Diary of a Heretic

Confusion, Panic, and Remorse

Off stage, a bigger throng than usual pressed in on me.  They clapped and murmured, “Thank you, thank you.”  “Malcolm, Malcolm.”  You’d think I’d get used to it, but no.  The crux of my being is exposed.  It’s grotesque and unseemly, and after a big public spillover, I want to hide in a dark, empty room.  Except last night, upon seeing the boy Tyler, the sadness pooled deeper and deeper, while all the while a wall of hands patted my back and shoulders, head and chest.

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

Stephanie and her new boyfriend Rafe, Maggie and her trumpet-playing boyfriend Lyle, Louie and his girlfriend, Demetria, Professors Llewlleyn and Smith, the people I knew, clamored for special attention, kisses and handholding.  I noticed Carlos at the top of the staircase.  He mouthed “home run” and shook a loosely formed wrist at waist level, a crude promise of a vulgar reward.  Bitter disgust welled, bringing fresh tears.  Please God, let me find the boy and get him out of here! I kept slogging through the whirlpool, past Shari and Sylvia, Franklin and Fletcher, various erstwhile customers, students, shopkeepers and construction workers, searching for him.

Surely the soul of concern, of sweetness, light, peace, joy, and hope was close.  I could feel him; he was waiting for me but—I could not reach him.  I could not see him.  Tyler was near.  He was here and then—

Too late.

I knew only confusion, panic, and remorse.  Of all the dozens of people vying to touch me, to thrust bouquets of tulips at me, bags of CDs, boxes of chocolate, where was he?

(To be continued)

Ipso Facto Sexual

I saw him!  At the Amphitheater tonight, in mid-performance, I pivoted, my arm swooping down, my voice rising, “You have to admit how you feel!  You have to risk making mistakes and be prepared to pay for them,” and there he was, his beautiful young face shining out from the dim and bobbling masses.  Oh!  If only I’d acted on my words!  How I feel, what I want!  Why didn’t I jump down, walk arms outstretched to where he sat, and implore him?  Come with me!

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

Instead, I fluttered up there.  Shuddered, staggered, raked my hands through my hair and mopped my face with my billowy sleeve.  “Forget sexual denial,” I yelled, suddenly full of ire.  “The nonsexual ideal is a lie!  Banning sex leads not to enlightenment, not to purity, but to seething resentment and bitterest intolerance.  Do not let the self-righteous and their festering superstitions oppress you!”

I could no longer see Tyler, but knowing he was there my voice sounded naked, my words indulgent and idiotically emphatic. “They object to people having sex because they’re squeamish.  And so I’m asking, isn’t total preoccupation with abstinence just as vulgar as it’s opposite? 

“Whatever you categorically deny yourself categorically rules you. These guys are obsessed with sex.  To where they just can’t fathom that sex is not the only thing.

“Or wait—wait a minute.  Maybe. . . now that I mention it. . . maybe sex is the only thing.  Maybe whatever you want more than anything, so that you get sick if you have to go without it—whatever it is that drives you, that directs your every endeavor in life—that thing is, for you, tantamount to sex.”

Hitting a low note, I inadvertently let my stomach out and loosened the sash.  Drawing myself up, up—Tyler was out there—I knotted it for all to see.  I smiled (See, I’m human), and even gaily said, “There, now it won’t come undone.”

And, “As I was saying:  If an experience such as eating an éclair, waking in a tub of tepid water, or getting stung by a bee reaches a certain intensity, a certain ratio of pleasure to pain, involving your entire consciousness, it is ipso facto sexual.  But if it somehow goes further than that, beyond the sexual, beyond the personal, it becomes a spiritual experience.”

At the word “spiritual,” I rose higher, the light that surrounds me on stage glowing warmer, milkier.  I reached out my hands as if to touch the boy’s supernaturally beautiful face, gazing luminously, gloriously up at me, from five rows in, two seats left of center.
“In which case, maybe those fundamentalists,” I spoke directly to him, “proscribe sex because it looks—and sometimes, though how would they know, even feels—so much like prayer.

“Not that sex is always pleasurable.  I mean, we’ve all had our hideous realizations—what have we done?  We think something’s going to be great and it turns out stupid and dull.  We’re dull and stupid—we’re fakes.”

I wanted Tyler to know:  this magnetism is temporary.  A vaudeville number, a spiel, a performance.  It’s not me, really.  “I am just like you,” I said, and instantly realized my mistake.  “I am just like you.  We are the same.  Not different.”  And—

Shit.  I didn’t need to look.  I already knew:  He was still there but gone from my field of vision.  I was aware of him listening, but the brilliant face, so miraculously clear among the blur of anonymous heads, winked and went out, became in the blink of an eye another dot in one of the endless rows of amorphous bliss.

I am just like you. Why did I speak the words in my mouth instead of my heart?  I bowed and turned—and when I looked up, he’d become invisible.  The crowd was a sea of faces, a field of spots against the all-encompassing darkness.

“So okay, maybe I can imagine how total abstinence might look like the shortest, surest path to holiness. . . ”  I blah, blah, blahhed.

Why didn’t I go to him, take his hand, and lead him away to someplace safe and secluded?  What if I missed my only chance; there’s no going back?

Angry and scared—of myself and the boy Tyler, and of my past and bungled present—I veered off track.  My powers abandoned me; the magic evaporated.

(Click here to read the next episode.)

Pull It Up or Pull It Down?

Ten days later and I am still indifferent to Carlos.  In fact I am indifferent to everyone and -thing except:  one hopelessly unrealistic hope.  For ever since my sweet, quickening encounter with the beautiful boy Tyler, when he so innocently and sincerely asked, did I mind?  (Did I mind if he and his friends smoked dope on my time?)  I can think of nothing else!  Every three seconds he’s back, the soul of concern, of sweetness, light, peace, joy and hope, swaying politely in front of me, Blunt in hand.

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

I can not concentrate.   I can not eat or sleep, I’m so fixated on that tool belt that seems to be wearing him more than he’s wearing it.  In my mind it’s slowly sliding off of him, and I can’t decide which I want more:  to pull it up or down.

Tyler, Tyler, Tyler! If anything else matters, I don’t care.  Or remember.

(To be continued)

And the Top Shall Be Bottom

I hate it here.  The hotel environment is so artificial, so studiously deluxe but not offensively grand.  It’s a glass-walled prison, high in the sky.  Everyone’s buzzing about, concerned and busy, and quick to defers to the tiniest alteration of my mood.

“It’s a fucking fish tank,” I complain to Carlos, who then informs me the construction on the Linden Street shop is stalled.

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

“Some kind of fuck-up with Mad Mike’s shipper,” Carlos says.  “And a few problems with variances.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we stay here another two weeks,” Carlos says, “minimum.”

“Five weeks in the Swiss Crown?”

“You know, the shop in Lincoln Park opens in a few days.  Stephanie wants to manage it, and the prospects look very promising.”

“I don’t know,” I tell him, dejected by his ‘promising prospects.’  “Past a certain point—taking this long, costing this much—it’s not worth it.”

“The money?  You’re worried about the money, Malcolm?  Christ!  Just do the éclair thing in the mornings, at every new shop. That’ll cover the hotel bill.”

“That’s twice a day at the shop in Bucktown, twice in Wicker Park, and twice in Lincoln Park, right?  Old Orchard. Northbrook. On top of the regular meetings, the shows.”

“That’s right,” Carlos says.  “Think of them as shows.  Easy gigs, as natural as breathing.  That’s how good you are.  Just go out, sing and dance like a trouper, and leave ulterior motives and concerns about your quivering little ego for later. I’m negotiating with some people now about a book, a Doctrine, if you will.  That’s where your real life, real beliefs will come in.”

“I don’t think so, Carlos.  I want to get out.”

“Will you stop?  Everything’s going great.  Two, three more weeks you’ll be home, and all this disorientation, all the work, and showmanship, will be more than worth it. Way more! Why, half the money coming in is going right back out to work for us.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m investing it. You’ve got to pay yourself before you pay creditors;  we want that money working for us.”

“Carlos, if you’re talking about stocks, tell me you have some good advisors.”

“Strictly blue chip,” he says.  “Nothing fancy.  A few mutual funds.  But even in this market, if we set up one branch in Europe, one in the Caribbean maybe, South American, we can retire.”

(Is Carlos stupid? I never thought he was stupid. He acts so smart. He’s gotta be kidding.) “Will you show me the books?”

“Sure,” he says.  “I’ll show you anything you want, anytime you want.  Just so you understand upfront that very temporarily, what with all the new stores and keeping the suites for a couple of weeks, we’re going to have some heavy outlays.”

“So you need me to do the bread and éclair thing at five, or is it seven?, new stores.  Twice a day, each day, on top of the meetings.”

“It’s not that much, Malcolm.  I mean if you think about it, it’s a hell of a lot easier than most jobs!”  (I wish you could see his face, how instantly Carlos goes from reproving appraiser to ardent lover.)  “God, I love you!” he rasps, eyes on high beam as he slithers over to hug me.  “Oh,” he says, his voice choked, his gaze hot and skin flushed, “You are such a pure and perfect soul!”  Carlos can really turn it on and off. Tell me I never bought his shit, though. He’s not just transparent. Ridiculous. So, you know, I laugh.

“Oh, I know,” he says, shaking his head.  “For you it’s this big joke.  When I’ve been dying for you—really dying.  You’ve no fucking idea how hard it was to get through all these years, keeping my need for my boss under wraps.  I mean,” Carlos says, “here you are, sexiest thing in the world, out of my league, but not out of reach.  And I maintain.  I play my part.”

It’s preposterous. He’s not playing it right—so overt and abrupt. But, dumb, needy me.  I step closer to him.  Carlos takes my head in his hands, and the sheer nerve!  Once he’s sure I’ve noticed how dark and liquid, how reflective and shining his  eyes are, he dips his face to my chest, and pleads into my shirt.  “Malcolm, you’ve no idea how bad I want you.  And it never lets up.  It kills me.”

“If it really killed you, it’d be over.”  And he looks so shocked, so stung, I can’t help it:  I let him win;  I let him lead me into suite 3601’s blue bedroom.  Locking the door, he mews into my neck and peels off my clothes.  Except first, I lay down a stipulation: we switch positions. Today, since I’m the top in real life (well, I am, aren’t I?) I’ll take the bottom in sex, and as he in real life is beneath me (this is the way it is) he’ll take the top.

And right away the reversal feels new and fantastic.  The whole sexual act is scream-out-loud thrilling.  I thrash and cry—it’s scary how good it feels!  And yet, and yet—this is the amazing thing:  A minute afterwards I’m miraculously indifferent.  I can take Carlos, I can leave him;  I really don’t care.

(Click here to read the next episode)

Nondenominational Has Its Privileges

Colin and I used to come here on weekends. Sammy’s was the only place that accepted our fake IDs.  Now everything except the name has changed.  Something about the lighting back then, plus, I think, a mechanism in the floor, created an illusion of speed.  A lush female impersonator played the piano and sang bawdy old blues songs while the whole place seemingly hurtled through space.  Now the light is steady and bright enough for reading.  The music is piped in, and really, pretty much white noise.  Predictable, insipid changes or not, the strangest thing about wandering into Sammy’s was how unstrange it was. How unexpectedly normal it made me feel.

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

I’m finishing a spanakopitta platter—Sammy’s Greek food stayed on the menu—when Carlos calls me from the Swissôtel.  He’s booked us for two weeks in a suite costing seven hundred and fifty per.

“Per what?”  I asked.

“Per night, of course.”  (Of course.)  “We need it, so we can work; so we can think.”  (Oh well, in that case...)

All the other places he looked at seemed cramped.  (I’m sure.)  Our suite has a plasma TV.

“Nondenominational has its privileges.”  (Right.)

“A joke. Wait ’til you see this place, Malcolm. The view is incredible!”

(I bet.)  But I’ve still got one more night before Mad Mike and company rip out and haul away the last wall and floor board of my only home.

“Maggie will pick you up. Where are you?”

*

Carlos the maestro-provocateur rolls up the cuffs of his gorgeous new celadon shirt and, pressing me from behind, clasps his hands over my belt.  “Look at the view,” he whispers, resting his chin on my shoulder.  But for once I shake him off.  The view is everywhere you look.  All brilliant, thrashing Lake Michigan in one direction; all shining city in the other:  the suite’s walls are solid glass.

(Click here to read the next episode.)

Should I Stay or Should I Go

Carlos is out securing hotel rooms for us for the next few weeks.  The shop and its bought-out neighbors are totally gutted.  I can either pace through the wreckage as I have for hours, or I can tap on my laptop as I am now.  Either way, my presence is negligible.  Either way, whether I stay or go—out to a movie, or for a walk, a newspaper, a drink, whatever:  everything everywhere is crashing all around me!

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

Everything’s packed but the CD player.  Gregorian chants of Benedictine monks fill my bare, crate-stacked rooms. How long since I’ve eaten solid food?  Naked in front of the mirror, I can feel my ribs.

So okay, I admitted it weeks ago! Tyler reminds me of Colin!  Now can I get dressed?  Now will I be able to eat?  Or if not eat—thinking of him (them) my skin feels so tight—I can at least drink:  I’ll start with what’s left of Carlos’s gin.  And then, when that’s not enough, for how could it be?  I’ll head downtown to see if the bar where Colin and I used to drink, illegally underage, still exists.

(Click here to read the next episode.)

Not What It Looks Like

I left the stage twelve hours ago; I go back on tonight.  Am I frightened?  Mortified?  Exhausted?  I am a void—personified!

Except you can no longer tell from the outside.  My almighty, anonymous needs still rage. The shop’s closed, the kitchen’s gutted.  All those tarts and strudels, cheesecakes, brownies and donuts don’t exist at the moment.  And maybe because I wear the muslin gown as much as he wants (or else I was so easy he lost interest), Carlos has no renewed interest in what I eat or drink.

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

And my routine has changed.  I take long walks alone.  This morning as I crossed the Plaza del Lago shopping mall, Carlos appeared, silently, coolly in sync with me.  We traversed the small terrace and he stroked my left side.  We leaned into a brick corner and he hoisted me a bit in the air.  Reeling with desire and distaste, I writhed, resisted, and succumbed.  All the while inadvertently catching the eye of a woman loading groceries into a green Volvo.  She shrugged and smiled. 

I twisted my head and wiggled my hands, signaling her:  this is not what it looks like.  The woman slammed her car door and comically saluted.  Was she saying, “I know; I’ve been there”?  Or, was it more, “What do I care?”

And then it hit me—that’s my perennial question:  what do I care?  Anytime anyone misunderstands me, I’m ready to die.  My life seems to depend on getting the population at large to take my side.

(To Be Continued.)

Playing the Idiot

Every seat is taken.  Tonight the faithful sit in semi-circular rows, a writing surface in front of them. Carlos doesn’t allow any tape-recording or photographs. He hasn’t got me on CD yet or DVD, but he’s working on it.

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

And looking at all the seekers, eager to hear my works, their notebooks open: I can’t go on—it’s over!  Because here’s the catch:  If I don’t believe what I’m saying, how can it possibly fly?

So tonight—after nonstop weeks—tired, bored, fed up—I found myself impersonating a doltish school teacher.  I blinked and sighed.  “Pencils sharp?  Erasers ready—”  I looked around, hand shielding my eyes, and said, “Well, what have we here?  A test of faith!”

Silence.

“Any thoughts?”

Silence.

“Anyone?”

I waited a few beats more.  “Well then,” I said, “Why don’t we come back to that later.  How about an easy one?  Like the meaning of life, sex, and death?”

The participants sat glassy eyed and dumb.

“Now come on, everyone.  What do we think we’re doing here?”

There were giggles.

“Want me to tell you?”

“Yeah, tell us,” a woman in the back called out.  “Tell us something.”  I think it was my friend Bailey.  Beaming recognition, I asked her to stand up.  And then I forgot the question.  Finger to my chin, I said, “Where was I?”

And the audience laughed.  Bailey (or someone who looks just like her) said, “The meaning of life, sex, and death.”

“Oh right, right!  I know that one.”  More laughter.  “It’s simple really, just hard to describe.”  I scratched my head.  It’s…it’s, right on the tip of my tongue...”  I played the idiot. But the take topped three thousand, very good considering the small venue.

(To be continued)

So Soap Opera

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

My parents called from San Francisco, using a speakerphone so they could both talk at once.  Did I get my birthday present?  Yes, I said, the briefcase was beautiful.

“Coming up in the world!” my father declared.

“It’s not that we’re not proud,” my mother said, her voice wavering.  “It’s just that, that we worry.  No one can have all the answers.  And you . . .you really do tend to go overboard.”

“Next year—thirty!” my father thundered. 

“We want to come see you,” my mother said. 

“Well, we’re in the middle of construction. . . ”

“So tell us when’s a good time.”

“Okay, I will.”

*

“Nothing like family,” Stephanie said.  “Your face is the color of marinara sauce.”

“You have to get over that,” Carlos said.  “We’re self-made.  That’s what sets us apart.  We’re your family now.  Where we come from, how we were brought up—none of that matters any more.”

“Can we talk about something else?”

Then Carlos gave me a gold neck chain with RWR in the center.

“Very tasteful,” I said.  “Very apt.  Thank you.”

“RWR” Carlos said, fixing the chain on my neck. “It’s so perfect.”

“Unpronounceable, though.  I think it’s better when you can say the acronym like a word.”

“Oh, well,” he said, determined not to seem miffed. 

God, I was tired.  It’s terrible when Carlos is sincere.  But as I sat there, with the thing around my neck, he got not just sincere but sincerely soap opera.  Carlos! He kissed my hand and said—in front of Maggie—that I was his prince!  (Of course Stephanie was also there, but being waitress extraordinaire, she somehow conveyed that she hadn’t really heard us.)

I laughed—couldn’t help it.

“All right,” Carlos said. “Be like that.”  He stomped into the kitchen, made himself a gin and tonic and drained it in front of us.

Then he brought the gin and tonic bottles to the table and mixed himself another one.  “We do not conform,” he said, “to designated strata.”

“We’re beyond demography,” Maggie said.  (She’s so good with him and so good with me.  Where would I be without her?)

(Click here to read the next episode.)

Why I'll Never Grow A Mustache

Next month is my twenty-ninth birthday. No, April 20th is my twenty-ninth birthday but it’s also Adolph Hitler’s birthday, which is why my mother insists my actual DOB was the day I was due, not the evil dawn at which I prematurely arrived.

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

This morning, I recalled reading in an astrology book that those born on April 20th can, when speaking to crowds, project an extraordinary power over them.  Isn’t that stupid?  What astrological caveat goes to those born on Hitler’s birthday? ‘If you don’t watch yourself, you might murder six million people?’

So whenever I start wondering if I could be a genuine prophet, double my idiocy, why doncha?  I can’t take this.  My head aches.  The shop’s in ruin.  Everywhere I look everything is pure and total shit.

(Click here to read the next episode.)