In high school, my first break-up left me so viscerally
dismembered, that I had to seek out the school counselor for hour-long
counseling sessions twice a week. She would later on create a sensitive student
group. I was part of it. Experiencing loss has transformed me in the most
ridiculous ways I never thought possible. Over time, you create a mental safety
net of truths that comprise laws of physics and parts of you. Example, I know
that anxiety for me has increased with my level of success. When I come into a
role or job that requires a larger world of me, the anxiety I may be feeling is
a sign that I may be fearing the success I’ve just achieved, or could achieve.
You find simple signals and alerts your body will send off, and quickly respond
with “Oh, that’s just me getting in the way of me. Insert retro-action, here”.
Before that first break-up left me in an emotional puddle of
pheromones and serotonin, I experienced a material loss unlike anything I’d
ever experienced before. Unlike the time I lost my toy alligator out of the car
window, at the age of four, while my mother drove my sister and I away from New
Orleans in the initial step of the divorce; Unlike the time I had torn so many
holes in my blankey that my mother had to throw it out; And unlike the time my
mother decided it was time for all the He-Man figures to be thrown in the trash…
it was something different, and I don’t know why.
I had just fallen into a newfound fanaticism with Marvel
Comics. My friend, Tony, had nabbed Spider-Man 2099 and Ravage 2099 for me in
exchange for a few dollars for the first issues. The covers were thicker than
the usual flimsy paper covers. It was a thick kind of cardboard with gleaming
letters outlined with silver tones. “Spider-Man 2099- Peter Parker in the
future! This is fng crazy! But 2099 is like over 100 years away tho!!! How
could they conceive such a time???”, I thought to myself. It was the coolest
thing I’d ever come across in the 5th grade.
A year later, 6th grade, my best friends and had
the decision to either step into the 6th, 7th and 8th
grade department of Windom Open School, or remain big fish in the 4th,
5th and 6th grade hall of the school. We collectively
embarked on a journey to the senior side of the school and make due with the
big kids (6th, 7th & 8th graders). The new
rave was less comic books, but comic cards. I had spotted a few cards last
year, but this year the big things was a series of cards titled “Marvel
Masterpieces Series 1”.
The little pieces of paper were gorgeous- absolutely
brilliant to my eye then as much as they are now. Joe Jusko painted each card
in a daunting series of over 100 characters, including a special set of foil
cards that gleamed similarly to the Ravage & Spider-Man 2099 comic covers.
Over months of collecting, I was 2 cards short of retrieving
the entire set of Marvel Masterpieces Series 1. Archived in numerical order, I
kept each card in a 3-ring binder full of Ultra Pro Platinum Storage Pages of
plastic slips carrying 18 cards per page.
I was obsessed.
At first, it was the colors and beautiful art, but later it
became more an intrigue with how Jusko captured each character- The Blob
catching a cannonball with his stomach, but less that and more the expression
on his face as if he enjoyed absorbing large mortar from weapons of mass
destruction- Bullseye stretching a menacing grin while shooting a gun, casually
pointed in the distance. A shadow in the background showing blood spraying from
its head- Cyclops unleashing an optic blast from his eyes, where you question
the pain streaking his face is due to the amount of power released from his head
or his resentment for who or what his targeting in the still- Jusko captured
moments that made you question the spectrum of good and evil. Who was born into
this, and who had a choice. The answer, after observing every piece of the
series, was simple- there are no heroes or villains, just human beings and
organisms navigating what they can mean to the world.
I carried all the stories and pictures with me everywhere I
went in the 6th grade… until one day… they were stolen.
My entire 3-ring binder was stolen from my desk and
disappeared into obscurity. I’d never find it again.
The amount of anxiety, sadness and what small 6th
grade depression I fell into, was the deepest I had felt throughout my decade
on earth. My mind tried to recall the details of each picture- Blade, Blaze,
Nova, Quasar… - I began to forget the colors and miss them. I cried for nights
on end.
My mother… observing all of this, didn’t have the money at
the time to try and recollect an entire set of a child’s comic cards. Collecting a set is difficult as it is, who
knows what the hell you’ll get in a pack of cards, doubles, triples, etc.
Finding the one card to fulfill a series is expensive and tough to find enough
packs after the series had stopped selling. Shinder’s ramped up its prices of
the series after they stopped being supplied with Masterpieces Series 1. So,
my mother took me to Shinders to buy the next best thing.
We surveyed the box sets of comic cards that lay on the
folding table at the entrance. Mounds of Baseball, football, basketball, Dark
Horse Comic Book characters and everything that wasn’t Marvel Masterpieces
piled high on the table. “Pick one” she said.
I damn near cried at the sight of my choices. I almost opted
for nothing. Looking at it now, what a
first-world-troubled child I was. I mean, seriously- fucking comic cards!?!?...
But, to be easy on the kid I was then, it was less the possession of the cards,
but being able to read the stories on the back of them. The feeling that I could
conjure such knowledge at the opening of a page- I loved it.
Alas, in the mountain of box sets, I pointed out a dark box…
a box that read “Ghost Rider”. It was a box of Ghost Rider cards that fully
surrounded the origin of Johnny Blaze, his commitment to sell his soul to Satan
and then return as the Ghost Rider engulfed in hellfire. The story, like the
phoenix, was relative to the redemption I was seeking from the absence of my
Masterpiece Series 1.
My mother bought me the box, and replaced what I thought was
irreplaceable.
5 years later, she’d purchase my first weeks of acting
school at the Brazil Acting School with Mary Allette-Davis and Bob Davis, who
rooted the foundation for my passion for performance art.
12 years later, I would move in with her for the next 3
years as a grown man, where I was able to take care of her through several
major surgeries, and take my time to churn out the most writing, touring, and
music I’d ever produce in my lifetime. Those years would later serve as 90+
songs, 5 mixtapes and multiple scripts I wouldn’t have been able to write under
the worry of making rent. Looking back, a tad more stable, her in better health and eyeing box
sets of comic cards on Amazon.com, I just don’t know how I could’ve made it without
her. I’ve experienced some of, what I felt relatively at each time, were my
greatest losses in life with my mother beside me. I love her and thank her for
being there. Happy birthday, mom.