Jimmy's Exploration

Jimmy’s Exploration

Graduating high school had been a welcome change in Jimmy’s life. While he was not a bad student, his life outside of high school, like so many others, had been less than ideal, and as a result his diploma was less an accomplishment and more of a necessary step toward escaping. He had been a middling student, earning As in the courses he enjoyed, and Cs in those he did not. He had been in band, and just as he was in everything else, he had flown under the radar. He was a steady, not spectacular musician, and he doubted he would play much after high school.

He had never tried to play organized sports, but enjoyed playing softball and football with his classmates on the sandlots and grassy fields at the community park down the road from his house. He was athletic enough to hold his own, but again, was never allowed or encouraged to be the star. In football he was often relegated to blocking for more outspoken kids, and on the softball diamond nearly always was assigned the outfield.

When he graduated, he was 5’10” and 150 lbs. Long and lean, like so many young men at that age. His metabolism was still fast enough for him to eat anything he wanted without putting on extra pounds.

After graduation, he decided that school had weighed too heavy on him for thirteen years, and that he was going to wait a semester before starting college. He was living on his own, and had gotten a job performing with a local theater group. That was the first of his new experiences as an independent adult. He had gone to the audition never having acted or danced before, but it sounded like a great first adult job, and so he went. He made it through multiple rounds of cuts, and at the end he and six others were hired to travel the area performing shows at local schools.

The team was an interesting mix. The three veterans, returning to the cast from previous years were Todd, Rob, and Elizabeth, Todd was a married 40-something family man with decades of experience performing. He had apparently even performed on the Muppet Show back in the day. Rob, in his thirties and newly married, seemed to love three things: the technical side of performing, his attractive blonde wife, and his antique Camaro. Elizabeth was a second-generation performer, in her early 20s, and she carried herself with an arrogance borne from never being told no. She had been her father’s only daughter, and he had apparently raised her to believe that she was above everyone else. She and Jimmy had clashed almost instantly.

Joining Jimmy as the rookies were Mark, Joe, and Andrea. Mark and Andrea were in their 30s, married to wonderful and loving spouses, and both had children at home.

Joe was the one that Jimmy had immediately bonded with at the auditions. He was in his late 20s, and had been social and funny while everyone was working through the process of auditioning. Once rehearsals had started, Joe was the one who seemed to hang with Jimmy more than anyone else. They carpooled to rehearsals, and those in-car conversations had been some of the first adult conversations Jimmy had participated in. Joe looked at Jimmy not as a fresh-faced kid, but as a full adult with original ideas and feelings.

It was during one of these car rides to rehearsal that Joe got serious with Jimmy. As he was driving, he got suddenly sullen. “I need to tell you something,” he said.

“What’s up?” Jimmy asked.

“Well, I have been weighing this in my head for a few weeks now, but I think that I need to tell you. I’m gay.”

Jimmy wasn’t sure how Joe expected him to react. Had he expected him to freak out and jump out of the moving car? Or was he hoping that Jimmy would be cool with it? Or was he hitting on him?