Dear Esteemed Readers,
Editing my memoir has me thinking a lot about masculinity.
My Vietnam-vet Uncle Pete—whom I loved—died back in July of 2014. I mourned the way fiction writers do—by writing my novel, The Reason You’re Alive. Shortly after that book was published in 2017, I put a hardback copy and a bag of cigars in front of Pete’s marker at Arlington National Cemetery and considered the matter closed. I was done mourning my uncle.
Or so I thought.
My forthcoming memoir is primarily about my relationship with my father, but—as I typed up my first non-fiction book—Uncle Pete kept making surprise appearances. He even outright hijacked the narrative from time to time. Pete is probably the most unlikely hero of my life. As I continue to reread the manuscript during the editing process, I clearly see that I’m still not done mourning my uncle, even eleven years after his death. Losing him was a tremendous blow, the magnitude of which I’m only just now able to acknowledge. As I was unpacking that fact, I remembered an Uncle Pete story that isn’t in the memoir. Recalling this particular memory seemed like a timely gift for me. And I’d like to share it with you today.
When I was a teenager—and living in Oaklyn, New Jersey—my Uncle Pete informed me that I would be accompanying him to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I had many times been to the beach town of Nags Head, where my uncle had built a rental home called The Quick Getaway. It was near milepost twenty-one. I routinely saw Uncle Pete in southern New Jersey—at our weekly family dinners and on holidays. But the rest of the family was always there too. According to my memory now, this trip was the first time Uncle Pete and I would be hanging out without my parents or grandparents nearby.
The news thrilled me. Pete was loud and opinionated. He had a way of taking over conversations and spaces. As a combat veteran, he often had a weapon on him. He had guns. He had switchblade knives. His words pierced like bullets. He didn’t seem to be afraid of anyone or anything. He was also a successful businessman who drove a BMW, bought my grandparents expensive gifts, had the nicest home of anyone in the family, and even had a second house on the Outer Banks. All of that impressed the young Matthew Quick, who lived amongst mostly working class people and didn’t know much else besides Philadelphia and the Jersey shore. Pete’s wife—my Aunt Sharon—was blonde, petite, and fit. Whenever she wore a bikini to the beach, I felt deeply uncomfortable. Pete was an alpha male in all the ways I—as a young struggling teenager—wasn’t. He seemed to have it all. I thought he was cool. I felt cooler when I was around him.
I wasn’t asked if I wanted to go to OBX with my uncle, I was told I was going. I got the sense that he hadn’t even consulted my parents. Pete just said, “You’re going to Nags Head with me.” Then he explained why, saying, “I drive through the night to avoid traffic. Sharon always falls asleep. And I need someone to keep me awake. I got some good tapes to listen to. Mostly Bruce. But it’s a long drive and there’s only so much Born In The U.S.A. even this American patriot can take before he needs something novel. So I’m assigning you, pretty boy, to be my midnight DJ. When I really start getting tired, that’s when you’re going to take over the music. You bring some good tapes that will keep me up. I don’t want us crashing and dying. So it’s on you. That’s your mission.”
In my memory now, I’m thinking this trip was during Easter break, the last year of my junior-high experience—so 1989. If so, I would have been fifteen and in the ninth grade. Back then, I was boiling over with unexplored anxiety and self-doubt. And I didn’t have the greatest relationship with my dad. My uncle seemed to be the opposite of my withholding father. And I really wanted to impress Pete by successfully completing the task he assigned me. To me back then, Uncle Pete was the height of masculinity. I would have done just about anything to curry favor with him. But as soon as the details of my ‘mission’ were out of my uncle’s mouth, I realized that I was in danger.
My mother had burned one of my Mötley Crüe CDs in the fireplace because she believed it was satanic. Most of what I was listening to would not be condoned by The United Methodist Church, which my family religiously attended. Pete didn’t go to our church all that much outside of Christmas and Easter. But there was a chance he’d report back to my grandfather what I was secretly listening to, especially if he didn’t like what I played. And the only musician I knew Pete really loved was Bruce Springsteen, whom I—at the time—thought was kind of corny. I never told Pete I didn’t really like Bruce, because I thought he might punch me in the face for being un-American.
What I couldn’t have put into words back then was this: Pete explicitly stated that he wanted me to keep him awake, but he had implicitly made a bid for intimacy. He wanted to know what music I was listening to. And he wanted to listen to my music with me in the middle of the night, far from our corner of the world. My father had never ever made such a request of me. It felt like a real chance at closeness with an older man. And I didn’t get those too often back then.
My musical tastes were eclectic. I listened to many different genres. So I had options. But I needed to hit the insane trifecta of 1) keeping Pete awake 2) impressing Pete with my authentic musical tastes C) remaining out of trouble with my family and church.
How to thread that needle?
Back then I was obsessed with a rap album that would have definitely kept Uncle Pete awake. Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, which I still love to this very day. Every boy in my class (including me) was also listening—on nonstop repeat—to N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton. We literally would count the number of curses that were rapped. There were so many expletives that every classmate’s tally was unique and we never did come to a consensus. But while I remember my Uncle Pete often insisting that “the brothers” at his health club allowed him to play basketball with them, so he was “down with black people,” he wasn’t always the best when it came to being verbally respectful of other races, to say the least. Most of the men I grew up around were even less tolerant and inclusive than my uncle, which is probably why listening to rap was so exciting for us white suburban kids. And—while I was pretty sure Uncle Pete would relate to the fierceness, raw profanity, and male aggression of such records—I wasn’t sure how he’d do with such lines as “Black is back, all in, we're gonna win” and “F*ck tha police.” So I ruled out rap.
Next up, I considered metal and hard rock. Master Of Puppets by Metallica would surely keep Uncle Pete awake. But I worried that lyrics like “Soldier boy, made of clay, Now an empty shell,” might be upsetting to a war vet with PTSD. Maybe Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction, I thought. But I’d been hiding that tape from my mother ever since she screamed at me for watching the Welcome To The Jungle video on MTV. And the beginning of the second song on that album was about being seduced by someone’s sister in a Sunday dress and later included the lyric, “Why don't you just F*CK OFF?” I was pretty sure Uncle Pete used the word f*ck, but I hadn’t heard him say it yet, so albums with that level of profanity were dicey. And I didn’t think he would tolerate listening to a band called Anthrax either.
(A few years later, I would learn that f*ck was the Swiss Army knife of Pete’s vocabulary.)
I consulted a few of my friends at the time, who all insisted that my uncle didn’t really want to listen to my music. He might have said he did. But, if he was listening to Bruce Springsteen, well then, he was old and it was probably best to just let him keep listening to The Boss. Maybe Uncle Pete would like the Invisible Touch album by Genesis? Or maybe Fore! by Huey Lewis & The News. Or Synchronicity by The Police. Or Slippery When Wet by Bon Jovi. My dad had all of those tapes and they were fine. But they weren’t really what I liked in ninth grade.
“Your uncle doesn’t care about what you’re into,” my friends said. “He just wants you to play him music he likes so he can drive through the night.”
They were probably right, but I wasn’t satisfied with their answer.
Looking back now, I see how easy it would have been for me to simply play my father’s tapes for Uncle Pete on the way to OBX. He probably would have enjoyed that and it would have been the safest move. I couldn’t get in trouble for playing what my father had purchased himself. It would have solved the problem.
But if I had played my father’s music, I would have missed the rare chance to show Uncle Pete who I was. And by doing so, I would have forfeited our chance for intimacy.
There was another eighties musical act that I loved. This one was very unlike the groups I mentioned above. Maybe it was even the complete musical antithesis. And they had a relatively new album out at the time. I genuinely liked it. (Still do.) I was pretty sure its beat would keep Pete awake. And I initially didn’t think it would get me in trouble with my parents or my church. The only problem with this selection was that the music wasn’t very manly. Or maybe I should say, this tape didn’t conform to what was generally being touted as masculine in the late eighties around the Philly suburbs where I lived. I thought about this problem a little, but by the time I had made my selection, it was already the day we were leaving for OBX. I couldn’t be empty-handed when Pete arrived in his BMW. I had to have at least one tape in my possession.
I remember being picked up after dark, on a Friday night. Maybe it was 9:30. I was surprised to find my Aunt Sharon in the backseat with the dog. “Don’t you want the front?” I asked her. She said she wanted to sleep and could lie down back there.
Then Pete said, “Men up front, women in the back. You’re my copilot. Did you complete your mission?”
“Yep,” I said.
Then Bruce Springsteen was singing about a dog that's been beaten too often, as we began to make our way south.
Immediately, I had a quiet internal anxiety attack.
How I could have been so stupid? I silently asked myself.
In later years, Uncle Pete would tell me that he had gay friends in the city, but he—like pretty much everyone in my world back then—often used what we would now label as homophobic language. The word ‘gay’ was synonymous with ‘undesirable’ in the late eighties, especially in the town where I grew up. And, suddenly, I realized I had what might be considered the gayest of all musical tapes in my pocket. How had I not realized this until now? I thought. The cover of the album looked like a forerunner of the gay pride flag. And even though celebrities rarely admitted to being gay back then, I was pretty sure the members of this group were gay. Being gay wasn’t allowed in my church. Being gay was the worst thing you could be in my community. I felt like I was going to throw up.
Writing this Substack post today—with the benefit of fifty-one-and-a-half years on the planet and more than four-and-a-half years of Jungian analysis—I understand that bonding with my uncle was something that I deeply wanted and needed, but it was also something I was conditioned to fear. The general worry was that male intimacy made you gay by default. Men weren’t supposed to be open and honest with other men, even when there was no sex involved. That’s just the way it was back then. I was straight, but I loved music that was made by men who maybe were gay or at least weren’t afraid to embrace their less traditionally masculine—and maybe even straight-up feminine—side. And some part of me wanted to admit that to my weapon-carrying USA-loving uncle. Realizing that after it was too late to change out the tape felt like I had tricked myself into doing something dangerously transgressive. I wanted my uncle to know who I really was, but I was also petrified by the prospect of showing him my true self.
Pete sang his way through several Springsteen albums. Somehow, Aunt Sharon and the dog slept through that. The whole time, my palms sweated, my stomach gurgled, and my knee went up and down faster than a sewing machine needle. When we stopped to pee, I considered tossing the tape I brought into the restroom trash. But I really liked this tape and I only got so much allowance, so replacing it would have been costly. I thought about taking the tape out of the cover and then pretending that I left the actual cassette in my boombox at home. Would Pete buy that? I wondered. But there was also a part of me that wanted to play the music for my uncle—to risk being seen. Part of me actually believed that my uncle trusted me to select the late night music and was genuinely curious about my musical preferences. Part of me believed Uncle Pete wouldn’t shame me for being who I was.
“Okay, pretty boy,” Pete said in Virginia. “You’re up.”
I took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know whether you’ll like what I brought.”
“Does it have a good beat?”
“I think so.”
“Will it keep me awake?”
“Probably?”
“Well, then, just put it on and we’ll see what’s what.”
I remember pulling the tape out of my pocket and hiding the cover from Pete as I removed the cassette. I hesitated, but then slid the tape into the dashboard deck.
The ominous sound of orchestral strings filled the car. Then there was a reedy oboe, followed by a female opera singer. When the drum machine and synthesizers kicked in, I saw Pete grip the steering wheel a little tighter. He squinted as he tried to orient himself to the music. I could tell that he didn’t know how to react.
Then he looked over at me and—in a gruff voice—said, “What the hell is this?”
When I swallowed hard, I saw something change in my uncle’s face. He clocked my discomfort; he clocked my fear.
“Relax, pretty boy. I just want to know what this music’s called,” he said, but with a smile on his face. “It’s like disco.”
Then Pete started to nod his head and tap the steering wheel to the beat.
“Yeah,” he said, “I can work with this.”
“It’s the Pet Shop Boys,” I said.
“They work at a pet shop?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? They’ve had some pretty famous songs. West End Girls. Do you know it?”
“Nope.”
“Opportunities?”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s another one of their songs.”
“What’s this one called?”
“Left to My Own Devices.”
“Okay,” Pete said. “But you like this? You’re into these Pet Shop Boys?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I like all kinds of music. It’s just that this is one of the few tapes I have that doesn’t have cursing on it and I thought maybe it would keep you awake.”
“Cool.”
Two songs later, while Domino Dancing was playing, Pete said, “This one kind of sounds like Miami.”
“It’s probably my favorite track on the album.”
“Okay, pretty boy.”
Two songs later, when Always On My Mind / In My House was playing, Pete said, “Is this a cover of the Willie Nelson song?”
“Yep,” I said.
“Huh.”
We were deep into the night and on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel when the last song, It’s Alright, came on. It begins with a church choir slowly singing the title twice. And I felt the truth of those words, as I flew over and under the great body of water, while listening to the Pet Shop Boys with Uncle Pete.
Then the disco beat kicked in.
I remember we were both nodding our heads when Pete raised his hand in the air. I gave him a high five and then we traded smiles.
If I were to rank all the moments of my childhood, that avuncular, middle-of-the-night, Pet-Shop-Boys celebration definitely cracks the top ten.
Straight men need male intimacy too. In a weird way, I think my uncle’s hellish war experience—that he went through exclusively with men—helped him understand this. I don’t think it a coincidence that Pete was also one of the few people who encouraged me to be a novelist long before I started getting paid for my writing. Almost everyone else told me I was crazy. But Pete said, “Risk and reward, pretty boy. You have to be you.” Before he passed, he was always the first person to buy and read my novels when they came out—even my young adult books.
He took me as I was.
That sure saved me then, and it keeps saving me now.
Your man in the Lowcountry,
Matthew
PS - Did you read the June 21st post? Seven Years Sober (Inch Toward Humility)