It was a sunny afternoon in 1984 when my mouth dropped open in shock. I was perusing my local bookshop in my little town in Utah when I stumbled upon a calendar full of shirtless men, and as I turned the pages, I screamed when I saw Mr. December.
It was my cousin David, wearing only a Santa hat, staring out at me with a mischievous grin on his face. This was Utah, my family was Mormon, and this was an irresistible scandal for a 15-year-old trailblazer looking for trouble. None of us had seen or heard from David in seven years.
I immediately bought the calendar and stuffed it into a brown paper bag before taking it home to my parents. To their credit, they never asked me what I was doing looking at the calendar in the first place. They just said, “Oh dear,” then burst out laughing before calling my Aunt Ruth in California to tell her the news. Then my Mom pulled out a black Magic Marker and drew swimsuits on all the men so she could carry the calendar around to show it to all our relatives.
David had come to live with us for a while during his teen years. He was ten years older than me, worked at Pizza Hut, and could do a handstand on his homemade skateboards. One day he packed up and left. The vague reason I heard is that he confessed a sin to a bishop who told him he couldn’t be forgiven for it. (My Dad was still mad about it twenty years later.) Whatever the reason, David disappeared and none of us had heard from him in almost a decade, until I came across his photo. When my Mom called his Mom, we were told David had changed his name to Doug and was going to be a Playgirl centerfold that month. Now, it is no easy feat to acquire scandalous magazines in Utah. You can’t just walk into a convenience store and ask for one behind the cash register. At this time, there was one Circle-K that sold the magazine and my parents had to drive two hours to buy out all five copies. My Mom took out her trusty Magic Marker, and by the time they came back, every man in all five magazines was wearing a Magic Marker bathing suit.
And so I got to see my skateboarding cousin lying on his stomach on a white furry rug with no pants on. My mom didn’t draw on this one, I guess she thought since everyone has a set of buns, it was ok for us to see them. She had drawn a swimsuit on him in the photo where he was facing forward wearing only leg warmers (in case his shins got cold?) It was entertaining to watch my parents carry this magazine around with them for a few days, giggling every time they pulled it out to show my aunts and uncles.
It was about two years later that I spent a cold miserable night on the sidewalk in Pasadena, waiting for the Rose Bowl parade with my little sister and some friends. At 8 am, I was wandering around the streets with about two million other people, waiting for the parade to start, when who should I stumble upon? That’s right, David/Doug–fully clothed in black leather! “David!” I screamed! And ran up to hug him. Out of the hundreds of thousands of people who attended the Rose Parade, I ran into my cousin! He seemed happy to see me, and we exchanged numbers, but he was too far gone in another world to really keep in touch with our family. Twenty years later, he did start sending my Mom postcards, but instead of writing her a message, he cut letters out of magazines just like a psychopath in a movie and said crazy things about my grandparents and my Mom’s family in general. This didn’t go over well with my parents, and David’s communication was finally cut off for good.
Still, I always felt bad for him. I liked his deep raspy voice and the gap between his front teeth. I liked that he went out of his way to play with his seven-year-old cousin. I’m sorry that something made him leave and start down a road that seems to have made him unhappy.
I heard David died a while ago. Wherever he is, I hope he kept those leg warmers to keep him warm and that white fluffy rug so he always has a soft place to lay his head.
