Post by BOSTON CALEB REID on May 23, 2011 22:05:51 GMT -5
Boston Caleb Reid
23. drawing blanks / delirium records . bass . devin ingelido.[/center]
[/b][/color] 5'11"
clothing : typically clothes worn multiple days in a row until he becomes too sweaty and gross to be mixed with the public. Not really that picky with what he wears so long as its comfortable. Boston isn't exactly one to start a new trend every week, unless hobo chic becomes a legit thing.
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father: simon jonathan reid / 41
siblings: tyler gavin reid / 21
history:
I think there are people who you know are suppose to be together. Sometimes you even realize this before they do. My parents always use to say that it was like that for them. That their friends use to try to get them to date each other all the time but they never agreed to it for years. I always use to think they had to lying, that they knew the second they met each other that that was it for the two of them. They were just that kind of couple. Finishing each others sentences and communicating with just a look from across the room. They've been doing stuff like that for years now and it makes anyone who see them question how they managed to live twenty odd years without each other in the first place. It took them just under a year to get engaged and six months after that they were married quite happily. This was right around the time that my parents moved away from their beloved city to try and find a more peaceful place to start a family. But when I was born a year after the move, I was still named after the place where they had met and missed so much. That's how Boston Caleb Reid came to be I suppose.
I don't remember much about life as an only child. Nothing important any way. Whatever I think I remember is probably more from the stories I was told by my parents about than the actual memory itself. I feel like its mostly still frames of a first birthday and family pets that have died since then. I was two when my brother Tyler was born, which is what's really important here. We were always close growing up. I use to think my parents only had another kid so that I'd have someone to play with. We weren't truly all that alike, Tyler and myself. I've always had that tall lanky-ness that would take the better part of eighteen years to grow into. Tyler was always shorter and stocky, built like he wasn't meant to be moved anywhere. You don't think about things like that when you're younger though. I mean, we just made up stupid games and tried to steal treats whenever our parents weren't looking. If anything, we were boring growing up. Just another suburban family you could drive by then forget about. We had to pretty good it turns out.
It wasn't until high school that things started changing. Or when I went into high school two years before Tyler could follow and it became a little more obvious that the two of us weren't exactly peas in a pod anymore. That's when I started playing music and spending just about every minute of my free time devoted to it. Whether I was practicing or working at a miserable part time job to pay for all the new amps or strings. I was relatively happy with how things were going. Tyler never made the adjustment quite as smoothly. He tried sports and clubs then parties and clubs of a slightly different variety. I guess you could say he was troubled but I only remember him being angry. At the town for having no place for him. At my parents who always knew both the right thing to tell him and the wrong way to say it. At me too, to be fair. I guess for not being able to change anything or for not caring enough to try. Things as simple as dinners at our house became like a meeting for hostage negotiations. Tyler and my parents just fought more. More frequently. More heatedly. Going a little more too far each time while I just tried to stay out of it. Tyler barely spoke to me as it was, it hardly seemed worth it to pick either side. Anyone Tyler was friends with were never the kind of people my parents would have approved of and I always figured that was kind of the point. It made the weekend nights when Tyler went out the worst to have to listen to. My parents aren't the kind of people who yell or fight with anyone a lot, but Tyler knew how to get under their skin.
You kind of get into the routine of it though. You get to learning what each side is going to say and that it always ends with the door being slammed shut. Not much of a routine but it was something back then. Tyler came back the next day anyway, perhaps a little worse for wear but still in one piece. Till one Sunday when he just didn't. And the house stayed quiet for hours later than usual. I can remember thinking this is nice, must be peaceful[/b]. My mom and dad just spent the whole day pacing in circles while I contemplated whether they'd fall right through the floor eventually like in the movies. Tyler didn't come back the next day or the week after. He called two and a half weeks after that Sunday, in the middle of the afternoon when he knew our parents wouldn't be home. It's one of those conversations when you remember everything they said but remembering it all doesn't do you any good. I could probably still tell you word for word what he said if I really wanted to.
He told me that he didn't have a lot of time cause he was just using one of those gas station pay phones and that he'd just wanted to tell me that he was alright. Leaving was something he'd been planning for a while, that there wasn't anything there for him anymore and asked me a few times if I understood. He was only 17 then but it was like he was a hundred years older speaking through the phone. I didn't really understand then. I'm not sure I really do now either.
That was four years ago, closer to five now actually. We haven't heard from Tyler since. My parents were a mess when they found out, wanting to search the whole country themselves for a few months until the reality of it all started to seep in a bit more. Then they didn't want to do anything. The only reason my dad left the house was to go to work and my mom just went to get groceries a couple times a week. They started going through the motions of everyday life but it didn't really make anything better. You can't fake that kind of thing. If you paid close attention to them, you could see the blank stares and the tiredness that didn't seem to lighten no matter how much sleep they got. They mourned for Tyler like he'd died. Like the reason he'd left wasn't them but some tragic accident beyond their control.
If you haven't guessed it already, I was the angry one for a while. I felt left behind by my brother and I guess forgotten by my parents. Tyler wasn't even Tyler anymore in their minds. It was like they'd forgotten how things had been and remembered them the way my parents wished they had been. Tyler became a saint. Became the reason for why they couldn't go to that dinner party, he might call don't you know. Became the reason they couldn't move out of a neighborhood made for young families, because how would Tyler be able to find them if he wanted to move back. Tyler became what my parents lived for, this giant piece of bullshit hope that made everything else stop. Tyler was the reason for why my being there or not didn't matter anymore. It was a lot to let boil up inside one person, a giant vat of acid eating away at me. This was the only time I thought I might finally understand what life had been like for Tyler in the first place. Why you can't stick around when things get too broken.
So I left. Not in quite the same way as Tyler, I didn't have to sneak out or anything like that. I just told my parents I was leaving and did a few days later. I'm not sure if they expected me to stay or for how long but they still took it as a loss for a while. I never meant for them to take it like that but they forgot about it once the huge shadow that Tyler left came back to them. I still talk to them every once in a while, on holidays and all that. But we aren't close and I wouldn't say they play much of any part in my life right now.
I stayed in a few different towns for a while before ending up in Cape Cod. I know it's not exactly the kind of place you'd expect a twenty two year old to want to stay but I liked it for what its worth. It was the change of scenery that really mattered. It had everything I needed, which is mostly just a small apartment and the occasional meal. Then I met Denny and Annie because of him. Which was when Drawing Blanks first started. I guess you could say we all fit together in a weird kind of way. They are some of my closer friends but it's a little more complicated than just the buddy-buddy attitude of the usual band. We're good friends but we have very separate lives in a lot of ways too I guess. We started in just the small clubs and stuff in Cape Cod. The idea of getting famous or making it big wasn't something we ever really talked about. I just liked performing whenever I could. Bring on stage just feels natural, helps me to forget about everything else that I'd been worrying about before. We didn't make that much money but we just built ourselves up as we went. We were getting bigger crowds and more shows for a while before taking a break from the band almost entirely. It was what Denny and Annie needed mostly, but I won't say that the time off wasn't good for me too.
This would be a good time to mention that I met Abby in the middle of all that. Believe me, I know the idea of us being together is crazy. It was to me too for the majority of the time I was around her the first few months. I just thought of her as Annie's friend, someone I liked talking to after each set. It wasn't easy to change that either. We've both got our issues and I don't think either of us was really looking for an actual relationship. I'd certainly never managed to have one before. Abby was the first for that among other things. She's still the only one. She's different and weird and I guess that's what I need.
We've turned things around a lot since the break though. Gotten signed to a label, moved to New York and everything. It's not perfect or anything like that but the fact that we're getting somewhere is amazing. I still don't think we have much of a plan about where this is going next but things could certainly be a lot worse.
likes: girls, concerts, people/crowds, parks, beaches, any bit of nature really, music, parties, bars, clubs, his band mates, friends, most anyone who talks to him nicely, ketchup chips [/font][/size][/ul]
dislikes: sitting still, rundown parts of cities, long lectures, rainy days, tea, quiet places like libraries, quiet people, his brother a bit for leaving him behind
"
devin. 5-6 lifetimes. 18 . bleh .[/justify][/blockquote][/blockquote][/blockquote][/size]
