Tuesday, August 12, 2003
I cried today.
This is significant because, if allowed to count an entire week in 2000 as one time (when I moved to Norfolk leaving, for the first time, Indiana, and with it all of my friends and family, to move to a place where I knew but one person, now an ex), I’ve cried only four or five times in as many years. Along with my move, there’s the end of Hoosiers, and I usually mist up at some point while reading the late Randy Shilts’ And the Band Played On, as well. I wish I cried more easily; there are times when I want to cry, when I think I might feel better if I did, but nothing comes out. For whatever reason – it’s nothing intentional on my part – I’m just not a crier.
Today, however, I did cry, sitting in the reading room of the Kirn Memorial branch of the Norfolk Public Library on my lunch hour, as I finished reading Ethan Mordden’s masterwork, How Long Has This Been Going On? (St. Martin’s Press, 1995). I’ve cried while reading this before, but usually at a different part, when one of the novel’s major characters dies and we look in, so briefly, on The One He Left Behind. [I’m avoiding detailing any major plot points, lest I spoil this rich Persian rug of a novel for any of you who have yet to delve into it.] This time, it was nearer to the end, when a number of our cast are Remembering those who’ve gone before us, mown down by our own great plague; AIDS, of course.
I need to amend something I said last week, as well, when I referred to How Long as “one of the great gay novels." No, stop. Get rid of the “one of”; this is the champ, the great gay novel, period. I’ve read How Long four or five times, now, and it’s that rare work of fiction which grows in power with each successive reading, becomes richer and reveals yet more of itself and about us. I’ve taken to highlighting sentences and passages which move me most, and there are now three different colors of highlighter marking my book, indicating different readings.
The novel is what reviewers would typically call a “sweeping” or “panoramic” look at gay history, from 1949 Los Angeles to 1991 New York City, and is awesome in its scope, and true with its heart, its denizens, us. Much of How Long’s initial 150 pages concern Larken and Frank, two men in cusp-of-the-half-century California, trying to figure out just how two men love each other. I love many of the people in these pages, but none moreso than this pair. Mordden gives them some of the greatest break-the-bank this-I-know-is-true dialogue. [If you want the total package of the novel to be surprising, and it will be, by part and parcel, stop reading now.] In this passage, Larken, who has trouble holding jobs and has just gotten fired from his latest stint as a waiter, is talking with his cop boyfriend, Frank:
”… But look. We’re on the verge of something, us two. Aren’t we? … Because you and I are going to make history.”
“For what?”
“As the first gay couple that becomes famous and lives forever.”
…..
Frank … caught Larken’s quiet mood, and was silent. He sensed Larken saying, I love you – conveying the words, really, as Larken wouldn’t have verbalized the thought out of respect for Frank’s reticence – and Frank did his best to transmit a comparable report back to Larken.
“They’ll put us in the indexes,” said Larken, “in History, Homosexual, See under Gay Life in Postwar America. Maybe they’ll print a photo of us. We should take some, in any case.”
“Who’ll hold the camera? No one knows about us. We’re history’s secret.”
…..
“… Frank.”
“What?”
“I’m so lucky. Even if I am a slob and I can’t hold down a job, at least a guy as fine as you likes me.”
“No, Larken,” says Frank, looking straight at him. “I love you.” Frank is terrified of those words, but he believes he means them, and the history meter just clicked on. (p. 90-91)
And I just started crying, quietly, again, while retyping those words. Frank and Larken’s is, I think, the Great Love of this tale when all accounts are tallied. God damn, I want a love like that, a Love. What is there, without it, what is life? I’d rather die – really, I’d rather die – than not risk the pain and tears for a chance at The Love. Meanwhile, Frank and Larken, San Francisco, 35 years later (and damn it, my throat’s already tightening up again, just rereading the passage):
Larken, spooning up his share [of soup], just looked at Frank, as he invariably did now, in awe. This man, his eyes read. There’s no one else like him. And I don’t even care that I’ve been in bed with him. Scored him. I just care that I’ve known him. If he puts his arm around my shoulder and knocks his head against my head, I can beat off on that for a week. This man is so true, he could simply ask for the time and then walk into your dreams as long as you live.
“Frank,” Larken began.
“What are these things floating in the…”
“Show me.”
Frank did.
“Escarole.”
“They taste healthy. I feel better already.”
I love you, Larken continued, thinking it. (p. 423)
…and that would, now, be three times today. I should’ve known I couldn’t make it through that, again, without. This, friends, is pure, perfect, truthful writing. This is life: art, and Love, and the decisions we make. That’s it, really. The rest will come, but this is the importance.
Mordden should be listed with the greats, with the Forsters and Hemingways (have always felt ol’ Ernest is overrated) and Hollerans and Picanos and stick-up-his-ass-but-love-him-anyway Ed Whites. He’s brilliant, an utter genius, and writes like No One Else. And he reminds us – or me, at the very least – of what we are/I am working towards, yearning for, and need-or-what’s-the-damn-point? Yeah, love’s messy and complicated and never without its own unique problems, but it’s ours to be embraced and celebrated and cried over and, yes, lived. Fuck the rest.
I’ve been in real, true love two, maybe three times in my hopefully-not-even-half-lived, yet life. Obviously, the relationships ended, or I wouldn’t be single today. In one case, at least, I did things which I dearly regret. In another, I got hurt, you-ripped-my-still-beating-heart-from-my-chest-and-stabbed-it-to-near-death-before-crushing-what-was-left-underfoot hurt. But they’re called learning experiences, kids, and I honestly believe that, and wouldn’t trade all the pain away for anything, ‘cause when it’s good, there’s nothing better. I’m not currently taking applications, ‘cause I’ve got a potential candidate who’s - I’ll say since I’m not very cool - awfully swell. Groovy, even. Totally rocking. Is it enough to just say, I like him a lot? That I’d like him as my boy friend? [Once/if that happens, it’s out of my hands.] As they say, we shall see what transpires. But that doesn’t mean I can’t, or won’t, cross my fingers.
The best song about crying, by the way, is not ? and the Mysterians' "96 Tears," nor Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force's "All Cried Out," and Mary J. Blige's "Not Gon' Cry" isn't about crying (check the title, folks). No, the best crying song is Godley and Creme's "Cry."
This is significant because, if allowed to count an entire week in 2000 as one time (when I moved to Norfolk leaving, for the first time, Indiana, and with it all of my friends and family, to move to a place where I knew but one person, now an ex), I’ve cried only four or five times in as many years. Along with my move, there’s the end of Hoosiers, and I usually mist up at some point while reading the late Randy Shilts’ And the Band Played On, as well. I wish I cried more easily; there are times when I want to cry, when I think I might feel better if I did, but nothing comes out. For whatever reason – it’s nothing intentional on my part – I’m just not a crier.
Today, however, I did cry, sitting in the reading room of the Kirn Memorial branch of the Norfolk Public Library on my lunch hour, as I finished reading Ethan Mordden’s masterwork, How Long Has This Been Going On? (St. Martin’s Press, 1995). I’ve cried while reading this before, but usually at a different part, when one of the novel’s major characters dies and we look in, so briefly, on The One He Left Behind. [I’m avoiding detailing any major plot points, lest I spoil this rich Persian rug of a novel for any of you who have yet to delve into it.] This time, it was nearer to the end, when a number of our cast are Remembering those who’ve gone before us, mown down by our own great plague; AIDS, of course.
I need to amend something I said last week, as well, when I referred to How Long as “one of the great gay novels." No, stop. Get rid of the “one of”; this is the champ, the great gay novel, period. I’ve read How Long four or five times, now, and it’s that rare work of fiction which grows in power with each successive reading, becomes richer and reveals yet more of itself and about us. I’ve taken to highlighting sentences and passages which move me most, and there are now three different colors of highlighter marking my book, indicating different readings.
The novel is what reviewers would typically call a “sweeping” or “panoramic” look at gay history, from 1949 Los Angeles to 1991 New York City, and is awesome in its scope, and true with its heart, its denizens, us. Much of How Long’s initial 150 pages concern Larken and Frank, two men in cusp-of-the-half-century California, trying to figure out just how two men love each other. I love many of the people in these pages, but none moreso than this pair. Mordden gives them some of the greatest break-the-bank this-I-know-is-true dialogue. [If you want the total package of the novel to be surprising, and it will be, by part and parcel, stop reading now.] In this passage, Larken, who has trouble holding jobs and has just gotten fired from his latest stint as a waiter, is talking with his cop boyfriend, Frank:
”… But look. We’re on the verge of something, us two. Aren’t we? … Because you and I are going to make history.”
“For what?”
“As the first gay couple that becomes famous and lives forever.”
…..
Frank … caught Larken’s quiet mood, and was silent. He sensed Larken saying, I love you – conveying the words, really, as Larken wouldn’t have verbalized the thought out of respect for Frank’s reticence – and Frank did his best to transmit a comparable report back to Larken.
“They’ll put us in the indexes,” said Larken, “in History, Homosexual, See under Gay Life in Postwar America. Maybe they’ll print a photo of us. We should take some, in any case.”
“Who’ll hold the camera? No one knows about us. We’re history’s secret.”
…..
“… Frank.”
“What?”
“I’m so lucky. Even if I am a slob and I can’t hold down a job, at least a guy as fine as you likes me.”
“No, Larken,” says Frank, looking straight at him. “I love you.” Frank is terrified of those words, but he believes he means them, and the history meter just clicked on. (p. 90-91)
And I just started crying, quietly, again, while retyping those words. Frank and Larken’s is, I think, the Great Love of this tale when all accounts are tallied. God damn, I want a love like that, a Love. What is there, without it, what is life? I’d rather die – really, I’d rather die – than not risk the pain and tears for a chance at The Love. Meanwhile, Frank and Larken, San Francisco, 35 years later (and damn it, my throat’s already tightening up again, just rereading the passage):
Larken, spooning up his share [of soup], just looked at Frank, as he invariably did now, in awe. This man, his eyes read. There’s no one else like him. And I don’t even care that I’ve been in bed with him. Scored him. I just care that I’ve known him. If he puts his arm around my shoulder and knocks his head against my head, I can beat off on that for a week. This man is so true, he could simply ask for the time and then walk into your dreams as long as you live.
“Frank,” Larken began.
“What are these things floating in the…”
“Show me.”
Frank did.
“Escarole.”
“They taste healthy. I feel better already.”
I love you, Larken continued, thinking it. (p. 423)
…and that would, now, be three times today. I should’ve known I couldn’t make it through that, again, without. This, friends, is pure, perfect, truthful writing. This is life: art, and Love, and the decisions we make. That’s it, really. The rest will come, but this is the importance.
Mordden should be listed with the greats, with the Forsters and Hemingways (have always felt ol’ Ernest is overrated) and Hollerans and Picanos and stick-up-his-ass-but-love-him-anyway Ed Whites. He’s brilliant, an utter genius, and writes like No One Else. And he reminds us – or me, at the very least – of what we are/I am working towards, yearning for, and need-or-what’s-the-damn-point? Yeah, love’s messy and complicated and never without its own unique problems, but it’s ours to be embraced and celebrated and cried over and, yes, lived. Fuck the rest.
I’ve been in real, true love two, maybe three times in my hopefully-not-even-half-lived, yet life. Obviously, the relationships ended, or I wouldn’t be single today. In one case, at least, I did things which I dearly regret. In another, I got hurt, you-ripped-my-still-beating-heart-from-my-chest-and-stabbed-it-to-near-death-before-crushing-what-was-left-underfoot hurt. But they’re called learning experiences, kids, and I honestly believe that, and wouldn’t trade all the pain away for anything, ‘cause when it’s good, there’s nothing better. I’m not currently taking applications, ‘cause I’ve got a potential candidate who’s - I’ll say since I’m not very cool - awfully swell. Groovy, even. Totally rocking. Is it enough to just say, I like him a lot? That I’d like him as my boy friend? [Once/if that happens, it’s out of my hands.] As they say, we shall see what transpires. But that doesn’t mean I can’t, or won’t, cross my fingers.
The best song about crying, by the way, is not ? and the Mysterians' "96 Tears," nor Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force's "All Cried Out," and Mary J. Blige's "Not Gon' Cry" isn't about crying (check the title, folks). No, the best crying song is Godley and Creme's "Cry."
# posted by Thomas : 1:58 PM
