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Peaches

"Peaches!" Doc Baker barked. "Get in here!"

By Peaches, he meant me. Doc Baker started calling me that during the first week of my tenure as the high school football team's trainer, when I was just a freshman. I didn't like the nickname, honestly. And I didn't quite understand it. Later in life I realized there was something obvious about me that I didn't see yet. I suppose, looking back, I was a "light in the loafers" teenage boy in the heart of rural Texas in the 1990s, working in the most macho setting imaginable. It was everything you're probably thinking - muscular boys who look more like men throwing each other around every day and being led by actual men who cursed and talked about women with a strong Southern drawl. I was different, a fish out of water. I guess . I was Peaches.

I didn't even care that much about sports; I preferred music. This was due in large part to my father's constant practice of educating me on not only who performed a certain Motown song but also the story behind the song. It was a trivia game we often played, and still do even to this day. But when we had moved from Memphis, Tennessee, to Rowlett, Texas, the year before, the band teacher wouldn't let me play alto saxophone anymore. I loved it, but apparently Lakeview Centennial High School had enough alto sax players. They wanted me to play tenor sax, which is a long, gigantic instrument, much bigger than the alto I loved. I was about 115 pounds (soaking wet) and wasn't strong enough to manhandle it, so I passed.

I was devastated and looking for something else to do in my new town at my new school when Doc Baker mentioned that they needed football trainers. He was my health teacher, and not even a doctor, but that's what we all called him anyway. I had no idea what being a trainer entailed, I just knew enough to know that high school football in Texas is A THING. It truly was the TV show Friday Night Lights come to life. I was intrigued. Brokenhearted by my saxophone rejection, and following a short, boring stint in FFA (Future Farmers of America), I figured maybe becoming a part of the cool thing would help.

During my first tour of the facilities, I realized that being a trainer, in a lot of ways, meant being in charge. I was responsible for making sure the players got what they needed to play their best. They were led by Coach Watkins, who at the time was the winningest high school football coach in Texas history, which meant the place was a well-oiled machine with a lot of high expectations. Trainers were organized and attentive. They were responsible for ensuring the players operated at the highest level because they had the support behind them, whatever that meant. I remember thinking on that first day, these are the people who really make it happen on Friday night. They were leaders, not followers. And that was a feeling I aspired to.

I was psyched about the opportunity to become a trainer, until Doc broke the news that all the positions had been quickly filled, but I could work for the hardware room, reporting directly to Coach Watkins. That's where all the players go to get their chin straps adjusted, helmets fitted, jerseys tailored, and so on. I wasn't exactly thrilled by this - it didn't seem nearly as exciting as being a trainer, who ensured players were mentally and physically prepared to win. Teammates, parents, and spectators alike all expected a strong team, and trainers were vital to that.

So was the hardware guy, but I didn't see it that way yet. It was lower down the food chain and much less glamorous than the role of a trainer. But I came to enjoy it. I ran that hardware room. And the players loved me. They felt like I was the one truly taking care of them because I had to care about the seemingly smaller things - if their mouthguard fit right or their shoes were too tight. I did my job well and gained respect. The hardware room was where I was that day when Doc Baker yelled my name. Well, the name he and the entire team called me, anyway.

"Peaches! Get in here!" he hollered as I walked to his office. "You're up."

"What?" I replied.

"There's an open trainer position and you're taking it. You're going to learn how to wrap ankles and do electrotherapy. We practice every day, and two-a-days in summer. Games on Fridays, during season. You need to be at all of it," he replied. "Tell your parents you won't make any family vacation this year."

I was ready, and nervous, but also a little relieved. The training room was farther from the showers than the hardware room. I was already having a hard enough time not walking by more than I needed to. My confused 14-year-old brain had no idea what was even happening. As far as I knew, I had no interest in anyone. I didn't know the term for it at the time, but I considered myself to be asexual. I wasn't interested in girls, but being interested in boys was something I couldn't conceptualize. In my conservative, smaller town, Southern Baptist world, men married women. End of story. I didn't want to marry a woman, so I must want to be married to no one. That's all I could understand at the time. My curiosity to compare my skinny, hairless body to naked, hairier, muscular boys would be easier kept at bay if I were farther from the showers. Plus, now I had some real responsibility, and I've always liked that.

At school, that was my identity: football trainer. But at home, I was doing one of two things - either researching anything related to entertainment or watching recorded copies of Entertainment Tonight. With the invention of the DVD on the horizon, videocassette recorders were lower in price, and I managed to buy one with my babysitting money. For $109, at Circuit City, it was my first purchase with my own money. I also had signed up for something called Columbia House, which was a music and video subscription program. For 1¢ and then the low, low price of $19/month they'd send you six videos a month. I built up my own little movie collection by also buying blank tapes to record and watch Entertainment Tonight, Star Search, and other shows that gave me a peek into Hollywood, a world very far from my own existence. To me, Hollywood had everything. Movie stars! Money! Culture! Beautiful people!

Don't get me wrong, I had a fantastic childhood. My parents deeply care for me and my three younger brothers, and our house was full to the brim with love. This love came in many forms: listening, encouraging, teaching, reprimanding. As an adult I see now that it also came judgement-free and with unwavering understanding that although we were all dealt the same deck of cards, we were different, and they loved that about us. They supported us, and still do, in anything we've ever wanted to do. At the risk of sounding cliché, I truly owe them everything. Still, it was becoming clear that I wanted something more than what small-town Texas could offer.

I enjoyed watching celebrities and entertainers on these shows, but soon I was curious about more than what I could see on TV. I was interested in the behind-the-scenes stuff, the gigantic complex engine that is the entertainment industry. I dreamed of Hollywood, but not to be a celebrity. There's a famous scene from the movie Pretty Woman, where a man walks down Hollywood Boulevard screaming, "What's your dream? Everybody's got a dream. What's your dream?" The first time I saw that film it was on one of those video home system tapes Columbia House sent me. I heard that line and rewound it to watch again. I knew my dream was to move to Hollywood and do something. I just didn't know exactly what.

Many days after school, my best friend Melissa and I would rush home and begin filming our own homemade videos. We'd been best friends ever since we met at the bus stop on our first day in high school. Confidently swinging her red purse, she had offered me a Tic Tac and told me I had Oreos in my teeth. Turns out I didn't, it was 8:00 a.m. But what I did have was old school metal braces and the week before had made the unfortunate decision to go with black rubber bands. I thought black was cool, and as the new kid, was trying to make a big impression on the first day. The only impression it seemed to leave on people was that I likely snacked on Oreos all day. But Melissa is kind and one of my best friends still to this day. She and I recorded many "music videos" together, as well as the "Melissa Winfrey Show," in which we mimicked the interviewees and celebrities we'd seen on The Oprah Winfrey Show, then at the height of its popularity. Occasionally, because of our casting needs, I'd be on camera, but I never enjoyed it. One need only briefly watch those old episodes we made (and we recently have!) to strongly affirm that I was, without a doubt, an innocent, naive, closeted gay kid. I liked the planning and execution of the videos, not the acting. I liked producing them. I was far more interested in the people behind the scenes. I wanted to be one of the people who actually made things happen.

Back then, directors, producers, and celebrities were easier to reach. I literally bought a book at a bookfair that listed the celebrity fan club addresses and phone numbers. Fan clubs, that's not too impressive, you might be thinking. But in the 1990s, many...