A Density of Souls PART TWO

So last time we talked, we left off at Stephen crying in the nurses office, wishing they would just leave him alone. I don't feel like this needs explanation really. Its a feeling all queer kids have, why can't other people just not care about me? Think about this thought for a moment, most high school students want people to be thinking about them, to like them, to include them. As a queer kid out, you're usually just wanting the opposite. How powerful...

So Greg Darby is one of the three boys in the story, the ones who in the beginning was caught having sex with Stephen. Its a very dramatic scene, I left out of the quotes on purpose. Worth reading the first time, but they are in a cemetery in playing hide and seek, the four main characters (Meredith, Greg, Brandon, and Stephen) and Greg and Stephen are having sex, when Meredith comes upon them.

This was the beginning of the book, and since then many things of course have happened.

At one point Greg Darby and Meredith Ducote have been dating for a while, and while studying at her house they start making out and stripping clothes off. They begin to fight about having sex or not, but soon after the argument turns into more. The fight becomes about Meredith "being a bitch" to become homecoming queen her senior year, and Greg acting in order to prove himself to Brandon. Meredith is accused of changing, by Greg and she responds by telling him he's not the same person either...

This is where the biggest debate about this book has occurred amongst my friends, a good friend of mine was offended because he thought the book implied that all men are attracted to other men. I don't think this is what the book is saying, although I'm pretty much certain that is true to an extent. All men once in their lives are sexually drawn to other men, may not act on it, but that's another blog weeks from now...

Meredith hits back hard during the fight by saying essentially that if Greg thinks he hasn't' changed in high school, to ask Stephen. The response; hitting Meredith, across the jaw with his fist, chipping her tooth and knocking her over. She makes him leave.

After he slammed the door behind him, she righted herself. She lifted her bra off the comforter and strapped it on. She didn't bother to put her shirt back on as she crept to her bedside mirror and stared at the first signs of a bruise beneath her bottom lip.
Greg had a dozen good defenses he could use against the mention of Stephen. Brandon had made sure of that. Stephen was a fag; he broke the rules; he betrayed the world they now lived in, and had never even apologized for doing it. Why did Greg have to hit her to prove that? Hadn't the note they taped on Stephens book bag made it all obvious?
I know things.
The thought struck her instantly. She cocked her head as if fascinated by the developing bruise. I know things. Greg fist had shown her that her words were more powerful than she realized.

This is the beginning of a very important message in this novel, and something that has been said many times before. That old rhyme is not at all true, "stick and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me." In fact, Maya Angelou says words are the most powerful and hurtful weapon we have, and I think most people realize that, or hope they do. This is important in this novel, because its also often made cleared that words are not only weapons for pain, but also can be weapons used for defense of self or others. I wish we lived in a world that it wasn't necessary, this sort of weaponry and such, but c'est la vie, no?

Later Meredith starts sneaking bottles of Stoli up to her room at night (My kind of girl) alone, and writing drunken streams of consciousness in her biology notebook. Including a letter to Greg she will never give to him.

I don't want the responsibility of you. Because some day something's going to tear open that hole I pierced last night -- like two fingers gouging through a tiny slit in paper and wiggling until they tear the entire paper in half. And when that happens, Greg, you're goignot fall through. And the chances are you'll try to take someone with you. And it that someone isn't me, if you try to take other people in the fucked-up madness that you're trying to coat with muscles, then I'll rush to save them before I even think about you.

The beginning of Meredith finding herself, and her grounding is important in this novel. Meredith becomes a person who's strength and resolve, but also ability to survive and act with the boys is remarkable. Because Meredith has to fit in with the guys and the girls of jock and cheerleading high school, she learns to make the best of her intellectual and emotional upperhand and to really stand up when necessary for the boy she loves but can no longer demonstrate.

Stephen gets the lead role in the musical "The Mikado" during the freshman year, and Meredith is the only student in the school to show up. She sneaks in after lights down, and watches from the back, crying during his solo, but leaves before the cast comes out for curtain call.

I know more of your whispers than you think I do. And sometimes I think both of you would do to me what you did to Stephen. But instead, you both kept me. That's really why you wanted to do it, isn't it Greg? Not because you like my bosy. But maybe because the only way to keep me from beginning a link to the past, a link to what you want to forget, is to fuck me. Am I different now? I think so. One time, a time that seems so long ago but really isn't, I was one child among four. Now I'm owned by two.

This is Merediths writing in her journal after having sex with Greg, and dealing with him and Brandon bragging and joking about it all night. Ownership, control, power, life deals us insane power balances in life. We have to find a way to survive, and even overturn those, and Meredith is an inspiration for that...

Michelle's favorite part of this blog

To Be Continued...

A Density of Souls

So a friend of mine has been bugging me to provide to her a list of all the books I think people should read.  I’ve done a good job of putting this information out there for the public to know I think.

But tonight, I sit, re-reading my favourite book ever, and thinking of how much I wish everyone could read it and appreciate it as much as I do.

I’ve started the book tonight, it will be the 7th or 8th time that I’ve read this book.  It always makes me feel different emotions, and inevitably ends up leaving me in sobbing fits on my bed.  Its not that its sad, or horrible, though its both of those.  This book first was given to me by my best friend, and first “boyfriend” if one could call us that, in high school, my junior year, when all the turmoil of coming out had made me believe I would never recover.  

This book, A Density of Souls, Christopher Rice, has had the most profound impact on my life.  The book is the story of four students, who are best friends and inseparable as children, living in New Orleans, as they grow through High School and into college.  They are faced with the realities of high school in ways we can all appreciate.  Two of them become football jocks, the girl a bulimic cheerleader, and the fourth, an outcast of the school.  The story is generations old, bringing into fold their parents old feuds, grandparents secrets, and a town full of drama that is untouchable.  This story is well written by Mr. Rice, combining his mother’s (Anne Rice) ability to describe a scene and emotions to perfect visual imagination without her curse of requiring 11 pages to do so.  (My biggest complaint of Anne Rice’s writing was that by the time she had finished telling me what the cemetery looked like, I felt like I was on my way to it myself)
This novel brought to the forefront of my mind emotions I never realized I had felt, and re-reading it now, over 4 years later, it is reminding me of those emotions, and how they burden me today, still.  

I’m not writing this for pity, or compassion, nor am I doing so to make conversations in the future about the hurt I’ve felt.  I’m writing this because I feel that it is important, so important for us to always be able to, or try to be able to understand where people have come from, and where they are heading.  

I’m loathe to plagiarize and so I take this opportunity to go ahead and give whatever credit may be necessary before sharing some of my favourite excerpts from this profound novel with you.  
A Density of Souls, Christopher Rice.  Talk Miramax Books, Hyperion, New York;2000.  

The setup for this particular scene, is the first day of high-school. Stephen, the outcast of the four has come to the Drama Club meeting after school, and is sitting in the theatre classroom with the drama teacher.  Jeff, a football player who also is involved in the Drama Club, has come in to let Mrs. Traulain, the teacher know, that he can’t make the meeting for Football related issues.  As he walks out of the room he is face to face with Stephen:

“Freshman?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah,” Stephen answered, dropping his voice so suddenly and ridiculously that Jeff smiled, which made the discomfort worse.
“Junior,” Jeff said.  “Gets better, dude.”
As Stephen tried another nod, Jeff stared at him for a second before turning and leaving.  When Stephen finally heard the freight door slam shut behind Jeff, the aftershock of sudden desire congealed.  He finally understood the whispers that had followed him around all day.  He knew what was being said. And he knew it was true.  

One cannot imagine that feeling, realizing one day, suddenly, what it is that has been inside of you all your life, and more importantly, realizing that others knew about it before you did.  One cannot begin to process the grief and also the relief that this bestow upon you immediately.  This novel is full of metaphor and comparisons that move past generational lines from age to age.  This particular scene involves Stephen’s Grandmother (who makes only a brief appearance in the story, before Stephen’s mother Monica is even born.)  The 1940s in New Orleans, the Irish part of town where yellow-fever swept through regularly.  

As she heard the first clamor of voices from the street, she noticed there her hands were trembling.  She contemplated whether Satan was an actual, real thing or if he had chosen to sprinkle himself about the world in rats along the rivers and in fevers that melted the body.  A better fighting tactic, she thought.

This is the only mention of something that is all too familiar for those of us the queer community.  AIDS, a fever that melts the body as much as malaria in this time period did, is so common a stumbling block within the community.  And all of us have, at one time or another wondered also if Satan is in fact just sprinkling himself about the world in rats and fevers.  

One of the most amazing things about this book is that it tells multiple tiny stories, giving way to serious contemplation about the though, emotion, and reason behind the decisions people make in their daily lives.  Every bit of it we can relate to our own lives, and we do, while wondering if we are given to the same guttural instincts with which these “fictional” character might react.  The name of Stephen’s mother, Monica was inspired by a handicapped boy from across the street of Mrs. O’Connel during a ferocious harvest moon-rise.  

Willie Rizzo had gone swimming in the river with some Negro children when a dock pile slammed against the side of this head, fracturing his jaw and almost knocking one eye from its socket.  The other children, terrified at being blamed over the death of a white boy who had dared to swim with them, dragged him to shore.  Willie manages to live, but with a voice forever mangled by his slippery lower jaw.   He walked with a wooden cane his father made for him.  Margaret O’Connell had disclosed to Beatrice and Mother Millie that Mr. Rizzo had cut the cane from the very dock pile that almost killed his son, as a constant reminder of the boy’s crippling stupidity.

Reinforcing the theme of prejudice, and disgust of otherness, this mini-story reminds us of how the racism of the 40s is equal to homophobia we see today in our society.  Swimming with children of color was as bad in the 40s as being friends with a queer kid is today for the football jocks of Cannon High School.

Stephen is obviously tormented through high school by his two former friends, Greg and Brandon for his sexuality.  After running out of English class he shares with the two students with a note reading “FAG” taped to his backpack, he ends up crying in the nurse’s office, trying desperately to escape the pain of his life.

“Do you think you’re ready to go back to class, Stephen?” she asked.
“No,” he whispered.
“Well…” Nurse Schwartz seemed baffled.  Her hand lifted off his shoulder, then touched him lightly again before she withdrew it completely.  Her eyes wandered down the length of Stephen as if there was some solution in the way his legs attached to his hips.
“It’s never a good idea to cry like you do,” Nurse Schwartz said quietly, so the girl would not hear.  “Kids can be mean, but if they see you that usually makes them meaner.”
“When will it stop?” Stephen asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“When are they going to leave me alone? They don’t have to like me.  But I just want to know when they’re going to leave me alone,” Stephen said.  
He raised his eyes to meet Nurse Schwartz’s pained gaze.  There was no answer to his question.  

This is going to be the end for today, I’ll continue this particular bloggin until I’ve covered enough of the book to convince people to read it, and given them something to think about in the meanwhile.

See ya soon!!

Identity

I felt like recently I spent a lot of time on this blog talking about being Queer. Its a big part of my identity, but I am constantly facing problems with identities, because I spend too much time thinking about being gay, or its what controls my life.

I have a friend, who also work in the politial field, who said, last month, on World AIDS Day a candidate called him, to ask him was what going on, and where he should campaign. The friend was pissed, because (A) AIDS is not a Gay Mans disease anymore (though it wasn't ever to begin with, but still) and (B) my friend didn't know of anything going on for World AIDS Day.

This is a difficult situation to react to, do I want to help out my friends and be there for them when they come to me to talk about how to get the gay vote? Absolutely, if they are good on gay issues. But at the same time, doesn't anyone remember that I worked for a Labor Union? Or am on the board for a Pro-Choice PAC? What about that effort I put into organizing for the repeal of the death penalty? or Pay day lending center regulations?

I grew up in two families, one that was fairly redneck in its reality, nothign wrong with it, but uneducated, not particularly liberal in many ways, very back woods sort of. And the other, Hispanic, but only partially, as my dad's generation was taught, among other thigns, to take advantage of light skin color, and be as whitewashed as possible for success...

So here I am, redneck to a T in some areas (hence my aspiring bullriding career, or hobby rather, NMGRA.COM the rodeo I'm riding in will be in august) Hispanic, but only partially, eat teh food, don't speak the language, drink the tequila, but no the beer. Celebrate and pray in spanish, but don't forget white people food on major holidays, lest the neighbors get wierded out over enchiladas at christmas.

Then I come out, in a small town, where, honestly the bigger sin with most of my friends and family was that I was a democrat, not that i was Queer.
(This is a sidebar i need to let out)
I use the term for many reasons, first of all, I like the empowerment It makes me feel. I say QUEER, and it is the "using the masters tools to dismantled the masters house-Bell hooks-audre lourde discussion. It is me saying, you can call me that, I don't care, in fact I'm SO proud to be queer, I'll say it to, just to piss you off.
Queer is not a term most of my friends use, and not something I like to hear from straight people too frequently just yet. I have friends who use it, and they do so understanding the power it has, and they do it on purpose, its not to be taken lightly though, this word.


Back to the main discussion, small town, queer, chicano (though at the time Hispanic, because I was told thats what I was) and then a Feminist.
I became so adamently Pro-Choice when I was in high school, various reasons, but they are there. I'll get into them more-so later in a longer conversation so to speak.

So how does someone like me describe themselves appropriately? Where do I align myself on cultural issues? What is it like, to be any of those peopel on yesterdays blog "I AM"? I'm not sure, necessarily, I was also facing racial, economic, an other hatreds at the same time.

I'm not sure the point of this, entirely, except that gay people aren't JUST gay. But just as women aren't JUST women, does that mean we should be quiet about the prejudice we face as Queer people?

I don't like taking off any of my hats. Democrats are in trouble, and need to win elections. But I'm not trading my values for a win, not when they come at the major expense of my community. Somewhere in New Mexico there is a Chicano couple, two men, in their late 30s, who have been together for years. One of them works for Wal-Mart, and other, is a teacher. Since Wal-Mart doesn't offer benefits, and its the only job he can get, His partner's health insurance would be a big help if he could be on it. Should I sell out their need to have good domestic partnership statutes on the books, to win a victory for labor unions? Can't we do both?

I am

I have a profile on MySpace.com I know I know, and yes I've heeded the Attorney General's warning about how dangerous it can be, sexual predators and such. But some, many, would say I'm my own type of predator, don't worry I don't do anything illegal or immoral, an never would.

I recieved this bulletin someone posted, and it hit me in my heart.
I was thinking about blogging today, and what I would write about. I'm trying not to make this a personal space for my drama, and to stick to things that are specifically related to being Queer, Chicano, Liberal, etc... But This made me cry, right here in the SUB on campus. This is sort of a way to remember who we are...


HOMOPHOBIA

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear- filled nights.

We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.

I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.

I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. Iwish they could adopt me.

I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didnt have to always deal with society hating me.

I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

So think about this, and try again to see what its like to live in our shoes.

Movies, Time, New Year

SO My friend Maggie, has an awesome blog (www.maggietoulouse.blogspot.com) about her predictions for the new year. My friends on MySpace.com all have blogs about their resolutions, and their last year, etc. I am writing about something that has been on my mind since, Friday.
I went to see BrokeBack Mountain Friday evening, at a private screening organized by my longtime friend Log Cabin Republican Patrick Killen. What a great guy, and I know that's shocking to most people because he's a republican.

This movie was amazing. For the record, Ebert and Roeper had their top ten lists of the year, and Brokeback made it on both their lists (5 and 7, not sure which was which).

So if you plan to see this film soon, don't read the rest of this. Enjoy it for yourself, then comeback and share your thoughts with me!

The story starts in the early 60s (we're talking about a time when most of America is fighting still over the Civil Rights Act, and the Vietnam War. And two men, who are ranchers or ranch hands, Cowboys if you will, show up to a ranch for summer work. They go out onto Brokeback mountain, and somewhere in the whiskey, the sheep herding, the horses, the tents, they have sex. (I don't recommend taking kids to see the movie, unless you can either have the conversation about two men having sex, or they are too young to catch the couple of glimpses of Jake and Heith consummating their love, it is love making)

They fall in love, but of course the summer ends, and they go on about their lives, after Jack is rebutted in his attempt to convince Ennis that they could buy a little ranch together off somewhere and make a life.

Years pass, Ennis gets married, and has a few kids, Jack gets back in touch, and they begin a routine of going up to Brokeback Mountain to spend a few days "Fishing."

Ennis eventually gets a divorce, somewhere in there Jack gets married and has a kid, and they keep going back. Jack never lets the idea go away, that they could buy a ranch together somewhere and have a roughstock operation (breeding bulls and cows, for rodeo, or other breeders)

Eventually, one of the postcards sent to Jack from Ennis planning for a fishing trip, was returned and Ennis calls Jack's wife to find out what happened.

This is where it gets tough, really tough... And of course I'm not telling the ending.

But here's the deal, this movie carries on into the 80s, and the entire time, we are reminded that this love is forbidden. The end reminds us of how far we've come, in this society.

I used to be afraid for my life, when I was in high school. I seriously thought on more than one occasion, that I wouldn't live to graduate. Here I am, with the Grace of God, Luck, Friends, and Family, successful in my life. But not all Queer kids are that lucky, even today, in this beginning of 2006.

I want everyone reading this, to please take time now to think about this.

Imagine walking down the street alone, middle of the day, in a town you grew up in, and hearing tires squealing. Most people think, kids, in their cars and their bad driving habits, but imagine thinking "oh shit, who is it, are they coming at me? What do they want? Do I turn around?"

What about walking down the hallway, after school, and hearing a couple of loud voices, deep voices, yelling at eachother, nothing serious, "dude did you see her?" "man how about this grade on that test" And thinking, 'Who is that, am I going to bump into them? What're they going to do to me?'

This is life for a Queer kid. It was worse in the 60s, As Ennis explains his father taking him to see the remains of a rancher who spent his life with another man, running a ranch together. Ennis's dad takes him to see the older mans body, after some men beat him up with a tire iron, they tied his genitals to the back of a horse and rode away dragging him until they ripped off and he bled to death. This is a particularly gruesome way to die, but its important to remember these types of things happened then.

I don't remember the 60s, 70s, or 80s, and not much of the 90s for that matter. But I remember High School, I remember UNM, I remember walking home from the bar that's less than a block away, last week.

I pray that in this year 2006, we don't have to deal with anymore hate crimes, Matthew Shepperd, Gwen Araujo, or anyone else like that. I hope that we can teach young men and women that LOVE is a Force of Nature, and that it doesn't matter for whom you feel it, its natural, good, and miraculous. I hope that we can work to ensure that no young person takes their own life just because they are sure it will be miserable, or because they don't want their parents to find out someone else took it for them.

Let's Pray that in 2006, we remember the by-line on this movie, "Love is a Force of Nature"
and Let's LOVE a little more.