by Sky Gilbert
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.
I, in fact, have ventured out to places where I might not have gone before, because it has finally come to the point that I can be invisible.
I mean, do you actually imagine that if I could be found out — that if someone were to notice the way I held a cigarette or (God forbid) remarked upon a quaver in my voice and said, “That’s her!” — can you really imagine they would tackle me and try to get an autograph? Gay is over, thank God, and I am no longer an icon of a mercifully brief movement. Ah, you might say, “the voice” lives on — in recordings. I don’t want to listen to the recordings. I refuse to listen. My own records at one time obsessed me, but that is in the past. No, all I can say is that if Allworth or some other pathologically depressed and historiographically arrested person were to become obsessed with me because of who I was . . . Well, it’s too bizarre to contemplate. And he’d certainly deserve his fate. One couldn’t be frightened of such a being.
I can’t believe it’s taken me more than 110 years to accept that I don’t resemble a tragic in-between any longer. How long it takes for our self-conceptions to dematerialize! The fact is that I am not in-between anything. I am not on the verge of attractive, as I perpetually was — once. When I see pictures of myself, I marvel at how gorgeous I was, even when I was fat. How was it I couldn’t see that then? No, I have fallen into the hole. And it is not a rabbit hole. It is a cancerous pile of mulch.
Once and for all, I am a creature from a black lagoon. It is impossible to recognize me. Even if I speak. Even if I were to sing — which, of course, I can’t. And wouldn’t. But more than that, unless he is lying to me, and I’m sure he is not, Allworth’s adoration for me — which does seem over the top — is not just related to a curious antique affection he has for a fiction of the past. And Allworth does realize that the past was a fiction. No, his obsequiousness is related to a congenital condition.
Allworth is an apologizer. He believes he is doing everything wrong, and acquiesces at the drop of a hat. This is partially due to his upbringing. He comes from an Asian father and a Scottish mother. He does quite charming imitations of them that make me laugh out loud, which is something I do rarely, because it actually hurts. But ultimately the laughter does me a lot of good.
He imitates his father in a full Asian accent, very fawning, very apologetic, and one can see where one could learn the apologizing from that culture. (At one point there was some speculation that the world’s culture would become East Asian. Many people learned Mandarin — and this seemed oddly comic to us at the time. Interesting that it’s Turkish, now, that everyone is so eager to learn. I am, of course, not saying anything against the Turks — I never would. I owe my allegiance to the Modern Ottoman Empire, and this from someone who comes from an era when that phrase would have referred to the holdings of a man who had made his fortune marketing resplendent stools. And that was not sarcastic — I would never be sarcastic about our government. But we all know it doesn’t really make much difference who is governing. Because, of course, ultimately, they are not. . . .) So Allworth’s tendency to apologize, and to try to meet my every need, is partially related to a cultural inheritance from his father. But he is also an obsessive-compulsive. He was diagnosed in the test tube, actually. They knew he would come out that way. And his obsession takes the form of apologizing. I often wonder if he was born apologizing because he was sorry for being obsessive-compulsive! He is eternally sorry, and eternally worried that he has offended, gone too far, talked too much, been inadequate, overadequate, whatever. I might find it irritating if I didn’t know it was a disease. This explains why Allworth acts the way he does. Yes, he knows who I
am, and this has only the tiniest effect on him. But he is not obsessed with me. He is obsessed with his obsessions.
So, I must get on with it. But I hoped that if you knew what Allworth was like, then perhaps you wouldn’t feel so horrible about the trip we took — the escape from my apartment! Of course, Allworth and I first met in the cyberplayground. But I quickly got the itch to meet him outside of cyberspace. Why? you may ask. I suppose it’s an old superstition: people so often misrepresent themselves in cyberspace. So if I want to get to know a person, I’m interested in what they actually look like. Again, I know this is an antique notion (the idea of actuality). And even though after meeting him, I assume, for instance, that Allworth is an attractive young man (which he seems to be, to me), he could have been born something else. He could have the wrong chromosomes. Though I have heard they have been able to fool with that, too, so much so that it is actually impossible to test someone to discover their original biological gender.
I can’t logically explain it. It doesn’t make any rational sense — I can feel you bristling — but I wanted to meet Allworth in the flesh. This is mainly because I wanted him to know that I am who I am, not a fantasy creation. Of course, that makes even less sense, because why would anyone represent themselves in cyberspace the way I do? Why would anyone wish to disguise themselves as a coagulated blob with eyes, covered with a dress-like thing (it’s very hard for me, as you know, to find a dress that fits). I would have to be real, only because no one has an imagination grotesque enough to make me up.
So Allworth came over for tea. And don’t worry, I had cleaned the shelves of all memorabilia. I did leave up an Al Jolson album cover that I have great affection for — just because it’s so antiquely “racist.” (Remember racism? These days it’s quaint, and if anyone is to be a victim of even the memory of it, it is us.) But I didn’t expect someone as young as him to make the connection to Swanee . . . and he didn’t. No, it just came out. Being with him is sometimes like being in a media interview. Of course, I am very skilled at those and used to enjoy them immensely. This is just because, as you well know, I’m best at first impressions. I’m not as good in the long haul, but I make a helluva opening night.
So, because he was asking so many questions, it seemed rude not to be just a little bit honest. “Yes, I was a singer,” I said. And when he asked me how old I was, it just slipped out. When I said I was 138, he said, “You don’t look a day over 134!” It was only an old joke, of course, but it was a relief to tell someone. So when he found out how extraordinarily old I am — he had never heard of anyone living past 130 — he knew there had to be some reason why extraordinary medical measures would have been used to keep me alive. I had to explain.
There is no need to worry about Allworth. He is sworn to secrecy. And he is so incredibly frightened of me, and indeed of everyone, that you need not fret. Also, he is not the type of person to sell the information to a media outlet. I really do believe he is my friend. Frankly, I don’t know what all the hysteria is about anyway. I mean, coming from you — who want so much for me to move into the future. You want me to forget the past. But you are actually accentuating the power of the past by imagining that the revelation of it would have deleterious effects. It is a fantasy of yours that the past holds a huge fascination for me. In fact, I’m through with it all. And I hated it, actually. And I am perfectly happy to live in the now. If only I understood the now a little better.
Anyway, the kinds of questions Allworth asks are always about feelings, illnesses and disabilities. For instance, he asks me about walking around, and why I choose the cane over a wheelchair. He doesn’t ask me leading questions that would suggest he is urging me to become who I once was, or some such nonsense.
The teas have become a weekly thing. And I know at this point if you admonish me I will say something that sounds like emotional blackmail. But it isn’t; it’s just the truth. What am I supposed to do with myself? How am I supposed to entertain myself when you are thousands of miles away? You left me high and dry. I understand that you have a life. And that life doesn’t revolve around me (though I don’t doubt your love). But do you expect me to remain in Toronto and wilt on the vine? Or, at least, wilt more? I won’t try to persuade you to come back, because I know you never will. I’m just saying that I’m a very old blob and I have a huge amount of time on my hands.
During one of our teas, Allworth began telling me about his sex life. It entertains me — and, of course, I don’t have one of my own. He gets himself into the kinds of situations that promiscuous people so often do — because he is interested in people for sexual reasons only. Then he finds himself hanging out with excessively boring folk for one reason only: to have a look at their private parts. There isn’t much he hasn’t done. And his main challenge in life is getting out of the cybercompartments of those he has had sex with. Most of his social life seems to revolve around extricating himself from these sticky wickets.
Allworth found out about the place that he ultimately took me to through his work. His work, if I haven’t mentioned it already, like everyone’s today, involves codes. Like the rest of the world, he spends most of his time refining and recreating the digital language we all speak. One of his co-workers introduced him to a place called the Tranquility Spa — which is neither a spa, nor tranquil. The gist of the story is he took me one night and nothing happened.
The “Spa” in the name is a ruse. It is set up like an ordinary throwback to the turn-of-the-century-style aromatherapy massage parlour. You know, one of those relics of the past they allow to exist — with strict no-sex rules, of course — as museums of ancient racism and perversion, authentic even to the point of being staffed by pretty young Asian girls. There’s the doorway where you pay your fare to get in, but when you go behind the curtain it’s no longer government-approved. Suddenly all is dark — it reminds me of a beatnik club I once went to, even down to the odours. Believe it or not, that beatnik club was called Hernando’s Hideaway — like the song! Well, this modern version, on top of everything, stunk of urine. I haven’t smelled that stale smell for a long time — I think since I peed my pants, drunk and high, so many years ago.
As I say, nothing happened at the Tranquility Spa. No one recognized me. There was no mad rush to figure out who I was. One of the fascinating things about the place is that it is peopled by very strange, lost creatures. One isn’t sure why they are the way they are, or even exactly how they actually are, because it’s so dark. But what struck me was that many of the creatures had something shockingly askew. The people were not immediately monstrous — they were monsters upon second glance, so to speak. I was the most evidently monstrous person there — the one whose monstrousness was immediately discernable to the naked eye. No, a number of these people had only partial disfigurement. For instance, many were fine but for one part of their body, where the skin was no longer being held up by the bones, and you could see inside, behind cellophane or a sort of antiseptic plastic. One had the curious experience, when entering the bar (I used my cane, and you know how slowly I walk), of finding these creatures with holes in their bodies whipping themselves around — as if they didn’t want you to see their somatic aporias as you inched along beside them.
These people seem to be plastic surgeries gone bad; I’m not sure what brought them all to the same bar, but like does attract like. Then, upon closer inspection, there were individuals who were held together with putty and paste. I sat beside one and was unnerved to recognize this when she turned towards the light. There was very little light except for laser beams aimed at the floor and ceiling and walls, which I noticed most of the creatures were careful to avoid. When the light hit her, she became translucent. I could see something underneath her skin; it certainly appeared to be traces of blood and bones and organs. So she was a walking — or, in this case, sitting — skeleton. And for whatever reason and by whatever method, the skeleton had been covered over with putty and paste that had bec
ome see-through in places. I noticed she was wearing a kind of cape. Indeed, many at the bar had pragmatic head coverings. There was certainly no indication that this character was a vampire, but it did occur to me that she might melt if exposed to the light.
There was also a lady and a gentleman who were both missing something — in one case hands, and in the other case a neck. The person whose head was sitting directly on her shoulders fascinated me. I thought perhaps it was the result of a botched transplant. The head transplantation, as you know, is an operation I long refused to have. Seeing her — and surmising that her deformity was the result of one — discouraged me from further consideration. It was encouraging, though, that she could turn her head, even though she had no neck. The handless man was very odd. He seemed to be making some kind of statement. After all, artificial hands are easy to come by; the technology is virtually seamless. It occurred to me that perhaps his condition was the result of plastic surgery, that he had lost the proper attachments for the nerves and musculature of hands. His arms ended quite anticlimactically. There was simply nothing there, or it seemed that way. Then I saw there were pieces of clear plastic over the end of each arm. This would have meant, of course, that you could see inside each arm. This might have proved fascinating, in its own way, though the man did not seem to want to have the ends of his arms exposed by the light.