Come Back to Me, Poor Gay.

"Jason, print is dying, but best of luck."

Alexa, play “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from The Little Mermaid Soundtrack and donate one dollar a month to a poor gay of the next generation.

I had four internships before I got a full-time job. Being broke as a joke while interning is a disaster, especially if you don’t have someone to bankroll you when you’re getting started. That’s not a whine so much as it’s just the truth, you know? Making money costs money, especially if you’re going into a career that starts people on the low end of the salary pole. No one preps you for that. For the longest time, I got jobs in PR and marketing because I never thought I could make ends meet as a writer. That landed me at a PR agency in Washington, where my boss once told me that I would be better suited for a “smaller market,” which is 1) rude, and 2) probably correct, if 3) I didn’t hate PR. But that’s a different story, different newsletter.

My last internship stop was at AARP, which made no sense to me at the time, but I really wanted to find a job and make decent money. That internship turned into a job and that job ended up being incredible. If I didn’t eventually succumb to the pull of being a writer, I’d probably still be working there because it wasn’t a bad gig at all. I worked on the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards, which is handily the most important awards show anyone should be watching right now.

But the intern program, when I started, was robust. We met with executive team members weekly, and we’d be indoctrinated with the different missions of AARP. They’d cater in some sandwiches. I’d pocket, like, 9 extra pickles in a small Tupperware container I kept at my desk, and I’d listen to talks about the importance of highlighting the throes of caregiving. (It’s important, ok! We’re all going to age—be kind to your grandparents.) But eventually, we met with the head of my department, who I hadn’t had any face time with yet. Her warning, at the beginning of the meeting, was that eventually she wanted to go around the room—everyone was supposed to say their name, their hometown, and their hero. I filed that away in the back of my brain and stole more pickles. Once we got to that portion of the meeting though and the circle made it to me, I realized I hadn’t come up with a response. Yes, I was Justin Kirkland from Knoxville, Tennessee, but my hero… in my mind… was Dale Earnhardt. Dale Earnhardt? The Intimidator of NASCAR? You can’t say that in mixed company. Not this crowd at least.

I blurted out, “My name is Justin Kirkland, I’m from Knoxville, Tennessee, and I don’t have a hero.” The woman looked at me skeptically and with her monotone voice said, obviously quite annoyed, “You don’t have a hero?” I said, “No. A hero is someone you want to emulate, and I don’t have anyone I want to emulate because I would rather be myself.” Total bullshit. Cheesy bullshit, at that. But it was an answer. Then, in front of everyone, she asked, “What do your parents do?” I told her, “My mom cleans houses and my dad is a construction worker.”

“Hm,” she said. “Hm.” A long pause. “Ok, next.” My fellow intern Maeve leaned over to me and said, “That went well.” At the end of the lunch, she stopped me on the way out and said, “I liked your answer. There are two people in the world to watch out for. People with power and people coming up from the bottom who want it.” The whole thing was very Game of Thrones, and I never knew if that meant that she liked me or hated me. But I vibed with her. She was self-assured to the point of camp. She struck fear in the people around her and yet was somehow woefully uninterested in the goings on of the people in her proximity. She liked winners, and she seemed to only care for people who she’d be willing to bet on. She called me Jason for the five years I spent working for her, in what I believe was a test.

But before “Jason” settled in, she started asking me questions in meetings. Mostly by the term “you.” She never asked me about work—she was more interested in my background, in the way people of a certain affluence find poor people intriguing. So I told her about growing up in a trailer. I told her about my dad not graduating high school. I plied her with details about my life that would be most appealing because half of her career was spent as a reporter, and as someone who spent so much time working in journalism, I knew she’d appreciate those details most.

And then, I eventually heard the stories parroted back to me. She told people about the intern working in her department—the “poor gay intern,” as several people reported back to me. By the time my own story got back to me, it neared the point of parody, as if I was barefoot most of my life. An EVP stopped me at an event I was working and said, “I’ve heard about you. You came from nothing and made it work. I’m happy I finally get to meet you.” I went to my boss and said, “What exactly is my story because it sounds intense. Did I collect pennies to get the lights turned back on or something? I was a veritable Lifetime movie, and it was incredible. I relished it because power and purpose only work when you have the tools to exact them. I could act like a badass or a rich person, but I don’t have the tools to pull that off. But I can spin you a yarn about pulling myself up by my bootstraps.

I stayed at AARP for a little over four years and never stopped being “Jason” to the head of my department. I was a good doobie, though a lot of that “poor gay” luster faded. Pigeonholing people is truly wasted on the youth. When I got the offer to join Esquire, I told my boss and we cried together. Then we went and told her boss, and she said, “Jason, print is dying, but best of luck.” That was the last time I spoke to her until my old boss got married and asked me to come to her wedding.

As luck would have it, my old boss placed me at the same table as the head of the department, along with Alex, an old coworker of mine who has since become a good friend. Alex and I were catching up and eventually, easily three glasses of wine deep each, when a familiar voice turned around and said, “Jason, how is Esquire going?” I said, “Great! I actually was just bumped up to staff writer.” She took a sip of her red wine, looked me dead in the eyes, and said, “I have a feeling you’ll come back to us, Jason.”

It was the most savage insult I’ve experienced in my life. A proclamation of failure, paired beautifully with a misnomer. Camp, as always. Chilling, to the bone. I chugged the rest of my wine and asked Alex to meet me in the corner. I’ve always been incredibly insecure, which is amplified when I’m drinking. “She told me I would come back to AARP… like I’m going to fail.” Alex stared at me and said, “Shut the fuck up! She did not say that to you—God, that’s so rich!” Getting another glass of wine, I said, “You don’t think she’s right, do you?” And Alex said, “I hope not, Jason, but I don’t know.”

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A few things I’ve been working on recently:

I profiled Ben Platt ahead of the release of Dear Evan Hansen.

Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s balls were reportedly swollen because of the Covid vaccine, but that was disproven, and sometimes God just wills you to write stories.

I love a flute solo.