Come Back

by Sky Gilbert

  In what follows, Dash ostensibly compares the Hamlets of Olivier and, oddly, Mel Gibson. The stated purpose is to clarify, or at least accentuate, the differences between them in terms of the effeminacy of Hamlet, and towards the end of the essay, Dash offers an analysis of the two performances — Olivier, of course, being the effeminate Hamlet and Gibson being the masculine. Here is Dash’s conclusion:

  The difference between these interpretations of the closet scene exemplifies the fundamental difference between the movies and their approaches to the play’s theme. Olivier’s Hamlet kisses his mother passionately, obeying an impulse that he himself does not understand. By the end of the scene he has his head in her lap and is clearly relishing the attention from her — almost as if he has happily finally wrenched her away from Claudius and gotten her all to himself. Gibson’s Hamlet is kissed by Glenn Close passionately, and he is clearly horrified, and attempts to move away from her. Olivier’s Hamlet is not so much a stranger in a hostile world but trapped in a universe of his own creation, a world that horrifies him, and from which he can’t escape. He is truly mad; the torturous universe that he lives in is the product of his own intense and overwrought thinking. He is not only a man who cannot make up his mind, but a man who lives in his mind — and not necessarily on this earth.

  As Hamlet says (in a phrase, which, though justly famous, is only to be found in the Folio) “nothing is good or bad but that thinking makes it so.”37 Gibson, on the other hand, takes Marcellus’s “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”38 quite literally — his Hamlet is no modern anti-hero who has created a nightmare life from his own fevered imagination. Instead he is a noble, reasonable man struggling in an evil, disordered world. Gibson’s Hamlet is certainly thoughtful, as well as a man of action. The difference is that his obviously uncompromising analytical brain is weighing evidence throughout the play, trying to figure out if, in fact, The Ghost has been telling him the truth. He clearly would act if he had enough evidence. He is a reasonable man (much like modern-day reasonable men) who will not believe a ghost (no matter how real that ghost seems) until he is sure the ghost’s claims are actually true. These moments of evidence gathering and thought are quite clear in Act III, as Hamlet watches Claudius watching the play, and decides not to kill Claudius when he is praying.

  Olivier, on the other hand, is a melancholic in the original Renaissance sense — a man who thinks too much about things in general. Olivier leads us along through Hamlet’s thoughts and decisions to the point where he releases himself to fate, and brings us the achingly beautiful attack on Claudius. For Olivier’s Hamlet flings himself across the room from the stairs, and flies, literally — like a bird or an avenging angel — finally giving himself up to his inexorable fate. In other words, even Olivier’s final “act” is not so much an act as a relinquishing of his will to live. It is a fall from a great height (literally) and a graceful, eloquent, melancholic release. In contrast, Mel Gibson, in typical heroic fashion, clearly relishes his battle with Laertes and his opportunity to kill Claudius. His final calm is that of a man who has “done the right thing” and, indeed, acted decisively — as a masculine man always should.

  Both the argument and the examples are sensible enough, and to some degree obvious. But the essay disguises two agendas: 1) a general nostalgia for queer politics, and 2) an obsession concerning the sexuality of Shakespeare. Such notions, today, make us laugh; we no longer speak of sexualities in this manner. When I called you a lesbian earlier, we both knew what I was referring to. Even though your object choice often swings to women, that is not significant. Of course, I was being humorous, or trying to be, about the idea that you carry yourself in the way of, and with the redolence and aristocratic sense memory, the whiff perhaps, of what used to be known as a bull-dyke — the “masculine” woman who “favours” S/M sexual practices. And you wear ties. It is very important that you wear ties. Of course, it is very important to me that you wear ties. I am, as always, a “bossy bottom,” the very worst kind; I am the girl getting fucked who won’t shut up. Oh, to imagine myself in this ghostly way — to conjure the past — makes me laugh.

  I am puffing on a cigarette now, and it seems impossible that anyone could discern a single aspect of that “other me” from the way I smoke. I may, in fact, puff in the same way I always did, but what, after all, is significant about that? I thought that they all went on about Bette Davis and the smoking — not me. Recognizing me from my smoking style is impossible — partially because my arms don’t work with the fluidity that they once did.

  And then there is my posture — but you needn’t be reminded of that. I keep forgetting that my physical presence doesn’t horrify you. You are simply not here. You do not try to escape me, as so many do these days, because of my horrific outer self. I think it is because I am beyond surgery. Everyone knows that the old still secretly exist, but when they appear in public, no one knows that they are old. When did age become obscenity? It was gradually becoming obscene when Dash was trying to write his thesis about Shakespeare.

  I went out the other day to buy cigarettes. They now cost a week’s wages — one thousand dollars a pack. Can you imagine spending a week of a rich man’s wages for a mere twenty-five cigarettes? And I decided, because, after all, I still do enjoy making a scene, that I would not use the wheelchair. When I’m in my wheelchair, people can’t tell where the machine ends and I begin. I am robot; and in this way I am picturesque. I fit in; I am a part of the modern world. There is the hint of a living person there somewhere, but the image of the machine overwhelms and transforms me into a somewhat comforting vision.

  Instead, I used the cane. Yes, the cane. This means I was walking — if you can call it that — at a snail’s pace. And of course you know my eternal posture these days is an “L” shape: that is how my body has formed itself. This is very tragic for others to see. But the worst part, the part I hate, is that they actually curse me; they want me to die. When they are behind me — if for some reason they can’t get around me — they say in a voice I can clearly hear: “For fuck’s sake, hurry up!” Once someone said, absolutely audibly: “Do you think you could go any slower?” We live in an eternity of nothingness; the applause is all around us in cyberspace. We all have many, many friends we may speak to and see pictures of — but how are we sure it is really them? Because of the wonderful implants they’ve given us, we are suddenly “integrated.” We are beautiful forever in cyberspace. And so my obscene infirmity is more than an abutment, more than an obstruction or a rebellion: it is a slap — no, a gunshot to the gut.

  After purchasing the cigarettes, I very slowly made my way home. The corner store is one of the few remaining reminders of the way we once were. They should be banned. There, people once fell in love; dogs sniffed each other; etc. Back then, there was the “Internet” too, and people could imagine they were romancing the person at the next table. Zing went the strings. (There, I said it. So what?) One of the most fascinating things about contemporary culture is that these corner stores are owned by Walmart and Walmart has designed them to seem like the corner stores of the past. They’ve researched every detail, even hired non-white faces to work in them, and jacked up the prices so we can have that strange comforting guilt of tucking away a package of cookies at twice the price for the convenience of picking them up conveniently.

  I arrived home with my thousand-dollar cigarettes and I savoured one — which cost me, what was it, approximately fifty bucks? I anticipated you railing against my new lifestyle, against the possibility that I might go back there. I won’t. How could I? It would mean death, of course. And the strange pile of papers and their scribblings? Oh, we will get to more of the scribblings the next time we talk. I do love you most when you are very angry at me. I am the decrepit, crumbling child; like one of those dwarfish tragic, chinless, bespectacled children who age too early, I have gone beyond my “in-between” status. (Remember when I sang that song? Of course you do.) I
have moved far beyond Andy Hardy. The joy of unconditional love is that no test is too great, and there are no final threats. Is this true? (Don’t answer, please, don’t answer, my darling, please.) I love you.

  I am still reeling from your last letter. I can almost smell the invective. I read and reread the first few paragraphs. I think what I treasure most are your threats. All this talk about my liver — can you not see that it is old-fashioned? As you well know, they have made a fourth from my own tissue; it is therefore indestructible — or so they tell me.

  I think this was the turning point for civilization, if I may digress. But I want you to know that what you have said is serious, very serious, and your threats are real. I do acknowledge that. I want you to think about the time when there was some sense — an order that was more than random — when we had to take threats to our health seriously. Do you remember when there were consequences? When actions had results? There was a time when medical insurance cost more if you put your life in danger, and people thought about taking risks in terms of the cost of their health insurance. Do you remember? Without laser healing, regenerative organ replacement and cyberbodies, these things had to be taken into account. The turning point came when people began to believe there were no consequences. Remember the middle of the last century, when doctors had a smoke while they warned you of the dangers of lung cancer? It seems we have returned to that era. One day people stopped caring about what they did, and ethics became inconsequential. Ethics are related to survival, but when survival is taken care of in ways that we don’t entirely understand, ethics become a questionable luxury. Fortunately we have the police. Unfortunately, the police can do nothing about hurt, betrayal, insensitivity or lies. No there are no personal penalties either — little that’s left is personal.

  There is one thing about Dash’s essay that I particularly liked. Dash talks about Olivier’s Hamlet giving up, giving himself over to death and flying like a bird — with his sword drawn — and finally falling on Claudius and killing him. He reads Hamlet not as a destroyer, but as a mystic. One who surrenders himself to the death instinct. Isn’t that what we’ve all done? We have given up, and why shouldn’t we? It is the only response. We know things will be taken care of, that things will be done for us, and that someone (we are not entirely sure who) is in charge. There is something unhuman, or dis-human, but completely typical and human about this response. On the one hand, Aristotle imagined that being human involved action, decision. But then the philosophies of the Far East — and, it seems, Hamlet — were telling us the opposite: that to be human is to relinquish all claims to the ability to change our fate. The concept of fate itself is old-fashioned. Fate still implies fighting against something: “Do not go gentle . . .” Of course, I gave up long ago. (Thank God.)

  Now, to address your concerns, because yes, they must be addressed. So I will calmly sit and mouth the words my father. I was astounded when you made reference to him, but I have every right to respond in kind, now that you have thrown down the gauntlet. And I know what you expect — you expect me to stop. You expect that the spectre of all that will be enough to shut me up. I’m not sure that it is.

  I will talk about him, and I will say that I blame it all on the ushers — one in particular. His name was Francisco. Frank, for short. I am not saying my father didn’t experience desire for the ushers, but I don’t believe his lust was ever consummated. It was a different era. Do you understand what it was like to be the manager of a movie theatre back then? He was a member of a Showmen’s League, of course. He was a showman and a performer. But back then running a movie theatre was more than just hiring projectionists. When he started, there were vaudeville acts between the films. Nowadays we know only the megatheatres we create for ourselves in our heads, the cyberexperience of going to the theatre.

  It’s my fault if I go back there, as you kept repeating, over and over. I can’t believe you use that phrase, as if I could actually go back in time! How can I convince you? It’s gone! I am not her. My body is desiccated; I’ve come to terms with it, and so can you. But those ushers were fucking beautiful. And people who are beautiful and know it just don’t understand those who aren’t and don’t.

  There are two different kinds of people in this world; there is simply a dividing line and never, never, shall the twain meet. Yes, Mayer called me his “little hunchback.” But look what I have become! He was right, of course. I’m more than a hunchback: I am the Hunchback of Notre Dame. But it wasn’t about what I looked like, it was never that. And it has nothing to do with anorexia. I wasn’t anorexic — a disease that causes you not to see your real body at all. Anorexia is about control — about controlling life and death. That is not relevant to my case. I just hated the way I looked. And Louis B. could call me whatever he wanted, and men could ejaculate all over me — many did. But it didn’t matter, because I never believed, I never once believed, for one second, that I was beautiful. I was never connected to my body. But I knew that beauty was the most important thing. And I knew there were people like that, people who were connected to their bodies in a fundamental way. They didn’t have to learn how to love their bodies, or how to be attractive. They just were.

  When I think of the ushers around my father, I think of how they tortured him. My father, like me, always hated his body, didn’t understand it, would have been better off without it. But Francisco and the other ushers were different. They were all dark boys, for some reason. They were probably Hispanics — it was southern California. My father would take me to the theatre and introduce me to them, and they would swarm around him like flowers showing their faces to the sun — and they’d touch him! I saw them touch him. I’m not fucking saying that if my father molested them, it wasn’t his fault. But he didn’t! I’m sure he didn’t. Sure he wanted them, he wanted it so badly — and it wasn’t just because he was a homosexual. Who would not fucking want them?

  You know very well about those who used be called “straight” men — the men who have sex with women — how proud they once were about not being attracted to other men. But how can anyone not be attracted to men? Oh Christ, how I hate those women who go on and on about how they don’t have “those kinds of desires” — we all know what that means. It’s all about the penis being ugly. June Allyson was like that. Sure, I loved her onscreen. Who wouldn’t love her, if for no reason other than that voice, and what happened to it. She was a very nice person — but nice only goes so far, you know? There was a “butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth” thing going on with her.

  I think there are two kinds of women. The cocksuckers and the . . . not. The not are women who just couldn’t be bothered to do that unpleasant thing to their husbands — as they are, invariably, married. Well, what’s the problem? I would even argue that there is still an identity politics — but it has nothing to do with object choice. It has to do with whether or not you are a cocksucker. I know you’ve sucked the odd cock. And I know you’re not fond of it. But it’s not like you’d go on about it, scrunch up your eyes — that’s what June Allyson would do, scrunch up her eyes, become girlish and revulsed: “Ew! How could anyone do that?” I don’t know how to tell you, June — thanks a lot for the sentiment, but there’s nothing quite like managing to get a thick one down your throat. And if you can’t grovel — I mean, really get down and grovel — in front of a dick, then you haven’t lived, and you don’t know nuthin’, baby.

  Now, that doesn’t mean I devalue clits. But if we’re talking about genital ugliness here, who wins the prize? In the last analysis, the wrinkles of a scrotum and the folds of labia are in a dead heat. You’re bound to be repulsed by one or the other — but to be repulsed by both? There’s something seriously wrong with you.

  I think it has to do with humility and the human condition, because it’s all about ugliness. This is what I don’t understand, and what makes me feel really old. Ugliness used to be the big secret for anybody who liked to whore around. Nowadays no one is
allowed to be ugly, so we’ve forgotten how to get off on it. But people left to their own devices are drawn to ugliness. Not because they’re settling, or because they can’t get that special cute one, but just because ugly is fucking sexy, and grovelling in front of it is sexy. And that’s what it’s all about. It’s where sex and death come together, if you want to get philosophical. But at this moment, frankly, I don’t.

  But back to the ushers that used to swarm around my father. They weren’t ugly, but they knew that what they had between their legs was ugly. And they knew that he wanted it. As I’ve said, why wouldn’t he? He was human. But they also knew he hated himself for it. My mother was one of the June Allysons, one of the face scrunchers. “Put that away, that’s ugly.” I’m sure she said that to my father. I know it must have happened in the dark for them to beget three kids — they probably drilled a hole in a sheet like the Mormons and the Jews and the you-know-who-we-aren’t-allowed-to-mention. Yes, I’m going to say that — I’m going to say that. I mean, who is actually listening? Everybody and nobody, as I understand it — whatever that means. I know how careful everyone is, but I don’t feel like being that fucking paranoid.

  Just think about this tortured man. He knows the kind of ugliness he wants, and he goes to work, and those ushers swarm around him. . . . If you want to know the truth, he fired Francisco. Why? Because Francisco came on to him, and he was afraid he might give in to the temptation. That’s what happened. And then two weeks later Francisco was reporting him to the police. I know all this because my mother told us. I mean, she didn’t tell us in so many words. But she told us in enough words that we would grow up being seriously conflicted about our father.

  But Jesus, I couldn’t hate him. I knew I was supposed to; I knew she wanted me to hate him, but I didn’t. If I thought my father had ever forced anybody to do anything sexual with him, I would never defend him, not for one second — I would want to rip his guts out. He was just one of those tortured guys. And there were so many of them who never did anything except on the sly, in the dark, with someone else who wanted it, someone who wanted it more than he did, and who suffered in silence. But when those weedy flowers with the pretty faces would start pressing against him, he would get crazy and do anything to get away.