Chapter 50: Out

This chapter is so voluminous that I have decided to adapt my usual approach somewhat and speak more to the issues I find salient.

The title of the chapter is either a hint or an outright declaration, depending on how observant you are.  If you’ve been following along with developments from prior chapters, then you know Pete and Earn have agreed that taking their relationship public would benefit them, so the chapter title is telling us something.  The biggest unknown at this point is the how of it.  Are they going to out themselves, be outed by someone else, found out by accident?   Well, that’s the juicy part of the chapter that you have to read to find out.  But if you keep the meaning of the title in mind as you read the opening bedroom conversation between Pete and Earn, there are hints sprinkled throughout.  Earn is nervous about the Year End Concert which is not too odd.  After all, it is a huge and complex undertaking and he was uptight before the Soccer Event too, but if you read between the lines, it’s not the concert all by itself that he’s anticipating.  Pete mentions concert logistics and performing bands in an effort to reassure and calm Earn, but it soon comes out that it’s their performance at the concert that’s bothering him.  Okay, butterflies before performing are normal, although Pete has at times been the nervous one, this circumstance spells tipoff in my mind.  In prior chapters, the band has played cold to crowds with less trepidation than this.  Pete being calm and reassuring and reminding Earn that they “can get through it” with Card, Por, Lhew and everyone else for support, means something beyond a simple performance is at stake.  Of course, Pete’s internal comment about needing the biggest balls at Friday College not to feel the pressure or worry is the biggest clue of all.  The interactions between the boys that follow this opening scene are not so different than the way they usually interact.  What differs is the emotional tone that runs between them.  They still banter and tease, but it’s in the most supportive way.  They are clearly in sync with each other and present themselves as a couple united.  I can’t help but think that there must be a reason for this coming later.

Once the story shifts to Friday, we learn that when Ohm shows up with P’Oak and the annoying senior, Dan, Ngaw is also in tow.  Pete assumes that since he’s a grunt for the Music Club, he’s likely been forced into service, but he wonders if Ngaw knows Lhew will be up on stage, another hint of a development that will no doubt play out later.  What follows is a very long and detailed presentation of the preparations and logistics for the Year End Concert.  It is clearly a huge undertaking involving a lot of specialized teams with developed skills that I can’t imagine any teenage student body could pull off without regular and repeated drills and practice.  These guys pull it off like a professional road crew is all I’m saying.  I have to admit that at first I felt a lot of these details simply made the story unnecessarily long, but I was mistaken.  What I gained from re-reading the story was a sense of unity and comradery among the participants as well as a greater appreciation for what the event signifies to all of them.

Periodically Pete comments on the status of Earn’s stress level and both verbally (saying reassuring and encouraging things) and physically (wrapping his arm around Earn’s shoulders) attempts to calm him.  It’s more of that supportive couple behavior (although it’s certainly not outside of Pete’s usual M.O. to act this way).  Pete casually mentions his own rising stress, but side-steps these feelings and commits himself to focusing on Earn.  It is Pete’s exclusive focus on Earn that causes him to miss the tension building around Card, Lhew, and Ngaw.   We learn that Ngaw and Lhew ran into each other, but didn’t talk and she avoided him thereafter, but once Card found out what was going on, he stayed around them.  Ngaw clearly wants to speak to Lhew, but what Lhew wants is the big unknown.  Something is brewing with these three for sure.

At the first venue, Earn greets the crowd and pumps them up as he introduces the starting band consisting of Ohm, Dan, Per and Oak.   Again Pete steps in to cheer up Earn when he notices his confidence seems shaky.  The group on stage launches into a head-banging rebellious number, aimed at getting the crowd riled up before stepping down to make room for the first band.  Off stage, Pete and the gang heap praise on them, but Ohm and Per drop hints that the band taking the stage behind them, featuring the annoying Dan, is about to detonate the stage.  They note Dan’s attitude on stage is a complete departure from the petty and temperamental demeanor they are used to as his band, PTP (Pass Time Panic) shred through their opening number.  Having never heard them before, Pete admits that he and Por are shocked, and get a bit defensive when Per tells them that Dan was insulted that his band had to audition.  After admitting to being a bit out of the mood, Ohm makes a rather dejected exit soon to be followed by an equally deflated Per.  Card makes the observation that the Music Club clearly has its own drama, but Pete challenges him briefly before Per pledges his willingness to help Earn and Pete later if needed and indicates they may return to hear P’Oak and All Star perform at the end.  This gloomy display only serves to incite Earn’s further apprehension. 

When Tee calls out from his lookout position, that Fi is pacing about and looking around suspiciously, it’s decided that pairs of prominent concert organizers should make rounds through the school to throw off his suspicions.  The first pair sent out is Pete and Earn and their journey is a chance for the story to describe what the campus is like with the Economics National Competition simultaneously taking place as the campus is crowded with outsiders.  The boys also observe students everywhere listening to the broadcast of the Year End Concert all around them.  Frankly, this seems like a lot of filler, but it’s not entirely.  It illustrates the size, scope and importance of the event as well as its unifying significance to the student body.  What Pete and Earn’s walkabout is really set to accomplish is putting them where Pete can witness Phun and Noh arriving at school while Fi is waiting to jump Phun for his key to the Student Council Office.  This is plot strategy as the story, no doubt, moves toward dovetailing with the novel and series with the Pharma Camp storyline, which begins with the introduction of Pam during the Economics Competition.  This story has Pete drive Earn off on an errand to buy him a drink to avoid Earn seeing Noh, and Pete is about to try and do the same to Phun and Noh before Earn returns, when he suddenly sees Phun approached by a beautiful mystery girl (Pam) as Fi s Phun’s pockets, Noh looks on, clearly annoyed.  As soon as Fi gets his prize, Pete quickly texts the lookout outside the Student Council Office to expect Fi, and when he looks up again Phun, Noh and the mystery girl (Pam) are gone. 

The next development involves Pete catching Hack and Dirk coming through the gate together and teasing them some.  Apparently, the boys have been suspected of being an item since last seen on these pages, and Pete draws them into a humorous exchange trading loaded questions with innocent answers made suspicious by replies loaded with innuendo.  Earn returns to the scene with Pete’s drink and Choi and Odd appear shortly thereafter, surrounding Pete and Earn with the Cheer Club’s next dynasty.   The upshot of this encounter is Pete and Earn leading an entourage to the current concert venue, with a detour to badger seniors Kal and Rad to join them.  The trip has it perks, since Pete and Earn are recognized and mobbed by groups of female fans visiting the campus who are still smoldering over the Cheer Club’s routine at the basketball game.  While Pete expresses some mild mortification over the attention, Choi and Odd lap it up readily.  They eventually make their way to the senior classrooms and successfully enlist Kal and Rad to attend the concert (after a fair amount of friendly badgering).  The trip to the concert is a repeat of the mob scenes, but our boys manage to side-step most of the attention.  They make it back and are greeted fondly by Card and Por, then agree to meet after lunch to prepare the second venue.  Lunch features a mention of the LS S2 fight between Per and Mark as a welcomed distraction for the administration.  When Earn expresses confidence in Por and Tee’s abilities to handle things on their own, Pete realizes that Earn’s mood is so much improved that now he’s the worrier of the group.  It also turns out that the Fi has managed to force a venue change to an alternate location, and Card embraces the change but, he gets teased for wanting to scope out girls.  He denies the assertion in an irritated manner, giving Earn the chance to abandon the suggestion by commenting that Card has Lhew anyway.  As Card begins to repeat his heated self-defense, the group is suddenly interrupted as Oil bumps their table while saving them from getting creamed by an errant basketball.  Oil asks them casually what’s up, and Pete is immediately alarmed, but the exchange between Oil and Earn is chill.  Sensing this, Pete joins the conversation, asking why they aren’t watching the concert.  Oil indicates that they’ve been listening all morning, but Earn encourages him to attend so he can hear the Friday bands performing, including him and Pete.  Oil trots off after vowing to make it there.

With lunch over, they head off to prepare the next venue.  Along the way, Pete reflects on Earn’s exchange with Oil and realizes how much he’s matured, how much they’ve both matured, since the prior incident.  Pete’s so happy about this development that it makes him find Earn all the more loveable as a result.  In another tie-in to the series storyline, they pass a hall where Pete sees Noh and Ohm sharing earbuds and looking depressed as hell.  It gives him a very bad feeling, despite how optimistic he was starting out the day.  They make it to their location, let everyone in, and immediately go to work.  Pete notes that Card has been silent since lunch and suspects it’s due to the teasing about Lhew.  Even Earn seems to have noticed this as well.  They decide to apologize to Card and he shrugs it off telling them to drop it, but they persist in sincerity, and Card spills a little about being annoyed by Ngaw and the gossip earlier that morning while asking again for them to drop it.  They agree with a corny salutation and salute that draws a suppressed chuckle from him.  With that, they put the finishing touches on the venue in preparation for the second half of the concert.

The next scene features the resumption of the concert with the mood being set on stage as a transition from rebellious head banging music shifts to more pop and soulful sounds.  The band on stage starts off their set, and the audience segment that was waiting for the pop sounding change they represent, immediately jumps up to dance creating a club vibe.  Girls grab guys, couples pair off, and the Angels form their own group as the music pulses.  Pete finds himself standing in a crowd as if at a dance party, and notices that even Card and Lhew have paired off.  At this crucial moment, Pete and Earn turn and grin at each other nervously as Pete weighs the realization that they aren’t in a dark nightclub, but at their school where everyone knows them.  Pete feels his heart racing with fear, and another growing sensation that he can’t immediately peg, but it doesn’t feel negative.  As he stands there contemplating, he feels Earn’s hand pull him forward, causing him to nearly fall onto Earn’s chest.  Pete composes himself and looks up into Earn’s gaze and realizes that the growing feeling inside him is courage.  He’s with the person he wants to be with most, and the realization melts his fears away as bravery transforms fear into relief.  Having made this leap together, the boys dance with each other.

This is indeed a big step for our boys and it arises very organically in the story.  They have crossed a very real line that same-s*x couples have to consciously cross, and do so repeatedly.  This is an important point to make because it’s like coming out each time the line is crossed.  This is a reality that straight couples essentially never have to consider, but gay couples almost always have to think about.  Is this a safe place to be ourselves?  What’s crucial is that Pete is considering their anonymity in a public place as being potentially safer than an environment where they are surrounded by their friends; where their familiarity raises the stakes even higher.  Consider the physical reality.  They are in a private school insulated from the attitudes and reactions of the public at large, yet Pete still considers if he has more to lose where he is than in the outside world.  Pete’s thoughts are obviously a matter of perception, and not necessarily a reflection of how things really are, but his perception highlights one of the knife’s edge issues that coming out forces on us.  We are terrified most about being judged by the people we know and the people who matter most to us than by strangers.  I cannot praise the inclusion of this in the story enough.  Thank you!   I also want to point out that by its chance nature in the storyline, their dance cannot be the bothersome issue Earn was worrying about when the boys got up this morning.  They just took a big step together, but there must be something else coming up even bigger.

In the next scene, Lhew, Josie, Card, Tem, and Rose take the stage.  Josie and Lhew start to warm up the crowd as the other prepare their instruments, but as soon as Lhew addresses the crowd, epithets are thrown as she’s called a and a two-timer, and the crowd breaks into whispers.  Lhew and Josie, needless to say, are horrified and shocked.  Pete and Card are both incensed at the assaults on Lhew and on the edge of storming to her defense, but Lhew suddenly gains composure as her fear turns to fury and she launches into a song blistering with strength, independence, and defiance.  The song serves her purpose of transcending the hate, and earns the band some love and respect.  Afterward, she apologizes for going off program, and Josie joins in chatting up the crowd and getting them back on track toward their planned set.  Pete looks out at the crowd while she banters and notices Ngaw out there staring up at Lhew without his glasses and bruises on his face.  As they come off stage Lhew declares the experience as ‘something’ and Earn calls that an understatement and asks how she’s holding up.  She kicks it back at him playfully and he snaps back at her as well.  When Pete asks her if she’s really okay, she muses on how she froze on stage in the heat of all the hate being thrown at her.  Pete asks what snapped her out of it, but suddenly a boy’s voice he hasn’t heard all day cuts in asking Lhew if they can talk, and not just her, Card too.  Card agrees things need to be straightened out and they head off to talk privately.  Pete is concerned, but Earn and Por try to reassure him.  Tee’s arrival changes the focus of things, and the disheveled look of Tee and his girlfriend suggests some hanky-panky, but the band is due on stage, but they have to wait while the stage is being prepared and until Film calls them up.

Pete watches the entrance to the rooftop for his missing friends when he sees Oil and the basketball team arrive.  Oil meets Pete’s gaze, who gives him a nod and gets a wave in return as the fans mob the new arrivals.  Film calls the band on stage almost immediately afterward, and Earn turns to Pete to ask if he’s nervous.  As they head up to the stage trailed by Por and Tee, Pete responds that each time he was nervous throughout the day it was for things outside of their control, but he now finds himself surprisingly calm and confident and he now has no doubts.  After psyching themselves up, Earn greets the crowd and banters with them before setting the mood for the set they have planned with a laid back assist from Pete.  They sing their first love ballad and receive praise from the crowd in return.  Earn addresses the crowd about the ways of love, specifically mentioning how Por and Tee have been performing to their girlfriends through the entirety of the first song before Pete cuts in with a reality check that lovers can get on each other’s nerves sometimes too.  This sets up the lead in to the next song dedicated to all the times when lovers want to choke each other yet, also want a hug.  Upon conclusion of their second number, they get another wave of appreciation.  Earn picks up the next theme and points out how it’s all such a whirlwind of emotions, to which the crowd answers with a loud ‘YEAH!’  Earn continues, pointing out how we feel stupid after making up that we let our egos get in the way, as mostly guys in the audience laugh along.  With that, he leads into the next song by pointing out that once the storm clears and all that’s left is love, it’s always the first intimate thing that gets us over the moon.   This song makes it clear that the singer wants the world to see who he loves no matter what.  At this juncture, Pete reveals that after singing these songs, their plan is to tell people they’re a couple after explaining why they sang these songs and the raise their joined hands in the air.  As Earn continues with the song, his mic cuts out so he has to share with Pete.  Pete has a solo part in the song, and as he works toward the finale, he feels warm lips on his cheeks.  At first, he’s dumbfounded, not completely understanding what’s happened, but then gets pulled back in the moment by all the shouts and screams from the girls, the Angels, and the gay guys in the crowd.  After the song concludes, there’s applause, but many more gasps and whispers.

Earn speaks aloud what everyone is thinking we he asks, ‘What the hell just happened?’ and then explains that the musical journey they just took really hits home.  He takes Pete’s hand and they intertwine their fingers, Pete only then realizing why Earn has been so nervous the past few days.  The whispers grow louder as Earn explains the rocky times they’ve just lived through to the crowd, ending with the realization that being silent only escalated the drama.  They throw their hands into the air declaring, ‘So, here’s to us’ and Pete catches Oil’s gaze.  A deafening silence falls on the crowd, and although they were prepared of a possible backlash, it still stings.  The silence is broken the by the familiar voice of Oil whooping, whistling, and cheering as he claps wildly for them.  The rest of the basketball team rallies behind him and joins in, followed a split-second later by Ody and the gang, and Pete catches Card, Lhew and Ngaw at the entrance as they realize the moment they just missed.  This is followed by the crowd at large responding approvingly, making Pete feel weightless as his anxiety vanishes.  Earn makes a joke to the crowd to dissipate the tension and gets a laugh before dedicating the last song of their set to everyone who’s felt not so normal; a song about outsiders standing on their own and refusing to be defined by others.

After they step off stage, Pete feels satisfied with what they’ve done and the reaction of those who matter most – their friends.  Tee’s girlfriend, Leslie, is all over him telling him how she was right about them all along, Pete and Earn are laughing the whole time, and Tee, although embarrassed, approaches them silently and gives them a fist bump.  Outside their circle of friends, some are accepting and others are harder to read, but P’Oak gives them two thumbs up and gives them a mini shout out before starting the closing set of the concert with his band All Star.  Pete and Earn watch the last band perform holding hands without a care in the world.

A lot happens in the last half of the chapter and I’ll take it in order.  First I want to address the drama surrounding Lhew and her band’s performance.  I’ve always liked Lhew’s character and I’m glad that her presence in the story continues.  I also welcome the intrigue around the Card-Lhew-Ngaw triangle that’s running through the chapter.  Anyone who bothers to read my long-winded opinions already knows that I don’t like these cringe-worthy Glee-like performances.  What saves this scene is it’s tie-in with the triangle plot and the depth of the onstage drama the scene invokes.  The musical resolution Lhew launches into I found pretty lame however.  I liked the song, but the plausibility was weak.

Pete and Earn coming out on stage is a plot development I surmised several chapters back when the theme of the Year End Concert was introduced, but I never actually pondered what that might end up looking like.  I love the idea of the concert, although I as I pointed out earlier, the complexity of how it’s been portrayed seems a little over the top.  I also didn’t find it plausible that the rooftop venues could be kept so secret from all the wrong people.  Assuming this event really is a Friday College tradition, is it really possible to keep finding new out-of-the-way places the admin and student council have never thought of checking?  I seriously doubt it.  Especially if they know the event is coming around about the same time each year, because they would be far more proactive and much better at stopping the fun.  All that aside, I still love concept and the idea that the students would all throw in together to try and pull it off.  I also appreciate the inspired use of the Economics Competition as a cover for all of outsiders on campus.  It does help to float the concert idea and the circumstances to keep it aloft even if just barely.  My opinion on Pete-Earn coming out in song during the concert is no different than my opinion about Lhew as noted above.  If it works for you, then more power to you.  I can’t imagine a world where such a thing would happen in a high school, but I haven’t been to high school for a very long time, so what the hell do I know?  Aside from that and the corny aspect of it, it was really romantic and empowering for our couple. This action is a profound step for each of them individually, and a remarkable declaration of their commitment to each other.  I found the tension after the hand holding declaration scene pretty riveting.  The whispering followed by dead silence creates a blistering moment where the whole idea of what they just did teeters on the edge of unravelling; except of course that this a love story about Pete and Earn.  My favorite part of the entire chapter is having Oil be the first and most enthusiastic supporter in the crowd.  If that doesn’t completely rehabilitate his character then nothing ever will.  Beyond that, it signifies the success of their public coming out that Earn’s most serious rival is demonstrating the first and most ardent support for them.  One last mention is the reaction of their friends after the band exits the stage.  I found this scene moving because it seems like a clean representation of what would likely take place (assuming, of course, that such a coming out happened under these unlikely circumstances).  Some friends would be supportive, some hard to read, and others awkward or worse as the news settled in; not unlike outsider reactions occur in real life.  In fact, the story often injects very relevant topics and issues like the one just mentioned (and like Pete’s coming out jitters mentioned earlier) which give it relevance, power and depth.  I applaud and encourage this as much as I can, which is also why I find the Glee moments so implausible.

The chapter as a whole works out and meets its goal of getting Pete and Earn out and into the world together for all to see on their own terms.  It will indeed be interesting to see how their new status will influence the future storyline and how the characters live, the experiences they have, and how they face challenges together.  Clearly the Pharma Camp storyline looms, so that ought to be quite interesting to see how this unfolds.  Challenges clearly lie ahead.  Plus, I hope we will be witness to how Pete and Earn come out to their families.  This seems like a perfect topic for the author to address since he clearly embraces issues that challenge his characters and carry relevant social significance the world over.  I’m pretty confident that we’ll be treated to some pretty interesting events no matter what’s coming, so I’m not terribly worried on that account.  Great job!  Thanks!