appalachia—part two.

In my second week in the South we went to Roanoke, Virginia, where Asher grew up, a city much bigger than Bristol, and a bit more Yankee. The houses reminded me of New England, except with porches made for Cracker Barrel rocking chairs. According to Asher, it’s the most segregated city in the South. We went to the Roanoke Mall to meet up with Asher’s best friends who are brother and sister. I got Chick-Fil-A and a cup of water, and then we found them: at a table in the center of the food court sat a young girl with bright pink hair and thick-framed glasses talking to a rowdy four year-old blonde girl standing beside her (their sister), a young guy also in thich-framed glasses, a late-30s woman with stylish short shaggy maroon hair (their mother), and a shaggy white-haired older woman with lazy eye. The grandmother was my favorite of them; every time anyone made a joke, she would laugh and make one-eye contact even if it wasn’t funny. I just love how three generations of family would often hang out together at a mall like that. When Asher brought up at the table what places in Roanoke they should show me, all anyone could say was, "The Star?" or "hmmm, The Star?" or "how about The Star?" I love that this is all we could go do. So, that's what we did.

We also went to the Blue Ridge Parkway, a road built only with the idea to drive through 469 miles of beautiful scenic mountains uninterruptedly. Otherwise it's too slow and aimless to be useful / practical. This to me is art at its best. I kind of wish they’d build one through LA.

Plus we passed a church whose sign once said: “Stop, drop and roll doesn’t work in Hell.” We also went to Covington, Virginia, a town that Asher first described as “so calm, if you light a match the smoke sits still in the air.” In Blacksburg, Virginia, we tuned an organ near Virginia Tech. The church was putting on some huge theatre production for a kids Bible camp group. The stage props were so elaborate, it even involved a giant ball inside of which one kid would be strapped in and have to roll down across the pews. An overenthusiastic overweight lady there kept telling me how badly she wanted to get inside the ball. “It’s a real hoot,” she announced over and over. Later, outside, we walked by a lady who said, “giving blood?” Asher told her we’re fixing the organ. “It’s real nice weather outside,” she replied.

Afterwards, we went across the street and had a little “photo shoot” (pun intended) in front of the school entrance sign. I made guns with my hands and aimed them at the camera, “VIRGINIA TECH” gleaming behind me. I made it my MySpace photo, and random people sent angry messages, so I took it down. I don't want anyone to think I’m happy those students were killed, because I’m not. But I don't get why this photo is so personal to people. It was obviously a joke. The media already desensitized us to the Virginia Tech shootings and appropriated them into our pop culture, just like gangsta rap made being an impoverished person of color into something fun and consumable. Which is fine, because it's a coping mechanism, just like if I call myself a “faggot” I'm overcoming the time in my life when I feared being (called) one. Unless you lost someone at Virginia Tech, there’s really no reason to be personally offended. If I pretend to be dying, no one will say, “that’s horrible! How dare you make fun of those who die!” I'm going to die, just like everyone else, and most likely sooner than I would prefer, just like almost everyone else, and it's possible I could be shot while in class and die, just like anyone else. The least you can let me do is transcend death and tragedy for a few minutes through making a joke out of a once-terribly-tragic situation. When my mother died, the most soothing coping mechanism for me was to reenact the car accident and make light of it, to gently mock the reasons it happened and to scold my mother for the easy ways she could have prevented her own death.

In Raleigh, Asher showed me The White Deer. We went to a park in the middle of a residential neighborhood, named after The White Deer. The sun was lowering towards the trees, kids playing soccer and the march of couples pushing strollers past us. We happened upon a small log building with big windows and an explanatory plaque next to a locked door. You can't go inside, but you can look in. It’s basically a living room-size suburban shrine to taxidermied albino roadkill.

Valentine’s Day billboard along I-81.

My brother Peter is a Fundamentalist Christian and anti-gay, which I learnt while having dinner with him in Raleigh Wednesday. The wife and kids couldn’t join us because they all had strep throat. Asher dropped me off at the my brother’s psychiatry clinic. While he was getting ready, I admired the Michael’s-style plastic relics and comfy couches and Bibles. As we walked out of his office, we discussed what I want to do for work after grad school. “It’s not like I really have much of a choice in the matter. I’ll get whatever kind of job I can.” I told him honestly. I laughed about how he and the other two brothers went into psychiatry while my parents and I ended up artists. He quoted the Book of Jeremiah, something about “discernment.” He brought me to a restaurant downtown; he hadn’t been downtown in so long, the streets went in different directions than he remembered; some were no longer there. From the car to the restaurant, we walked a quarter mile among late-20s couples and teenage girlfriend posses. My brother’s gait reminded me of Boo Boo Bear, his arms swinging forward, his whole back angled forward from the hip. His tiny glasses, orderly beard and button-up shirt added to a doctorly, fatherly, Christian persona. I felt nervous when two homeless guys made chitchat, their laughs so unkempt, I thought my brother must be judging them.

He wanted to know why I liked the South so much. I offered that my father and I could visit him for Christmas. He asked me, “What does Christmas mean to you?” I said, “To be with people I care about. What does it mean to you?” He said it was the day to celebrate the life of Jesus Christ, and then he rushed to clarify that it might not be Jesus's actual birthday. I told him I consider myself a moral relativist. In a calm voice, he replied, "so then anyone can just do anything they want, and then they can justify it however they want.” I said my morals were based on seeing myself in everything, and everything in myself. “Do unto others as they do to you,” I said. “That’s from the Bible,” he said. “I know,” I said. I asked him what he thought of homosexuality. He said he felt that people choose to be gay in the same way people choose to be on drugs. And, it turns out, my brother's clinic specializes in part on counseling former homosexuals back to a straight lifestyle. I told him what I tell my grandmother: that there’s no way I could choose to be gay in the face of all the disapproving people I've had to face in my life. My brother isn’t all out conservative; he repeatedly mentioned an interest in Barack Obama. We agreed that gay people wanting marriage is more beneficial to the institution of marriage than straight people getting more libertinous.

Instead of the Unclaimed Baggage Center or the Short Mountain Sanctuary (for gay fairies)—the two places I wanted to go to the most on this trip—instead I accidentally ended up at Knoxville’s gay pride event. I think the above photo sums it up pretty well.

Post-pride, Sebastian’s friend Chris shows off his handmade Dolly Parton dress he wore to a Dolly drag show.