Come Back (7 page)

T
hough I expect severity, there is something else in your tone. It's impossible for me to imitate, and I wouldn't want to. There is a coldness. It suggests I am already dead. It seems only fair to wait to treat me as dead when I am actually dead, and otherwise treat me with the common respect of one human being for another. Surely we are not beyond that? I have made many allowances, yes, for
you
. You are a fragile, special case, and your relationship with your father . . . But we won't go there. I know I'm not supposed to mention that. I know our relationship will never be equal. I know you require acquiescence, obeisance almost, and it is that stone coldness of you I adore. It reassures me. There is so much love and so much hate in it. I used to receive enough serenity from the severity of your look that I could sleep at night. But there is something missing in the way you treat me now.

If only I could see you . . . I know it's impossible. Ironic that in an age when it is so easy, you would not allow me this. We could easily see each other and chat in cyberspace, but you won't let that happen. And that is what I must accept. Again I am thinking perhaps I should come there — or will. Of course, there is the agony of flight. Can you imagine the cavity search? I don't think the security staff could handle searching
for
my cavities, never mind actually searching the cavities
themselves
. I hear them asking: Does this monstrous mess have holes?

Well, I can make myself laugh; I hope I can still make you laugh too.

There are warning signs that go beyond the severity of your tone, things I want to challenge, because I don't understand them. First, there is your use of the word
prepare
. As if I am to be prepared for something. Is this something academic, something to do with a final exam? But you and I are still bickering over the subject matter of my post-doctoral thesis — surely it's not time yet to prepare for that. Did the word just slip out accidentally? Was I not supposed to know this? Because I can't imagine what else I would be prepared for. I hope you are not keeping anything from me, because the one thing I like to imagine isn't missing from our lacerating arguments is honesty.

I'll get right to the point. If you can answer this question, then perhaps it will begin to bridge this gulf I feel forming between us. The gulf
must be
purely in my imagination. I'm pretty perplexed (or perhaps I should say not pretty at all, but I am perplexed) that you have found such tiny — one might even say hidden — ideas in my communication with you. And that you are so incredibly upset about it. I have sent you a missive with a long analysis and history of Dash King — who you barely mention, except to say that he is an immature individual.

That's a start. But then you go on to speak as if we are beyond narcissism. Certainly when the plastic surgeon is so available — for all but the most ancient, who are typically told they are beyond help (like myself) — narcissism becomes irrelevant. On the other hand, what narcissism used to be, solipsism, has certainly not disappeared. One could argue, of course, that as people live less and less in what used to be called the
real
world, they have become less concerned with how beautiful and rich they are in actuality, and in this way become less selfish by default. But surely the virtual world is selfishness personified, now that people's acquisitive romantic cyberlives have exponentially overtaken their tedious day-to-day existence? What I'm saying is, Dash just seems more immature than people today because he is concerned with his fortunes in what we used to call reality, with success and getting laid, notions we find antique because we can have whatever we want in the virtual world. The fact that people are still, in their own ways, immature does not mean that Dash is any less so. But it's important to put his neurosis in perspective.

Then there is the issue of plastic surgery. It is completely shocking to me that when I actually address issues of addiction and suggest that I might be able to loosen up my routine, you decide to rail against the notion that I might have my head righted upon the end of my spine (or what's left of it). In this last discussion, in case you have forgotten, I referred to the possibility that I might allow myself the odd cigarette, that I might not have to observe the rituals and routines that have kept my addictions in check for so many years, because I am now so set in my ways that I am not in danger of falling back under the sway of my addictions. This is a significant notion for an addict to entertain. However, you ignore these musings. I know you are cognizant of them (you miss nothing), but instead you become obsessed with my suggestion that I might get a little bit of plastic surgery. I don't understand what is
so
outrageous about that.

You do understand that my body is crumpled to the extent that the “L” shape that I used to refer is fast becoming a “C”? As my head seems to bend more and more towards my chest, it becomes not only increasingly uncomfortable but I become more and more grotesque. You make jokes about my physical body and I do too (though it takes on a slightly different implication coming from you!). But is it too much to ask, that we might attempt to halt the daunting curvature of my spine, and at least set my head right upon my shoulders?

And then there is the implication that I would not be considering plastic surgery if I was not also considering venturing out. Maybe there is another reason. Perhaps it's not just all about people seeing me, or being seen. You know well what could still happen if people look at me too closely, or stare at me. It's still possible they might somehow realize who I was. But that's not a big enough danger to warrant plastic surgery to protect me.

What I find more than odd is that in a long communiqué in which I talk about so many subjects, you get stuck on a tiny part of one sentence. And this is the sentence in which I say sex does not involve human contact at all “above ground, or commonly.” You go crazy about “above ground, or commonly.” I find this uncanny. In passing, I mentioned a truism, something everyone knows and understands though it's rarely talked about. The fact is there are establishments in which some of the real and dangerous sexual activities (that we know from the past) are still perpetrated. It even comes up in the most polite conversations now and then. Although discussion of these establishments has not been banned, we realize that any detailed discussion of what actually goes on must be kept to a minimum.

I don't think you're afraid of censorship — in fact, you yourself occasionally enjoy flouting the authorities. You seem to think, and I hope you are right, that those who wish to censor, who warn us of our indiscretions, cannot and will not triumph over technology. It is technology itself that will decide whether or not anything can or will be censored. At any rate, it is the fact that you picked this tiny detail out of my letter (along with the notion of plastic surgery) that I wish to confront.

In this context it might be necessary to speak a little bit about Allworth. I am not going to apologize for our relationship. I don't want to make you feel guilty — that's impossible, anyway, and it would be out of character. Whenever the smallest spark of that emotion does creep into your psyche, it fills you with a kind of rage that is frightening to behold. Suffice it to say, I am not using Allworth to make you jealous, or to threaten you. He could never be you. Remember when we found that self-help book from mid-century that went on and on about codependence? Well, sometimes I think you and I are codependent. At least, I am too dependent on you. I know you have your women, and that some of them may mean more to you than you are willing to admit — though I know you don't like me saying that. But isn't there a moment when you are whipping them, or penetrating them with those dildos that you so ritually boil, when there is just a little tear in your eye? An ounce of affection? Don't you ever, for instance, miss them? Do you never, ever favour one over another? I know you will answer “No” to all of these questions.

And just because I can't resist a little titillation, have you ever tried electric shock? I found a great little porno scene (they are so very, very accessible now that I am integrated; I just press a button on my old head and there's porn!) in which a very lovely young man was being shocked with some sort of electronic device. He was writhing quite deliciously. I think one of the things that attracted me to the image was that the man who was torturing him was hardly a man — in the sense that we used to think of a biological man. He was such a grotesque, withered thing. Now, I know that no one could be (and surely no one is) as aged and ugly as myself. But the reason the fantasy had such a profound effect on me was because I could see myself playing the part of the old man — crumbling artifact that I am. That I might be the one
doing
the torturing! It seemed so wonderful to me that the old man could have such an effect on the boy! Obviously it was not possible for the wizened old stick to actually shock the youngster with the thrill of love. Instead he had to resort to actual virtual electricity. I'm sure that I am not perceiving this cyberlovemaking correctly, and that you will tell me so. You sometimes urge me to take some photos of myself and have a little fun. You assert that there might be sexual interest, somewhere, in a lumpen heap such as myself — that I might enjoy some cybersex. Well, I certainly would have enjoyed becoming a part of the
actual
experience of shocking such a beautiful young man, along with the other, dribbling geezer. But I don't think, try as I might, that I would be able to appreciate cybersex the way I could, or perhaps should.

Maybe this is part of my problem.

I know you think it is.

Or maybe I don't have a problem. I know you think I still think of cyberspace as “fantasy” and still talk of it as “virtual,” and I know those are ancient terms. I know I should just be thinking of it as all there is, and that, in effect, it
is
all there is. But that brings me to my experience with Allworth. So you mustn't be intimidated by him in any way. I know that if you met him you would ignore him, consider him not worth considering. In fact, you may have already met him in cyberspace if you've been trolling. He's very promiscuous and quite an inveterate cruiser. He loves couples, or enjoys being an intermediary between two men who are married, attached, in love, whatever, servicing them, getting serviced. I'm not entirely clear on what he does specifically, and I don't know if I want to know.

He is — that is, his personality is — your fundamental opposite. To say he is worshipful would be an understatement. In fact, he might actually make you nauseous. Now, I want you to know that this fawning, this obsequiousness, is something akin to a disease with Allworth. It is not related only to the fact that he has figured out who I was. Of course, he does know who I was, but you sometimes overestimate the effect of all that. Yes, I am these days a medical marvel — though more and more like me are being kept alive these days. I must be one of the oldest, however, because I am a kind of literal artifact, a relic of another era. But we both know that very little of what is considered valuable is from the past. Part of this has to do with the triumph of historiography over history.

It's interesting how far ahead of his time Paul de Man actually was. And interesting, too, that there is a point at which Dash King gets obsessed with de Man, (as with Philip Larkin and, amazingly, Barbara Pym) near the very end of his papers. You do remember the de Man scandal? He was accused of being a Nazi, but at the same time he was a kind of deconstructionist, and a friend of Derrida. Derrida had to deal with the scandal after de Man died and the truth came out. Derrida was a Jew, and this saved him from suspicions of being anti-Semitic. It's an odd assumption, that those who are
of
a group cannot hate that group. You and I both know that it was the homosexuals who killed gay. Once they finally had enough of it they said, We are assimilating!

The de Man scandal was focused on the notion that this man, who argued for the deconstruction of history and reality, a man whose arguments could have been used to challenge the Holocaust, was in fact a Nazi sympathizer. Or, at least, at one time he had worked for the Nazis. Or, at the very least, to be completely accurate, he had written anti-Semitic articles, or articles that could be construed as anti-Semitic, for a Nazi newspaper. Paul de Man committed this crime during the Nazi occupation of France, when French intellectuals were being pressured to toe the line. Sure, some bravely did not collaborate. But de Man did. And then he went on to proliferate arguments against the notion that there was any such thing as truth and history.

Self-serving? You decide.

De Man did ultimately prove to be right, whatever his wartime ethics. It makes perfect sense that we study history as fiction now, and that we look at it as romantic rhetoric — the way we might read a fantastical story. The whole idea that one should read history because there are lessons to be learned from it is a fallacy. One wonders how this idea could ever have had any credibility when history constantly repeats itself. As Alan Bennett once memorably said, history is “one bloody thing after another.” Today we know what looking for lessons in history means: it's just reading our present into the past. So, instead, we now live in the present and the future — ignoring the past. These are the only places to live. This is a part of my problem when I look back at Dash King. How I proceed with King's text has a lot to do with whether I treat it as history or literature. And it's important that I treat it only as literature. History does not exist. This is something you must remind me.

I will now remind
you
of this in reference to Allworth. I am returning, at last, to this ubiquitous person. I call him ubiquitous because there have always been Allworths in my life. But to imagine that Allworth idolizes me because of who I once was — who I am no longer — is forgetting the modern world that we live in. And you do this in a manner I am too often prone to do. This is one of the reasons I am thinking of . . . Well, I will reveal it.