“Well dreams, they feel real while we're in them, right? It's only when we wake up that we realize how things are actually strange. Let me ask you a question, you, you never really remember the beginning of a dream do you? You always wind up right in the middle of what's going on.”- Cobb, Inception (2010)
I can’t remember the first time I met Dorian. Like most of the people that Anna knew, he existed in this crowd which stopped by the house whether for an afternoon or a weekend. It was considered a safe haven from whatever problems existed in their own personal worlds. They never talked to me about them, though they would occasionally stop and give a friendly wave. After all, we were Millikan students, only a few blocks from campus. Chances of seeing and recognizing me were fairly high given my involvement in the literary arts, journalism, and yearbook departments. For a shy person, I had a diverse social group, including one who enjoyed partying until 2 AM in my backyard, though I never really wanted to be part of it.
Again, I don’t know where Dorian came from. By the time he entered my life, I associated him with the theater department, specifically the stage crew. In the yearbook, their spread was donned with the phrase “We do it in the dark.” Despite my love of the performative, I was never involved in a way that would suggest cohabitation. I knew actors, I knew dancers, I knew musicians and we all existed in our own circles, only ever emerging in the after hours to enjoy each other’s company. While I’m sure that I saw a production that Dorian was involved with, I could never stop and say that he specifically did a good job moving props in the dark.
I can’t remember when the shift happened, when suddenly he was always there. For me, it always felt like every week was a new social event, like I was constantly bombarded with visitors who wanted nothing more than to escape their own home life (definition: irony). I’m sure I had my ways, watching Chappelle’s Show in my bedroom and eagerly trying to see what movies were playing at The Long Beach Town Center. Maybe a 9 PM show would cure my anxiety. Even then, the chances of waking up the next morning and stumbling over a passed out teenager were high. So many nameless faces slept on our floor, waiting for their rides while engrossed in small talk. I didn’t know how to talk to these people. I didn’t invite them over. They merely existed.
There’s a very strong chance that I met Dorian at Millikan. Given how many circles I rotated between, I’m sure he was on the periphery of one. Even then, there was something initially loathsome of when I knew that I knew him. He checked all of the boxes of a troubled kid needing somewhere to stay. Would he be as annoying as the last three or four teens that crashed on our couch? It’s hard to say how much skepticism I may or may not have had, but it had been years since I had an empty house to myself, to feel at peace. I don’t think anyone understood that.
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“These aren't just dreams, these are memories and you said never to use memories!”- Ariadne, Inception (2010)
Dorian was there. Every day, he slept in our recliner. Sometimes he’d disappear for the whole day, never sharing where he went. I can’t remember if he had a job or what exactly, but initially he was an ideal housemate. He was quiet, kept to himself. His tone was always hushed and there wasn’t any reason to believe that he’d cause any trouble.
I can’t remember when things shifted, but it was 2010. It was one of the last periods where Anna needed me to escort her around town, before she got her license and traveled miles beyond anything I had achieved. Her first run at Cal State Fullerton was quickly approaching, living on campus and finding “sorority sisters.” The parties ceased, or at least dropped outside of the random reunion. There was a time where Dorian was the only Millikan alumni I saw, and if I had to predict, it was the period where I began to see him as something greater.
How it came up, I do not know. However, with a Netflix disc subscription, we quickly formed a queue that we could bond over. Considering that I was 21 and exploring the vast potential of cinema, there was something exciting about him suggesting that we should rent films like The Host (2006), Ringu (1998), Princess Mononoke (1997), or Audition (1999) among many, many others. We’d see the Coming Attractions and be like “We have to see The Good The Bad and the Weird (2008).” We never saw them all, but we bonded over things like genre movies that got super weird, even laughing when we could spot misprinted subtitles.
I’ll admit that eastern cinema cumulatively still remains a blind spot for me, but I like to think that my love of monster movies was in some ways bolstered by those evenings at home. We’d get the movies, maybe a snack, and dim the lights. It was always fun to know that we were into the movies. I envied how many other cool things he knew about, making me feel like there was so much else to explore. Even when I had friends over, we’d randomly quote the faux trailer for Edgar Wright’s Don’t (2007) for no particular reason, just enjoying this magical period of being young and aimless.
The Summer of 2010 was a special moment where we were young and believing that the world was so full of potential. From the white pick-up truck, we drove around blasting KIIS FM 102.7 as songs like Bruno Mars’ “Billionaire” and Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” dominated the radio. When I wasn’t at work, we were planning various adventures. Maybe he’d need to run an errand or we’d just want to loiter in some random Southern California destination. Maybe it was down at Belmont Shore, or at the nearby comic book store.
No matter what, there was something that gave us anticipation. He’d show me places he liked to visit, including a swap meet where I bought my only pair of steel-toe boots. He swore by them, but wearing them for months at a grocery store job was not fun. They made my toes bleed. He’d also introduce me to his friend who catered to bootlegging movies. At the time we were obsessed with getting ahold of Inception (2010), which was a cultural phenomenon, creating a million “dream within a dream within a dream” jokes and giving anyone with a film analysis degree the challenge of figuring out just what was going on…
I’ll get back to that.
I can’t remember many of those trips, but I do remember him singing along to the radio, sometimes dozing off in his own thought. Maybe we were talking about the day ahead or what had just happened. We were just two recent high school graduates, not entirely sure what we were doing with our lives. I had some idea, but my first run at college ended rather unspectacularly, dropping out and doing some serious reconsideration of where I wanted to be.
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“The moment's passed. Whatever I do I can't change this moment. I'm about to call out to them. They run away. If I'm ever going to see their faces I've gotta get back home. The real world.”- Cobb, Inception (2010)
One of the clearest memories I’ll ever have of Dorian is him standing by our backdoor. It was another quiet night in the neighborhood. The wind rustled the trees, the cars from the nearby street vroomed by every now and then, but it was a moment where it all felt intimate.
“Smoke?” he would say, knowing it was shorthand for something much more involved. We weren’t just going to stand in the driveway and watch the clouds float away. It was one of the periods where I felt most at peace in 2010. I didn’t think of what would happen if the neighbors saw. I just took in the puff and stood with him, preparing for conversations that felt so cathartic. Sometimes I’d talk about how work/school was frustrating, or my various other friends that we had vague overlap with. He knew them. They had been to my house.
What remains the most incredible thing that I miss when thinking about him was how he listened. It wasn’t just that he nodded like a therapist, doing everything to make me work through any conflict on my mind. He had been there on most of those days, able to see me at vulnerable periods and not judge me. Sure we disagreed and I’m sure there were periods where I was downright annoying, but he seemed compassionate. I’d talk about my insecurities, and he acknowledged them in a way that made me feel heard.
I remember a particularly bad incident in August 2010, where I had a mental breakdown. Anna had thrown a party that annoyed me in just the right way and I lashed out. Everyone was mad. The guests fled in fear. Every member of my family would yell at me in some way that sought not to solve the problem, but merely punish. I was stressed, insecure. Even if I had been out with Dorian the night before seeing Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), there was something about that night, returning home to a crowded house, which drove me nuts. I fully regret that decision, but there was something powerful about what happened next.
At a family reunion later that day, I hadn’t been able to shake my anger. My sister wasn’t long off from moving to Cal State Fullerton, and it’s easy to say that we were leaving on bad terms. Somewhere in the moment, Dorian reached out to me. He decided that the best thing to do was go for a walk, talking it out. I can’t say that it permanently changed my outlook, but there was something incredible about him reaching out to me, noticing that I was in distress and needing someone not to talk to, but understand. After all, I had said so many other personal things to him. We had a shorthand for certain moments of my life.
It was one of those connections that I hope everyone is lucky to have. Even as I listened to Dorian talk about his own exploits, we had this connection. I realized how less alone I felt because of him. He was capable of being nuanced where everyone else was giving textbook fix-its.
I realize in hindsight that it may be because of his own struggles. After all, why was he living with us? There were reasons that our paths overlapped, and I can’t say that he was a flawless house guest. Memories have a way of erasing the rough edges, creating a beautiful form of nostalgia that makes me miss him more. It’s the type that makes me see his strengths, his ability to seem downright loving at times during those days of pointlessly driving around, blasting “Mo Money Mo Problems” and laughing the entire time.
As one can guess by his heartbreaking ending, he had his own demons. It’s maybe why he was more keen to put joy into the world. Listening to his sister discuss his later years was heartbreaking, realizing that he had lost the lifelong battle. It was an overdose. As far as I could gather, he had problems off and on since the last time he stood at my backdoor and said “Smoke?” I would only ever know him again through Facebook. The desire to meet back up had been an idea I’ve shared with him as recently as 2018.
To be completely honest, one of the hardest parts of this news is something that reminded me of myself. While I am not an addict nor have I been to prison, I recognize the emotional component of him a bit too clearly. It’s in having a family that loves you yet feeling like you’re not worthy, alone in the world. Dorian’s sister claims that in recent times he’s reached out to her in very vulnerable ways and it’s heartbreaking that he felt unable to open up as much beforehand. As someone who was recently depressed for five months, I can only imagine the anguish.
Of course, it hurts to think that I succeeded where he failed. I managed to turn my life around, even getting into my dream school. We started our journey together aimlessly, unsure of just what we’d do. Maybe that was why he felt comfortable being open with me. Maybe it was why I felt safe whenever he pulled out a cigarette and we lit up, just allowing the pressure of the day to dissipate. While I wish there were more of those days, I understand that as much as he helped me that I probably didn’t have the Ph.D. to help him. What was I but a writer, a friend he watched movies with? If anything, we escaped the doldrums of society together in that dark living room, in a car blasting songs about how great it would be to be a billionaire.
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"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.”- Eames, Inception (2010)
The thing about being 21 is that you often miss the forest for the trees. I was needlessly obsessed with Inception over The Summer of 2010. From that first trailer that promised a world collapsing in on itself, I wanted to see what crazy world director Christopher Nolan would bestow upon us. Having gotten a free replica of the totem at Anaheim Comic Con a few months prior, I bought into this world. There was so much excitement about the idea of being in a theater, witnessing the magic, listening to Hans Zimmer’s score before it became an auditory meme full of “BRAM!” I would see it four times in theaters, eager to deconstruct certain things about the film.
For starters, it was about “dream within a dream within a dream” logic, where time ebbed and flowed with newfound elasticity. I had never seen anything like it. Based on the $800+ million gross, many others agreed. I can’t entirely be sure if the novelty appeals to audiences a decade later, but it will always feel fresh and new in my mind for how it used faux-intellectualism to make the audience be both thrilled on a base level and smart on a narrative one.
I was obsessed with figuring out what the film meant, whose dream we were in. It gave you so much to work with and I just loved every line. How could time be so fragile? Of course, that is an old trick by now with Nolan, but I fall for it every time. I spent almost little time actually trying to understand what the mission was actually about, where the deeper humanity of the piece was. I just needed to understand this logic.
In light of Dorian’s passing, I think about this film from a perspective that I never really had before. It was the story of Cobb trying to retrieve some memory, a feeling of his wife Mal buried deep in the subconscious. As I sat in the days that followed, I became disappointed with how difficult it was to pull up a 20/20 clear view picture of my time with Dorian. I only really had snapshots, remembering sitting in a movie theater watching Inception before sneaking over to Grown Ups (2010) for an illegal encore.
He’d say “If I say don’t think about elephants, what are you thinking about?”
Predictably, I would respond “Elephants.”
We had a good laugh over this.
While I was looking up plot descriptions and diagrams online, Dorian was in the recliner. He became obsessed with Zimmer’s score and would play it on the stereo. Many afternoons would pass of him showing me the various reasons he loved it. It was in how the instruments correlated to each other, how the “BRAM!” was a slowed down version of Edith Piaf’s “La Vie En Rose.” As the track “Time” appeared, he would grow insular, feeling the music on a level that I envied to understand. It was the feeling you couldn’t get in description. It came with a certain puzzle of experiences that allowed you to feel goosebumps, to feel lifted to another plane of euphoria.
With the moment long passed, I think that I finally understand Inception not as an exercise in style, but in substance. As I’ve struggled to put into words what Dorian meant to me, I’ve found the difficulty to reach into the subconscious, to have the clearest of pictures. I now recognize the longing and desperation of Cobb, wanting to capture a moment all over again. Lucky for me I have personal diaries, the media we consumed together allowing me to keep some peace. Without realizing it, he gave me so much to look forward to in life, if just because I wasn’t going through it alone.
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“Yeah, It's been a ride...I guess I had to go to that place to get to this oneNow some of you might still be in that placeIf you're trying to get out, just follow meI'll get you there”- Eminem, “Not Afraid” (2010)
Honestly, there are several reasons that Dorian’s death hurts. For everyone he ever met, it may hit differently. I haven’t seen him in over seven years, haven’t talked in at least three. I think there’s pain that I never got to see where his life took him, if he ever got better and achieved the things that he always seemed capable of. As far as I can tell, he loved those in his life and did what he could to make a difference. Reflecting on my brief time with him, I realize how much he came to mean to me. We only maybe had a close connection for months, but I look back fondly on those moments, wishing they could last longer.
The first place I turned to upon hearing the news was the only place I knew that I could conjure him with some intense emotion. For reasons that now read as tragic, the art that meant the most to both of us has odd parallels to everything that I discussed here.
In the case of Eminem’s “Recovery,” it now plays like tragic irony. Following his own battles with addiction, Eminem released the album as a sign that he was growing, willing to improve himself for his family and loved ones. I can’t be too sure that this was why Dorian played the record on repeat that whole summer, my exasperated voice rumbling under the speakers as “Cold Wind Blows” started 77 minutes of an album I was indifferent towards.
If it wasn’t the album, it was “Not Afraid.” It was inescapable during that summer, and every time it came on the radio, Dorian would be in the passenger’s seat laughing at me. It was a playful form of antagonism. I knew he enjoyed the song, so I let it play out like I did a hundred times before. Still, when Eminem said “I had to go to that place,” it felt like some hilarious inside joke, like I was about to throw the car radio out the window while holding onto 40 mph.
There were more significant moments in our time together, but this is the memory that I started my journey with. Again, I laughed back then at having to hear a way too earnest song about a recovering addict. Now, in 2021 I hear a different song. I see a different picture that made me weep, wishing so much that the cosmos had aligned its proclamations in a different way. I wanted to see Dorian again one day, maybe when the pandemic was over, and see how his journey has gone. What would he say? Would any of this matter?
I have no idea.
The only thing I have now are memories of time and recovery, revealing themselves in new ways that I hope lead to comfort and closure. I’ll miss him. I’ve always missed him since he left that night and I hope he’s now at peace, able to enjoy whatever wacky adventures lay ahead.
I end by remembering him laughing, believing that the future had so much promise for both of us. We had just entered our 20s and the world seemed so open with opportunity. Like all respectable 20-somethings, we made some mistakes. But from failure comes growth. I’m thankful to have known him and I can only hope the same is true for you.
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