BACKSTORY: My fictional writing is heavily influenced by music. Typically I select a particular artist’s music to complement a story. The music helps set tone, emotion, pace, and beat of a written work. With “JC Was the First Goth Kid,” I listened to many different Johnny Cash songs for inspiration, both before writing and through headphones (with the volume kept very low) while working on the story. The composition of the musical inspiration influences the story’s overall written composition.
THE MORE I TRY TO AVOID choosing my destiny, the more I end up determining my own fate.
I got to my first high-school class early so that I could claim the perfect seat. With no one else yet in the room, I planted myself at a lab table one row behind center. The biology classroom had tables set up for pairs. I chose a left seat to ensure maximum writing space. Arriving first to the class, I also avoided the awkward situation of approaching someone already seated and being told that the other seat was being saved. Instead, a person would choose to sit next to me. The only catch to this method was when a teacher assigned seats. But even then, someone else still determined my fate.
Many high schools in New Jersey are regional, meaning that they draw from middle and junior high schools from around a ten- to fifteen-mile radius. Chances are I would only know about 20 percent of the people in my entire freshmen class. I didn’t know any of the students as they entered the door at the front of the classroom. However, all of the other students appeared to know each other as the tables began to fill in around me with banter and excitement. By the time the class was about to start, all of the chairs were taken except for the empty one next to me.
The teacher, Mr. Feinberg, walked in and closed the door behind him. He introduced himself and took roll. With a typical New Jersey attitude he called out each person’s first and last name, but from thereafter he referred to us by our last names preceded by either Mr. or Ms. I knew one person, Jennifer—Ms. Hatch—from my middle school, and she was a brown-nosing bitch. He then ran through the semester’s topics and labs. As he started to describe the dissections we would be performing, the door to the classroom re-opened and in walked a tall lurching Goth kid. In 1980, there was no such thing as a Goth kid, but he exemplified the image and was probably personally responsible for the fashion trend, personality characteristics, and moniker now known throughout the country.
Annoyed, Mr. Feinberg put on a game show host’s enthusiasm and addressed the latecomer with familiarity. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mr. Joseph Carlson. Welcome to class, Mr. Carlson.” The teacher’s expression quickly changed to serious. “We’re off to a good start, I see.” Feinberg pointed at the empty seat next to me. “Take your seat so that we can continue.”
All eyes were on “Mr. Carlson” and then on me as he approached my table. Walking toward me, he looked about six feet tall, except that he was slouching. Would that make him six-foot-four, maybe? His thick black hair looked like it hadn’t been washed or brushed in a few days, maybe weeks. If it weren’t so bushy it would probably hang past his shoulders. It was more of a wavy afro that hung down so that no one could clearly see his face. He had on black jeans with tears in the knees and a long black tattered overcoat. A worn black courier bag was weaved through one arm and draped around his neck. In the V of his jacket was a T-shirt with a black-and-white image of an older man with a rough face and thick, slicked-back black hair.
People ignored Feinberg’s introduction and quietly gawked at my new lab partner. His back to the teacher, Johnny shuffled closer to me and opened his jacket enough for the class to see that the printed image on his black T-shirt also had an extended middle finger flipping off everyone that looked at him. As he swung around to take his seat he closed his jacket to hide his shirt’s message.
Toward the end of the class, Feinberg handed each of us a syllabus and packet of papers and told us to spend the rest of the class time reviewing the materials. He walked over to our table and stood next to me. The teacher looked at me for a second just to acknowledge my presence, and then spoke through me to Joseph, who was facing the tabletop. The kid’s hair covered his eyes and any facial expression.
“Mr. Carlson, I know that you had some issues last year. Hopefully, this year will prove to be a better one for you. But you are going to need to adjust your attitude if you are going to make it through my class—and high school.”
Staring at Joseph’s head, Feinberg was oblivious as the student’s grip tightened around a section of his jacket under our desk. I could tell he was making an effort to maintain self-control. I still had no idea what my new lab partner looked like, but I wish I hadn’t been first into the classroom and had made an effort to sit next to someone—even Jennifer. The teacher glanced back at my wide-open eyes as they quickly feigned focus on my handouts. I sensed that most of the class was trying to focus its attention on my table while appearing to study.
“Mr. Carlson, please try and be on time. I have no doubt you can and will do well this year.” The teacher turned and started weaving through the aisles and rows of desks. I caught Jennifer with her hand up to ask him a question—probably about how the class could earn extra credit throughout the year.
Joseph mumbled, “Asshole,” from beneath his ’fro-like locks. I chuckled, more out of being uncomfortable, but I also wanted to show some allegiance to my lab partner since it looked like we would work together for the rest of the semester. He swung his parcel bag around and it dropped onto the table. On the outside flap was a hand stitched “J.C.” I snorted air out through my nose and fell back in my seat in surprise. The irony of wearing a T-shirt with some old dude giving the bird and also having the same initials as Jesus struck me as odd.
He slowly turned his head toward me and I realized I had just drawn attention to myself. I looked over at him and sheepishly said, “I’m Gary.”
We made eye contact and Joseph responded with a slow hushed, “Hey, I’m JC.”
Pock marked, JC’s face looked like it had exploded. His eyes retreated back toward his bag on the table. At the time, I didn’t notice how sad and hollow his eyes were. I just felt a pang of empathy since I was so self-conscious of my own acne-scarred face, but it was nothing compared to his.
The bell rang, indicating that our first class was over. Feinberg reminded us of our reading assignments as students headed for the door.
Another hushed, “See ya later, Gary,” leaked out as JC got up and headed for the door; head hung low, he darted around people as he made his quick escape.
I was glad that I had some aptitude for science, because JC was not the most dependable person to attend class. In fact, he even missed the next two classes that first week. Rumor had it that another teacher later in that first day of school noticed the shirt he had been wearing and the school suspended him for the rest of the week.
The second week of class went much better. He still wore his black overcoat, but under it was usually a plain black T-shirt. JC turned out to actually be a pretty shy guy. And he had a good sense of humor. The first time that we had a lab he pushed me to do the actual experiment while he recorded the notes.
“Why don’t you do this part, and I’ll write down the results,” I offered half way into the project.
“That’s okay; I just want to write down the info.” His pencil was pushed through his hair like girls do when they have a chopstick keeping their long hair “together” in a bun. I wasn’t sure why he had put it there or if I was supposed to notice and say something about it. But it made me chuckle. Self consciously, I looked around to see if anyone saw that he and I were getting along. I noticed that his hands were up in the sleeves of his coat as I continued to work. His long fingers would come out and grab his pencil to jot numbers and notes on our results paper and then disappear.
When he was in class on a regular basis he would do well with his work. We each had some of the highest grades in the class. When he started to miss days of school I ended up doing the work alone but we still maintained a high-A grade average.
For me, high school turned out to be just an extension of junior high. I wasn’t a jock. I wasn’t preppy. I wasn’t a burnout. I wasn’t anything. I wanted to fit in, but usually I was just invisible. People were not mean to me, but they weren’t overly friendly either. The film The Breakfast Club came out soon after I graduated from high school. While I seemed to know each of the characters in the film and could identify who they were in my high school, none of them would have been my friends. If I had to force myself to pick one of the characters from the movie to identify with, it would probably be Brian, Anthony Michael Hall’s portrayal of the geek. If I had to pick which character JC most closely resembled, it would be Ally Sheedy’s weirdo character, Allison.
I did have friends from junior high—and we met at the cafeteria every day for lunch. The second week of class I noticed that JC also had lunch at the same time as we did. “Why don’t we ask him to sit next to us?” I asked our group, referring to JC.
Everyone looked over at him sitting at a table in the far corner of the cafeteria with his long coat on. He was sitting across from Luke Paxton, a freshman who wore a tight gray suit and skinny tie every day. As I walked to math class one day, I overheard Luke in the hallway tell JC that he wished he was the fifth Beatle. I glanced back and realized that not only was Luke’s suit like what the Beatles wore in their early years, but that he even had a haircut like they did; it was stringy and hung down evenly around his head. The bangs cut straight across. Luke and JC were expressive when they were together.
“Um, no.” My friend, Mark, took another bite of his sandwich. “We don’t need to be associated with them. We’re not like them. And why would we want to walk around and get harassed every day?”
The rest of the group concurred, and I guess that I agreed. The friends I had, and more importantly, those who weren’t friends, didn’t bother me. If we were associated with JC or Luke or any of the other “freaks” we would quickly begin to gain more attention—and not in a good way. When high-school students were put into situations where they interacted with these guys—like being assigned lab partners—it was not held against you. It was a forced association and others in the class or school didn’t hold you accountable.
In our class, JC always dropped his bag on the table’s top. Each class I noticed the stitched J.C. on its cover. He always flipped it open and pulled out his spiral notebook with the red cover. He had used the eraser side of his pencil to write the word “biology” on the notebook’s cover. The other spiral notebook he would pull out each class had a black cover. He would only pull that one out half-way from the bag, as if trying to hide it. Using the same eraser technique he had written in large letters “JC’s Shit” on its cover.
Inside his black notebook were thoughts, doodles, drawings, cartoons, poems, battles, and anything else that seemed to pour from his mind directly onto the pages. The notebook itself was tattered. It had curled edges and was haphazardly stuffed with other loose pieces of scribble. Whenever he had an idea he would open the book arbitrarily and fill pages until he was finished. Sometimes that bothered me because, while we were supposed to be working together on our labs, he would secretly get lost in his black notebook writings, forcing me to do most of the work myself.
I was intrigued by what he wrote in that book, though, and would examine what he had written or what he was drawing. He never pulled the pages away from me or seemed to be bothered by my prying. In fact, I think he was excited that I took some kind of interest, although I would hardly say that it was eagerness that drew me to his pages. It was curiosity.
On one particular day, “I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down” was scribbled on the top of a page he was working on. He was creating an illustration of some high school-aged kid wearing a football jersey adorning the number nine. Coming off the page was a strong muscular arm with a hand tightly gripped around the jock’s neck. His eyes were bulging and his tongue was hanging out of his mouth. JC was a good artist. “Did you write this?” I asked.
JC looked over at me with a patronizing look. He held up his pencil to indicate that he did, in fact, write it.
“No, I mean, did you write this,” I pointed to the line at the top of the page and dropped the tip of my finger down hard on the word black for emphasis.
“No, that’s from the other JC.” He continued with his caricature, working on another arm coming from the opposite side of the page wielding a sharp knife. Its tip about to poke one of the bulging eyeballs.
I would finally be able to ask about the JC stitched onto his bag without appearing to pry. I traced the two initials on his black bag, not completely realizing I was doing it. “I didn’t think you were the religious type.”
JC froze his hand; pencil on paper and stared into my eyes. His gaze made me look down quickly and withdraw my hand from his bag. “My type,” he said softly. “I thought you were different. What type do you think I am?”
I was stunned that he misinterpreted what I said with such defense, but with a second to think I understood why he would make the assumption he had. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just didn’t think that you would write quotes from the Bible, that’s all. In fact, I wasn’t quite sure if the initials on your bag were your initials or Jesus’. Now I know. Sorry I asked.” I started to turn back to our assignment when he laughed.
His hurt look shifted to one of fulfillment. The fisherman who’s perfectly created lure snagged the trophy walleye. “Neither,” he spoke confidently. “There’s another JC that guides me in life—my spiritual advisor, my mentor, my man.”
I was confused. This was the first time he had talked with me; really talked with me. I was titillated by his remarks. I thought they were profound. But the vain part of me, the peer-pressured and social-accepting part of me, took control and the judgment that was slapped to the forefront of my head was, freak. Blankly, I responded with, “Huh?”
“Johnny Cash!” JC was pretty worked up now. “He’s the man.”
Tonight Show host Johnny Carson would have made more sense to me. We lived in New Jersey, not Tennessee. I couldn’t figure out how a country singer was his mentor. I hid my surprise the best I could, but I could see disappointment in JC’s eyes that I had reacted so poorly after he revealed such a deep and personal part of himself to me. The pencil went back into his hair and his hands retreated up into the sleeves of his coat. I sought some type of recovery. “That’s cool. I don’t know anything about him. I didn’t know that people listened to country music around here.”
The bell rang and JC quickly shoved his stuff into his bag. As he got up to leave, he turned back to me and his hushed voice returned. “Never mind. . . . I thought you would understand.”
That evening, after I completed my homework, I sought my nightly solace by selecting the music that would help me to sleep. Among cases of music cassettes I had narrowed my choice down to an album by one of my three favorite bands: Yes, Rush, or Genesis. My mind momentarily switched gears to my confrontation with JC and the announcement of his liking the “other” other JC. How could he relate to a country artist? I thought that they just sung about dead dogs, alcohol, and scorned love. A hot flash spiraled through my body as I realized my stupidity. How could I criticize JC for his particular interest in music and his spiritual guidance when I would be so pissed off and offended if anyone mocked my music? Besides, I was drawn to groups from England and Canada that sang about By-Tor the Snowdog, Starship Troopers, and lambs that lie down on Broadway. What I got out of my music, I decided, was just as personal and important to me as Johnny Cash lyrics were to JC.
The next time we had class together we had a fetal pig put in front of us to dissect. JC was standoffish and cold. I felt bad about how I behaved and in typical teenage manner fumbled through trying to reconcile. “I’ve never heard any songs by Johnny Cash. Is there a radio station I might find him on?”
Suspiciously, JC paused. He shook his head and said quietly, “Nope. But Sam Goody has some of his albums.”
“I’ll have to check it out this weekend. I love going to Sam Goody.” I took the dissecting blade and poked at the rubbery pig. I used the tip of the knife to lift its exposed genitals. “Any thoughts?” I asked, handing him the tool.
Male. He noted the single word answer to the first question we were supposed to complete about the pig’s gender in his red notebook. JC took the blade willingly from me and like an expert cut an incision vertically through the pig’s stomach as we had been instructed. “I think,” he said pondering my question, “that we should name our pig Sue.” The word freak came to the forefront of my mind again as I tried to figure out why he would, first, want to name our lab animal, which we would completely dismantle, and second, why he would choose a girl’s name after we determined it was a boy pig. My puzzled look brought a rare smile to his broken-out face and for a second I saw a spark of light in his eyes. “Look for one of Cash’s records with the song ‘A Boy Named Sue’ on it when you go to the mall.” He again looked like he had caught the trophy fish, and I kind of liked being part of the effort.
Later that day, walking to class, I passed JC being harassed at his locker by a couple of the school’s football players. It was game night, so all the players wore their jerseys with pride, like they were going off to war. Jennifer Hatch, and the other groupies, fawned or drooled or did whatever they did to be cool. When I saw that one of the meatheads giving JC a hard time had the number nine on his back I recalled the notebook illustration from earlier in the semester that JC had been working on that depicted the jock with bulging eyes being choked.
“Hey, Pubehead,” Number Nine said loud enough for all around to hear. “Why don’t you brush your hair or wash your face once in awhile. Maybe if you didn’t jerk off or eat chocolate so much you wouldn’t have so many zits.” He was as close to JC as he could be without actually touching him. JC continued to pull books out of his locker and ignored the comments, as any of the smart freaks or geeks—myself included—would do instead of returning the verbal jab or fighting or running away.
Number Nine started to pull a taped photograph from JC’s locker door. The photo’s image was similar to the one on JC’s T-shirt he wore the first day of class that had the man giving the finger. Only this one had the same man with a guitar around his neck. Noticing all the other photos of the same guy that filled JC’s locker, I assumed that the worn-looking man must be Johnny Cash.
“What a fag,” Number Nine said, holding up the photo and showing it to the small crowd. “Most guys would have a chick on their locker door. This guy’s got an old dude.”
JC grabbed for the photo and swiped it back out of the jock’s clutches. The football player went for JC’s ever-present black overcoat. Number Nine yanked a lapel toward him and JC’s arm came out from one of the sleeves as he was twirled around by the force. The entire group froze as JC’s emaciated body was partially visible. Because JC was somehow exempt from gym class, he always had his coat on and his body was always covered. Clinging to him was a faded black T-shirt, too small for his stick-like frame. His exposed arm and neck disclosed blotchy acne scars and thin red two-inch marks like paper cuts or shaving nicks. His forearm had a scar about a quarter-inch thick and four inches long that, I have to admit, instantly reminded me of the incision he had eagerly given Sue only a couple of hours earlier.
Number Nine let go of the coat, not saying a word, and JC retracted his arm back into the sleeve. With a head-nod, the football player signaled to his friends that the fun was over and it was time to move on. No one said a word. Throughout the entire incident JC’s face never showed any expression other than distance. All of us who were not part of the popular crowd experienced some kind of torment from time to time, but his face told a story that this was just part of his daily routine. As everyone left the scene, I moved in and approached JC as he was reaffixing his tattered photo to his locker door.
“Why do jocks have to try and dominate everything?” I asked trying to show empathy. “I mean, if they already have all the power in the school, why do they have to rub it in our faces? High school is bunk, and I still have three years to go!”
JC stared into his locker, frozen like he was counting to ten. I heard him whisper to himself a mantra: “If you have political convictions keep them to yourself.”
I pointed to a photo of the young Johnny Cash, looking down, solemnly. “Is that from one of his songs?”
“Yeah, it is. He’s done some bad things in his life, but what he sings about just,” he paused a moment. “. . . it’s just something that I connect with, I guess. He looks and dresses different and his thoughts are different, but why does everyone have to be a jock to be accepted?”
JC looked at me, but I wasn’t sure I completely understood what he was talking about. The bell rang, indicating that both of us were officially late for wherever we were supposed to be. As JC shut his locker, Mr. Feinberg rounded the corner of the hallway. In typical high-school fashion, teachers always missed the fight. “Ah, my two trouble-makers.” Mr. Feinberg stopped and intercepted our departure. “I understand that you, Mr. Carlson, have been causing some more trouble in the hallways.”
“Yep, it was me,” JC said in a firm-yet-quiet monotone voice almost mocking the teacher. “I’m the guilty party for trying to go to class. I decided to bully a couple of jocks because they just didn’t seem to be getting enough attention. I showed them.” JC adjusted his coat and looked down at the teacher.
Mr. Feinberg winced a “those darn kids” expression. He reached into his pocket and tore off two tardy passes and handed one to each of us. Finished with his business, he turned around and retreated from where he came. We looked at each other and smiled. Instead of heading to class, JC went back to his locker and opened it. He pulled something from it, walked back over to me and handed me a cassette. I could barely read the handwriting listing all of the songs, but on the spine of the tape I could easily decipher “JC’s favorite JC moments” printed in my lab partner’s scratches. “This might be a good way to learn a little bit about Mr. Johnny Cash,” JC spoke confidently. “It’s got some of his best songs. And now you don’t have to buy a record unless you want to.”
I listened to the tape and had to admit to myself that the songs weren’t particularly pleasing to my tastes. I would stick to progressive rock, but I felt good that I at least appreciated and respected his tastes.
The rest of the school year was pretty much more of the same. We did our labs together and both ended up with an A in the class. He hung out with Luke and a few other unique people and I continued to have lunch at the other end of the cafeteria with my friends.
Over the next couple of years we would say “hi” to each other if we passed in the hallway, but that was the extent of our contact. At the end of my junior year, I flipped through my yearbook and JC popped out at me. He was given the distinction of “Class Individual.” Each year various seniors are selected as class jock, most talkative, class flirt, etc. Scattered throughout the senior photos are these stand-alone snapshots with the caption underneath declaring their claim to fame during their tenure. JC’s photo made me laugh. He was standing beside his locker and there were papers and books piled out of it down to the floor. He was staring straight into the camera and with an outstretched arm he was giving the photographer (and the viewers) the finger. The photo had a black bar over JC’s hand to mask the profanity.
This story could end right here, but there is a reason why I was recently thinking about my classmate, JC. Over the past few years, there has been an awakening, for people like me, and a re-awakening, for others, of Johnny Cash and his music. With the recent death of Cash and the gradual maturing and broadening of my musical tastes, I picked up one of his most recent compact discs. It had Johnny Cash singing a cover version of the Nine Inch Nails song “Hurt.” That song alone is chilling, but listening to it being sung by a man who must have known he was on the last leg of his life was simply haunting. I wondered why I had never really given Cash a listen throughout the years. That’s when it occurred to me that I had been given that tape by JC and hadn’t found it at all interesting at the time.
Of course that tape reminded me of JC, whom I had not seen since my junior year in high school. I hadn’t lived in New Jersey since I graduated from college and that was more than fifteen years ago. Perhaps, with an e-mail or a phone call I could touch base with him and see how he was doing. I could thank him for turning me on to Johnny Cash and find out what other artists he was into lately.
With the convenience of the Internet, I did a search for JC. Scanning the results, I scrolled through artists, biologists, professors, and even a violin maker all with his same name. Upon review of the linking Web sites, none of these Joseph Carlsons were the JC I knew from school.
I decided to query the Web site of the newspaper that covered the area of New Jersey where I had lived and search for him on that site. I was partially successful. While the newspaper did produce one link to the Joseph R. Carlson I knew, upon reading the linked article my eagerness to connect with the 1983 “Class Individual” proved to be impossible.
September 14, 1993
Joseph Richard Carlson was found dead in his studio apartment last night. Neatly stacked around his bed were volumes of spiral notebooks, magazines, journals, books, and music recordings of the legendary country singer Johnny Cash. The naked body of Carlson, a care provider at a local residential substance rehabilitation home, was covered with hundreds of two-inch small cuts and scars. Officials confirmed that the cuts were self-inflicted over many years and were not the cause of death. A neighbor, who asked not to be identified, described Carlson as quiet, friendly, and never appeared to have guests in his apartment. Co-workers of Carlson at the treatment home also mentioned that Carlson was quiet, but a good listener, caring, and quite respectful of the residents. They also recalled his passion for the life and music of Johnny Cash and how he would light up whenever Cash was mentioned. Everyone who knew Carlson indicated that regardless of the weather, he wore a long black coat; apparently a tribute to Johnny Cash. Laid out along side Carlson’s body on the bed was the old overcoat. On top of the coat was a typed note. While authorities ruled out foul play, they would not reveal the cause of death or disclose the contents of the note. An unofficial source indicated that the note contained lines of lyrics sung by Johnny Cash. A framed photograph of Mr. Carlson and Mr. Cash together hung above Carlson’s bed. Mr. Cash was contacted and asked about Carlson. “While I don’t recall meeting Mr. Carlson, I am saddened to hear of his passing,” Cash said. The estimated time of death was September 12, 1993.
STEVEN A. HOFFMAN has lived in seventeen states and countries and has been very happy to call Sioux Falls, South Dakota, home since 1997. When he’s not writing, he oversees a seven-gallery visual arts center, a science center with three floors of hands-on exhibits, a domed large format theater, and a performing arts center with 300- and 1,900-seat theaters. Professionally, Steve has curated performing arts series, festivals, events, and individual performances for more than fifteen years. Steve holds degrees from the University of Illinois and University of Wisconsin and has worked and taught in Chicago, New York, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Madison, Wisconsin. He is actively involved with a variety of local and national boards, associations, and panels and has previously been published in several literary and trade publications. Since living in South Dakota his appreciation for country music, fishing, and hunting has steadily grown. Steve can be contacted at SH.writings@hotmail.com.