Local boy makes good
by Eric Mills, Our Town staff
Everyone who attended high school with Gaius Charles knew he was going to make his mark in the world.
"He would walk into a room and everyone would just stop what they were doing and watch him," says Justin Drew, a former classmate of Charles. Drew takes a moment to take a breath and remember Charles as he stirs a cup of coffee in the New York City restaurant where we met (Sarge's, delicious meatball grinder, check it out). The nostalgia is palpable, most likely because Drew never made anything particularly special of himself.
"He was a hell of a kid."
Gaius Charles' long road to the top led him through Chesterfield Ridge, and though he only stayed for five months before his parents deemed the area "hostile to minorities," Charles left an indellible mark on all those he met, at least in other places where he stayed longer.
Like Drew, Joann Peroff knew Charles from their high school days in New York City. "His smile could light up a room," she told me. I noticed her fingers were quivering, as if she were being overpowered with lust that had gone unrequited and unexamined for years. "His eyes were so deep. They could cut right through you." Mixed metaphor aside, she is clearly overwhelmed. I give her a moment to herself.
Charles has made a name for himself on the new NBC show Friday Night Lights, in which he plays a spicy young football player named Brian "Smash" Williams. The role has earned Charles much acclaim and his name is now on the lips of as many Hollywood insiders as Chesterfield Ridgalians who remember him as a suspicious young man who moved out of their lives as quickly as he moved in.
"He lived right here." Chesterfield Ridge town historian Brendan Goldsmith has taken me to the home in which Charles grew up for five months during his formative years. It is a modest ranch whose most prominent feature is its flowing green lawn. A breeze kicks across the street and the grass seems to flicker and ripple. "He was only in school for a month, because the family moved here right when summer vacation was starting and they moved soon after the school year ended."
Goldsmith rambles on, but I'm not listening. I walk across the crisp green lawn. I look at the house and I am overcome. For the first time, I truly feel the power of this town and the opportunities it provided Charles and will provide so many after him. Perhaps right here, on this spot, he tossed a football around with siblings he may or may not have or have had during his short stay in our town. Maybe inside he played Dress-Up and his parents, as they are wont to do, worried that their son was a homosexual. But really, he was training for his greatest triumph, years down the road. Thousands of miles from Hollywood, Chesterfield Ridge raised a future star.
Goldsmith is now leaning against his van. I leave him behind and walk up to the front door. I knock. No one answers at first and I am struck with the appropriateness of the metaphor. For Gaius Charles, Chesterfield Ridge was just one stop of many he would make on the road to success. Perhaps he barely remembers the place. It was so many years ago. Is there no room in Charles' new world of fame and cocaine and easy women for the simple world of Chesterfield Ridge that helped make him into the star he is today?
But then, someone answers the door. It is no one famous. But maybe, someday, among the ghosts and odors and flakes of dead skin the Charles family left behind, a new star will be born. And Chesterfield Ridge will have done it again.
by Eric Mills, Our Town staff
Everyone who attended high school with Gaius Charles knew he was going to make his mark in the world."He would walk into a room and everyone would just stop what they were doing and watch him," says Justin Drew, a former classmate of Charles. Drew takes a moment to take a breath and remember Charles as he stirs a cup of coffee in the New York City restaurant where we met (Sarge's, delicious meatball grinder, check it out). The nostalgia is palpable, most likely because Drew never made anything particularly special of himself.
"He was a hell of a kid."
Gaius Charles' long road to the top led him through Chesterfield Ridge, and though he only stayed for five months before his parents deemed the area "hostile to minorities," Charles left an indellible mark on all those he met, at least in other places where he stayed longer.
Like Drew, Joann Peroff knew Charles from their high school days in New York City. "His smile could light up a room," she told me. I noticed her fingers were quivering, as if she were being overpowered with lust that had gone unrequited and unexamined for years. "His eyes were so deep. They could cut right through you." Mixed metaphor aside, she is clearly overwhelmed. I give her a moment to herself.
Charles has made a name for himself on the new NBC show Friday Night Lights, in which he plays a spicy young football player named Brian "Smash" Williams. The role has earned Charles much acclaim and his name is now on the lips of as many Hollywood insiders as Chesterfield Ridgalians who remember him as a suspicious young man who moved out of their lives as quickly as he moved in.
"He lived right here." Chesterfield Ridge town historian Brendan Goldsmith has taken me to the home in which Charles grew up for five months during his formative years. It is a modest ranch whose most prominent feature is its flowing green lawn. A breeze kicks across the street and the grass seems to flicker and ripple. "He was only in school for a month, because the family moved here right when summer vacation was starting and they moved soon after the school year ended."
Goldsmith rambles on, but I'm not listening. I walk across the crisp green lawn. I look at the house and I am overcome. For the first time, I truly feel the power of this town and the opportunities it provided Charles and will provide so many after him. Perhaps right here, on this spot, he tossed a football around with siblings he may or may not have or have had during his short stay in our town. Maybe inside he played Dress-Up and his parents, as they are wont to do, worried that their son was a homosexual. But really, he was training for his greatest triumph, years down the road. Thousands of miles from Hollywood, Chesterfield Ridge raised a future star.
Goldsmith is now leaning against his van. I leave him behind and walk up to the front door. I knock. No one answers at first and I am struck with the appropriateness of the metaphor. For Gaius Charles, Chesterfield Ridge was just one stop of many he would make on the road to success. Perhaps he barely remembers the place. It was so many years ago. Is there no room in Charles' new world of fame and cocaine and easy women for the simple world of Chesterfield Ridge that helped make him into the star he is today?
But then, someone answers the door. It is no one famous. But maybe, someday, among the ghosts and odors and flakes of dead skin the Charles family left behind, a new star will be born. And Chesterfield Ridge will have done it again.
