So Many Ways to Sleep Badly

by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

  Rolling out of bed and into my sinus headache, oh it’s my fucking birthday! Everyone comes over late and we’re going to the beach, here come the clouds. I just love waking up ready to vomit, thinking why don’t I drink, why not? We get there and it’s freezing—and ugly, really—but I’m calmer. We visit the sea lions at Pier 39 and they’re so cute, Rhania strips for the tourists and I just love hugging people like the sea lions. At Golden Era, I’m exhausted and everyone leaves after dinner except Jeremy, Rue and I on my sofa. Should we go to a movie?

  We get to know the sofa, actually we all know her well already—can you believe this trick called her worn out? Rue leaves and Jaysen arrives, then leaves. Jeremy and I go on a walk and then I’m exhausted again—we hug for a while and at least I feel happier in my exhaustion. Jeremy leaves to pick up Sarah from the airport and I’m wired again, guess I’ll go to Cala and buy greens.

  Jeremy gives me a stuffed-animal cat for my birthday, and he didn’t even know about the flashbacks I’ve been having—cats burned alive or strangled. I pet this cat in bed and I feel like that little kid, struggling to endure. At the bank, Alex stands in line listening to this woman scream about her offshore bank accounts with hedge fund international high-interest yield checking plus savings option, finally Alex says: could you just shut up? The woman whirls around and looks Alex over—you’re just a fucking dyke hiding your tits. Alex says you better watch your back, because there are a lot of us out there, hiding our tits.

  GAY PEOPLE

  There’s something so satisfying about pretending to shoot in the condom in this trick’s ass—he gets all excited, I’m moaning and my eyes roll back—just like coming except I don’t feel like shit afterwards. Later, I feel like shit. I meditate, which helps me feel better for five whole minutes. Looking at a flower—oh how pretty!—and then boom it’s back to bed. At 1 a.m., I decide to be horny, rushing over to Lafayette Park. A few runarounds and then I’m sucking some guy’s dick, but pretty soon I realize I’m not horny. I rush home for another night of worthless sleep.

  On the phone, Jeremy wishes I could feel better—oh no, he’s starting to pity me. When I say I miss you, he doesn’t say anything. I get so tired, I can’t think, trying to fight sleep. Finally I get in bed, or at least I wish I did—this conversation with Jeremy is too much trying, we’re both trying the wrong things. I guess he’s trying to empathize and I’m trying to sound better than I feel. Then I’m trying to get back in bed. Earlier I was thinking I’m dying, someone’s killing me—but really I’m not that paranoid. My accomplishments for the day: I ordered a replacement water filter; I went to the chiropractor.

  More news from Andee: Larry King interviews Kitty Kelley about the Royal Family, it’s the Queen’s fiftieth year on the throne—how is that possible? Kitty says it’s good to see some beauty after 9-11. This trick tells me he’s going to open four strip clubs and his bodyguard is waiting next door with a machine gun. Don’t let me forget to mention the bubble gum lube—hello LA! Smog and stretch marks, pass the lines. Aaron says he’s not sure anymore about the line between casual crystal use and addiction. Lately, he’s been struck by the resemblance between Bremerton, where he lives, and quicksand. His birthday is on the same night as a bartender friend’s, he tips her twenty dollars and she promises a treat. But when he asks her for it, she beats him up—and Aaron’s so appalled by violence of any sort, rushing to the peep show to vomit. He says as much time as I’ve spent living with and observing people on the wrong side of the tracks, I realize I have no picture of what it’s like to live there.

  Ralowe calls three times with ideas for Pride. First call: rainbow clown outfits, naked bottoms. Second: the evil gay-gay-gay. Third: genetically modified dog made to pour beer for the gay-gay-gays, but it wants to become a real dog.

  Jeremy gets all excited about making plans with Randy, who Zan fell in love with for a few weeks and maybe Jaysen slept with him too or was it Benjamin? Small World Syndrome. Plus all my neurosis about Jeremy finding someone to fuck and then leaving me—bitch, your asshole’s too tight! My voice gets all hollow and I can’t think, why did I call him before eating?

  When I’m sad, I like petting this stuffed cat that Jeremy gave me. I wake up at 6 a.m., oh no the sun! After a sleeping pill, barley, a bath, and I guess sleep—or something that resembles it—I practice what to say to Jeremy if he’s late because he had to cruise the bathrooms. Not, I figured that would happen but I thought that might happen. He’s late, says it’s because he had to wait in line to fight his parking ticket and lose. I hug him over and over.

  Waking up at 8:30 a.m., I feel so incredibly rested and ready to face the world. Just kidding. Later—or was it yesterday?—I spend two hours cruising the internet, even though I’m not horny. I just want to escape all that amazing rest. Needless to say, everything gets worse. Where’s Jeremy? It’s been weeks since we’ve hung out alone for more than a few hours. Today’s her date with Randy, well actually they don’t have plans yet but they might hang out so Jeremy can’t hang out with me. I love his priorities.

  Turns out Ralowe didn’t say rainbow clown outfits, it was rainbow Klan outfits and the evil Gay Gay Gay, the gays wearing couture hoods to protect their well-coiffed hair. Chrissie wants to celebrate with a pretty little rainbow bomb. Rhania’s combining new wave and no-wave in a neue way, so we don’t get to the beach until 4:30 p.m., but when we get there it’s still hot out. Of course I start talking about awful Provincetown—oh the beach, the beach—what’s the point of going anywhere else? I call Jeremy and he’s too stoned, I feel like we’re acting. I say well we have plans on Tuesday, he says it’ll be good. Don’t patronize me. Later, I remember why I like him to tell me everything: because otherwise I don’t believe anything.

  I feel like I’ve meditated myself to an amazing place, then I open my eyes and everything’s still the same. Trying to channel the energy from the back-center and top sides of my head, picturing my hands flying side-to-side and up, twist, turn, down—hips shake shaking, knees bent and feet sliding back and back. I’m weightless, I’m weightless—look honey, sweat glands!

  At Whole Foods, this woman’s in a panic, holding up the tamales and saying: I just can’t taste it if it’s not organic—but I can’t cook, I can’t! Jake interviews Miss Kittin, who says that eighties look—I won’t do it, I won’t! Then why are you doing it?

  Did I mention my conversation with the boy across the street? He was so boring, it was painful. Then he had blue hair with a big blue T-shirt, today he has red hair with a big red T-shirt. A thrilling expression of individuality. Okay—so maybe I’m in a bad mood. This trick pretends I’m tied up and begging him not to touch my pecs. No—not my pecs! It’s exhausting; he smells. After my shower, I walk all the way up Columbus to City Lights, just in time not to find anything I’m looking for. It’s nice that there are so many people out on the street in North Beach at midnight—if only they weren’t all ready to kill for America.

  Do you do the kissing thing? Summer in San Francisco: I swear it was ninety degrees yesterday, but today it’s fifty. Petting Jeremy in the car, will you purr for me? The sea lions on the pier make me so happy, the way they look like they’re resting even when they’re fighting. Afterwards I want to buy a sea lion stuffed animal. Jeremy says maybe you should wait—I decide to wait, and see if he gets me one.

  At first I think I have a disease, because the fucking hottest boy shows up from gay.com, then when I come I still feel sad. The sadness disease. Luckily it fades and I actually feel calm, Steve and I take a shower—that’s his name, Steve—he asks me about my books. He says you have a lot of cool things here.

  At Whole Foods, it’s all about the guy with baggy over-dyed jeans, a fleece pullover with a collar, and the frat mod hairstyle. Then, in line it’s the guy I catch staring at my earrings—how do jocks get such big lips? But there’s a conspiracy against me: all of my tricks wear the same awful cologne!

  News Alert: my six-month anniversary with Jeremy! We
go to the beach and of course it’s freezing. Jeremy’s my mermaid all cold in the sand, and I warm him up by getting on top of him and licking his face. He gives me the stuffed-animal seal, I just want to pet it and pet it and pet Jeremy. I give him this pincushion plant with red berries in a porcelain pot with red flowers on it. Plus a collage of the two of us making out. Our sex is great, the relaxing moments that interrupt the frenzy. The Tibetan food is so good that it doesn’t even matter that the dance performance we want to see is sold out. I piss in a windstorm in Alamo Square Park. Back at my house, Jeremy’s rolling around in my new ergonomic chair that hurts me. Of course I need to piss again, bitch it’s been six months and you haven’t gulped down my piss yet! Then there’s my come in yellow sticky gobs all over his face, and wow it smells, I rub my face against Jeremy’s and we lie down. His note says: I can’t wait for the next six months.

  This guy’s so big from steroids, he’s almost like a weird animal—so hard in some places and saggy in others. I’m worried that his dick will never be one of the hard places, but then he pulls it out of my mouth and shoots. He moves over to the computer and shows me a picture on the screen, some guy’s jerking off. Who’s that? You. It’s not me. He doesn’t believe it.

  The cab driver is eating the smelliest pizza and asking me too many questions. I get so tired and then of course I’m depressed, then I want sex to take me out of it—even though it never does—and then I’m more tired, and more depressed. On a radio health show, an announcer says you need to change your lifestyle, but I’ve already changed everything, what’s the next step? The yoga teacher hugs everyone goodbye, which is sweet, though final relaxation makes my whole body hurt again. At Whole Foods, this woman comes up to me in line and says I used to do what you do, for a living. How does she know I’m a whore? She says I’ve been listening to the intercom and they’re onto you. I realize she means stealing—I mean bargain shopping—and everything sinks down inside but the floor’s not moving. Thanks, I say, and scan the store, making sure that I’m yawning. The security guard’s not even glancing my way, no one looks ready to jump me, but what if this is it? Or what if that woman’s undercover security?

  I decide the woman’s wrong, wait casually for the elevator but my heart is thumping—is shoplifting really worth all this stress? I almost jump because someone’s waiting at the door, but it’s just a customer reading Yoga Magazine. Outside, it’s extra-foggy and I’m kind of hoping the woman comes out to talk to me, I want to know what she did for a living. Whether she was really trying to help me. Whether they were really following me on the intercom. Or whether she just got paranoid because everyone was staring at my unconventional fashion. She was the only other person there who looked out of place—a black woman who wasn’t particularly bourgie.

  Rhania tells me she’s feeling a little disoriented, painting murals in the bathroom at the Lexington for eight hours a day—paint fumes and piss, not to mention all the free cocktails. I pick up the charger for my electric toothbrush and roaches come pouring out of it, dammit the roach motels keep filling and filling, but so many of the roaches can’t afford it! I hate being sick—I’m exhausted enough already. With my great luck, I wake up wired at 8 a.m. anyway. Chiropractic makes me calm, but does it help for more than five minutes?

  In preparation for Gay Shame, we make a Budweiser Vomitorium—a six-foot-tall cardboard structure that people can go inside to vomit out their Budweiser Pride. It looks real. Wheatpasting every night for two weeks and now stenciling, official Gay Shame vomit bags—we’re going to be devastating. Jeremy’s thinking about taking e the night before at 2 a.m., maybe he’ll show up late. Bitch, there is no showing up late—we’re interrupting a million people!

  I jump in bed for three hours of sleep and wake up into a world of headache and nausea. Suddenly I’m wired, ripping apart jeans to make daisy-dukes and it’s hard work, definitely not helping my repetitive stress injury drama. I keep ripping and ripping—more ass, more ass! Then I’m high, taking deep deep deep breaths and digging through my closet for prom dresses to rip apart.

  Everyone’s partying and I’m sick, don’t want to party anyway but Pride is the most depressing time of the year. Except for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and July 4th. I keep saying tomorrow I’ll feel better, tomorrow I’ll feel better. The daisy-dukes get me so high that I’m worried I’m not going to be able to sleep. Then I start coming down: breathe, stretch, breathe. My forearms are burning, why am I so fucking fragile? I’ll give you three choices: a. incest, b. incest, c. incest.

  One a.m. and I’m putting together my outfit, Socket says I’ve never seen you with this much energy before. Trying out the runway: Modesto thinks she’s New York, Modesto thinks she’s New York on a budget. I just keep ripping and ripping the daisy-dukes. Well, they’re already ripped but I’m still ripping until the back is just a denim g-string, front a cock flap over rainbow fishnets and my ass looks juicy. Two lace teddies and then just the bows and shoulders off a red velvet prom dress. The frosted mullet wig sprayed to the sky and yes honey the Budweiser visor, rainbow barcode that says Be Yourself. Of course the slippers made of Prada labels and oh the jewels and glitter over smeared lipstick, lovely lovely lovely lipstick, well that’s tomorrow.

  Okay, tomorrow: I really get up at 7 a.m. Did I mention the burnt U.S. flag hanging out of my back pocket? I stick a huge 2(x)ist underwear label on my ass, the makeup, Socket borrows some accessories and we’re out of here and into what, the heat? 10 a.m. and it’s already hot—good thing we’re prepared with sunscreen. No cabs while we’re waiting for the bus, luckily the detour goes right to Alex’s house.

  Brodie’s so hung-over he’s demolished, everyone’s a bit sketchy but gorgeous—Rhania on stilts in a dress made of garbage bags; Karoline in an outfit made of Gap, Starbucks and Abercrombie shopping bags; Ralowe with a huge black wig, pig’s nose and fatigue short shorts. Fast-forward to Ninth and Mission: we’ve got a crowd, a brass band, George Michael and Rosie O’Donnell buttons, a KPFA reporter, shopping carts full of food, the van filled with sofas to install in the middle of the parade, the sound system, the vomit bags. Are we ready to confront the rabid monster of assimilation? Are we ready for a devastating mobilization of queer brilliance? We try to burn rainbow flags, but they melt because they’re plastic and everyone yells BURN BABY BURN anyway.

  The band plays, we march, it’s festive, I’m high—but shit, everyone’s left the sofas behind, how are we going to block the parade? I’m gathering helpers, but people are already at the barricades. Then suddenly it’s the cops pounding us and everyone backing up, cops dragging someone off but I can’t write anymore because my hand burns, never learns, yearns and yearns and yearns! I wake up in the middle of the night wired like I couldn’t possibly have gotten up at 7 a.m., what are you crazy?

  But the point is that pretty soon I’m thinking about this random guy who pulled someone aside and said if you hadn’t shut the door for the cops, our sister would still be out here with us. Because everyone was fighting the cops, they were dragging Everly into Burger King through the crowd shouting Whopper Copper! At the time I was just amazed that we could actually fight the cops without getting beaten bloody or shot dead à la New York. But when I wake up in the middle of the night, I start crying because I think this guy really meant sister.

  I don’t mean to suggest that activism appears out of nowhere, like Jackie Collins in Lafayette Park. Of course it also takes all those dark nights crouching in the shadows. Back when I was nineteen, I discovered David Wojnarowicz’s Close to the Knives, which was the first time I found writing that held my overwhelming rage combined with a sense of maybe a little bit of hope in a world of loss. David was already lost when I found him in an obituary, perhaps this allowed me to treasure him more. He knew that activism meant driving feeling into meaning.

  I knew Jeremy wouldn’t show, but I’m really angry about it anyway—it’s what I’ve been working on for months. I tell her she’s tired and she agrees and I feel be
tter. Someone leaves a message: I’m an old lady now, but I want to thank the young people of today for still carrying on what needs to be done. Chrissie calls: I need to go to the beach, I know I’d be terrible company, but I need terrible company.

  Jeremy and I get it on in Buena Vista and it’s fun, except that I get 64 bug bites. Yes, it’s the same place in Buena Vista where this book starts, but this time it’s all in Jeremy’s mouth, yum. Even though I saw the bugs biting me, and there was nothing green in sight because it had all been cleared away to keep out the fags, I still wonder if I have poison ivy. There’s no business like show business!

  At therapy, I’m my mother screaming Di-loaded, get me some of that loaded Dilaudid! The weirdest things come up. Some of it makes sense and some of it I’ve never even imagined, which means it makes more sense. I don’t even know what Dilaudid is. Rue says it’s an opiate.

  First cab driver says pussy’s cheaper in Reno. Second cab driver says that Carlos Santana, fuck man! In between is the trick who’s a lawyer. He doesn’t remember me, I play along, he tells me about his book again, I pretend to come in the condom in his ass, he comes twice. Then he says I lost track of time, I’ll give you $200. Lawyers don’t lose track of time. I say you’re cheap, squeeze out an extra twenty—he’s so rich, it’s a joke—I run to Carlos Santana. The next trick is moving out as soon as he comes all over his sweatshirt.

  Zan says he went to the new bar in New York’s financial district after the drag march and two guys fucked onstage. I want to know what Zan wore to the drag march, but she says of course I washed it all off before I went to the bar, I’m not a bimbo. I say you mean a hero. She says I know how to get laid, I can be a hero some other time.

  Rhania’s Party Like a Hooker actually turns out to be fun. Everyone’s joking with me because I’m the hooker and they want to know how to party. You arrive, get a call, leave. On my way out, some random woman wants me to buy her a cocktail? Crazy lesbo. I’ve come to see Rhania’s S.C.U.B. Manifesto—Society for Cutting Up Boxes. One bathroom is before—cardboard. The other is after—birds flying beyond walls.