Can You Explain This To Me?

"Can you explain this to me?" My mother's voice was deliberate and her choice of words concise. That was how I knew she meant business. "What do you mean?" I asked, but I knew what she was talking about. By the ripe age of 14, I had already become adept at feigning ignorance in an attempt to stall so that I could come up with a believable response to any situation in which I thought it best not to tell my parents the truth.

She turned the heavy computer monitor to face me, and pointed at the screen. Staring at me from underneath eBay's heading of "Recently Viewed Items," were nine pairs of dead eyes, the word "Slipknot" creepily scrawled above them.

"Crap!" I thought. "Why didn't I clear the search results?" I squinted, as if I did not immediately recognize the image. "Oh! It's almost Michael's birthday, and I was looking for a CD to get him." Mom narrowed her eyes. She knew the crowd that I ran with: one-half metal head plus one-half Harry Potter devotee, the sum of which was no good. She had always been worried about their influence on me, and it seems this lie, while deflecting the direct blame from myself, only confirmed her suspicions that, in her eyes, I needed to do more activities with my church youth group. She was also current on trends of what her children should not be associated with, namely, devil music and witchcraft, the likes of Slipknot and Harry Potter, respectively.

"Well, tell Michael to get his own CD's," was the final word on the matter. I muttered "Yes ma'am," then made a beeline for my room. Opening the cabinet doors to my bookshelf, I checked to make sure my collection of metal CD's was still safely tucked behind my row of DVD's. Slipknot. Check. KoRn. Check. Mudvayne. Check. Rob Zombie. Check. Phew. Today was a slip, but I had managed to recover. I could hide for a little longer.

As a now 32 year-old man, I often think back to that day. After 18 years of building my sense of self, I wish I'd had the courage to say, "Yeah, Mom, I can explain this to you. I want to buy a Slipknot CD because their music makes me feel that I'm not the only person in the world that is shoved to the sidelines or made fun of because he's not man enough or because he doesn't fit the status quo." Add to that "And I like boys," and I would've saved myself several years of pent-up anxiety. You live and learn, I suppose.

And I get it. You've heard this story before: small southern town that prizes football and Jesus and the closeted gay kid that doesn't fit in. It's easy to shrug it off as yet another "woe-is-me" story shoved down our throats by the "liberal agenda." While it's most of these things, it's still different. It's different because I lived it. It's personal. It's my story of the struggles that I wrestled with that no kid should ever have to experience. It's the story of how I suppressed myself and who I was to make myself less repulsive to others.

Music provided a respite from this self-stifling attitude, music in every form from classical to R&B. However, it was metal that truly allowed my spirit to throw caution to the wind, particularly the music of Slipknot. To 14 year-old Patrick, this bands’ lyrics were angsty, full of a passion that said "Yeah, I'm different! What the hell are you gonna do about it?" The driving percussion and shredding guitars were a destruction of all that was deemed "good" or "wholesome." Their music gave voice to a frustration that I did not have the guts to speak about. I had heard and seen many things throughout my childhood that made me question every little thing that I did. Did I sound too gay when I said that? How can I do as little as possible to keep anyone from talking about me or spreading rumors? Will they suspect something if I tell them I watched VH1 Divas this weekend? (In addition to metal, I also harbor a healthy love for Celine Dion.) But, when I drove on those backroads, windows down, Slipknot blasting from my speakers without anyone to hear, or see, or judge, all of those questions flew right out the window.

There is a 2019 Slipknot song called "Unsainted" with the following lyrics: "I'll never kill myself to save my soul!" For so long, I was told all of the things I needed to do to "save my soul": go to church, marry a woman, be a model citizen, don't deviate from the norm, and, for several years, I tried my damnedest to live up to these expectations. Little did I know I was killing myself in the process. I was smothering my authentic self to make others happy. It's not something I'm proud of. I don't go around proclaiming, "Look at the happiness I sacrificed in my youth to try to be what society said I should be." It's not a badge of honor to garner sympathy or solicit cries of "You poor little thing." It's just reality, and, sadly, a reality that a lot of youth face, no matter their creed, race, or orientation. But Corey Taylor's voice screamed at me to keep going. His voice said, "You're not alone." Slipknot's music was a refuge from the reality that was burying me. Their music let me emerge from that hole, if briefly, and accept the daylight of who I was.

"Can you explain this to me?" My mother has asked that question many times since then, but the most recent time, she asked it in reference to an app she was trying to learn how to use on her phone; a phone that she was using while visiting me in the house I now share with my husband. And, yes, she now knows that I am a metal head. Despite my teenage angst, I have been very fortunate. I have a family that loves me and my husband to no end. I have a job that I love and a house that provides me shelter. I have privileges that have been extended to me that, while they were being extended, I had no concept of. Though they were rough, I'm thankful for what those hardships taught me. All of those struggles have made me a stronger and more empathetic person, a person who is, 99% of the time, sure of himself and not afraid to be who he really is, a person who will stand up for what he believes in. Now, whenever I feel that 1% creeping up on me, I picture that teenager in his second-hand gold Chevy Blazer, riding down Hicks Store Road while furiously head banging to the forceful rhythm and screaming endless verses of Slipknot into the air. Since hearing "Unsainted," I've adopted those lyrics at my unofficial motto: "I'll never kill myself to save my soul." I am in a place in my life where I can now live those words, emphasis on the word "live." It took me a while, but, with a lot of support and a lot of heavy metal, I found a way to do it. I suppose you could say it was the devil's music that saved my soul.