The Angel of History

by Rabih Alameddine

  In the seat next to me, Satan kept smoothing his jacket since these chairs had a tendency to crimp even the sturdiest article of clothing, and his white linen suit with blood-red piping was not sturdy by any means, delicate and diaphanous as gossamer. And Satan said, Anyone who believes a teeny cross can upset a dragon needs to have his head examined.

  Repeat after me, Doc, when at night I go to sleep, fourteen angels my watch do keep, two my head are guarding, two my feet are guiding, two upon my right hand, two upon my left hand, two who warmly cover, two who over me hover, two to whom it is given, to guide my steps to Heaven, and Satan said, Now that’s one hell of an orgy, hmm, I wonder which two will lead you to Heaven, probably headless Denis and Pantaleon, no, no, Pantaleon always wants to be under the covers, it’s Denis and Eustace, who can light the path with his absurd cross.

  The irritated man talked to the palm of his hand. He sat in the farthest corner of the room, schizophrenics always do, which meant that I was not one because the other two patiently waiting were a mere three feet across the waiting room, while he was in Siberia.

  Look, I said to Satan, I am not like him, yes, I talk to you, but you’re only in my head, and once I get rid of you, I’ll be back to normal, get thee behind me, Satan.

  Walmart sells an oil for that, Satan said, it’s called Satan Be Gone, a little dab will do ya.

  I was exhausted, in the uncomfortable seat I wondered how long I had to wait, I glanced at my phone for the umpteenth time, no change. The irritated man moaned, informed his hand he needed to pee, and the bespectacled lady discreetly tried to move her chair a bit but realized that it was nailed to the floor, a newbie. We heard careful human steps in the corridor just outside the door, someone was being led out of the clinic, a black man with white face, balancing a towering turban on his head, his strange footwear light on the linoleum in a laggard pace, he waved as he passed by. I had seen the man numerous times before on the downtown streets near where I work, always with theater makeup white on his face, always with a homemade turban, it kept the voices out of his head, he told passersby, it kept the National Security Agency from spying on his thoughts, two for one, good deal, he announced to anyone and everyone. He wore rubber waders, open-toed, obviously hand-cut to show his white nail polish. At the exit, he turned toward Ferrigno, who was showing him the door, and asked, Will you visit me?

  Why don’t you wear a turban to keep me out, Satan said, and I told him to go home, Hell in his case.

  Jacob’s Journals

  Walter Benjamin

  I thought of you. I miss you. Of all things, the catalyst was Didion, our sweetheart. Remember her? How could you not? Slouching Towards Bethlehem was how we met. I became mortal when I met you. You stood before one of the shelves of the gay bookstore on Castro Street with her book in your hands, the light from the picture window on the left fragmenting on your face, chiaroscuro meets cubism, Caravaggio cum Picasso. You were squinting to read the back matter. You always took your glasses off while cruising in those days, remember? I was the one who convinced you how sexy smart is. Fuck me with your glasses on. Look at me when you’re inside me. Look at me. Cruising in bookstores dates us. They have practically all disappeared now. I stood next to you, as close as I could get, shoulders almost touching, hips almost conjoining, on your face sprang a line of a smile that didn’t wish to appear too eager.

  It’s not a gay book, I said in a voice just above a whisper, wanting to keep my options open in case you rejected me—I wasn’t speaking to you, no, truly, I wasn’t. Foxlike, your eyes glittered and darted, expressed false surprise—yes, even then I knew you were mocking me. How many fucks did you wait, weeks later you finally admitted that you used Didion’s book because you thought I was just the kind of boy who might be a devotee. You joked that the book was about aging Jewish gay lads heading to the old city of Bethlehem, then you mentioned something about an original that I couldn’t decipher because my dick was so hard. I wondered whether you were talking about “The Second Coming.” Your thin nose twitched, your face lit up. Oh, I’m going to make you come a second and a third and probably a fourth time, you said, and dragged me home. I have to tell you that was a horrid come-hither line, just horrid, but it worked, and now Joan Didion has written memoirs for Oprah. It didn’t bother me, I mean, we’re all getting old and sentimental, nostalgia overwhelms our defenses, floats over our moats and scales our walls. She’s not the writer she was when younger but few are. Don’t allow your prose to reach forty should be the motto of every writer, commit Mishima.

  A few weeks ago I was going to have dinner with my roommate, Odette, and her girlfriend, Sue, and as was my wont, I arrived early at the crowded restaurant, aggressively trendy of course, one of many that were popping up like noxious mushrooms in what used to be our old haunts. This one was sparkly new but meant to look old—the walls, everything had an unnatural tinge of gray, which was supposed to be the faded trace of some earlier lost color. I was on edge, the music was thumping loudly and it wasn’t disco, and the restaurant was pretentious like everything in this drippy city that brimmed with self-congratulation, and the waitstaff were obnoxious and the customers more so and I so hated San Francisco. Oh, I live in the city by the bay, so I must be cool, I live in a cretinous provincial dump surrounded by pretentious superficially amicable cretins, so aren’t I wonderful?

  As the maître d’ manqué led me into the bowels of the establishment, I felt a tug at my hand, a diner held my wrist trying to slow me down as I passed. I didn’t notice at first and my shoulder was almost dislocated from its customary socket. I was stopped by two young gay writers—two rude writers, both remaining seated in the deafening cacophony, a Tom Something and a Something Bernhard was all I could remember of their names, two artistes of the nouveau-bland movement whose manifesto consists of defending the rights of white gay boys to have dating anxieties and live homohappily ever after. Tom Something with his pink, studiedly pleasant face called me Jake, asked how I was doing, and, without waiting for a reply, proceeded to inform me that he had finally fulfilled his lifelong dream of visiting Burning Man, and no, he wasn’t burned at the stake, ha-ha, but he had problems with ubiquitous sand in his underwear so he dispensed with bottom clothing altogether on the second day. I was first confused, then bored, then annoyed, and he must have noticed since he abruptly segued into the fact that he had also recently fulfilled his more important lifelong ambition of being interviewed by Terry Gross. His voice was coloratura irritating, and I couldn’t understand why he was talking to me, let alone regaling me with such trivia. He was gleefully enjoying his rather small turn as one of those writers who accidentally happen to get acknowledged during the short literary cycle.

  If all that wasn’t upsetting enough, his tablemate, Something Bernhard, had a tickle in his throat that needed clearing every few seconds, a phlegmy warbling frog sound. He relaxed somewhat when he saw my eyes slide across the table toward the book he was unconsciously yet reverently caressing with the palm of his hand. His nostrils flared, his face lit up, his dyed blond hair seemed to turn two shades lighter, sprouting more frosted tips with every ticking moment. He interrupted his pretty friend’s Burning Gross monologue and informed me that this was Didion’s book, except he called her the goddess, his gay eyes rose toward the ceiling in Pierre-et-Gilles devotion, I could imagine a halo or at least a tiara above his head. He never missed reading any of her books, he said. I admit that I was surprised by both the insipidity of this pair and their assumed intimacy. I wished them gone, I wished me gone, get thee gone, get thee to a nunn’ry, why woulds’t thou be a breeder of sinners? Odette and Sue were yet to arrive, and the maître d’ had returned to his host station, and I was about to walk away, my habitual leave-taking. Ever since I turned fifty, I have been able to extricate myself easily and painlessly from such situations, for none of these unripe boys care for much beyond their groins or their navels, but I wasn’t so lucky this time. The other young one, noticing that they were about to l
ose their audience, piped up, Can you imagine, she lost her husband and within a year and a half lost her daughter as well, how horrifying is that?

  Can you imagine, and alarm bells woke me from a twenty-year nap. It was instantaneous, I promise you, Doc. Zeus launched crackling thunderbolts and Molotov cocktails in Rip van Winkle’s head. I began yelling. Her husband died? You think that’s horrifying? You feel sorry for her? She’s lived a full life. I had six friends die in a six-month period, half a dozen of my close friends including my partner. We were nothing but babies, where was she when we were dying, where were you, you motherfuckers? Adrenaline rushed through my veins, anarchic, atavistic, delicious, a sheen of sweat on my palms, tingles on my forearms, rage in my voice. Even as I was yelling, I realized that the question was silly, I mean, where were they? They were barely in middle school then, probably eight or ten. Same as Yahweh asking Job, Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth? I wasn’t even born then, you silly thing, no one was. And these boys, soft-shelled and scared, looked as if they were eight or ten. Frosted Tips reached for his ice-filled glass, probably thinking I was going to spill it on him. Tom Something’s knuckles were mottled white as he clutched the sides of the table. I wanted to feel sorry but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t stop, could not. I was in the midst of an amygdala hijacking. My sanity deserted me, all I had left was rage, long-lost rage. How can you not know your history? I yelled over and over. You with your righteous apathy, how can you allow the world to forget us, to delete our existence, the grand elision of queer history? The music was still blaring but every other noise had faded. I could feel every eye on me, every nervous and baleful glower.

  When I was in school, I used to stand outside in the yard during recess wondering if my classmates would jump me once the nuns turned away, same thing in that restaurant. That fear of being jumped seared me inside my own skin, never went away, my love, never did, third-degree burn right under the surface, moonlight easily bruised it. I covered myself with layers and layers, with false fronts and bitchy attitude, but my charred history refused entombment. I felt dirty, congenitally filthy, what could wash me clean as snow, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Give it to me, I’ll drink. Fuck me. I can walk into any room and tell you in the blink of an eye where the danger lies, who hates me, who despises me, it’s a superpower, I tell you, X-Men have nothing on me.

  Frosted Tips looked at me as if I were carrying an AK-47, they all saw me that way, an Arab faggot terrorist. Again I wanted to feel sorry for him but then I yelled, All AIDS books are out of print because of you, because you only read books sanctioned by the petite NPRsie and their indiscreet charm, your fault, your fault, your grievous fault. We refused everything, rejected their heavens and their hells, and you turn around and accept both and you keep saying I do and I do and I do and fuck me more daddy while they shove you in a tiny vestibule and you pretend it’s Versailles.

  Kitchen doors swung open and a trio of cheerful waiters walked behind me oblivious to my jeremiad, an overpierced juvenile carrying a birthday pot de crème and the other two hovering like moths about the candle. Desserts in restaurants had turned sophisticated, but birthday candles still smelled comfortably familiar. I took a deep breath and practically calmed down. Wherever my eyes traveled, though, patrons avoided my gaze.

  I was able to hear you again, to see you, your birthday is March 11. I put it aside for a while, forgive me. I couldn’t go on, had to move forward, couldn’t bear the burden of remembering and couldn’t come to terms with the unbearable. Remember my All Saints birthday? I was always Saint Catherine of Alexandria since she and I had the same birthday, November 25. Saint Catherine of the Wheel, cheese wheels for the day, my spouse was Jesus Christ, to whom I had consecrated my virginity, my constantly rediscovered virginity. Why did you pick Saint Margaret? Did it have anything to do with a dragon or was it because of Ann-Margret? I can’t remember. Have to say I loved it when my birthday fell on Thanksgiving and all of us would celebrate with candles on the saintly turkey, Tofurky for me. Better days.

  Frosted Tips whispered I’m sorry, insincerely, since all he wanted was for me to calm down and not embarrass him, and his tablemate added that he tried to watch as many AIDS movies as possible. It’s a good thing he didn’t tell me he watched Philadelphia or I would have stabbed him with his butter knife. Quietly they talked, sotto voce, hoping that I would follow suit in spite of the sprightly music. Frosted Tips reached out to touch me and I instinctively jerked back, but I was calming down. Tom Something said that he could understand my upset because he recently watched the movie Rent, which was probably not as good as seeing the Pulitzer Prize– and Tony Award–winning musical, emphasis his, oh how he wished he could have seen the original cast production on Broadway, and did I by any chance see Angels in America when it first came out? I almost went for the aforementioned butter knife then, almost, to dab their cherubic faces with room-temperature butter, palette-knife Bob Ross happy trees on their button noses. It was hopeless, though, hopeless, and I realized that even as I showered the ingenues with a fusillade of fuck-yous. My screaming lacked punch, my late fuck-yous lacked the early oomph. I was done. I had aged into a text that could no longer be read. I was drained and unmoored and vanquished, hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky. I could feel discomfort all about me, gentrified diners staring and pretending not to. I’d jettisoned the social ballast, I’d laid down my mask.

  Please, sir, we have to ask you to leave, the man or manager was saying to me. He was a big boy with a push-broom mustache and I couldn’t see the features of his face but the name on his tag was Walter Benjamin. I am your angel of history, I said, smiling weakly, but then I realized that I’d misread, his name tag read Walter Bartender. Please, sir, he repeated, and his arm approached, but I snapped at him. Noli me tangere! You like that, don’t you? Walter Bartender must have thought me insane since in this world a symptom of losing one’s mind is a readiness to speak it. I walked out of that den of Kens on my own.

  I have to tell you that I wasn’t able to cry after you died. I’m sorry. I wasn’t able to cry for you or any of us. I was terrified of following, desperately clinging to the buoy. How could my heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? For years I thought I was a terrible person for being unable to shed a tear, a disgusting man. Only now do I allow myself a justification or two: my heart was too small, I had to care for you, for all of us, I had to write everything down, I could not deal with loss irreparable, I wanted to speak for the dead, I had to make sure that the living remembered. Well, I forgot the last, didn’t I? The weeping willow droops its leaves but it doesn’t weep, it never does, it’s a fucking tree.

  Even with the evening traffic it was more bearable outside, the city’s noise unheard from being always heard. The spring sky was the color of unfiltered indigo. Frosted Tips called my name, my butchered name, my country still refused to learn my name, Ya Cube was the first couple of attempts, American Jay Cob after. He held the restaurant door and jabbered cicada-like and had the look of a bird with a broken wing and I held my arm up for him to be quiet and walked away. Get me gone, get me to a nunnery.

  I stopped writing for a while after you died, my inkpot dried, not just my tears. When Jim died a month after you, I thought metaphors would never again leave my lips, I’d never rhyme, never sing cantabile, that the prosaic would displace the allegorical. I was wrong, I did write, time passed and I forgot, I wrote because I had nothing else to do in the world, I wrote, my voice as out of tune as I was. I wrote one bad poem every few months, full of splendid adjectives, simply splendid, Mr. Poet, splendid, regurgitating plump, meaty words, sharp verbs, action verbs, not passive, I wrote poems, all of them shit on shit, not a single grain of truth in the entire slop. I knew they were shit but I kept on, fucking hate myself.

  I walked home. I needed to sleep.

  Behemoth

  Ask me, Doc, ask me why I called my cat Behemoth. Because he could have no other name, that’s why, he wore h
is like a watermark.

  A rainy winter night two years ago, as I walked home from the overlit subway station, taking my habitual shortcut through the funeral home parking lot, I heard, above the pitter-patter of rain, a tiny peep of a meow coming from the English ivy on the wall, and my heart lurched. I thought I was mistaken at first, there was a wake at the home, not twenty feet away mourners headed toward their cars clumsily to avoid getting wet, traffic noise maybe twenty feet farther, but I heard the tiny meow and stopped in a puddle, gingerly approached the wall, slipped down my hoodie to hear better, felt rain trying to braid the hairs on my head, and there it was again, a gentle plaintive meow. I softly meowed back, and the kitten replied. A man walking by under a loud umbrella said, That’s so cute, with the last syllable so elongated as to make Liberace cheer from his grave. I shushed him, forefinger to lips, then dismissed him by flicking my hand in his general direction, and he spat out, Fuck all of you, as he walked away. The kitten and I meowed back and forth until I zeroed in on him, and when I parted the ivy curtain, there he was, my little munchkin, a black soppy mess looking at me with shimmering eyes that said, Help me, I cannot bear such a shitstorm, in luxury I was meant to be, in remarkable beauty I was meant to live, what the hell is this? I put my hand out and he climbed up my arm as fast as light, settled in the crook of my elbow. Take me home now and feed me.