early nineties, neither of us could claim to be “Rockin’ the Mullet.” I’ve had less trouble identifying gender from behind in drag bars.

Thirdly, we were clearly not wearing the recommended allotment of flannel.

We made our way to our seats in the box, which was located directly in front of the sound board. This is the optimum acoustic spot in the amphitheater. We would not miss an entire note of the show. Pity.

When the show began, there was much screaming and stage effects, bright lights and pyrotechnics. When the smoke cleared, there were three old, skinny, unwashed guys standing on stage. They launched into their first song, and I became quite confused.

You see, there was a drummer, a bass player, and a guitarist. Why then did I hear a symphony orchestra? Where were all the electronic keyboard sounds coming from? Is that a shakuhachi? What the hell?

I looked over at Matt, who was watching the stage, his head bobbing slightly in time to the music. I turned back to the stage and tried to get into it. The second song started with a tympani drum. There was no tympani on the stage. The singer started wailing in to the microphone, and the reverb and the chorusing on his voice was physically painful to listen to.

Matt apparently looked over at me and mistook the look of confusion and distaste for a look of enjoyment. He turned back to the stage and returned to bobbing his head.

By the third song, I was bored. I don’t understand a band that can skate by on all the effects and synthesized sounds in lieu of talent. I don’t understand the fans. (Sorry for any Rush fans reading this, but seriously, get some fucking taste.) Matt and turned to look at each other at the same time, and he finally spoke, “Please tell me you think this sucks half as much as I do.”

“Oh God yes. Can we go?”

And that, my dear single mother and her best friend who could only afford lawn seats and a babysitter, is how you came to be in possession of those prime box seats to the Rush concert. You cried when we offered your our stubs to move forward. I hope you still tell the story of the cute gay guys that upgraded you that night.

Matt and I managed to salvage our evening by grabbing dinner and hitting the strip show at The Connection.

A few days later, I was hanging out over at Hoss’ house. We had been writing all day, and were getting closer to finishing our first song together, Club 501. Matt called me around 9pm and sounded not quite right, like maybe he had been crying, or was on the verge of it.

“Can we get together? I really need to talk,” he sniffled.

“Of course, where do you want to meet? I’m at Hoss’ house.”

“Would he mind if I came there?”

I assured him that Hoss wouldn’t mind, and gave him directions. I went into the living room and told Hoss and Mama Sharon that Matt was on his way. They both giggled.

“You’re sure spending an awful lot of time with Matt lately,” Mama said.

“I think our little superstar has a boyfriend,” Hoss quipped to Sharon. “He should really be careful not to turn The Outsiders into a gay Fleetwood Mac.”

I don’t blush often. In fact, there are people who have known me for most of my life who have never seen me turn crimson. Mama Sharon and Hoss did that night. While I didn’t consider Matt my boyfriend, the thought had crossed my mind, and I was spending a lot of time with him, but we were just friends, and there really hadn’t been any awkward sexual tension between us, at least not so far.

When Matt arrived, I introduced him to Mama and Hoss. He was visibly upset, and asked if there was someplace private we could go. “Yeah, let’s go to the back deck. Is everything alright?” I asked.

“I just came out to my parents,” and then he began sobbing.

Mama Sharon jumped up off the couch and ran over to Matt and hugged him. “Oh baby,” she cooed.

Hoss jumped up immediately and said, “I’ll make the margaritas.”*

I led Matt through the house and out to the back deck where we sat together on the swing. And he told me all about it.

He was talking to his mother, and it just happened. She hung up on him. His dad, who was/is a Church of God minister called him back several minutes later long enough to say, “You should have just driven up here and stabbed us both in the heart” before hanging up on him again.

We sat on that swing, talking, drinking margaritas, with my arm around his shoulder until almost four in the morning.

* I love that man.