Age of awareness
A teenager wonders about the intricacies of life as he tries to find his way.
By Michael Kruse, Times staff writer
Published August 16, 2007
LAND O'LAKES - "I always get lost going to Derek's house," John Gold was saying. "But I don't know. Today feels like good luck. Today feels like an overall positive day."
He steered his white Jeep down winding streets with same-seeming houses. He said something about all this being a maze. He took a right, then a left, then another left, and then he slowed and stopped and looked around.
"I want to recognize something so bad," he said.
- - -
He found Derek's house and picked some people up and then drove to the restaurant called Rapscallions. It was the 16th birthday of his friend Devin, and John walked into a private room.
He hugged his friend Amanda and he shook the hand of his friend Raul and he hugged his friend Rebecca.
He set up a mike and an amp in the corner.
"Test, test, test," he said into the mike.
- - -
John Gold used to be in a metal band called Vagrancy but then he went from the electric guitar to the acoustic guitar and in the past two or so years he has written 52 songs. He has played at the Orpheum in Ybor City, at libraries in Pasco County, in school cafeterias and outside the Starbucks by the New Tampa Muvico where he plays to make the money back on his tickets to the movies.
He is an only child and was homeschooled until the eighth grade and has lived here his whole life. He wears tight straight-leg Levi's, and his favorite meal is apple crumb, vanilla cream and maple frosted at 3 a.m. at the all-night Dunkin' Donuts. He bites his nails.
He is going into his senior year at Land O'Lakes High School. He is putting out a CD called Cryptiquotes. It's his first.
"A lot of things are happening soon," he wrote on his MySpace site.
Some of his "fascinations" listed on the site are right angles, body curves, speech impediments, attention spans, friends, disposable friends, hips, lips, hands, eyes, ticks, heartbeats, Pop-Tarts, spray paint, seeing your breath, dancing in public, staring at the sky, little packages with string, the phrase "tiny bones," hugs that last way too long, being so close to someone that you can hear them breathe, love, love, love, love.
Also, this: "I love touch, please hold my hands."
John Gold is 17, in the last summer of his childhood. He spends it wandering and wondering and trying to create something that feels new. Sometimes everything seems possible. Sometimes nothing does.
- - -
John Gold:
"Depression washed my life of color. I had these feelings and I had to express them and music has helped me."
"Something really changed about me halfway through my freshman year. I used to be a lot different. I got more accepting of everything. I started caring about other people more than myself. Amanda, she once said, 'John, that was so shallow,' and I thought to myself: 'Shallow.' Then I thought more about that. A lot more."
"I just like listening."
"I am really lonely."
"I know that someday someone's going to come along and she's going to be perfect for me and that's when this empty thing is going to get filled up. That's going to happen. I'm positive."
"Today I noticed the lines on gum. Why would they make those lines on that gum? You see? Those little lines?"
"If you look at the ceiling long enough, it's really funny what your brain makes out of . . . just . . . dots. Popcorn ceilings. They're the best."
"You know what I really like? Gigantic fields with just one tree in the middle. You know what I mean?"
"I eat the green part of the watermelon because it's part of the watermelon too."
"Mobile homes are really interesting. Because they have a bunch of space underneath them. It's just completely different than a regular house. When you walk on it, it echoes."
"The tiny things that people ignore are very important. Things that are all around us."
"It seems like as I get older, everything becomes more black and white, and I want to live in vibrant Technicolor. I don't want to take anything for granted. I just force myself to see things like a child. Gosh. I feel like a child sometimes. But it works. I just have to remember."
"I sure hope the album ends up the way I planned it. I'm awfully worried about that."
"I want it to sound exactly like I want it to sound. And I can never get it to sound that way."
"I want to learn to swing dance someday."
"I want to make people happy. Or feel something. Yeah. That's what I want."
- - -
He was sitting early one recent Friday evening in the corner room in his parents' house where he has his computer and his guitars. He pulled up his neighborhood and the others around it on Google Earth and zeroed in.
"It's like they pressed Control V over and over," he said. "Copy, copy, copy, copy."
He sat still and looked at the screen.
"It looks like a microchip, doesn't it?" he said. "All those houses? They almost blend into one."
He decided to drive around some.
He drove to the busy plaza at the corner of State Road 54 and Collier Parkway and pointed to where he watches the sun set from the top of a wall next to the Dumpster behind the Shane's Rib Shack. Then he drove behind the Publix and pointed to the big concrete pipe by a pond between the back of the Publix and an apartment complex with a black metal gate.
He can hide and think there, he said.
- - -
It was getting later now. John drove over to Devin's house and knocked on the door. Devin told his parents he was going out for a bit.
John sat in his parked white Jeep. Devin sat in the shotgun seat. There was no music.
"So where do you want to go?" John asked.
"I don't know," Devin said.
"I have that problem, too," John said.
They drove to Starbucks. They sat outside. Devin texted people. They didn't get any coffee or food. Devin said something about Transformers so they got back into the Jeep and drove to the Muvico in New Tampa.
They parked in the back and went around to the front where they ran into their friends Rebecca and Jessica from school. They had some time to kill before the late show and walked back toward the Jeep to go to Starbucks.
John saw a green grass path away from the flat black pavement and behind a gate off to the side of the theater. Something different. Anything to change his perspective. He walked down the path with Devin and the two girls.
It led nowhere.
They stood there for a moment. The air was heavy and wet. There was heat lightning in the sky. Bugs and frogs buzzed in the reeds. Then they turned around and walked back to the pavement.
John tried again.
He got up on the wood railing by the curb and balanced on it and walked like that. He reached out to Rebecca and Rebecca reached up to him. Rebecca held John's hand as he walked on the rail.
"Don't fall," she said.
Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or (813) 909-4617.