Short Circuits (28 page)

I'm not quite sure why I seem to take so much pleasure—which I must or I wouldn't be doing it—in speculating on the impossible. But I find “what if?” to be among the most fascinating of phrases. I suppose it is another reflection of the fact that I really have never been satisfied with the way things are, and always want…and often truly ache for…what I cannot have.

So I spend endless hours in the attic of my mind, sitting cross-legged on the dusty floor, opening boxes of long-sealed memories and watching tiny spiders in the rafters spin dreams. Each provide me with an endless supply of “never was” and “never could be” to contemplate and play with. But while I fully realize that I can never have all those things that I so desperately want, it certainly doesn't stand in the way of my wanting them.

And so contemplating having time move backward is just another exercise in the game of “what if?” But it's a fun game.

* * *

CONDESCENSION

Oh, dear Lord, how I hate condescension! Deliberate condescension is infuriating; unintentional condescension is just hurtful. But either way, it is dismissal…and I find myself increasingly on the receiving end of it as the years too-rapidly pass. Again, most of it is well-intentioned, but the fact is that the older we become, the more we are regarded the same way as we regard small children. (“Oh, that's a very pretty picture, Bobby. Did you draw it all by yourself?”)

Yesterday in a store, a young woman dropped a plastic bottle of water, and I quickly bent over to pick it up for her. Rather than a simple “thank you” she went out of her way to let me know how very much she appreciated my kindness, and wished me a very nice day, which, in turn, was very nice of her. But would she have reacted the same way if a 30-year-old had done the same thing? Possible, but I somehow doubt it.

What
happens
to us as we grow older? Why do people begin treating us differently just because we have accumulated several more years than they have? And have not the slightest doubt, regardless of how young you now are, that if you are lucky enough to live long enough, your days of being on the receiving end of condescension will come.

Part of the problem, admittedly, belongs with the aging, who too often stop doing things for themselves when they see they can rely on other people to do it for them. Strong, dynamic people who once ran successful businesses and raised families and whose opinions were sought and valued on every subject slowly slide into timidity and hesitancy and insecurity. “Oh, I can't do that anymore!” “I'm too old to do thus and so.” “No, thanks, I think I'll just stay home and knit.”

When I lived in northern Wisconsin, my neighbor and good friend Louisa was nearing 80, living alone, keeping her house spotless, cooking wonderful things which she would make sure I would share. She tended a good sized garden, and was always on the go. Then one day she fell in her home and wasn't found for a couple of hours. Her daughter Marge immediately came from Minneapolis to care for her and in the blink of an eye, it seemed, Louisa changed from “Let me get you a cup of coffee” to “Marge, could you get me a glass of water?” Marge, out of love and concern, insisted Louisa come to live with her and her family in Minneapolis, taking Louisa not only from her home but from everyone and everything she had known all her life. Within a year, she was dead. In a way, I can't help but think she was a victim of a virulent strain of unintentional condescension.

The gap between what we were and what we, willingly or unwillingly, become grows with each act of condescension. “How are we today, Bob?” (The use of “We” is the epitome of condescension.) “Would you like some help with that?” If Bob looks like he needs “some help with that,” by all means offer it. If he looks too frail to stand by himself on a bus, by all means offer him a seat. But if he is just carrying a package or standing there minding his own business, give him the dignity of treating him like everyone else.

We should never stop being kind, or thoughtful of others of any age. But when it comes to those much older than you, just, please, adapt the level of kindness to the situation. Be careful that your kindness does not say, as condescension to the elderly too often says: “You are no longer one of us.”

THE REAR-VIEW MIRROR

IN, BUT NOT OF

When I was very young, having one day seen God looking down at me while I was watching clouds, I was utterly convinced that I was very, very special and that I would one day do great and marvelous things. To some degree, I still cling to that belief. (It is sometimes a blessing to be unfettered by reality.)

My sense of being in but not of the world is a common theme for these blogs, mainly because I still retain the concept of “me” and “everybody else” being mutually exclusive. I have always lived in a state of extreme envy for what others can do…with such grace and ease…that I cannot. I watch clips of rock concerts where what I assume everyone else thinks is music causes everyone to rock and sway and thrust their arms over their heads, obviously having an absolutely wonderful time. Were I there, I would stand like Lot's wife, totally immobile and excruciatingly embarrassed and furious with myself for not being able to “let go.”

I hate doing things which I feel call attention to myself, which is why I don't dance. My assumption that anyone other than myself would notice me at all is an example of my perverse form of narcissism. And of course by not dancing while everyone else does, I…call attention to myself. I just can't seem to win.

Of course the fact that I knew from age 5 that I was homosexual is perhaps the major factor in these feelings of not belonging. Well, they aren't just feelings. I
don't
belong. Surrounded by people with whom I could never really relate, never understanding what all these male-female interactions/courtships/rituals were all about…or caring…shaped my character and my life.

I've never wanted to be normal, and have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams on that one. I suppose a case may be made that normalcy, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder, and for as deeply as I hate and fear mirrors, I am constantly figuratively holding a mirror up to myself and never, never liking what I see.

Thank God that to balance all those things I want so desperately but do not have, I do have an exquisite sense of irony and the ability to keep my tongue planted firmly in my cheek. I almost never, even when I am ranting and raving and beating myself mercilessly about the head and shoulders with my perceived flaws, allow myself to take myself too seriously. It's almost as if I were my own walking “in” joke. I have, and take full advantage of, the right to criticize myself mercilessly. But no one else has the right to do so. This has, throughout my life, caused innumerable problems.

I began, also as a child, to belittle myself simply as a means of beating others to it...to say “I know my flaws; I don't need you to point them out to me.” And it got out of hand. As I have reported a couple of times in previous blogs, my best friend in college once said, “Roger keeps telling people how terrible he is until they begin to believe him.”

And all this is compounded by the fact that there is so very, very much that I want to do, so very many things I want to be, so much I want to know, to see, to experience. On one level I know full well that no single individual could possibly do all these things in a lifetime. But Tony travels the world, and Wayne has a vast knowledge of literature, and Travis is physically beautiful, and Gary is unflaggingly kind and wise, Bil knows opera, and Franklin flits back and forth between his condos in Chicago and Ft. Lauderdale, and…. And we are again back to the world's unequal division between “me” and “them.” “Me” is singular, “them” is collective, and I am hopelessly, hopelessly overwhelmed by comparison. On one level, I understand and accept all this, but down deep, where my timid soul peeks out from under the thick comforter of my memories, it is all utterly incomprehensible, and I totally overlook the good things in myself to ache for what I do not and never can have.

So I have accepted myself for who and what I am and for what I have always been and always will be and, concentrating far more heavily on my flaws than my gifts, I stumble on, so overwhelmed with the wonder of life that I can truly not see my own position in it. Though, catching a glimpse of myself while passing a shop window, I can sometimes convince myself for a brief moment that we are two separate beings, and that perhaps the reflection I see is really one of “them.”

* * *

IN, BUT NOT OF, PART 2

I think one of the reasons I became a writer is that I have always had such a difficult time making myself understood. I'm still trying, and still don't do a very good job of it. I think I am searching, too, for a way to understand that which I have never understood.

Take the world, for instance. I am a homosexual…probably one of the major components of what makes me me…and I live in a world of heterosexuals. Neither one of us fully understands the other, though I and those like me are outnumbered 9 to 1, so in any conflict between the two, it's fairly clear who has the upper hand. I was born of heterosexual parents into a heterosexual family of which I am the only homosexual. Not just in my generation, but in all generations. The only possible exception, and this is only pure speculation and perhaps wishful thinking on my part, was my mother's uncle Peter, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 19 back in the early years of the 20th century. I probably romanticize Peter because he died so young, but I always grieve for those who missed so much by dying before their time.

So I have, as do most homosexuals—and especially those who recognize their homosexuality at a very early age (I was five)—made my own way, learning what amounts to survival skills, playing survival games (but only to an extent. I have never in my entire life denied my homosexuality). I became an expert at dodging the issue when it got too close. (As I have reported before, when I joined the Navy, I marked the box “Have you ever had homosexual tendencies” “No” with a clear conscience on the sound logic that there were no “tendencies” involved.)

I understand, to a degree, heterosexuals as individuals, but when mixed together as husbands and wives and in-laws and their kids (invariably heterosexual themselves) dating and going to proms and doing all those wholesomely heterosexual things that come so naturally to heterosexuals, I am quite honestly completely and totally at a loss as to what is going on. I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like, nor do I have any desire to find out. That, of course, does not mean I am not frequently bitter by the arrogance of many heterosexuals in assuming their numbers make them superior.

I just read an article in which the writer was describing a trip he and his wife had taken with his parents and children and I just stared at the page. I had no real concept of what he was talking about, or how the people involved interacted or interrelated. In a way, my attitude toward the world in which I live is not unlike watching a football game (or basketball game, or baseball game)…I simply do not understand it and cannot comprehend how others seem to.

One of the things that confuses me most is how straight men and women relate to one another. In a large gathering, they're together, yet they're separate. The women tend to cluster together and talk women things: children and clothes and recipes, while the men huddle around the TV glued to whatever sporting event happens to be on, putting on a great display of testosterone and male bonding and making far more to-do over whatever is happening than I can conceive of as being warranted.

I've never understood how everyone else…well,
gets
it. They walk into a party and mingle and talk and laugh and dance, and to them it is the most natural thing in the world.

It's strange to live in a world to which one does not belong, and in which one is often not comfortable. I've been in that position all my life. I take some comfort in the fact that I am not alone, and there are many others who walk through the zoo that is the world, warily watching those on the other side of the thick glass walls. The question is, who is on the inside, and who outside?

* * *

EPIPHANY

It all began on July 3, 1978 when I met a beautiful (to me) young man by the name of Ray Lopez in the Silver Dollar Bar in Los Angeles. I soon discovered that Ray was a hopeless alcoholic, and the story of our relationship the stuff of which bad soap operas are made. But what I want to address here is the astounding power of epiphany, and how deeply we tend to hide things from ourselves.

When Ray died of AIDS in, I think it was 1994…I can never remember for some reason which probably has significance of some sort…my first thought was “
Oh, Ray!
” I was truly sorry, but it was an oddly detached feeling, and I was proud of myself for handling it far more calmly than I would have imagined. Later, when I thought of his death, the feeling was largely of frustration and anger: how could he not have saved himself? How could I not have saved him?

I have often said that I consider Ray to have been the love of my life. When he was sober, there was no one on earth more kind, caring, or sweet natured. But when he drank…and in the eight or nine years (on and off) we were together the longest he went without drinking was eight months…he became a tortured animal, lashing out at everyone and everything. Knowing that many others who have alcoholics in their lives have gone through basically the same thing didn't make it any easier.

At any rate, time passed and while I thought of him often, it was still almost always rather as though I were viewing a display case of beautiful (but of course dead) butterflies skewered on a pin. Real but not real.

And then in June of 1999, a friend called me to tell me that PBS was doing an all-male version of the ballet
Swan Lake
that night
,
and insisted I watch. I'd seen the
Ballets du Trockadero
group…men with light beards and hairy chests dressed up in tutus and tiaras and toe shoes…a couple of times, and while they were mildly amusing, I have never cared for men in tutus. But since I'd told him I'd watch, I did.

From the minute I turned the program on, I did not move from my chair: I was transfixed…overwhelmed. This was no silly story of men pretending to be women: the swans here were all powerful, fascinating, alternately beautiful and threatening, and the love story between the lead male swan and the prince nearly tore my heart out. It was, I still feel, the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

When the production ended, I went directly to the phone to order the VHS of the performance, which I watched at least a dozen times. And when I heard the production…
Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake…
was opening on Broadway, I drove to New York for three days to see it: three times! And each time I was overwhelmed by the power and beauty…and ultimately, the tragedy…of it. Because of the impossibility of the lead dancers to do eight shows a week, they had two alternates for both the Prince and the Swan, and I did not get a chance to see the two from the video dance together.

So I returned to northern Wisconsin, still enthralled, still watching and re-watching the video.

And then I read that Adam Cooper, the Swan from the video, was leaving the show, and his last performance would be on December 19…and that he would be dancing with Scott Ambler, the video's prince. I knew I had to be there, and (flying, this time) I returned to New York to see the show four more times, including Adam Cooper's last performance.

The story of
Swan Lake
, as you know, concerns the love of a prince and a beautiful White Swan, who later becomes an evil Stranger. The Prince and the White Swan are reunited at the end of the show, but the indescribably bittersweet reunion ends in their death. As one review of the production stated with total accuracy and total understatement: “Simply heartbreaking.” And coupled with Tchaikovsky's almost unbearably moving score, the result was breathtaking every time I saw it.

And the last night, as I was walking from the theater, I had my epiphany...why I had not realized it before, I don't know—I'm sure you've already realized it. But it suddenly struck me that the Prince was me, and both the Swan and the Stranger were Ray: the loving Swan when sober, the inconceivably cruel Stranger when drunk. And most significantly I had not realized until that moment that I had never allowed myself to grieve for Ray, and that each time I watched this production, I was in fact allowing myself, finally to grieve for him.

Somehow, that epiphany lifted an indescribable weight from my shoulders...and my heart, and I have been able to finally say, maudlin as I'm sure it sounds, “I love you, Ray. Good-bye.”

* * *

THE SHALLOW POND

I sometimes like to stand on the shore of My Knowledge and look out over its vast expanse, and I try to pretend that under the surface lie vast depths of wisdom and insight and understanding. But the fact of the matter is that it would be possible to walk across it and never get the tops of my shoes wet.

In short, I know a little bit about a lot of things, and a lot about practically nothing. I'm very good at trivia. I can name songs from WWI (“Hello, Central, Give Me Heaven....'Cause My Daddy's There”), tell you what the last song was played as the Titanic sank (not “Nearer My God to Thee,” but a hymn called “Autumn”). I can tell you what Eartha Kitt, Paul Lynde, Alice Ghostly, and Robert Clary have in common (all were in the cast of “New Faces of 1952,” which I saw.)

But by and large, my vast knowledge is mostly a series of Potemkin villages (false fronts erected on the banks of a river by Grigori Alesandrovich Potemkin, a minister of Russia's Queen Catherine the Great, to convince her of how prosperous the country was. Potemkin was also the namesake for the
Battleship Potemkin
, immortalized in Sergei Eisenstein's classic silent film). In other words, pretty impressive at first glance, but without much behind it.

Which is why I dread people asking me who my favorite author is or what my favorite book is: I don't feel myself qualified enough to answer. I've read many, many books, but know nothing of literature on a scholarly level. I shudder at the prospect of being asked my opinion on almost any subject. The truth is, I probably don't have one that doesn't sound like pap.