Come Back (9 page)

What struck me most about him was that he could have been — and this is completely my personal fantasy — the material embodiment of the tragic in-between. One of the logical explanations for his condition, it seemed to me, was that he was indeed a burn victim who had not reached the final stage of getting the realistic flesh glued on top. I know, in fact, that what he was walking around in was the underflesh that lies directly beneath what seems like the real flesh of someone who has had cosmetic surgery after being scalded. I know this because I once knew a burn victim who received a cut, and he didn't bleed. But his coating of fake protective underflesh was revealed. In other words, under his realistic flesh was the doll flesh — which was all that this boy had. The Doll Boy was a sad and dignified figure, at once vulnerable and distant. I couldn't help identifying. I, myself, am sad but
undignified
, and had for so many years felt unfinished — not quite there — as I came to terms with the fact that this body was all that God ever had in store for me. There would be no divine improvements, only human interventions.

Anyway, this gives you an idea of the place. The music, as you might guess, was retro. It was so old I could barely identify it. Then I recognized that they were playing a lot of freaky monster music, for instance Lady Gaga and Klaus Nomi and that Icelandic singer Björk. And Yma Sumac — do you remember her? She claimed to be a Peruvian princess, I think. But it turned out she was from . . . Brooklyn? Well, as you can see, the place suited my taste. And nothing happened. The gist of it was I was fascinated and hypnotized. And yes, I had a cigarette, but no booze. The oddness of the place was accentuated by the sale of booze. When these days all can — and do — often choose from an array of government-approved partypills if they wish to go that route, this was certainly an anomaly. But I was not interested in the booze and did not even think about it. I enjoyed a tonic without the vodka and watched the black lights make things glow like in the old days.

Indeed, my attraction for these people may have been purely because they were old, like me. If I was right and they were most of them victims of botched plastic surgery, then it is more than possible, indeed likely, that some were old (though none as old as me). Allworth seemed to have a good time observing me and giggling. I think he was pleased that I was pleased, but was also intimidated by — and perhaps jealous of — those who talked to me.

Two people chatted with me. One was the bartender, and the other an elderly woman who had unfortunate silicone injections that had slipped drastically. She appeared to have two sets of cheekbones on one side. Or was that a growth? The bartender, who was shirtless, was memorable for having a large masculine chest with no nipples. Again the questions: was he once a female who had breast-reduction surgery but whose nipples had been misplaced or forgotten? It's odd about nipples. The old adage “useless as tits on a bull” might be appropriate here. But useless or not, when we look at someone who carries all the signals of maleness — i.e., the musculature and the body hair — but is without the climactic nipple at the end of the pectoral, what are we to think? Well, useless or not, it looks very odd indeed.

The bartender was inquiring, as bartenders do, about where I had come from and where I had been hiding. I told him (lying) that I had been hanging out in cyberspace. As I talked to him, the lady with the cantilevered face (for it certainly looked as if there were different balconies or levels jutting from it) tried to join the conversation. The bartender was dismissive of her, as if she was boring — or perhaps someone who had the habit of butting into conversations because she was in need of some undeserved sympathy. One ordinarily would think that sympathy was surely her due. But in this place certainly no one had the right to special attention, that much was clear. There could be no crying over spilt milk — the floor would have been a swimming pool of salty tears.

So that's all of it, my darling. I promise. And I know you have been waiting for a climax, a something, a tragedy — at the very least an occurrence. You have been imagining that something or someone would pull me back, or that I would be seized with an irresistible impulse. I'm sure you already have a theory that there is a suspicious subtext to what I say. In fact, I am prepared for this. I wish you luck. I know your disapproving nature — which is also very loving. You will not be satisfied unless you find something to worry about. And it is this worry that I have learned over the years to accept as love. Judgement, correction and warnings have taken the place of an embrace. I know, for instance, that if I were to mention (and I am going to) that Allworth pointed out the dark room at the rear of the Tranquility Spa, then you would undoubtedly take this as a dangerous sign. The alarm bells would ring.

Well, let them.

Allworth pointed out the backroom as a courtesy. He has a very sexual nature and it would have been rude of him to assume that simply because I am one of the very oldest creatures alive I would have had no interest in such an area. As it turns out, I don't. But I appreciated his acknowledgement that I might have such feelings somewhere still in the mottled mess of my flesh. What interested me more than anything about this backroom — which was signified by a tattered old burgundy velvet curtain that twitched tantalizingly in the slight breeze initiated by an old ceiling fan — was that at times the bizarre creatures of the bar would actually retire there. Though none did this while I was at the bar. Later I asked Allworth if he had ever been behind the curtain. He smiled in an indulgent way and said, “But of course!” I did not find this odd. Allworth still has his own youthful body, and that's good for him — as it is good for anyone — while it lasts. It would seem he's enough of a sexophile to want to explore adventures that are outside cyberspace, even with partners who are nature's rejects.

Well, now that you know the truth — for I wouldn't keep anything from you — I hope you will not blow the whole thing out of proportion. I hope, instead, you will try to understand that I want you to have all the facts, because you care. After all, our relationship is unequal. I get only tidbits of information about your sex life. And I have to drag those out of you. God knows what you are up to — and I don't admonish you for it, whatever it is.

This monologue has been quite extended and digressive. But I want you to know that I am still working on my thesis. And I am still obsessed with Dash King. So, here is some further scholarship from one of his later papers. The passage is dated immediately before his papers become completely personal (and even more fascinating and revealing). The discussion here reveals that King's scholarship could conceivably have grown into something interesting. There is no particularly rigorous argument in this excerpt, but there is the germ of an idea. By that I mean a generalizing, quite grandly around a particular, which, as you know, can be an academic advantage, but also sometimes not. Fortunately, perhaps, it is not possible to discern from this fragment what direction he might have taken with this germ for good or ill. I am interested in Dash's musings because they are relevant to my own writing. Sharing this with you is an earnest attempt to inform you and keep you up to date, but like all earnest attempts, it can certainly betray itself and become something unintended. Dash King goes on about something called the “queer feminine.” I believe it is his own concept, and it might have proved interesting if only it were more thoughtfully developed:

If I was going to write about something, I would write about euphuism. I don't see much point now in writing about anything. I am discouraged by the responses to the first drafts of my thesis. I know I'm not supposed to take any of this personally. I remember when I did get a bit insulted with Professor Hawkins' analysis of my first draft. He said, “This is an undergraduate response.” I asked him why. He said I sounded hurt by his criticism. Well yes, I was hurt, and why can't a graduate student be hurt like anyone else? But also it really bugged me that he wanted to take everything personal out of my style. This is the heart of the whole matter, as far as I am concerned. I am a big believer in the idea that style
is
content; and I think this is a very gay idea. I know it's not fashionable to talk about gay ideas anymore, especially in terms of history, because gay is not supposed to be a transhistorical thing. I guess it's not — but I think it is. But on the subject of style it just seems to me that there is a house style for academic essays and that house style is Foucault. I know we're not supposed to speak against Foucault and of course I wouldn't dare write anything against him, even though he makes me bloody mad. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy his writing sometimes. But don't you think it's kind of suspicious that everyone writes like him these days? Absolutely everyone? Or they write like Judith Butler. Is it just a coincidence that all academics write in the same style? Let me quote you a passage from Homi Bhabha, whose name might as well be Blahblah, as far as I'm concerned. Professor Hawkins made us read it in his course last year and I just gave up: “Levina's parenthetical perspective is also an ethical view. It effects an externality of the inward as the very enunciative position of the historical and narrative subject introducing into the heart of subjectivity a radical and anarchical reference to the other which in fact constitutes the inwardness of the subject.” What? I don't get it and I don't want to get it. Words like
enunciative
, I know, are semiotic code words. I should know them — but you know what? — I can't be bothered. I can't be bothered because it's just bullshit jargon. You made the mistake of supporting me in my attempts to write in an understandable and straightforward fashion, and I am grateful for that. I thought it was great when you said to Professor Hawkins, “You're right, Dash's thesis proposal is far too readable, he must make it less so.” I know I'm privileged, because I'm white and all. But I'm still a faggot — even though that doesn't seem to count as a minority status anymore.

If you look closely at most academic writing, you'll find that not only is everybody parroting Butler and Foucault, but most of them don't have anything half as interesting to say. (You can wade your way through the Foucault and Butler jargon, but at least you get a payoff now and then.) The people who are parroting Foucault and Butler are usually women and non-whites. I know that sounds sexist and racist, but all I'm saying is that these people have a lot at stake; they are outside the academic establishment and they think by appropriating this lingo they are going to get in.

All of this accent on style makes me think about Shakespeare's ultimate style play,
Love's Labour's Lost
. It's a kind of satire on the academic modes of the day. I guess you know that some people think the play is actually a parody of Lyly. I'm pretty fascinated by Lyly and I think I could write about him if anybody was willing to listen. (I know they're not.) Those who think Edward de Vere was Shakespeare also think that the young Shakespeare was John Lyly, meaning that he wrote under that name.
Euphues
, Lyly's book, is about his Italian travels, but it's also about the love of men for men, and how that love is much higher than the love of false, promiscuous women. It's all very gay in a David and Jonathan biblical way. But what's interesting about Lyly is that his style defined an era and we don't hear much about him now. Why? Because it's an effete, antique style. But if you read Shakespeare closely you can see that it has its origins in Lyly — the style is characterized by overwriting, endlessly repeated comparisons, a long list of figures of speech. It is a very busy, rhetorical, heightened, over-embellished style that became fashionable for ladies to read in the late 1500s.

Here is an example: “Love is a chameleon, which draweth nothing into the mouth but air, and nourisheth nothing in the body but lungs. Believe me, Eumenides, desire dies in the same moment that beauty sickens, and beauty fadeth in the same instant that it flourisheth. When adversities flow, then love ebbs, but friendship standeth stiffly in storms. Time draweth wrinkles in a fair face but addeth fresh colours to a fast friend, which neither heat, nor cold, nor misery, nor place, nor destiny can alter or diminish.” It's all about alliteration and exotic images, and a list of images and comparisons.

This is Shakespeare to a tee (only not as good, not as deep), which makes you think this could be a young gay Shakespeare, cavorting about Europe before he became more profound and turned this overdone, overflorid style into something that represented something. But I see it as part and parcel of what I call “the queer feminine,” a sensibility that looks at the world in a feminine way; that is, overdoes it — overdescribes it, overdecorates it. It's interesting that in the nineteenth century when euphuism was briefly rediscovered, it was scorned as effeminate and associated with Swinburne and Wilde — in other words, with gay literature. Yes, style is substance, and in the case of the gay writer the style is not necessarily hiding something. It is a response to the world that is historically (and this is what I would love to prove through an analysis of Shakespeare) grounded in an almost pathological need to compare, contrast and paint pictures with words. I don't know why it's gay and I don't know what it means — but that's what it is. I can't talk about this in terms of Shakespeare, even though it makes sense to do so, because I would have to put it in jargon. (In other words, I would have to talk about style in an incomprehensible style that would make it unreadable and inaccessible.) And anyway, no one in academic circles would allow me to suggest that John Lyly was a young Shakespeare. I give up. My best is just not good enough.

I think this passage is interesting because it shows King's last gasp at creating a queer aesthetic at a time when all things gay were on the wane. But also it's all about style as substance. I wonder if I myself am not a queer feminine character — though I suppose I am more feminine than queer, especially these days, having forgotten where my sexual organs are. But I do find the need to go on and on sometimes. I think that is where I live, in my words. At any rate, in my words to you. I don't know where all this is leading in terms of writing about Dash. I am almost on the verge of saying, “Maybe nowhere.” Maybe for me he is just a kindred spirit, and I don't know why. Need there be a why?