I was a marching band fan nerd, which is worse than wearing the spats myself. My friend and I would sneak under the football stadium bleachers to catch rehearsals. Why were we sneaking? My high school's marching band was really good, many awards for years, which means that the band director was a crazy man whose rage was only as volatile as his juvenile sense of humor.
There was a marching band competition in a nearby town and I can't quite recall it, but Brien and I were probably kissing each other at that point because I remember the texture of Brien's teal zip-up hoodie. What I'm more sure of is the earth becoming dark and me standing in the parking lot next to the ever brighter football stadium.
This night is one of the few I remember of us together. I guess now that I think about it, we didn't spend a lot of time alone together. We didn't hang out after school because you were in band and we never went on dates to the movies.
Yesterday I realized, I've been painting that memory for the last two months. Mainly, that image of a scoreboard backlit as I stand in the dark lot behind it.
I used to scoff at all the art students who made the typical body of work on memory. Recently I've been wondering if memory is all I have.