Death of Myth

In his phenomenal, and phenomenally strange book Preparing The Ghost, Matthew Gavin Frank writes, “I’m not sure which is worse: death by myth or death of myth.”

I read this line the day after I’d had a phone conversation with an old friend in which we discussed old memories of going to the movies, starting with his seminal trip to see American Pie 2 the night it was released and before he had turned seventeen (and thus would be able to see any R-rated film he so chose) because his other friend worked at the theater and got him in. They also got into the theater the blond girl my friend worked with, whom he was infatuated with, with whom he took a photograph that night in one of those automated kiosks in the mall.

I tried to one up him, and recalled the Black Friday when the two of us went to two separate movies--Meet The Parents and Remember The Titans. A momentous occasion because it was the only time growing up when at least I had been to two movies in the theater on the same day, not that we were particularly clever about it—actually paying for both sets of tickets rather than sneaking between screenings. More (in)auspiciously, I recalled that McDonald’s had been running a discounted offer on cheeseburgers—four for two dollars if I remembered rightly—so, growing boys that we were, we each got our own paper bag of burgers, smuggled into the theater beneath our jackets and pigged out over the course of the second movie.

He didn’t remember any of this. And it was sad. For as modest as the memory was, I took to be a shared moment in our coming of age, and a memory unique to the two of us, now, apparently, made unique to me alone. Maybe on account of the occasion not being so memorable to him after making more trips to the movies than I did as a kid, and having more instances of pigging out in fast food revelry. Or maybe I had parts of it wrong.

For why would we have feasted on McDonald’s cheeseburgers the day after Thanksgiving, when his house in particular was surely well-stocked with leftovers? So maybe it wasn’t Black Friday. But a Google search does reveal Meet The Parents and Remember The Titans came out within two weeks of each other, so at least that piece seems to hold up, and they each came out in the fall of 2000, when my friend would have first had his car and when we made all sorts of nonsensical excursions around town, so our movie-fast-food day falling on or around that day seems feasible.

That’s a lot of intellectual energy for two movies that are good, but neither of which hold much resonance for me—either in the films themselves or the experience watching them aside from associating the smell of mustard and onions with the sight of Denzel Washington loading a bunch of brooding football players onto a school bus.

But then there are other memories--other myths--that grow complicated and conflated. Like the night when I was off working a summer job and two of my best friends wound up alone with two girls they’d casually been pursuing before I left and ended up making out with them in separate cars at what must have been the same time (or so we deduce, less based in evidence, but because it makes a better story that way). I think that one of these girls was the same one another friend had hooked up with weeks earlier--from which we began using the term “wiener cousins” because of their shared partner. I may be conflating young women here, though--easy to do when I don’t have a name (or names) to attach; when I was out of town when the action went down.

And then there’s a graver myth. About the summer night when this whole crew friends, me included, almost died.

We were singing along to Madonna’s “Like A Prayer” on the car radio, wrapped up in the joy and absurdity of four late teen guys belting this song.

I remember the car swerving suddenly. My friend, the driver breathing heavily. And I remember the lot of us, after a pause, going on singing.

It wasn’t until after the song was over that I learned the swerve was more than steering clear of a cat in the road, or the wheel slipping, or hydroplaning over a puddle. There had been another car driving on the wrong side of the road. That there had been a near collision. From the backseat, focused on the music, I hadn’t even noticed.

The group of us hang out a lot less nowadays, but when we’re together, this memory--this myth--has a tendency to come back. In singing the song. In remembering that (for me, phantom) car that was headed right for us.

None of these memories that I recall really speak to what Matthew Gavin Frank writes about. He’s more concerned with giant squid lore than inside jokes and anecdotes among suburban teenage buddies. Just the same, these are some of the myths that I can most readily access. The ones I imagine we’ll all continue to reference among ourselves and tell our sons when they hit the right age. The ones that will change as we all grow older, as we have more recent and, frankly, more important memories to focus upon. The death of myths, as we know them.