Tag Archives: Gay

You Can Do Magic

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A trick has been performed. The tricksters union consisted of a magician, a Great Deceiver; an assistant, the willing accomplice; and volunteers, from the audience. But that was just for The Turn. What is meant by The Turn? Certainly not a rotation in dance, although if you are now compelled to visualize it as such, then a 180 degree rotation. The Turn is the moment when a pet raccoon becomes a wild animal. The Turn is always a wrong turn and it must be subtracted from your travel time. But to begin again, every great trick has The Pledge, The Turn and The Prestige.

“The first part is called ‘The Pledge.’ The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal.”*

The Pledge: this boy is a child of God.

This boy was born into a Christian family. He went to Sunday School. He went to Church. He was praised for doing right and punished for doing wrong. His parents loved him and so he believed God loved him.

“The second act is called ‘The Turn.’ The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled.”*

The Turn: this boy is a mistake.

This boy was called a girl in elementary school. He was called gay in middle school. He watched the other boys in high school. He watched porn in college. He went to clubs. He went on Craigslist. This boy thought that God had fallen asleep on the assembly line and didn’t give him the right parts. That he should be recalled, like the Easy Bake Oven, for burning other boys who dared to use him, for enabling them to have dessert before dinner. But this boy was not being honest. He did not want to be fixed. He wanted to be excused. To do whatever he wanted. It was a settlement for the injustice committed.

“Making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call ‘The Prestige.’”*

The Prestige: this boy is a child of God.

This boy was not excused. He was called to the Principal’s office. The Principal was God. God was not angry. This boy was angry. The Principal listened to this boy shout for a long time, until the words ran out and the tears ran down. The Principal did not cry. He walked around the desk, around the chair, and placed his hands on this boy’s shoulders, like a father.

And the voices which St. Augustine had described, the ones plucking at his garment of flesh, whispered, “are you going to dismiss us? From this moment we shall never be with you again, for ever and ever. From this moment on you will never again be allowed to do this thing or that.” The mutterings seemed to reach from behind, trying to make this boy turn his head when he wanted to go forward.**

This boy did not turn his head. He knew The Turn was finished and The Prestige had began. The trick had been performed, and this boy was not turning tricks anymore. Not today.

 

*From The Prestige by Christopher Priest.

**From Confessions by St. Augustine.

Me, Myself and iPhone

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E-mail

Hey, man. That’s quite a tool you got. Can I see your face?

Liking what I see. Are you around tonight?

I’ll meet you there in an hour.

Voice Memos

It’s the time when you realize your problems are not interesting anymore. They are just problems, and they have the same, sad, sorry faces, looking to you, wondering if you’ll talk to them, wondering if you’ll let them in the door, and you do, because there’s nobody else at home, and it’s very lonely, and if nothing else, they occupy you – temporarily. But you do, you do want to kick them out, I mean you kick them out, but then they come back, they come back to you every time, and you – it’s – maybe if there was a doghouse, or a shed, or a greenhouse, something where you could put them, stow them, store them; and never, never, never take them out, do you understand. Sort of like a storage unit that someone forgets about until they die – well, I mean they don’t remember because they’re dead, but somebody else discovers it, in the family, and they go to the storage unit and “isn’t this interesting? Isn’t this interesting?” They say. And it is interesting because it’s not theirs, and um, so then it’s better. It’s better that way.

The train is going by, and it’s like a jointed wooden snake, only going in a straight line, an experience which I have not encountered – going in a straight line, that is. Or staying on the tracks. Neither one. It’s gone now. And cars are waiting. But I’m not waiting because I’m on foot. You never have to wait when you’re on foot; when you’re on a bike. There’s no waiting at intersections. There’s no waiting. You just keep going. You just keep going.

The grass has been cut down, and you can smell it – everywhere. You can smell it. Cut grass. Cut down. In its prime.

I am a monster. Not like a Lady Gaga monster – glamour and appetite and effervescence – no, just a monster, that devours everything, devours everything. And seems to be trying to commit suicide by gluttony. It will never be satiated. Just attacking and consuming.

Voice Mail

I know I’m in a bachelor time zone and you’re in parent time zone, but maybe we can synchronize, if only retroactively. I had to call you and apologize, because – I used you as a lie. I involved you in a lie. I made you an accomplice to a lie. I was in a lonely place – isn’t that a Humphrey Bogart film? That’s too romantic. I will not be romantic. I lied to my whole family. I said I was meeting you, when I was meeting a stranger through Craigslist. I’m joining a recovery group. I have a problem, and the problem has a pattern, and I’m not going to buy drapes to match it, I’m going to change the pattern. I’m sorry. Goodnight, friend.

Fallout

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For 29 years I’ve lived in a bomb shelter. Literally. Not literally, that was just for emphasis. Though I’m planning on hyperextending this metaphor to such an extent that you’ll wish it was literal.

The bomb threats were from unverified sources, but that didn’t matter, once I started listening for the ticking. I kept listening to that ticking until I had a tic; until I was a tick, sucking on the pumping blood of self-loathing. All because I was afraid of the abombination. Of being devoured by fire.

The sources of these threats – don’t misunderstand, I don’t blame them – I was one. It was safer underground. In the dark. When I was so alone – so alien – when it was so awful I could not abide anymore – I ran through the underground railroad until I ran into someone. We’d light a match, but it always burned out, and after awhile we’d wander back. But we were all free. We just didn’t know.

Then, a year ago, I began receiving love letters, handwritten on a paper so white it glowed. Every time my name was written, it was like my signature, but better; like a famous artist’s signature, which had intrinsic value regardless of where it was. I hoped they were from Him, but I doubted; I doubted. Still, they kept arriving.

The last one was an invitation. “I am requesting the honour of your presence, as yourself, as you were created.” I set it in front of me and stared at it. Each time I picked it up, expecting it to be addressed to someone else; expecting it to disappear. But it didn’t.

So I’m coming out of the ground. This is my coming out party. I feel like Lazarus, raised from the dead. You can drop a bomb on me, baby. But I’ll know it’s not from Him. I have the letters to prove it.

The Greatest Love of All

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I look down, and I make the decision: Everyone must die.-

-The straw wrapper, the placemat, the napkin. It is only a question of timing, order, method. With the realization comes a quietude that trickles from the top of my spine, to the clavicle (a bone that looks great on everybody) scapula, humerus, tibia (but not the fibula, what a loser, the tibia could do so much better) and into the carpals, metacarpals, proximal phalanges, intermediate phalanges, distal phalanges (I like to call those last three “the Jessica phaLanges.” They like it too). I will dominate these man-made products, and therefore dominate men. Hot Dog Dammit I will do it. And I start doing it. I take the straw wrapper and tear, then tear what was torn, then tear the twice-torn.

Then I look at him. He is smiling at me. “You’re funny,” he says.

My ego rumbles. It’s hungry. Didn’t I feed it before I left? And that comment he just made, that comment, it was a piece of gum, something to chew on to make me forget I was hungry, but it doesn’t work.

I’m still looking at him. His smile dims. “Are you nervous?” He says.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You.”

“Why do I make you nervous?”

“You have analytical eyes.”

He does, and yet. It is sanctimonious of me to be nervous; this is not a date, we met on craigslist. But me in a romantic context is a toddler learning to line dance. Jesus, I can’t even walk, how am I supposed to dance? And in cowboy boots? With this hat? . . . I’m beginning to think I should be paid overtime for this conversation, it’s such hard work. Then he confesses his love for Amy Grant. Amy Grant! I will stuff sauerkraut in my underwear if he asks. We admire Amy individually, collectively. I’m listening hard, but I’m trying harder to find flaws in his face, ones that I can crawl into for comfort: a pock mark, a misshapen nose? It’s hopeless, he has those things, but they make him hotter, I can’t be here, why hasn’t he asked me to leave? “You look like Clark Kent,” I say, “I mean I know you don’t have the glasses…maybe you look like Clark Kent as he’s changing into Superman – and where do the glasses go after he takes them off?” my bladder commandeers my mouth and I say, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Get up. Breathe. Walk to the bathrooms. Breathe. Pick the Men’s. Breathe. Do what needs to be done. Breathe. Go back.

Then I’m sitting down again, and he’s still sitting there. I’m saying: “Well, what do you want to do? Stay here, or…go someplace else, or…what do you want to do?” He’s saying: “What…what do you want?” I’m saying: “I don’t know, we could…” He’s saying: “We could try something.” I’m saying: “Yes. We could try something.” He’s saying: “Should we go?” I’m saying: “Yes.”

We get to his house, which is on a street so quiet that all my crazy thoughts compensate and crank up the volume. His dog greets us at the door. Ah, yes, dogs, I know how to act around dogs. Scratch these areas, speak in a coddling sing-song voice, and a new friend is found. “I should probably pay attention to your owner,” I tell the dog, and he understands. “Well.” I say, trying to threaten the silence in the way it’s threatening me, but it laughs, not out loud, with its eyes. “We could go to my bedroom,” he says. “We could,” I say. We do. Suddenly everything on his walls is so interesting, and I tell him so. I keep an eye on the bed, making sure it’s not coming any closer, that it’s staying in the corner.

“Do you like to make out?” He asks. Do I? I’ve done it before. Maybe if I do it again I’ll have a definite opinion. I tell my body to look busy. Is he thinking this is the countdown to copulation? I wonder. I told him “I’ve never done anything”; maybe he interpreted that as “I’m a slacker”? His hand goes up my shirt. My hand goes up in the air. “Uh, no.” I say. “What?” he says. “Just, no.” I say. He leans back and asks, “Why are you so insecure?” I close my eyes. I say, “I don’t want to be a book with just pictures and no words. Or a book with just words and no pictures – that’s probably what I am. Why are you insecure?” He looks slightly away. He says, “I used to get made fun of a lot.” I nod, then ask: “What’s the worst thing someone did?” He pauses. “This one time a guy made fun of my mannerisms in front of the girl that I liked, and she laughed.” I nod. “What about you?” He asks. I pause. “When I was a freshman in high school my class voted me on homecoming court as a joke. All my friends told me. Which made me wonder if they were my friends, but it made sense. For the next month everybody was sarcastically high-fiving and spanking me,” I say, poking at the past with a stick…yes, it’s dead. I look at him. He is tired, and tedious, and I want to shove his head in a fishbowl and watch the betas swim in and out of his mouth, and try to kill one another.

I say goodbye, and say that I’d like to see him again, in case I get touchy-feely and need someone to call. I get in the car. I wish I had a CD player. I want to listen to “Nothing” from A Chorus Line –

“And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul
To see what I had inside.
Yes, I dug right down to the bottom of my soul
And I tried, I tried…

And I said, ‘Nothing, 
I’m feeling nothing…’

They all felt something, 
But I felt nothing
Except the feeling 
That this bullshit was absurd.”

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."

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I can go back and forth from acting to actually feeling without even paying a toll.

Ter-ri-fy-ing.

But the best acting is realistic, so this might be a good strategy. I act to accommodate others. Altruism is just a philosophical term for people-pleasing. I’m always so concerned about my ratings; is everyone watching. Are they being entertained. I’M DOING IT RIGHT NOW.

If I could go from listening to a favor to a compliment to a thank you card to a – and just never think about me. I’m not selfless, I have a self ThankYouVeryMuch, but it’s in someone else’s safe deposit box. That’s the only place for it. I don’t have anywhere to put it. I make a good pet, unlike jack russell terriers, which are quite crazy even if you feed them, which is unfortunate because after Frasier became such a big hit, everyone went to buy one and then regretted it. But they’re animals, after all, they’re animals, we can’t expect them to act…

My heart is sick. And my mind just looks at him and snickers, “you pussy. go to work. go do something for someone.” He’s right and I hate him for it. I hate them both and I hate myself for letting them live with me. Why did I spend twenty minutes researching pastor gay sex scandals. You can’t keep it together you can’t keep it apart and you’re going to get off and it’s going to get out there and you’ll be gone baby gone or going going gone or going for broke and if you’d Just Get A Grip You’re Not God He Just Gave You A Chance. I will start crying or yawning, whichever happens first.

I can’t be what you want do you understand that? I can’t be what I think you want.

I’m making an appointment with Paige tomorrow. She massagewashes my head with shampoo that smells like tree excrement (it’s superb to the hundredth power) and then cuts my hair one section at a time and is comfortable with long silences and asks me what I’m reading right now.