A year before I was legal, you took me to your pride and joy; your local and announced at length to your mildly interested fellow patrons that it was my eighteenth birthday and bought me a Miller. Clearly, because of your exuberant introduction, they knew that I was underage, but this being outside the city, the announcement of something to celebrate was enough. I had been to a couple of pubs before you, but you didn’t know this. You hadn’t asked. You thought it was this great, big thing to bring me for my first pint. And it was.
In years that followed, I stopped drinking Miller as it made me too groggy, too sluggish; no matter what time of the evening, it would leave me slumped on the sofa, dreaming of my duvet. Also, behind my back, and one would presume in the heat of the moment (or am I making excuses?), you called me a faggot, raging against everyone around you, having managed to cut yourself out of your own life.
By the time I reached twenty-one, you meant almost nothing to me, except maybe as an appropriate target to be angry at, but as a child, you were one of my idols. I didn’t look upto famous people, I had you, but you could never give me enough attention, I realise now, so you abruptly stopped trying, leaving me waiting for someone to materialise, pick up the second controller, and press start.
Of course, it was only as a grown-up that I started to begin to understand what Being a Man is. I’m not saying I understood completly; I still don’t, but I’ve got a fair idea. However, it’s something I can’t accurately describe: it has to do with maturity, self-awareness, strength, and security, as well as a number of other factors, none of which are machismo, or braggadocio, or sports, or alcohol. It’s the thing that you can point out in others, but can’t explain why when asked to show your work. As a kid, I thought you were it: I imagined your headshot underneath the dictionary definition, but by the time I was twenty-one, I realised that you could never be it and, in my head, raised a pint to you; the one that seemed to almost pass.
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