Mythic Youth

& It's Divine Influence

Out to Lunch (2020) by Julio Larraz

I used to wear the same Limited Too T-shirt with a psychedelic flower on the chest. The bud of the flower had a smiley face. The bud was also a plastic bubble filled with weird goo. I used to wear this shirt literally everyday. When you’re a kid raised on a farm you have a very distinct smell but it’s the kind of smell that your nostrils get used to. The smell is a conjunction of many things: the smell of sweat from working out in the sun all day. The smell of chicken droppings that roasts under the hot sun and turn into pellets that live amongst the gravel. The ten dogs on the property that lick your legs so now your legs smell like rancid dog breath. The chicken coops smelled like old hay but in the darkness of morning it was masked with fresh egg smell. Somehow I smelled like all of this, and no matter how many times I’d wash my favorite Limited Too T-shirt, this unideal recipe of smell would not wash off.

I could not be bothered to care about what I looked like as long as I had my Limited Too T-shirt. To me, this shirt meant I was in my Lizzie McGuire era whilst anticipating the soon-to-be Y2K era. Everything else was an afterthought: rolled up basketball shorts, some old Nike Air Max’s that I had outgrown so my big toe was constantly pressed against the front of the shoe, and tube socks to keep the itchy grass and affectionate dog licks away from my shins. 

I’d make my grandfather a screwdriver at 5am before heading back to the farm. My grandparents house stood right at the entrance, so upon driving up to the house you wouldn’t think it was sitting on 25 acres of land. Walking back to the chicken coops I’d see the dogs wagging their tails in anticipation of me and I’d try to keep the drink from spilling as they’d ambush me to wish me a good morning. As I approach him with his drink he recounts how the night went, and if any chupacabras made it into the chicken coops to swipe our eggs. This was the ritual that kicked off the workday ahead of us: Collect eggs, clean out the coops, check on the little chickies that were born, help my grandmother pluck and clean the chicken we’d eat for lunch, check the traps we’d set the night before for possums, give the chickens exercise, play Dominos, make my grandfather more screwdrivers.

This was the 90’s in Homestead but you wouldn’t be able to tell judging by grandfather's clothes: a finely pressed linen shirt and a shiny croc belt. Chocolate brown loafers and socks with a silk thread. He wore all his gold jewelry at once. He wore his pinky rings and his Cuban link with multiple charms: San Lazaro for strength, La Virgin for peace, and an azabache for protection. Allegedly this built him up to be a worthy Catholic man but if you had eyes you could tell looking good was also part of his religion. We didn't know what my grandfather knew, as he was never one for too much conversation, but we didn’t ever think to question him on anything.

People in Homestead typically dress like they had just spent a weekend at Burning Man - aggressively faded tee shirts and pants, shoes so worn down the rubber started deteriorating. I’d like to think my grandfather was Homestead’s revival. The insects that inhabited Homestead are remarkable, and they all expertly knew how to find a way into the house. I am constantly crunching snails with my feet so their sticky juice stains the bottom of my sneakers. When it’s time to shower I have to somehow wrangle all the shower bugs outside, crickets the size of hot dogs, wasps that look like they belong on the set of Narnia. 

Sometimes my childhood memories surpass my entire existence.

My uncle had bought himself an Audi. He was in his early 20’s, as young as he ever was in that moment with his brand new silver Audi with red calipers. His head was always maintained shaved, he wore baggy pants, and he was usually always coming or going - he’d say bye to us at night and wouldn’t reappear until the early morning when my grandfather and I were well into our farm work. My uncle was, overall, in a civilized state of anarchy for a man in his 20’s. My grandfather would scoff under his breath upon the sight of him, but not a flinch of emotion. Stealth, in my culture, is two things: required grooming for any soon-to-be Cuban adult and the reason for our inevitable downfall. All of our hands are tied, begrudgingly, in a bond of stealth.

To show off his new Audi to me and my sister he’d press the gas so hard on our gravel road that sh*t’d go flying and we were literally left in the dust, his windows down so we’d hear Nookie by Limp Bizkit slowly fading away in the distance. There is nothing more impressionable on a child than an older family member strutting off in a cool new sports car. At that moment I was convinced that my silly little shirt would be categorized as lame for the rest of my life. I wonder if it’s in these clinical categories of influence as a child that helps mold them into what the child will become. So naturally, I immediately yearned to learn to drive my uncle's Audi with all the windows down while yelling I DID IT ALL FOR THE NOOKIE? Come on! THE NOOKIE? Come on! SO YOU CAN TAKE THAT COOKIE!

When I think about how I want to raise my kids I have to first go back to my memories. Back to when I was a tiny sponge, subservient and malleable to others. To try to understand why I was influenced by the things I was influenced by, to investigate my innate desire to be part of something cool, the instinct to try to be understood by something. You don’t understand music: you hear it. It’s an experience so abstract and objective that it’s almost an experience outside of the body. Sometimes music finds a way to help you understand parts of yourself.

Do you remember when Kid Rock came out in a monstrously huge white coat and yelled MY NAME IS KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID!!!!!!!!!!!! and the crowd went absolutely ballistic? 

As I recount my memories I take myself out of the memory and put my eldest son there. I put him there as if it was him instead of me: watching my uncle’s Audi drive off, watching my grandfather drink his screwdriver at the crack of dawn, watching Woodstock when watching MTV was against the rules. I wonder what kind of influence that would have on him. What will be the influence of his generation? If so, will I be able to handle it? (Here I am, at the age of 35, letting my ego conflate fear with threat.)

So as I saw it, I needed to ditch my flower power T-shirt, and fast. After I heard rock music for the first time I thought: This is my destiny, to be a rockstar. I hope I can scour enough money to buy myself some Tripp pants. My new identity forevermore is a girl in black, screaming into the void. Lizzie McGuire? Miss me with that middle school melodrama. Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock were the real arbiters of taste.

Maybe influence is just about a bending of boundaries, to dip our feet into something unknown. Children will conform to anything just to be loved but why do we make them conform in the first place? Maybe influence is what helps us eventually trust ourselves enough to lean into who we want to be. We have to try on different fantasies first, before we decide on the one we want to live in.

****

I fear the way I listen to music now is dangerous: I put on my noise-canceling headphones and put the volume on max. I rest my head on the headboard and read all the sentences I’ve ever underlined. Sometimes my whole face pulses. I try to feel every vibration from every instrument. Influence is just listening closely to something new. 

Yet newness, by nature, is forbidden. But there is newness in every instant, every second a new spaceship approaching with an offer to program ourselves into something more suitable. Look how far these instants have changed us, our inner compass has become less shaky, the road to who were becoming is getting clearer and clearer with each forward step.

I write in silence. The act of writing is quiet but internally it envelopes a force of noise. Listen to me listening to the silence: I am a girl in Oxfords. I am living in a shiny life deprived of opportunity. I never got a butterfly tramp stamp and instead of being relieved I am utterly sick about it. CrazyTown is somewhere out there, disappointed. I am small. I have big plans that overflow my pages. My sense of self is constantly coming apart. I am screaming beneath anyone’s notice. I am a pair of brand new skinny jeans that taunt and prod and inflict doubt. We are cold because we are waiting for someone to roll us up into something warm. This is called alienation and survival. Who invented the rockstar? A person with either a lot of hate or a lot of love for themselves. It’s one in the same. Maybe rockstars were once little girls in Limited Too T-shirts. Let’s transform. Let’s grab monstrous white coats and go out topless. Let’s unlock the chicken coop and let all the chickens roam free. Let’s give everyone else a headache while we tend to our sharp edges. Let’s worship something. Lets dissect every piece of music and the way it fades away in an instant, likely willing for it to fall on someone else's ears. Let’s devote ourselves to a new fantasy: Who are we? Who will we be tomorrow? Will you trust yourself? Will you do it all for the nookie?

My son stands on the gravel road, and he knows exactly who he is. He is not my son, but a person. I’ll follow him. He is a cavern of all my love and terror and where my afflicted soul lays to rest. He’s my echo. He’s the thread to all of my superpowers. We’re emo. We’ll eat the frosting off cupcakes and welcome in a new era. In an instant this is the past. Am I brave enough to welcome your new sparks? I will not disturb you. I will not test you. You will be loved. Influence is not dumb, it’s not bad. We’re just emo.