Like a Love Story

by Abdi Nazemian

  Art

  I catch a glimpse of myself in one of Wall Street’s intimidatingly tall glass buildings, and at first I can barely recognize the image as me. My hair isn’t lavender anymore—it’s dyed back to its natural chestnut brown and cut into a conservatively short haircut. My earring is gone, and the hole that once housed it already seems to have closed up. I’m not wearing a tank top, or a Silence = Death slogan on my clothes, or a concert T-shirt of Cyndi, Boy George, or Madonna. I’m wearing a boring-as-dirt gray suit, a white shirt, and one of my dad’s many crisp red ties, which feels like it chokes me. At least I have my camera around my neck, so I don’t feel like a completely lost soul. Then I see Stephen in the reflection behind me. “Ready?” he asks. He’s wearing a dark-navy suit, light-blue button-down shirt, and striped tie. The concealer he wears is so subtle you wouldn’t even know there’s any makeup on his face.

  I turn around to face him. Behind him are seven more men in suits. None of the people frantically rushing in and out of these colossal buildings see anything but a group of traders chatting before their workday begins. Only we know the rage that hides behind these suits and ties and conservative haircuts.

  “My heart’s beating really fast,” I say.

  “That’s normal,” Stephen says. “The first time I protested, I felt like Judy Garland playing Carnegie Hall. Just breathe and enjoy your first drag show.”

  “Drag show?” I ask.

  “Look at us,” he says. “We’re serving Wall Street realness.” He winks at me, because calling something realness is a throwback to a ball he took us to last summer. It was the most fun ever. “All we have to do now is act.”

  When Stephen first told me and Judy about ACT UP, he said it wasn’t so strange that he had found his calling as an activist, because it was close to his first love, acting. Acting, activism, action, they’re all based on creating authenticity in an artificial world. Stephen never was an actor, though. He was a lawyer, and not the kind who got rich defending corporations and screwing people over. He helped refugees resettle into the country. But he had to stop working when his health got bad, or maybe the agency he worked at thought he’d scare the refugees. There was something ironic about a man with AIDS helping resettle immigrants, since people with AIDS are banned from entering the country. But his lawyering is all over anyway. Activism and being a rad uncle are his only jobs now.

  “You loaded up your camera with fresh film?” he asks.

  “It’s ready to go.”

  “Remember, take some photos and then run. We made a deal, okay?” The deal is that I’m allowed to photograph the action but not be a part of it. Because he won’t have me getting booked by the cops, even if chances are I’d immediately be released.

  “I don’t care about getting arrested,” I tell him.

  “And I don’t care that you don’t care. Leave the risks to those of us who are going to die soon,” he says.

  I hate when Stephen does this. He makes these throwaway jokes about his imminent death, which I choose to believe isn’t coming anytime soon. I choose to believe that a medical breakthrough is on the horizon and will arrive just in time to save his life. But I don’t say this. I’ve tried before, and it upsets him. He says he wants to have hope, but not too much hope. “Too much hope will just kill me faster,” he said to me once. I don’t know exactly what he meant by that. But another time he said to me, “It’s the anger that’s kept me alive, you know. Without the anger, I’d have joined José by now. I just have too much to scream about to leave just yet.”

  Behind us, one of the seven men, the most handsome one, calls out, “It’s almost nine. We should go in. Here are your badges.” The man hands us fake trader ID badges, with false names but our real photos on them. I stare at mine for a moment, thinking this is exactly who my parents pray I will turn into one day. Something else hits me hard—that when I strip away the punk hairdos and the alternative style, I look so much like my dad. I think about how easy it would be if this were who I was, a person who liked his red ties, and his boring haircuts, and his trades and deals and golf games. A person who didn’t like boys, who didn’t hate convention, who wasn’t so angry. For a moment, I even wish for this, for an easy life. But this wish just makes me angrier, fuels me more. It reminds me that what I want, what I truly want, is to be loved and accepted for being me.

  “We’re going in through the west staircase. As soon as we make it to the trading floor, we need to move fast. We need to do this before security realizes and stops us. Does anyone have to use the bathroom? Best to use it now.” Everybody shakes their heads. “Okay, let’s do it. And remember why we’re doing this. Burroughs Wellcome’s stock has risen forty percent since they started selling AZT, and the drug is still unaffordable for even a person with above-average income. We will shame them into lowering that price even if they throw us in jail for it again.”

  We enter the building without a hitch, flashing our fake ID badges to a bored security guard. I feel like I did when Judy and I snuck into Danceteria once, except this time what waits for us on the other side isn’t a live performance from Grace Jones. It’s the New York Stock Exchange. As we walk up twenty flights of stairs, the men all joke with each other. “Nice ass,” one of them says to the one in front of him, as he gently spanks it. The one in front shimmies a little. “Now remember,” another says, “do not cruise the traders, no matter how much they may resemble Christopher Reeve.” I love this about these guys, their ability to laugh through their anger, to find light even in injustice. When we reach the top, Stephen turns to the group, and in his most dramatic Joan Crawford, he says, “Don’t fuck with us fellas. This ain’t our first time at the stock exchange.” The men all nod to each other in solidarity, and then we open the door.

  I momentarily freeze when the door opens to reveal the trading floor. There’s something majestic about it. All those people in their muted colors, all those computers, all those lights. People moving so fast that they barely notice each other. You can almost hear the numbers crunching. You can almost feel bank accounts getting fatter, and land being destroyed, and people being taken advantage of, and the stink of greed and death being spritzed into the air like those perfume samples in the Bloomingdale’s lobby. Everything about the energy of this place says that what happens here changes life, for the better if you’re one of the chosen few, but mostly for the worse.

  “Art!” I hear my name being screamed and I snap to attention. Stephen and five of his friends have already chained themselves to the balcony of the stock exchange. “Art!” Stephen screams again. I realize I haven’t taken a single photograph. My camera is dangling limply from my neck. I raise it up to my eyes, closing one of them, my eyelid twitching nervously, my hands shaky. I snap one photo, then another. Behind me I hear voices: “Hose those faggots down. They like that,” one says. “Throw ’em in jail. They like that more,” responds another. It’s just high school, I think to myself. It’s all high school. This is just another locker room, another safe space for straight assholes to spew their hate. I point my camera at the homophobes and snap. I imagine the click and the flash are bullets, plunged DEEP into their hateful asshole hearts.

  “It’s almost nine,” another voice says. In the chaos, I can’t tell if it’s an activist or a trader. I move my camera toward the activists now. It’s almost nine. It’s showtime.

  The bell rings. The opening bell, marking another start to another day of financial corruption. Except this day, nobody hears it. What they hear, what we all hear, is the sound of foghorns. Loud and invasive, they take over the space. I snap away as the activists blow those foghorns, and I see the hint of a smile on Stephen’s face. I wonder if he’s also thinking about that time he told me that Cher’s voice is like a foghorn, calling all the queens to her shores and warning them of the many navigational hazards ahead. Probably not. He’s probably thinking of how he’s changing the world, righting its wrongs. And it’s more than a smile on his face now. It’s a look of sheer
exhilaration. He’s LIVING right now. It’s like he’s the most alive person in the world. And then I realize I am LIVING too, and it feels amazing.

  The activists unfurl a banner that reads “SELL WELLCOME,” a message to the traders about the pharmaceutical company that has jacked up the price of AZT. They’ve shut down trading. They’re my heroes.

  “Art, run. Now!” It’s Stephen again. Police have entered, and immediately my pulse races and I start to run. Maybe the idea of getting detained sounded fun in theory. But now I know that when cops are after you, none of it is fun. I look around as I flee and realize how much of the chaos I missed. The hissing traders. The threatening police. And the media. The cameras, the video cameras, the reporters, all filming us. All filming me as I took pictures of them. I make eye contact with one of the video cameras as I bolt the hell out of there, back to the stairwell we came in through.

  I speed down the stairwell to the bottom, my camera hitting my chest as it bounces up and down. On the bottom floor, I collapse and catch my breath. I wonder if Stephen has been handcuffed yet, if this action will work. Will the drug price come down? And when will the next action be? Because I’m not done. I need to feel this again.

  When I exit the building, the morning sun hits me hard, as does the September heat. I take my suffocating tie off and consider throwing it in the garbage. It seems to symbolize everything I hate about the world. But then I think better of wasting a perfectly fine piece of fabric, and I wrap the tie around my head like a headband. Judy would approve of that. She loves repurposing things when she designs. As I sneak around the side of the building, I see a few media trucks parked outside, and I see spectators, a lot of them, frozen across the street, staring at the building. Maybe we’ve helped them see something.

  And then I see something . . . Reza. At least I think it’s him. He’s in that crowd, staring at the building with fascination. I crane my neck forward trying to get a better look. I take a step closer to the crowd. But I still can’t be sure. I put my camera to my eye and I zoom in on the crowd. And through the lens I can now see him clearly. He looks forward, until he doesn’t. Until he looks right at me. I click. And then he rushes away.

  I can’t tell which direction he went, but I run. I want to know what he was doing there, and why. But I don’t see him anymore. I walk past countless buildings, countless people, but I can’t find him. Finally, I give up. I need some water, and I turn onto Fulton Street, where I see a deli. Next to the deli is a record store, and inside is Reza, browsing nonchalantly.

  “Hey,” I call as I walk into the store, but he doesn’t look up. “Reza!”

  Now he looks up. “Oh, Art. Wow, hi, wh-what are you doing in . . . this place?” He’s nervous and stammering, and so full of shit it reeks.

  “Um, what are you doing here?” I ask.

  “Oh, I heard this was a great record store,” he says. “And I just received my allowance, so . . .”

  “So you decided to go record shopping at nine in the morning . . . on a school day . . . blocks away from where you knew I was protesting.”

  He looks down at the records, flips through a few, maybe deciding what to say next. “If we go to school now, we will only miss one class.”

  “I’m not going to school today,” I say. “I can’t. Not after what just happened.”

  “What just happened?” he asks.

  He looks at me blankly, and I search his eyes for what is going on behind them.

  “I was at a protest,” I say. “You were there too. I saw you.”

  “No,” he says, now suddenly cool as can be. “But white people think all Persian people look alike. It’s okay, though. I’m not offended.”

  I smile in disbelief. He has mastered the art of deflection, and also, he’s been hiding a dry sense of humor.

  And then he changes the subject, pulling a record up. “Look,” he says. It’s Madonna’s Like a Virgin record. There she is on the cover, in a wedding dress. “Is this a good one?”

  “They’re all good ones,” I say. “She doesn’t do mediocre.”

  “Maybe I will purchase it,” he says. “Since I already have the Like a Prayer CD thanks to you. But I think I prefer records. Do you think they sound better?”

  I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. I don’t feel like bantering about the vinyl versus compact disc debate right now. I want to know why he was there, and what his deal is.

  “Why does she call her records Like a something?” he asks. “Do you know?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” I say. “But I think it’s because she’s all about the difference between what something looks like and what it really is. She’s like a virgin, but not really. Something is like a prayer, but not really. I guess she’s pointing to the illusion of sex and religion.”

  “Oh” is all he says.

  But I can’t stop. Now we’re not bantering anymore. Now we’re talking about something deadly serious . . . Madonna! “Stephen thinks that’s why she’s so popular with gays. Why divas in general are so popular with gays. Because we can see what’s hiding beneath the artifice. We know what it’s like to be one thing on the outside and another on the inside. All of us.”

  I realize I’ve started speaking of we and us, as if I’m including Reza. And he doesn’t correct me. And I have no idea at what moment I thought—no, I knew—that he was one of us. Does he know it? Am I wrong?

  “That’s why Stephen thinks we’ll always be more into female divas, even when the world is enlightened enough for gay men to be pop stars and movie stars. Because worshipping a gay male star would be too literal for us. We need layers and symbolism. We communicate in code. As does Madonna. That’s what I think the Like a thing is all about.”

  Am I communicating in code? And if I am, what the hell am I even saying?

  “I see,” he says now, and he sounds so proper, so stiff, so scared. We lock eyes, and I find in his a sadness so deep and bottomless that I want to reach inside him and heal it. And in his sadness, I recognize my own, which I usually cover up with anger. I have a crazy thought . . . if he’s from Iran, he probably knows a bunch of people who died in the revolution, just like I know a bunch of people who died of AIDS. Most of the other kids in school don’t know anyone who died, except for their grandparents maybe.

  I reach into the Madonna section to pull out another record, and as I do, our hands graze each other. I feel something. Is it electricity? I don’t know. It feels like a cousin of what I felt up there at the protest. It feels like being reminded that the point of BEING alive is to FEEL alive.

  “In between Like a Virgin and Like a Prayer, she released True Blue,” I say as I pull the record out. “It’s interesting, right? Sex and religion aren’t clear-cut to her, but love is. She didn’t call it Like a True Blue.”

  “Like a Romance,” he says.

  “Like a Love Story,” I add.

  We each hold records in our hands, our fingers touch each other, and our eyes are locked in some secret shared space we never knew existed until just now.

  And then he says, “I’ll purchase them both. I think I love Madonna.” And he pays for the records.

  We walk for a bit, toward the subway. He says he’s afraid of taking the subway, and I tell him that’s absurd. “The subway is the one place in the city where you can be guaranteed not to run into the exact kind of assholes who are afraid to ride the subway,” I say.

  He asks if I just called him an asshole, and I say maybe. We might be flirting. Or we might not be. I have no idea how to read him.

  Then I remember something. “Hey, you have my backpack?”

  “Your book bag,” he says. “I am so sorry. It’s been sitting in my room for days. I promise I haven’t touched it.”

  I think about what’s inside, a bunch of junk, and then I remember my most prized possession is in there . . . those notecards Stephen made me when I asked him what OUR history was. I can’t believe I left those. That shrink my parents sent me to would probably say I
left the bag there hoping Reza would open it, hoping he would read those cards and feel what I felt when I read them . . . some connection to the past, to a community, some sense of belonging. “It’s okay,” I say. “Just give it to me next time we see each other.”

  “Okay,” he says.

  He’s about to go when I call him back. “Hey,” I say. “I’m just wondering . . . were you in Iran during the revolution?”

  “I was,” he says. “My mother wanted to leave, but my father didn’t. We went to Toronto six years ago, when my mother left him.”

  “Oh,” I say. “So your dad’s still there?”

  “No,” he says. “Well, not exactly. He, um, died.”

  There’s something so final about those words. He doesn’t embellish them. He doesn’t say he passed away, or something like that. “I’m so sorry,” I say.

  Reza shrugs, like there’s nothing else to say about the subject.

  “I’ve lost a lot of people too,” I say. “People I knew through Stephen. They’ve died. All around me.” I stop myself from saying more. What I’m thinking is that if Stephen is my spiritual father, the dad I was meant to have, then we’re both being raised by widows. But I don’t say that. Because Stephen’s not my father, and because Reza doesn’t look like he wants to continue this conversation.