September 1999

Amahl e-mails that I am courageous. She says I am often disheartened because I dare to question what others accept as Truth and Absolute. Still others believe that I am merely a drama queen.
I say I am a courageous drama queen!
I'm on a plane to Chicago. Writing. Next to me sits a delightful young Mongolian woman. She speaks timidly and without much volume. She is so fragile that I worry for her well being here in America- where everything is loud and large. Will she be trampled? I'm somewhat relieved when she says that her studies are nearly over and that in less than a year she'll be forced to return to Mongolia.
We began talking when I offered her the banana on my breakfast tray. In turn she offered some of her cantaloupe. We both declined politely.
By now all the anticipatory chatter that filled the cabin upon takeoff has subsided. It is quiet up here. We may as well have crashed and died, everything still save for the ambient hums and drones of the fans and the engines. Metal through the atmosphere.
Turbulence!
Many dreams lately. Violence and hysteria. Hidden hostility. The dreams make me question my own mental soundness. What crimes am I capable of committing? What molester lurks within me? What serial killer? What thief? I know there is a darkness inside of me that exists within all of us. A balance of good and evil, if you will. And I can only believe in the goodness when I have acknowledged the malady. How can I believe in one and not the other?
I believe in possibility.
Yesterday Jackie laid out a blanket in the grass, under the apple tree, and we lay on it as Mom-Suzie watered her cherished plants and flowers. The sun was setting but it was still unusually warm. I could smell the coolness coming. Jackie and I flipped through the pages of a National Geographic magazine while we ate cantaloupe. We were lazy, relaxed. I mentioned that being in the yard, the smell of the cantaloupe, and the sound of the water reminded me of childhood summers in Iran, in the Assyrian matas. Both women agreed reflectively. We have in common, if nothing else, our memories of Iran.
The Tehrani, Shirazi, Tabrizi moments.
Recently at work, two women sitting at one of my tables asked if I am Greek, which happens all the time.
'No. I just look Greek.'
"Are you Italian?"
'No, but I look Italian,' I quipped and we laughed.
"Well, I've never said this to anyone," one of the women ventured, "but you have amazing features. You're very handsome."
She said this warmly, earnestly, reassuringly.
I was deeply touched and flattered.
Funny, when a woman delivers a complement it is usually charming, ingenuous, and flattering. But when a man delivers the same complement it is almost questionable…
Now my Mongolian friend opens the shade to her window and only utters one word, "Nice." I agree without words. What are words anyway? I have loved without them before. (Luis) I can communicate without them again. Minutes later she draws the shade and rests her head back, closing her eyes. I watch her, eternally peaceful, almost smiling in the shadows. I feel close to her. After all, we have gone through the ceremonious offering of our fruit to each other! I cannot imagine her being angry, or disgruntled. I cannot imagine her shouting, fighting. Peace seems to have etched itself permanently on her countenance for the world to see, for me to covet.
There is goodness in the world, at least from up here, in metal through sky. I believe in us human beings.
My neck and shoulders ache, as they have for years. There is an incurable callous that bulges on the middle finger of my right hand, undoubtedly from handwriting my diary. A muscle of sorts, if you will- one that I have flexed routinely for eleven years now… I desire a massage, human touch. Everyone loves a massage, except for my mother. How different she and I are. How grimly different. When you touch her she winces and tightens up like a fortress of steel. Touch me and I melt into a pool of passion and rippling energy. Into waves of longing. She? Into riptides of rejection and refusal of tenderness, intimacy.
Yet, the similarities are many and unavoidable, as much as I wish it were otherwise. Most our similarities are camouflaged. Some I honor and celebrate. Others I abhor and reject; first in her, then in myself. It is always easier to blame. It almost feels right to take the blame with ones own intrepid and guilty hands and superimpose it onto the parent, to transfer the blame like money, the injustices, the incomprehension, one's very own mistakes in life, the darkness that is universal.
The subtleties are like elephants in my life, taking very much room.
But these make me think of grandeur, and how easily we lose our power, our miniscule identities, when we are placed in an airport, in a mass. We become instantly small, our magic vanishing in a sweltering sea of bodies. Our unique faces become suddenly anonymous, mundane, unrecognizable.
In these last few years, as my twenties take on momentum, I have come to feel increasingly miniscule and powerless, and the world expands and encompasses my shrinking ego, my singular dream of glory. Is it natural to become so soberly powerless over one's own teenage fantasies of grandeur? Or am I willingly giving up my place and my right to something greater? Have I lost the dream out of weakness, and was the dream in the first place childish and unrealistic? Haven't I felt the relief of overcoming myself, my need for fame, my dependence on impossibility? Have I finally relinquished the fiery dream and allowed a cooler smoky reality to place its mediocre kiss on the crestfallen face of my life?
Well now, it must be the altitude making me delirious and lightheaded. And thank god for delirium, for words, for height, and creativity, playfulness. Places one would not normally have occasion to visit unless a little intoxicated by life.
Been here a week, living out of my suitcase, in a dream, looking out from the palm of a giant who holds me in a fantasy, altitudes of emotion I might suddenly fall from and break my bones into a crystalline mess of cherished memories. I belong to no schedule, no person, no pattern.
It is the twentieth of September and I'm back in Marin. Home. So much happened, but the struggle at the moment is to write about the experience with an objective heart and not trip into fits if nostalgia.
I arrived at O'Hare on a gorgeous Chicago afternoon feeling lively and remarkably fresh. The weather was neither hot nor humid. Brandon and Laura were gracious and accommodating. They treated me like a king. That first night we went to Halsted, to Sidetrack, which has grown into a mall of men and video screens. I was most impressed with the additions, the exposed brick and soft lighting, the massive trees planted indoors. But the men were the same- feigning indifference; while in San Francisco everyone smiles and is friendly. Men approach you and strike up conversations, hand you their card, urge you to call.
Ashur would arrive from Canada the next morning, and it seemed that Brandon and Laura were more excited about his arrival than I. "Are you nervous?" Brandon asked playfully, glowing in the light under which we sipped our drinks.
'No. Why? Should I be? This is not a tryst. We are friends,' I said, downplaying my growing anxiety.
"But what if he's good-looking?" was Laura's argument.
'I'm open,' I smirked.
The next morning Brandon took me to the apartment where Ashur would be staying, off of Devon, a street crowded with memories for me. Ashur was waiting outside for us. Sadly, that moment and all that it possessed is lost, but I do recall Brandon teasing, "Ah-oh. He's hot. You guys are gonna fuck!"
It was strange to finally see the face I had tried to visualize over the telephone so many times. He looked exactly, yet nothing as I had pictured him. We hugged and kissed, all around us sun, trees, squirrels scampering, brick facades, and empty windows. My Chicago surrounded me everywhere I went and it reeled on steel axles.
Ashur immediately noticed my painted toenails and liked them. I told him my mother had helped me paint them and we laughed. I opened the front door of Brandon's car for him.
The voice I had heard for weeks on the telephone was now in the car making easy conversation with Brandon. I liked that Ashur was talkative and personable.
After the three of us had breakfast in Andersonville Brandon set off to work and Ashur and I wandered the city. We ended up walking to Boy's Town, where after a long trek we settled down for cocktails at Roscoe's.
It was here that we got to sit across a small round table and get a better look at each other. It felt as though I was looking across at a relative, if not my long lost brother. Ashur had the signature Assyrian eyebrows, so thick and so black, the long lashes that curl magically, the aquiline nose, the small mouth, the tragic profile of a statue, the same gestures, the movements, every ingredient that has survived, though we've lived apart and alone.
He said, "You're a serious person, aren't you?" He didn't ask it. He stated it, and he was right.
It would be reconfirmed throughout my stay that I am indeed a serious young man; and that it is only my sense of humor that saves me from being outright grave!
Ashur asked the questions, trying to extricate some vital information or clue that might open his eyes to my personality, my intentions, and it was when he apologized for being forward that I understood his.
I had not seriously considered his amorous motives and had been somewhat blind. His very apology was flirtation.
I liked him a lot and he had not in the least bit seemed manipulative or tactless, but I waited out the moments because when it comes to romance and sexuality I revert to what is considered a "heterosexist" manner of courtship. I have not yet learned what it is I must do or when I must do it to succeed in a man-to-man relationship. All I knew is that I was not going to jump into what might have proved disastrous.
After drinks, and while it was still daylight out, we hailed a taxi and were quite flattered when it made a u-turn, mounting the sidewalk to usher us back to Roger's Park. "What service!" Ashur exclaimed when we got in.
My brother Bell had promised me the use of his Jeep, but was not yet home when we got to my father's. So, while we waited we had tea with Lena and dad. Things went smoothly, though I had held my breath the entire time. Dad looked well; he had not grayed entirely, which I appreciated. Only his speech was a bit slurred. Was he drinking again or was this an effect of the stroke? Is one better than the other?
I wondered if dad suspected Ashur of being a homosexual and if he wondered silently what my relationship to him might be. The hour passed pleasantly enough.
That evening I cruised in my brother's Jeep with the top down, down Devon to meet Ashur. Leisurely I drove through the crowded street filled with women in Saris and men rolling worry beads as they conversed on sidewalk benches, and remembered the days when I had been a denizen of the same neighborhood. So many signs, shops, colors, sounds. Again I felt part of the city I fled years ago.
Walid's basement apartment was filled with smoke and I could barely take a breath when I entered. He greeted me at the door and spoke Assyrian in such a manner that I could barely understand his accent. The others called him Walida. He was campy and effeminate, and danced around the small dark apartment like a loose woman, throwing her hair about, shaking her body seductively. Ashur explained that Walida was androgynous because her body lacks testosterone and produces excesses of estrogen. Her breasts were almost fully developed and I wondered how she ever survived a single day without ridicule. In fact, only once and fleetingly did Walida mention having attempted suicide in her youth. She said that her brother repeatedly threatened to kill her when they were younger.
Looking around the apartment filled me with sadness for her and for all of us, even as she twirled to Arabic music with a tablecloth wrapped haphazardly around her waist. The floor was bare- no carpeting, no rug, no wood, only ugly brown linoleum curled up in places with age. The walls were of fake wood paneling, occasionally disrupted by a tacky picture. The furniture grotesquely oversized. The bathroom a disgrace. But Walida herself had a heart of gold and the smile of a sacred and golden child!
I met a few straight Assyrians as well, who were open minded and weren't ashamed to be seen on the street with us. One such person was Nadia, a beautiful young woman who had only recently immigrated to the States and missed Baghdad terribly. She put her hand out, touched my face gently, and said, Eeleh dooshah. (He's honey.) She made me blush. I assured her that things would get better for her in time, promising this with all my heart.
Michael, whom we called Misha, was tall, slim, and effeminate. He moved and spoke like a woman who had nothing to fear in life, nothing to lose, and everything to offer her lovers. He spoke with ishtav(appetite,) gesticulating freely with fingers, hands, arms, body, smoking leisurely, blowing out his smoke lazily. He made me want to write stories and shoot photographs. When I told him that he reminded me of one of my mother's good friends, Flonda, he laughed in his raspy way and began to call himself this. He dubbed me Googoosh, the famous Iranian singer. Misha took a photograph off of Walida's refrigerator door. It was a picture of himself in drag. He proceeded to tell me fantastic stories about his experiences in the city, excursions, adventures fit for books and movies.
He said that one Halloween, after a long night of partying in a revealing white dress, which he had designed and sewn himself and which he'd worn with a jewel-studded bra and feathery heels, he had stepped onto a balcony overlooking the street. Below a woman and her child passed, but not before the little girl had noticed Misha, pointed and exclaimed, "Look mama, an angel!" I could just imagine Misha, wrapped in white fabric and feathers, himself swarthy, waxed, makeup now faded, smoking endless chains of cigarettes, laughing without giving away that he was by no means a heavenly angel, but an Assyrian drag queen!
At the bars Misha refused to let me buy drinks and insisted on paying. He said I was a guest and was not allowed to break tradition. He winked at me from across tables, through smoke and chatter, turning his gorgeous head to observe the rooms, surveying men but with a bored countenance. He used words likekheyee (my life) and habibi (my darling,) and took long confident strides in tailored black slacks.
Ushi was older than all of us, a large man, whom everyone called Mother. When he wasn't doing flawless impersonations of the stereotypical Assyrian grandmother he was sneering at the world and making biting remarks about the state of affairs. He was constantly making fun of the world we had each known- the loud, graceless world of the Assyrian family.
Youkhana was quiet and shy, flashing smiles at me whenever I happened to look into his direction. There were moments when I had to abruptly turn away because as the night wore on I sensed he was attempting to communicate something that was a little more than friendly.
George was the baby. First time I met him he wore glasses and hospital scrubs, carrying a hefty pile of paperwork. Charts and things. He seemed intelligent, sweet, fun, but dashed my attraction when he said he hated the hair on his body and later showed up wearing light colored contact lenses. I wondered if these were serious attempts at Westernizing himself to the point of unrecognition. I know that we, as people without a territory our own, living now outside the Middle East, in European and English-speaking host countries, have to continuously struggle to acclimate to the ways and traditions as defined by predominantly White societies. But to do this to the extreme, to deny our natural and physical attributes and to try and alter them speaks of racial shame that Assyrians would never admit to.
Even in my own family I have heard members say things about other Assyrians like, "So-and-so is dark. He's not attractive." Or, "So-and-so has such pretty white skin."
I think we ought to take precaution in matters of color and identity, in becoming Americanized- whether we were born here or not. Instead of changing to conform to others' standards why can't we be the influence that inspires that standard to become something else, something more? We have this power.
I waited and waited but the serious moment never arrived, the laughter never subsided long enough so that I may have gotten a glimpse into the experiences, the lessons, the tragedies, and the glories of what it may mean to be Assyrian and queer in America.
My new friends seemed beyond all that. There was an unspoken understanding between them- that what had occurred up to that point had no importance and there was no reason to dwell. Instead they laughed, danced, smoked.
There were so many questions I wanted to ask. What steps had led them to the present? What could we learn from each other and how much of this information could we hand down to our own children? Will we ever find ourselves inspired and strengthened by each other or will we remain divided, scattered, fragmented?
Just where are we headed as queer Assyrians?
Back at the old apartment my brother's room, the one we used to share as teens, was always dark, the shades pulled down and yellowed from cigarette smoke. There were cobwebs swinging in the corners of the ceiling. Stains on the carpet, empty cups, overflowing ashtrays, signs of defeat. Signs that someone has given up on light, air, life.
The nights that I stayed there I lay in bed without burring my face into the smoky pillow, without sighing, without allowing my body to sink into downy comforts that were absent, but lay still, staring at the dark ceiling, trying to conjure the young boy I had left behind, in the darkness of memory. I was certain he was still there. I tried to find him, reach for him, but found I had lost him to age and too many pages.
I looked out the ground level window that opened to the sidewalk where Indian children, Black children, Pakistani and Assyrian children noisily played, where cars lined the narrow side street as far as the eye could see, where dirt overwhelmed grass. I heard voices from the past and images began to form of a time when I used to think everything was eternal because my own desperation was so great and unmoving. Now, at twenty-six I know better. All things change, but that change is not guaranteed to happen on its own. It needs our help.
Still, there is so much missing.
One afternoon we were to go for Persian food as a family. It was to be my gift to them. I felt proud. Lena had fixed her hair and dressed. Even Bell was going with us. But dad was ornery, foulmouthed like he used to get when drunk. He complained about his pants- they were too long, or too short; I don't remember. He swore, staggered. No one had warned me he was drinking again. I did not know. But then again I was living in a dream, the kind where you do not see, do not feel, cannot run. In my father's home I was not human because to have been human in the company of my father was to be overdramatic, hyperemotional, wild with anger and with pity for him and for myself.
There were places in the small apartment I did not dare look.
My face held no expression. I held my breath.
And dressed.
When I walked into the kitchen I caught my father drinking vodka right out of the bottle. Guzzling. And suddenly, quite by accident, I was no longer twenty-six, but sixteen! I stood transfixed in the moment, a sensation of falling from the sky rippled through my body. Here finally was the boy I had come to find, to rescue, to reclaim out of the dilapidating past. In the dream, a motionless and soundproof world, I stepped back without my father seeing or hearing me.
My heart raced.
There were so many places in the apartment I did not dare look, closet doors I did not open, drawers I did not pull, eyes I never looked too deeply into. When I kissed my father it was momentary and mechanical. When I touched him it was with hands that had lost feeling. When he touched me, as he used to when I was a child in love with him, I derived no pleasure, but sought flight. It was like my skin had lost its memory.
These were not my father's hands but stumps of a stranger who had single-handedly destroyed not only the precious bond between a father and his son, but his own life, body, and mind.
'You're not allowed to have dinner with us,' a voice older and calmer than my own passed my lips. 'I'm not going anywhere with you like this. If you'd like I'll bring you something back from the restaurant.' He did not speak. Lena and Bell stood silently by. And I said nothing more.
I spent ten intimate years watching my father sink deeper into the bottle. I could not spare another minute of it. We did not scream this time, we did not fight, we did not throw things at each other. We were like two soldiers who had once fought in the same futile war, but on different sides; two men who no longer had the energy to fear, resent, or loath each other.
Lena would not go without dad. She politely declined my insistence. It would be just Bell and I.
Over dinner we talked about writing, of all things. Earlier I had stumbled upon a manuscript of a novel my brother was secretly working on and read it. Some of it had actually been good. I had read on with amazement that my own brother was pursuing the same dream as I without even knowing it. Bell was pleased to hear I am going to be published in two anthologies. We smoked, drank, talked. Bell had doogh- Iranian yogurt with soda and dill. I had a beer.
Although my brother and I bonded on this topic of writing we struggled to make conversation. We, as brothers, have nothing in common, except maybe our mixed feelings for our father. We are different beings. Silence typically befalls us. Discomfort. A void.
It still hurts that I don't have a relationship with my only brother, and I continue to dream of having other siblings as though there were still a chance my mother might give birth to my soul mate, and relieve me of this destiny that belongs to an only child.
I would prefer to have been an only child than brother to a man I do not understand and cannot reach.
We left the restaurant in Bell's Jeep and the streets passed my window while I sat paralyzed with longing, strangely unafraid to enter my father's home, unafraid to face him, unafraid to face my own demons. Bravado accompanied me everywhere.
I showered, changed, and stood waiting outside the apartment for a taxi to take me to Walida's basement apartment. I wore black slacks and a gray dress shirt, fairy dust sparkling in my hair. I felt out of place on Damen, not as the shy and insecure teen, but a confident and handsome young man in his mid twenties. The driver was a chatty young Pakistani.
"Are you going to a party?" he asked almost as soon as I got into his cab.
I answered with little enthusiasm, still troubled by the events of the day, 'No. I'm just meeting some friends for drinks. I'm visiting from out of town.'
"Well, you look very nice," said the young driver.
I thanked him for the complement.
"If you don't believe me just look in the mirror," he added.
He offered me a cigarette and I gave him one of mine instead because they are rare and the paper is as sweet as honey. We talked some more and he told me his story, growing up in Pakistan, immigrating to Chicago, driving a taxi for a living.
When we pulled up to Walida's place he finally introduced himself and invited me to his apartment, "I live a couple buildings down from where I picked you up. Since you're from out of town maybe you want to come over and use my e-mail." He told me his address and said I could ring his bell and go up any time I wanted.
One night, at Brandon's uncle's gallery, when Ashur was still in town, I kept asking friends, 'Don't Ashur and I look like brothers?' Finally Ashur pulled me aside, "So. Are we 'like brothers'?" There were people and paintings all around us, many colors, voices, lights, the sound of ice cubes in glasses and laughter. When I turned away I saw friends, loved ones. 'I wasn't suggesting that that is all I want, Ashur. I like you.' But we couldn't finish our conversation.
We would only resume another night when we were out with Misha, George, and others. Again Ashur took my hand, led me out of the loud bar and took me to a quiet annex, a dimly lit bar with tables and sofas. We sat at a small table, a candle between us, which I pushed aside.
I spoke frankly, 'Ashur, I think you're amazing, and if we lived in the same city I would fall in love with you.'
I remember his eyes, the lashes that entangled me in their wispy gaze. He said, "I've already fallen in love with you."
My mouth must have fallen to the ground and kicked about by passing feet because I could not find it and speak.
Finally, 'That is one of the most tender things anyone's ever said to me.'
We proceeded to list the reasons why we liked each other and why it was a good idea to hold off on sex.
There was a large window behind him and cars and people passed by. I found his eyes again, staring like a child into mine. They were brimming with light and enthusiasm.
'There is always the future, and who knows what is ahead for us. This is not an ending.' He held my hand. I lost the window, the cars, the pedestrians, and the entire city beyond.
Perhaps I should have said something else or something more, but my initial instinct was to be calm, reserved, and not surrender totally to the romance because I am so easily swept away as it is. I have drowned too many times. I smell of the sea. If you stumble upon my heart, happen to pick it up, and place it to your ear you'd hear the fury of the ocean, the sorrowful wind of the bay. I held myself when I should have kissed him. I held my breath and stayed near the shore where I could run and hide in the sand dunes and protect myself from his tidal whims, or worse yet, from my own surging foibles.
One-night stands are easy.
When George, Ushi, and I saw Ashur off at he airport I was deeply and silently mournful.
That week I devoted myself to giving Brandon the bachelor party he deserved. The rehearsal dinner was a good time as well. I refused to give the reading Laura asked me to give because it was so Catholic, so religious. Someone else read it. The wedding itself was beautiful.
One night, in Laura and Brandon's spare bedroom I finally wrote the toast I was to give at the reception.


Marriage is a decision
Fortunately love is spontaneous
Marriage is oftentimes serious
But love is frivolous
Marriage is an institution
Love is a playground

I always wonder why the phrase is:
So and so fell in love
Falling is such a painful and embarrassing thing
And honestly Brandon has not once complained about
Having fallen in love with Laura

But then again what is there to complain about
That Laura's eyes are bright
That her smile is contagious
That her beauty is disarming

I have a wild imagination
But I truly can't imagine
Anyone else sitting where
You are at this moment
Laura

I thank God it is you

And Brandon
Ten years ago in high school
If you'd told me I would be standing here
Making this toast
I would not have believed it
We were from totally different mentalities
But Brandon is an amazing person

Through you Brandon
I have met some great people and personalities
Diverse characters

It takes an amazing person
Such as yourself
To bring so many of us
Here
Together

Thank you Brandon for your
Friendship and steadfast brotherhood

And I added, 'I love you both.'
There were many handshakes, photos, kisses, hugs, dances, conversations. A dazzling night.
The next morning Brandon and Laura left for their honeymoon and Ashur returned. He had called a few nights before to tell me he was coming back to Chicago and I had been thrilled. He did not say he was coming for me, but that did not matter. He was returning and I would have another chance to see him, to hug him, to hold him, and to perhaps tell him all that I hadn't.
But would I?
There was a time when my imagination and my life had very little difference and much in common, but I find that as I age what I dream and what actually transpires are entirely disparate entities. Am I not as courageous as I once was to dream? Not as intuitive? Ashur came but I did not swim in the waves of passion. I was again collected, only painstakingly demonstrative. I held his hand on the sidewalk, kissed him on the lips, but only a peck.
I was not audible amidst the chaos and the chatter of the other Assyrian queens. So many times what I began to say was dismissed and forgotten. I was timid. But was I fragile? What did I seem like I was made of? Glass? Crystal? A diamond to be admired from a distance and not handled?
There was so much about Ashur to adore: His eyes, his expressions, his gestures, his joking and bantering, his mere energy. That night I decided to return to California sooner than planned. I was over stimulated, overwhelmed. I packed my bag in a hurry and Bell drove me to the airport. He said to call him when the plane landed. I never did.
On the flight home I was overcome by the strongest sense of loneliness. I was tired, and tired of being alone, traveling alone, living alone, of being so aware of being alone. Had Ashur awakened in me a longing for something more? But I had been so happy before, content with my life. I wrapped myself in a blanket and tried to sleep, occasionally falling from the sky into the darkness. My head was brimming with recollection. I had already begun to process all of it: Brandon, the wedding, Ashur and the other Assyrians, dad, Bell, the apartment, the many nights of laughter and drink, so much. Too much!
At moments, with the lights out and most other passengers dozing, I wanted to weep, to weep silently but profusely for all that I was leaving behind: That first afternoon with Ashur when the taxi had picked us up on the sidewalk, when we had talked the afternoon hours away; the morning when I was alone at Brandon and Laura's and the delivery service brought my wedding present to them and I signed for it and laughed; playful kisses from George, and laughing at the piano bar like children in church; the days when I had Bell's Jeep and driven it peacefully through Chicago smiling at strangers, enjoying the sun on my face. I missed every glance, every word, every laugh, every single expression, every fading moment.
I let go of dad and my brother, but not of the love I feel for them. From here, from the illusory and protective guise of distance I can safely celebrate my father, tell him about my love for him, hold him, thank him, and let him know that he has been the greatest father on this earth. In my imagination there is a place where everything is gold, including the elixir my father guzzles in the kitchen, in secrecy and in shame.
It's been days since I left Chicago, but images still haunt me, sounds follow me underneath each living moment that I spend recuperating from the carnival I lived and created. I am still returning from that world which would not exist without my doing. I take full responsibility for creating Chicago and the memory. It is my nature to perceive the world in this blinding light that burns permanent impressions on my spirit. Stories. Events. Illuminations. And that is not the end of it. I am not the only master and artist here. Life has its share of contributions to the drama and the surging canvas.
Yesterday I stumbled upon an e-mail that Jackie sent to her friend in Japan from my computer. In it she reveals things she has not told any one of us in the family, obviously protecting us. Something about the possibility of having MS.
Apparently there will be more tests to come. But I cannot approach her about the subject because she is away for a few days. And what would I say to her when she returns? I will not lose her. She is the one I love the most in the entire family. Jackie has not only been my aunt, but my sister and soul mate. God cannot take her from me. I entered her room last night and fell to her bed, praying and crying.
I talked to Shammi for the first time in weeks, if not months. She is still recovering from her breakup with Laura- a long and staggered process which she admits frightens and overtakes her. "I'm living in a fog," she confessed, her voice for the first time feeble. I wanted to reach through the wires and touch the flesh, kiss the friend. The date for her travels to Iraq is set. We wondered if we are merely dramatic and comfortable in the role of the victim, or if life really is this arduous. We didn't come up with a definite answer.
But we huddled like two white doves in the crevices of an ominous bridge in a dark city. Maybe this is why Shammi is leaving the country for a while. I don't know. I don't meddle. I don't question friends. I just support them. God, I'd be a terrible parent!
All I know is that Shammi has been feeling restless for some time here in the States and craves a connection with her roots that I find understandable. I feel the pull too, the need to see Iran again.
Tracy called. He has grown to be a friend. I talk to him more than I do to Paul, the Assyrian one. He was concerned when I told him about Jackie's recent medical scare. He said, "It must be a people of color thing. My mother didn't tell us she was ill for months. The same with Paul's mother. No one knew about her cancer for years! We care more about others than about ourselves. I'm seeing a therapist you know, because my job as a social worker requires it, and he asked me an interesting question the other afternoon: He said, 'How did you feel when your partner told you he was infected with HIV and that he may have infected you?' And I said I was more concerned with his well being than my own. And my therapist almost had a fit. He couldn't understand it. I was ready to drop him then and there, but I finally made him understand that it's a cultural thing."
Although Tracy was making a valid cultural generalization and a serious point we could not help but laugh.
I have never asked Tracy and Paul how they were infected. I suppose it's because I know time will reveal the many shifting facts of the tale. I don't believe in interviewing or interrogating friends. Isn't it better to allow people to open up as a flower does to light, slowly?
Tracy speaks formally, beautifully, with a full-bodied voice that never tires of its own music. He is attractive and cultured. Yet he is disastrous. Breakables will break in his presence, cigarettes will burn holes in clothes, liquids will spill. But he has a heart of gold and although I would not trust my favorite crystal to his care, I would surely place my heart in his hands.


My maker on fated night
Sewed my limbs together
By candle light with
Homophobic thread
He was in a mischievous mood
So that when I move
To touch myself my
Seams creak with
Self-contempt

The following is a list I made in 1994, which I recently found tucked away in the pages of my diary:

  1. Never be sorry unless you hurt someone.
  2. Feel free to break plans and make better one.
  3. Write letters.
  4. Go to school.
  5. Draw.
  6. Want fame but don't get frustrated for dreaming.
  7. Always keep the farm close to heart.
  8. Remember you want to act. Act!
  9. Be honest and straightforward with everyone.
  10. Be bummed at times.
  11. Never let someone you don't know make you angry.
  12. Cry once in a while.
  13. Read a lot
  14. Spend more time pointing out the positive in people.
  15. Remember you're a Leo.
  16. Eat right.
  17. Exercise.
  18. Respect everything in you.
  19. Impress.
  20. Charm.
  21. Conquer.
  22. Keep track of money and how you spend it.
  23. Know you're beautiful but don't depend on it.
  24. Work hard.
  25. Make something of your wonderful self.
  26. Don't expect a lot.
  27. Live.
  28. Be bad and do stupid things. You're allowed.
  29. Love God.
  30. Forgive your father.
  31. Go to sleep. You're tired.

I think of Jackie and worry for her. I pray for the first time in years but feel awkward for it. Does God see that I am a hypocrite and only come to him for others and not myself? Why do I pray when I am not a practicing Christian? Because He is in our lives whether we like it or not. Because Mom-Suzie believes in him devoutly and keeps Him near us, whether we happen to worship Him or not. So I pray. I pray for Jackie. I ask Him to take me instead because I have lived so many times, so deeply, while Jackie has yet to live for herself. Her entire life has been for others.
But I know there is no one listening. Praying is like writing in this journal. One speaks to his own conscience.
It is afternoon and mom naps in my bed. She crawled in only minutes ago with my permission and sank into the downy embrace of my comforter, smiling, the sun on her mouth. We laughed, then she drifted away. I write this next to her. Earlier we had our Turkish coffee while I told her about Brandon's wedding.
Decision is a funny thing whatever way you look at it. Whether we make it or life makes it for us there will always be that space underneath and above Decision in which lie doubt, whist, and speculation. One can never know if a decision is right or wrong. We do not have that power of knowing. Only after time and hard labor does the answer become only remotely clear to us.
I am constantly evading Decision and allowing life and time decide my fate. I move solely by power of emotion, not practicality. Feeling propels me. Intuition steers me. I am a leaf in the air, a feather spinning, a sheet of rice paper floating.
Ashur called earlier from work and we kept the conversation short, but funny, tender, wistful for each other.
'How are you?'
"Fine. I love you and miss you," he confessed easily but spoke quickly as if to say these things is taboo and one has to let them out hurriedly to lessen the shame of confession.
Funny that after all the loneliness, all the experimentation with my sexuality, trying to overcome fear and stigma, I would be given this new test of feeling, but long distance. Will the phone bill reveal the nature of these calls? Wistful dialogue: 2 minutes. Seems life is trying to keep me from anything easy and convenient.
But I don't mind.

August 1999

I am out of touch…
Last week, after a long night of debauchery, I lost control of my car and crashed into a median in San Rafael. I was only fortunate not to have harmed myself or anyone else. I consider this a fair warning from some higher force that was witness to my living carelessly like a teenager who still believes he is invincible. Somehow, within, spiritually, I am grateful. I am awakened to the horrible possibilities that lurk at every involuntary turn of the road, at every drunken fork.
I got what was coming to me. I was out of control- for ten years, not just for the last few months. I lived like an immortal. Scratch that. I lived like a hoodlum.
Everything falls into place with a faint whisper of a resolution to sober up and shape up, step out of the protective womb of the fantasy and step into the light of active living, breathing now the intermingled air of the open marketplace where the fisherman and the florist work peacefully side by side.
Twenty-six today!
Accompanied mom to the office of a local cosmetic surgeon, as she has been quite dissatisfied with the state of her sagging eyelids for some time. She says she feels guilty for wanting and pursuing this when there are so many other more impending causes she could be investing in. I suspect I am included in this rather serious category. But I assuage her concerns. I tell her I'm proud of her and that she should go through with it.
The doctor himself was swarthy, smooth-skinned, effeminate in ways that were handsome and endearing. Slender. Self-certain. I could hardly make eye contact with him and when I did it felt like a battle of wills. I was completely thrown. I wished I had fixed my hair and dressed better.
He had perfect hands.
I watched him as he fumbled with a digital camera he said was brand new. He manipulated mom's image on a laptop computer to give her an idea of the benefits of the procedure. He had a child's pliable body and squeezed himself next to us, his legs crossed.
Because of my online diary I have met Ashur, a queer Assyrian in Canada. He called this afternoon and this may sound strange, but I can always recognize his voice, liken it to that of my cousins. There is something distinctly Assyrian about it. There is a familiarity in and around it. I can't describe it, but it's a little nasal, a little unmistakable.
Each time we talk we open up a little more. He told me about a wild party he went to with a gay co-worker, an event held in a Toronto warehouse, attended by two-thousand men in leather. He said the music was pumping and exhilarating from start to finish, and that it never waned. He danced for hours like he hasn't in years. (He is twenty-eight.) Throughout the duration of the festivities an artist spray-painted a mural of men in an orgy. Each time Ashur looked up more of the scene was revealed beyond the smoke and the haze.
On stage two men who were dressed in hospital scrubs made out. One bent the other over, ripped his bottoms off and began to finger him. After some minutes he reached well into the loosened anus and proceeded to actually pull something out of it. Ashur said everyone gasped and screamed when a purple Teletubbie was extricated from the anus of the man!
We laughed wildly about this… after I verified that Ashur was in fact telling the truth.
We plan on meeting in person in Chicago in the near future.
Folding the laundry fresh out of the dryer is heaven. The mere act of sorting and folding lulls me, the warmth soothes me, the silence of the garage, a moment alone, without any hesitations, calms me. I want to sleep standing.
It is in such small daily events that streams of reflection and meaning flow into lakes of meditative ideas, and I fall in love with life again; and it does not matter that other loves were violently destroyed, annihilated by my angers and resentments, by guilt, by sadness, by boredom, and impatience.
I wandered the oblique streets of my desire, which were frayed and tattered, knocked on every door, on every heart of every stranger that passed and only the lonely men responded simply because my own state of disconnection was a magnet. We did not dance but fell like dead leaves to our knees, kissing without passion. With addiction.
I drank until the lights flickered and the scene danced unevenly. I giggled. But futile are cynical chuckles. My body led but my heart did not follow.
The flowers in the yard attempted to console me. Nature failed. For the first time I forgot all the inspiration that had rendered my life graceful. Bitterness prevailed.
Addiction.
Mom and I walked through these calm residential streets, traversing the cracks in the pavement, the silence broken by a wind that asked, "Whooo?" But I found I had no answer or explanation for the atmosphere except, 'Every one of us.' Lawns lay still, submissive as I recalled too many uncertain embraces of too many men. Mom commented on the magnificence of wispy clouds that were painted by the setting sun. Twilight tapestry.
Each silent home we passed possessed windows so darkened, so empty that it was as though all of Novato were deserted. But I knew that behind every curtain private lives took place, love happened, abuse, longing, divorce, hope. Addictions.
We fought the wind to the doorstep of our borrowed home wondering who would win the sixty-million-dollar lottery…
One evening, at a friend's house on the mountain, when the temperature was just right and the light seductive, the music engaging, I happened upon a white feather boa, and modeled it. I felt close to the world that contained the woods that in turn contained the small house. Trees looked through every window. I felt the intoxication, the laughter, posing in the bathroom mirror while Anna peed. We giggled like children, with no one to reprimand us for displaying our bodies, shamelessly, innocently.
These are the moments I take with me into the dark, holding them up like a protective flame.
I fear nothing anymore. I resolve to live this imperfect life according to its rules and not against them.
Summer passes swiftly, laughingly. We hum with pleasure, small against the night sky.
I have another serpent dream. I am in a small cell with glass walls and doors. I am being detained by authorities for being a foreigner. In this cell there are large tropical plants, a desk, a chair, and the snake, which is long, fat. This is a familiar place. It is not the first time I have been held here. There is a tray of food on the desk. The snake and I meet here, we are face to face. The snake yawns, opening its mouth wide, its jaw unhinged. This frightens me and my reaction in turn startles the snake. It quickly slithers away, knocking the tray of food off the table. I am left with nothing. Just this dysfunctional existence in a cell with the serpent...

July 1999

Is it natural to outlive imagination? Are we only allotted a ration of years of imaginative musings? Do we dream less as we age, and have I already wasted my reserve?
The last time Wael and I met for dinner the food had been tasty, the conversation easy, but it was the parting kiss that never took place that left me feeling empty. He had merely said, "Give me a hug," which had hurt deeply, and strangely. A deeper than usual fog had encompassed the streets through which I had raced home.
The absent kiss had heralded my loneliness, which resurfaces like the disease that it is. Erotic longing replaced amorous hope. I cross The Bridge at night like a heavy animal in flight, in search, in labor.
When the bar closes I find myself refusing the kisses of a man twice my age. He looks into me with the desperation and longing of a man for whom there is no place in a culture that renounces anyone and thing that is no longer youthful, or beautiful. And the more he hesitates to speak what is already dripping off the tip of his tongue the longer I withhold. We dance gracelessly around in the parking lot until he says the words. "Can I suck you off?"
'No!' I snap, 'But you can jerk me off.'
I am merciless.
I pull my jeans to the floor of my car and his hand impatiently clasps my cock, and desire fills his eyes with hunger as sadness fills them with tears. Twice he attempts to place his mouth on my erection, but I pull him away. "Can I suck your balls, then?" he asks like a child who has run out of pleas.
I pause cruelly, then give him the nod.
I'm not ashamed to admit that my unexpressed desire for Wael, for everyone unattainable, vents itself in parking lots!
It is morning. I have just arrived home from yesterday.
Insatiable.
After closing Lunacy- Marin's lone gay bar- I joined a band of Latinos smoking in the parking lot. They were lively, fun, and flirtatious. It was my idea to go elsewhere and party more. Brian, the only white boy, suggested we go to his apartment in Larkspur. His was a filthy little apartment for which Brian kept apologizing. The bunch of us sat in a circle and bantered.
But the lighthearted spirit of our makeshift after-party suddenly turned grim when Rudie, an effeminate young man, complained that all gay men want is sex and nothing more. Brian, who'd been cuddling with Rudie, now turned to Carlo who affectionately rubbed Brian's hair.
Now Rudie looked even smaller and more alone than before. He rambled on in the bravest of ways of a string of confessions, suicide attempts, and years of endless appointments with ineffectual therapists. He looked so sorry and lost. I wanted so much to aid him, to say the most insightful things, to interrupt his speech and topple his sorrow.
Carlo offered his wisdom, spoke evenly as others rolled their eyes behind Rudie's back, shifting uncomfortably in their seats.
When we left I had felt the deepest sense of helplessness for not having done something to save the young queen.
But I have become shameless, flirtatious, dangerously confident. At Tony's apartment I immediately undressed and stretched out on his lonely bed, and when he came into the room he lay on top of me, pushing a solid, thick erection against mine. We kissed, our bodies grinding into each other. The stubble from his face burned my neck and made the already fervent kisses fiery. Brutal. In the darkness it was not a person I felt against me, with me, but nameless textures, ethereal aromas, sensations and reverberations of pleasure.
I found Tony's assertiveness in bed could not contain me. We were equally male, simultaneously deriving pleasure, sharing the eroticism and arousal.
And although Tony was "straight" in demeanor and behavior, he was not selfish, nor domineering. He seemed fixed on giving me pleasure, hosting me, and enjoying himself in the process.
He turned me over and rubbed his stout, firm, naked body against my anus, whose every nerve ending seemed to overlap like stars on a moonless night. It received his every curve, dent, breath; even his nipples seemed to be fucking me!
Again he flipped me over and looked into my eyes, and in the darkness recognized their beauty, and said so- their deep, brown, sultry beauty that I feel is wasted every time on strangers whose names I won't remember in a few days.
My beauty responds to the invitation of the men, but secretly waits in their ephemeral embrace for steadfast love…
He kissed my toes, took them hungrily into his mouth.
I twisted in unfamiliar sheets to familiar sensations.
We talked intermittently. He admitted he had wanted me from the moment he'd seen me at the bar. And I gave myself to him because in this there is inexplicable pleasure.
Again, no oral sex, no anal sex. Just kisses, nips, licks, masturbation, the presence of human flavors, and the feel of inhuman textures.
In the morning I felt no remorse, maybe because I had been level, safe, and natural. And I felt I fully deserved this rare reprieve. The silence. The peace.
I sat on the edge of his bed and placed my socks and shoes back on my feet, and watched Tony dress for work. I saw something very lonely in him- this El Salvadorian in his late thirties, father of a nine-year-old girl, working day in and day out in a local hotel, living with a single parakeet. He dressed quickly and unceremoniously, and I glimpsed no magic, no desire for the impossible, no dream. And when he tucked his dress shirt into his underpants before pulling his trousers up, I thought I would guffaw and fall into the bed once more. I had to turn away, and suppress the laughter.
Hurried home, showered, washed away the memory, the sexual hysteria, the lost night, got back into the car and drove off into the sun to Berkeley, where I was to meet Wael.
I had intended to bring up the subject of my attraction for him, at least casually, if such a thing is at all possible, clear up the nebulous nature of our yet undefined relationship, and to verbalize with utmost simplicity my romantic interest in him. But the day turned out to be so startlingly beautiful and breezy, sunny and mellow, everyone around us smiling and cheery as Wael and I strolled carelessly, drank our coffee slowly, and talked easily about so many other things that I never found the right moment, the will, and the necessity for serious disclosures, and vulnerability. My frustration with the great unknown had suddenly vanished in the lazy afternoon streets, fallen somewhere amidst the flowers and the yards of the charming homes we admired.
We stepped into an overstocked bookstore on Telegraph where I finally purchased the much talked about "Koolaids" by the Lebanese writer Rabih Alameddine. Wael, who is friends with the queer writer and distantly related, promises to introduce me to him.
From "Koolaids":
In America, I fit, but I do not belong.
In Lebanon, I belong, but I do not fit.
Night in July.
And I am caught in moon's path.
Overcome with the many textures of then, now, and tomorrow. I am tactile. Alive.
My heart skips beats, is forgetful of its rigidities. It bursts when it ought to beat. I am new. I have just opened my eyes, for the first time it seems, to desire, to myself, to the erotic undertones of the Bay, of the World, without feeling like I have committed a crime.
Sexuality is every person's destiny.
And right!
Tonight I am in many places at once- in the present and in the past, simultaneously catering to the many whims of two lovers, two moons.
Here and now and I am rendered weightless, nameless by the completeness that is not asphyxiating but liberating, spacious. I dance at a roofless ball, in diaphanous attire, to soundless music whose composer has mastered gravity.
And I find that I am the composer and the score!
Will this unexpected sense of freedom, so sudden and miraculous, survive the rest of the night and accompany me into morning, where the light may be unforgiving, or will it disappear like so many things, fade with the strange sounds of night in the hills?
Better not ask…
Have I at least cracked the code, the misconception that male sexuality should linger in death? Am I free at last from the bullying fear that lures me each night into the fire that is ice, the silence that is booming, the bed that is nails?
Am I really natural again, free, and naked again in man's world, in woman's world, in God's world?
I have been having sex, listening to my body, on the street, in the car, at work, in class. I have been the accomplice to my own cells' whims and fancies. I have survived frantic divisions, explosive mutations, electric urges, masturbating regularly but spontaneously in unlikely places. My orgasms are more earthly and physical, immediate and forceful than ever. I am discovering my penis really for the first time. New pleasures. My autoerotic experience flowers dramatically like a carnivorous tropical plant, in a distant summer. I have met pleasure as though pleasure were famous. My arousal does not spring from other places, past experiences, or unreal expectations; it stems from the well of youth and sex, anticipation and laughter, from the garden within, in the desert of self, over the body of being human and imperfect.
I am a planet that implodes tonight, hurdling haplessly across the tableau of timeless emotions… and space.
I am living.
Fully living.
Without remorse, without fear, without and within.
My heart skips like a child.
My body shifts like a continent.
My face turns to face the sun like a rare flower.
I am eternal.
I am in love with life.
After sitting in the sand, near the water, retaining the horizon and the sound, I walk on San Francisco streets, my body burning with desire. I climb the stairs, pass the mirrored walls in which I glimpse the glow, to The Metro. I order a drink and take it to the balcony that overlooks intersecting avenues, bustling sidewalks. Here I strike up a conversation with two friends sitting to my left, and we end up going for a slice of pizza, getting along famously, talking about family, hometowns, past affairs. When it came time to part I would not have the two take a bus home, and we climbed into my car.
Upon dropping Jason off at his apartment I found myself alone with Mike, for whom my attraction was ingenuous and outspoken. I outlined what I desired. He was in accord.
We went to his small apartment off of Market- a space that was clean, charming, surprisingly intimate. Mike escorted me into his bedroom. There were fresh cut flowers in a vase next to his bed, beautiful flowers. And I undressed without shame and lay in the huge downy comforter, sank naked into the moment, settled with the feathers, lightly, naturally.
"Hey you sexy man," Mike growled playfully as he lay into me, placing many playful, erotic kisses in my mouth, on my face, and into my neck.
I suddenly became aware of his erection against my leg; the length and width of it took me completely by surprise. It was heavy, warm, complete.
He asked to suck my balls, and did so feverishly, complementing them, relishing them. Pure ecstasy.
A single white candle lighted the space around us. Earlier he'd drawn the heavy curtains across the windows, creating a warm, dark womb within which we could shift in a vertigo of wet kisses, primal sensations. He was gentlemanly and his graciousness made his passion comfortable to receive, warm. I've had enough of impersonal sex, lukewarm passion- which is not passion at all, but a planet without sun.
He cupped his own testicles, which were enormous and hairless, and offered them to me. I struggled to fit them both into my mouth. They slipped about, popping out of my lips, which made him sigh with pleasure.
More kisses.
My desire had escalated to heights beyond my fear of sex, people, life, and passion itself, higher than the bed itself, and us. I knew I wanted his monstrous cock inside me.
'Do you have condoms?' I whispered.
He seemed glad that I had asked and promptly fetched the small square package from a nearby drawer.
It arouses me to watch a man wear a condom, slip the rubber onto the head of his penis and roll it down his shaft. So much anticipation, eroticism.
"Do you want to ride it?" he asked.
'How do you like it?'
"With you on your back."
'Please be gentle. I have never been with anyone as big as you.'
I lay still in the cream colored sheets, in the sigh of the night, my legs up, breathing. The initial penetration was piercingly painful, even though Mike had been gentle, hovering over me, looking adoringly into my eyes, smiling. I winced. He bowed his head and kissed me on the mouth- a kiss I received thirstily.
Pain. Pleasure. A same creature with two faces!
He penetrated and began to move his pelvis closer, closer, closer. I watched his stomach meet the back of my thighs. I watched him watch himself fuck me, his face contorted.
"You're so tight," he repeated over and over as he fucked me. And when I flexed he moaned, which simply tickled me.
He slipped out.
We kissed more.
Then again, concentration, quietude, deep breathing.
When he'd found me and we'd once again slipped into that other state, we fell to our sides, my knees on either side of his head, looking into each other. Smiling.
This time he flexed and I felt his cock become swollen, stretching my own myriad nerve endings, stretching them to their hilt, until I couldn't help but whimper, my face flushed with new sensations. He flexed again. I looked at him with disbelief.
He held my leg in such a way so that he could fuck me with greater strides of motion, and watch himself slip in and out of me. He reached down with his hand and held one cheek open, and pressed his huge cock deeper into me.
He asked if I was o.k.
'Yes,' I whimpered.
And he found a rhythm that was faster than before and steady.
I sought mindlessness. A place in my head that was open and ecstatic.
I came.
Immediately Mike pulled out, discarded his condom, and came all over me.
Sighing, groaning, exhaling, sinking further into the feathers, entangled.
'The condom never broke?' I asked rather hesitantly.
"They never do if you use them correctly," Mike boasted.
I dressed. Fixed my hair with my fingers. Passed the framed photograph of Mike's twelve-year-old son. And held my breath for the remorse that never surfaced.
As I stepped out of Mike's apartment, onto the dark, cool, city street, Mike kissed me and reminded me, "Two weeks from today at The Metro, at seven…"
I can't escape it!
It follows me everywhere like a whisper, and when I try to name it, trace back its origins, I find that the contradictory clues all lead back to me. Desire begins in me. I am its incubator.
And I live in a space without gravity where each word, image, and thought shifts, turns, inverts, and wafts about backwards and forward, in and outward, against mirrors, mirrors, and further mirrors, and I don't have to dramatize what is already extreme, deep, wide, and thick!
I do not return phone calls.
Only glances. Sexual advances.
It is not the actual act of same-gender sex that preoccupies me. I seem to have no more inhibitions in sex. It is all that transpires afterward, or does not transpire, that torments me: the disconnection, and the feeling that I have misplaced something valuable.
The pangs, the pain, the shame, the fangs of self-contempt…
Before sex I am charming. And afterward, neurotic. Hypochondriacal. Schizophrenic! I am neither man nor woman about sex. Not human at all. But a wounded animal lashing out at mirrors, lunging at reflections. Shadow boxing.
I set the traps, circles of fear and fire, so that for days nothing gives me pleasure, and life, all of it, each part, day, and fiber of it, loses its appeal. I play games that are superstitious in nature. I make silent deals with God. I become all that I perceive and despise in my family: Passive, religious, mournful.
I am obsessed with unraveling my own mortality.
Damn youth! Transient and eternal.
I withdraw. I hate, but silently.
I am unhappy. But it is not the first time, nor the last.
At the Russian River with friends I drink too much and the sun bursts through the clouds and I strike up a conversation with the older man who passes with his small furry dog. He says he has owned a bar on Polk Street in the city for years, but that he retreated to the house just above where we drink and play on the edge of the river. He invites me up. We talk and smoke cigarettes, look out on the river, and I sense that he is deeply lonely here in the woods, living alone. I see so much of myself in him.
I return to my friends on the rocks where we lounge in the haze, listening to the river, playing in the sun.
After a few more drinks I tell my friends I have to use the restroom and return to the house up the embankment. The smell of summer in the air, on my skin, and in my hair.
I sit with the man on the sofa. I am aroused. I pull my shorts off. And although I am not attracted to him I am attracted to the idea that my youthfulness is gold to him. He has made no advances but I expose myself to him, nonetheless. My erection bounces in the quiet of the room, where I feel like I am mere words on the pages of a novel the moment writes. He strokes me. He licks my balls, gets them wet, pulls on them with his lips. Tongue. Teeth. When I am further aroused I slap his mouth with my erection. He sucks me off. I surrender. I come. I shoot profusely.
I join my friends in the sun and the intoxication again. They do not suspect. I do not confess.
But the day is not over, and neither am I. I am drunk and stirred, my imagination revved. There is something more out there and I don't want to be home. There is a world out there that wants me, a city, crowds of people, conversations, eroticism. In the last of the day's light I drive into the city.
At a bar I talk with a transsexual who says she had an Assyrian friend in college, back when she was still a man. We converse for a while. She is self-composed, not sarcastic or impudent like some drag queens. Her eyes are shy, and fall to the bottom of her martini.
At a different bar a tall fellow approaches me, the one who's been looking at me from the darkness across the room, whose gaze I have been meeting and holding. I am not attracted to him, or to his lover who joins us. But I accept their invitation to go to their home up the hill. What might it be like to live solely by erotic cravings, not only by what is right and what is wrong.
We step into their home, the three of us. It is clean, nice. And yet, I don't want to be there. We step into their bedroom. They want me more than I want them. They are white, have shaved heads, are perhaps in their mid-thirties. They look like twins, their cocks hard and bouncing in my face. They are smiling. But I cannot kiss them.
They offer me drugs. I decline.
They are friendly, nice even, and there is never any pressure for me to do what I do not want to. They say they've been together for many years, and yet with me in the room they treat each other so unemotionally. This is not a relationship. This is not love. This is not right. I do not want to live this way. They talk dirty to me. One bends the other before us on the edge of the bed, his anus up in the air, hairless, inviting in the dim light. He invites me to eat with him. I do not want to. I move away. I dress.
The tall one gives me his card and at the door urges me to call them some time. He sounds so earnest, even vehement, using words like "please". He kisses me on the mouth and I smile weakly, a false manipulation of facial muscles, but wipe the kiss from my mouth when I am in the car, driving away.
As always the lonely bridge home, the dark sea, distant lights belonging to a city I have fled without looking back, sneaking back into the village where I live and dream of something like love. I want to cry, but I can't. I am so profoundly disappointed. So angry that nothing is good enough for me, that I will never accept love, fidelity, happiness, and all the things that are made of delicate longings. I tire of dreaming and crash into nightmares and restless sleep, the sheets wrapping about my limbs like serpents from the depths of unanswered prayers.
In the morning I discover that my penis is chafed. A piece of skin is torn away. I panic, and dwell for days on the dark idea that this time I have surely contracted something. I am the cowardly explorer.
So starts again the helical process. The questions. The doubts. The fears. The admonitions. The spiral descent into total insecurity.
Did I give myself willingly to the plague? Am I the victim or the deserving Jezebel? What drives me to seek the thrill and the danger? What mad loneliness am I trying to annihilate by self-destructive measures?
And the days pass. I go to work, I have lunch with my family, I make purchases at the market, I return others' greetings through the bones and bloodied veins of my steadfast desperation, wondering: Am I my worst enemy?
The future falls from their grip as they, the young homosexuals, scramble to find deeper meaning in shallow waters. Mud in their hands.
A friend tells me that it is my nature to dramatize and not to worry. If only I could be so easily assuaged.
I allow myself to resent life, and follow the last traces of comfort to uncertainty.
My very need for order and perfection seems to steer me against myself, and my need for safety and virginal clarity.
Cyclical suicides.
Sunday after work I went to The Metro, as Mike and I had planned to meet there in the evening. Two, three, four cocktails later and he never came, but I was drunk! I laughed to myself at the irony of it all- my sitting there alone, in a bar, in San Francisco, in the world, alone again. Drunk again. But I did not hate him for it. Instead, I went to Martuni's, the piano bar.
I sat at the baby grand with two hair stylists, a novice chorus girl, and a mortician. We drank and sang, laughed, and conversed in bits and inaudible pieces, dropping dollar bills into the swollen cognac glass atop the piano. The room was dark and spinning, shrinking and expanding. Was this dimly lit space a mere reflection of my own heart where we, lonely caricatures of an indolent night, congregated? I found the entire night ludicrous as the boisterous chorus girl, who looked much older and worn out than she acted, talked endlessly about her troupe's upcoming gig in Las Vegas. I sniggered to myself, reeling in the void and fumes of alcohol.
The French gypsy transsexual, with missing teeth, was there, but tonight she did not sit at the piano to play and sing. She was in the audience tonight, sitting in the shadows with a handsome young man, whispering, laughing wildly. She recognized me and smiled. I raised my glass. She raised hers. We drank. The last time I had been here I had approached her while we both smoked outside and complemented her on her performance. Now she winked at me.
Does everything lead to desire? I wondered, and caught a glimmer of the answer rippling in my martini.
I looked up and saw the toothless transsexual leaning closer into her young suitor, and noted how uncannily she looked like Ann Bancroft. Just as sleek, just as strangely attractive and affected. When she grabbed her pack of cigarettes and rose others followed her outside.
I left suddenly, shortly thereafter, surreptitiously, without finishing my drink, without bidding my temporary friends farewell, and stumbled up the cold, empty street to Baghdad Café where I ate a sandwich, watching others. I noticed that a young man sitting at a nearby table looked very much Assyrian- his gestures, his dress, the nuances of his face, and his voice. I caught him a number of times observing me, turning away as soon as I looked up. When we happened to be leaving the restaurant at the same time I asked him, 'Are you Assyrian?'
But he turned suddenly dark, stormy, and answered sharply, "No, I'm not!" There was so much tension in his voice it was as though I had accused him of something unthinkable. I stepped away stupefied by his violence.
Today? A sinking feeling. I try to enjoy the sun, the day, this so-called freedom, but find I am fettered. And I fear that this void may never pass, that this hollow rhythm will find a willing host in my heart and remain forever!
I masturbate- an attempt to reacquaint myself with my body, with a sense of pleasure. But where is the emotional ecstasy? Must one pleasure always be matched by a darker displeasure?
Guilt is a shark.
I exist in a whirlpool of whimsical experiences whose mercurial characters play emotional tricks on me.
I start my third short story!
With the passing days comes forgetfulness and I start to feel a little better. I ask no questions.
I take an afternoon drive into the country where the sun burns the hills a deeper gold, and feel soothed.
Out there, in the world, beyond these pages, I meet other lonely people. There are many of us. We huddle in the dark and wait.

June 1999

The demystifying of needles, blood, and sex. Dreams and sexuality.
We give of ourselves in so many ways, in so many places. We juggle many appointments with hope, with fear, with dramas and art, with people, and moods.
When I woke up this morning I did not know that I would be going into a clinic for a fourth such HIV test, and endured the procedure almost mechanically, knowing what to do and when to do it, well before the technician had to ask.
I'm tired of repeating the same traumatic and dangerous scene, reliving the moments so that I may glimpse something I may have missed the million times before, something better, more beautiful, and beautifully lasting- something other than my lingering loneliness.
Do I will this familiar obstacle course, or is sinking simply everyone's destiny and challenge in life?
Is this my audition for a death that does not require talent, but wounds?
I pray that I will be strong through life; I do not pray that I test negative for HIV for why should I be spared when millions others are not? I should like to think that I am mature enough to accept the consequences of my behavior, my neurosis. I pray that in spite of my lonely and drunken misadventures life will not lose its magic.
I am not alone! I am not alone. I am not alone…
Dinner with Wael went well. We sat inside the small Japanese restaurant in the Castro and again talked of our past and coming out, and coming to terms. Wael sat with his back to the window beyond which I intermittently watched the pedestrians pass- dozens of them, men and women of different color, styles of dress, expressions, and pace. One such face stood out the most and our eyes locked for an instant.
It was Jack!
Wael talked of coming out in Lebanon while Jack had seemed like a lonely figure moving slowly by, looking in, seeing me. And although he had been discreet and walked on without acknowledging me- or perhaps he had not noticed me at all- I felt a hotness in the soles of my feet which shot straight through, flushing my face.
Wael asked, "What's wrong? You're not eating. Too full?"
'Yes, too full.'
I felt nauseous, cornered. Images of Jack's dimly lit bedroom, where he'd eaten from my ass, sought me. Images of the wealthy older man attacking my body, forcing himself in, fulfilling my sick fantasies of rape, of molestation, of being the child every man desires. And Jack is every man- his age, his physique, his mystique all encompass the men of my fantasies.
Dizziness.
Claustrophobia of memory.
This is not my life.
Wael casually enjoyed his dinner, talking in a mellow sweet monologue that had now become a soliloquy with which I could not keep up, though I pretended to.
I was busy splintering into two men. One who was afflicted with carnal appetites for a semblance of connection, whatever its nature, offering his ass to the stranger walking by beyond the window, and the other who was at peace and content with a slow and platonic unreality, as with Wael.
The former was merely a shell here conversing soberly with Wael, and the shell was hollow now, and had no heat, no texture, no movement, and parched it peeled from my body, fell to the restaurant floor, and shattered into a million unwanted pieces. And though I wanted nothing more than to scramble about and collect the fragments and hide every incriminating piece of the puzzle, I strived to stay seated, half-present, acting.
Afterward I wondered if I'd ever be able to confide such things in Wael- as friend or as unconditional lover. And would I ever be capable of being the ideal partner, faithful and healthy? Merciful enough not to demand that Wael, or anyone, be my anchor, my all-encompassing buffer…
And would my own patterns and past fade into the busy sidewalk, into oblivion like Jack?
A crazy, violent wind pounds its fists into the roof of the house where I am taking a precarious walk through the mine-laden fields of my imagination; a place where possibilities, both exciting and perturbing, explode and deafen my ears, simply because I have been reckless with my sexuality, careless with my body.
I am not.
I am!
It couldn't be. Yes, it could!
No, not me. Why not me!
I cannot meet my mother's eyes.
Is this what being queer means, and only this?
It can't be!
But life is so incredible, filled with golden moments, and ineffable magic, and I have felt so much joy, so much promise. Could this same life actually turn on me even while I have written so much about it, praised and poeticized it? Have I willingly forsaken life's gift by being twenty-something and motivated by the very hormones of mystery and sexual desire, by the cells of being me, the bloodstream of emotion itself?
I trusted too much in the spirit and forgot the body, which is fragile.
I lived so much in the spirit and the magic that I altogether forgot the chemical realities of the shell, the sinewy foundations.
I'm not.
But I might very well be!
Not me. Why not me!
A crazy, brutal wind…
In this empty coffee house, faced with the prospect of another empty page, I vacillate between a feeling of doom and a story of redemption. It is a struggle that has long become fused to my heart like an artery to a future I am not permitted to define.
Here unreal blood is generated, while the unreal blood sustains me. And my heart beats with fictitious spasms, dreamlike incentives.
It has become embarrassing to make such tenuous promises as- I will never again have sex and jeopardize my health! By now I know that this is insecurity speaking, lying. The root of all this belongs elsewhere, in richer, more fecund soils of conviction and human nature.
At a party Vanessa pulls down her jeans and white panties to show us her clitoral ring that pierces the hood of a shaved pussy. We are in the kitchen. Of course, it is not the first time I have witnessed this eighth wonder of the world!
Mitra, Anna, and I are sitting in the sun, in the woods. We spent last night around the fire, which Anna fed, fostered, and poked. We drank, burped, and farted in tandem, singing fragments of songs we knew and remembered.
The laugher here comes as naturally as the raccoons that stalk our locked supplies, as easily as the seeds that fall all around us from great Redwood heights.
Everything is an effort, though. There are many commands, "Anna, will you hand me a beer?" "Emil, do you have the lighter?" 'Ooh, Mitra, will you grab the roll of paper towels while you're up?'
To wash one's face takes five decisive steps, to fetch a plastic fork demands thought, concentration, and the retracing of older steps; a certain dexterity. Maybe it's the altitude. But isn't the point of camping to get in touch with the everyday while in the presence of wildness?
Effort, stars, cigarettes, song.
Although I stepped out of the clinic in San Rafael breathing a now hackneyed sigh of relief I knew that AIDS belongs to all of us- even us Assyrians.
It feels as though a certain chapter of horrors has been traversed and conquered, then dramatically placed back on the shelf, with one gesture of seeming finality. But I know I will revisit this place.
Ahimsa speaks of growing up knowing he would resist the violence he witnessed in his family, in his Brooklyn neighborhood, and his country. We are sitting on the sofa in his small, dark, Oakland apartment. Outside, the wind had blown litter all around my feet- dried leaves, pieces of dirty crumbled paper, cigarette butts, candy wrappers. I had thought of my own youth in Chicago, on dirty Devon.
When I ask him about an interesting collage which hangs on his bedroom wall Ahimsa reveals having lived on the streets. He says the piece represented to him a semblance of beauty even as he worked on it, depicted the nebulous ideal of perfection at a time when he was estranged from his family… because he was "different".
I'm always amazed by his mind, which is organized. Ideas come but he lays them gently aside on his lap so that he may finish the thought that is at hand. And when that topic is illustrated, branched out in poignant extremes, and completed he promptly and without hesitation picks up the one that is kept warm in his lap. Nothing is lost. He is a natural lecturer and destined to teach.
We lye on his bedspread and read aloud the pieces we have selected for the upcoming event. The excerpts from Ahimsa's book in progress are intimate and raw just like a diary. I am struck by their immediacy.
Of my work he says, "This is Walker, Marquez, Morrison. It is so specific that it is in the end universal."
He stands from the bed and pulls a book from the shelf. He points to the intricate geometric pattern on the cover and says, "This is the shape of your work."
It is a productive four hours and when I leave I know that tomorrow I will be reading as an Assyrian, and not as an ethnically anonymous writer.
The space where the reading was held was not at all what I had envisioned. I had not anticipated the elevator; the sterile feel of the building, the low ceilings. There were far too many people in attendance. I felt inadequate as the other poets and writers read works that were immensely moving and well constructed. They read more like performers than writers. As a diarist I felt totally out of place and ill-prepared.
During the intermission a slender figure approached me. It was Wael. He had decided to come after all. I was obviously pleased and felt at a loss for words. And when Wael struck up a conversation with a Lebanese writer who was blond and blue-eyed, and whose work dealt with being Arab but passing as European or American, I made a beeline for the restroom. Here I stood in the air that blasted from a vent in the ceiling. The cold felt shocking and rejuvenating, though nothing could blast me out of feeling very much in a private mood, not wanting to give of myself, not in public at least.
Ahimsa and I did not utilize a microphone, but projected our voices out and far, as far as the people standing in the back of the long room. When I looked up I saw shadows, outlines. Ahimsa's selections were by far more political in nature, longer in length, and the contrast seemed to work well. The audience was generous and applauded uproariously.
A few days before the reading I had received the following e-mail from Ahimsa:
Dear Emil & L,
I hope you are both doing well. Just got word from Amy that you have both cancelled for the June 11th reading, n I wuz wondering why. I wuz really looking forward ta the event, had helped her organize it, suggested u two as readers/writers/performers, n wuz in particular looking forward ta reading with two other queer Middle Eastern writers within a larger cultural event. For me, it would have been a big moment of visibility for our community, n would've been one of the rare opportunities when I wuzn't the token Arab/Middle Easterner.
For me, where I come from, on the East Coast, b-ing a New Yorker, we just do shit. If we make a commitment, don't matter if we half dead, we show up. Now this may not b the healthiest nor most flexible approach, but it's how we do things, how we survive n thrive. For me, I am beginning ta realize the how colonized I have become by white feminist/white queer Bay Area ways of doing things, n how much more I need ta return ta my roots racially, culturally, n geographically. This is part of my decolonization process, learning ta c how I have been beaten down by Bay Area whiteness n avoidance of anger, commitment, conflict, n loud voices.
So now I'm walking inta an environment that is somewhat hostile with no racial backup, no community, n support. So, I'm feeling a bit hurt, disappointed, n angry. True, u aint aiming the guns at me, aint shooting mad bullets my way, but I wuz counting on my community ta have my back as I'd have yrs, and for us ta come out n represent. We r almost completely invisible/invisibilized as a community in POC organizing. Many other colored folk have no respect for us n our struggles. They c us as white, irrelevant, n/or just a good place ta get hummus, drop bombs, n blame for the killing of some white girl from Walnut Creek. So, while I wanna know that u'r both alright, n I wanna know that u'r taking care of yrself in every possible imaginable way n not burning yrselves out, n while I know u do not need ta justify or explain yr existence, I wanna know wassup.
Where I come from we get shit out, over, n done with. I've gotten so distanced from myself, so disassociated, that sometimes, a lot of times, I don't even know how ta do this anymore- communicate my truth, my b-ing, my experiences/perspectives. This is how the cultural violence of the Bay Area has affected me, self-silencing, translating, n pussyfooting around the issue, burying it until either u or it r dead, with no movement forward. I am c-ing how all my interactions n relationships must b revisited n readdressed, transformed, cycled out. Or left behind if necessary. Even writing this is somewhat frightening. For once, however, my anger at myself for not fully revealing n self-silencing my truth, my ghetto-colored-rooted truth, is greater than my fear of potential loss of love from others, for if I have racially, culturally, economically, linguistically, n geographically lost myself in the efforts ta gain love, I must reexamine every colonial notion that I have internalized that says I cannot b authentically n indigenously myself n simultaneously receive mad love, community, support, liberation, revolution, n freedom from the universe. For if I lose myself in order ta gain the love of others, their love will b meaningless, bcuz they will have been loving the wrong person, yet another mask I need ta discard as I decolonize.
For years, for a lifetime, I have lived in fear that I would either die young n alone or old n alone n forgotten. This is the result of having internalized mad racism, AIDSphobia, queerphobia, classism, misogyny n transphobia, n all the other oppressions that bear down on me, on us, as multioppressed n subjugated/marginalized/enslaved peoples. We r told over n over again that we will not live, or if by some miracle or miracles we do, our existence will b hellish, nightmarish, n will have wished that we had died. Lovely thought. Gotta thank the white man for that one when I get the chance.
Back ta love. I have sacrificed a great deal of my soul in order ta receive what I thought wuz love, affection, n intimacy, but wuz in essence only the merest of war-time rations, only the slightest taste of the full-body/full-bodies that wuz/were yet ta come. How can someone love me when they do not know me? How can someone love me when it is the self I run from n hide from others? We suffer when we do not ask for enuf, when we dwell in our internalized self-hatred n notions of un-deserving-ness. U both mean a great deal ta me, n I don't want ta lose u. but if in my attempt ta "keep" u, I lose ever more of myself, which of us, none of us, gains from that process. If in my attempt ta "keep" u I am further sold inta slavery n imprisoned/incarcerated, who but the white man profits?
Fear. Love. Sacrifice. Slavery. War. Silence. Truth. Redemption. Reclamation. Home. I must return home if I am ta b free, it is the only pathway ta my wholeness. N, while yes, I will actually b making that sacred journey, b making Hajj this coming fall when I return ta my birthing grounds, when I return ta the tierra sangrada de Nueva York, I must take this journey forth first within. "Things happen twice, first on the inside and then on the outside"- Iyanla Vanzant. I cannot live in fear anymore. I must ground myself in anger n resolve, untap centuries old rage, n annihilate everything that would destroy me within n without. As Toni Morrison says, "There is presence in anger." Only once I excavate the pain, only once I fully touch n tap inta my anger n rage which r my power n source-strength, my way out of damnation, will I find the energy ta move forward. So much hidden from me, untapped and useless, until I open myself ta it, fully welcome it back inta b-ing.
I have always been afraid that if I tapped inta my true power, my true rage, I would obliterate everything in my path, loved ones included, myself also included. Where I came from rage n anger were violent n destructive. It/they killed people. We had no channels thru which ta properly funnel it inta transformation n radical/revolutionary change. I wuz taught in every conceivable way ta fear my power, ta silence my rage n anger. This is what the white man wanted n still wants, me ta b useless ta my nations, for me ta live in fear of myself, ta c my own body n beauty n brilliance as a danger/dagger, not only ta others, but ta myself as well. We have always been warriors. We have always fought in different ways for the nation. This is why they fill our communities with alcohol n drugs. They want ta make us slow n stupid, aim the bullets n knives at each other rather than at them. We only need ta look at L.A. n 1992 ta know this ta b true.
This is much longer, larger than I expected, this missive, this missile aimed not at u, but right over yr shoulder, at whiteness, at white man standing behind us all, controlling our actions, us, the puppets in his game. Where I come from, knowing my father n my family, knowing we were n r of the streets, the gangs, the police, the military, I wuz taught multiple ways ta kill a person, as well as multiple ways ta defend myself n my own. I rejected this knowledge, saw it as evil. This is what they wanted, this is what they always want, for us to reject our training. This is the white man's dream. I knew that at any moment I might need ta duck, no questions asked, bcuz for my survival my father, or my mother who carried a gun, might have ta off someone at any minute. I also knew that if I wuz ta stand still, I wuz ta do so immediately, not breathe or move even slightly, bcuz a bullet or a knife or a two-by-four might b rushing by my head, n if I moved I would b hit. I wuz trained from a very young age ta live in n survive a war, ta survive the war still b-ing waged around us.
I am not aiming at u. I am aiming at the man over yr shoulder. I am telling u, not asking u, not ta move. I do not want ta hit u. we r at war, n there is someone behind u with a gun. N I need ta take him out before he get ta u, us. I am not shooting at u. I want u ta live. I want us all ta live- fully. May we find a way out of the maze, may we cut the strings, may we obliterate them with our fierce love n dark-warrior-bullet-rage. The fear of loss is great, but we r at war. There will be casualties. I hope n pray u r not among them.
In honor, love, n rage,
Ahimsa.
L and I had completely different reactions and responses to Ahimsa's e-mail.
L wrote:
Ahim,
I read the full text of the letter after I sent you the note about the reading. That letter was really fucked up. You might have chosen to ask a simple question, "why did you cancel?" before launching a full-scale attack. Not only did I find the entire read offensive, but the end felt violent and threatening. Not o.k. You owe me, and I would venture to say Emil as well, a big-assed apology.
L
I wrote:
The time and effort you put aside for us is simply the best thing anyone has done for me in a long time. Thank you, Ahimsa!
But Amy must have misunderstood. I never cancelled with her, and have been meditating on what I will read.
I would not cancel. How often have I longed for an Assyrian voice out there, for Assyrian visibility? No longer shall I wait for someone else to bring that to fruition. I will be the one to give this gift to myself as well as to others.
Ahimsa, I am there!
Fear not.
We will be heard.
Thank you.
E.
Johnny writes:
Hi Emil,
I read your story and was very touched. You are a very strong person. You went through all that pain and hard life. I know I would not have made it if I was in your place. I wish I was your friend at the time to give you advice and support. I want just to let you know that I am here for you. We are Assyrian and we will help each other. I hope I will get the chance to meet you in person soon.
Your Assyrian brother,
Johnny.
A certain "Seikopath" writes:
You should be ashamed of yourselves, you are all a bunch of low life scum of earth bastard and will never be Assyrians, NEVER, I will do everything in my power to flood your Email with hate and anti gay mail from all Assyrians around the world!!!!
I hope you all rot in hell you fake ass LOW LIFE SCUM!!!! I'm a real Assyrian, I know who and what we are and what we have contributed to this EARTH!!!! All you do is give us a bad name and make people look down on us!!!
I pray that GOD punishes you all for the rest of your Fagot and dike lives!!! Challenge me assholes and I show you what a true ASSYRIAN is!!! I will distribute a copy of your web address to all Assyrians I know like a chain letter. I hope you get bashed from all the true ASSYRIANS!!!!! You can't hide forever! Like little cowards you hide behind the web!! If you are proud, come on out and let us see you!! You won't last a day!!!
Shammi writes:
Emil,
Thank you so much for your sweet e-mail. You are so wise sometimes that you blow me away. You also set me free somehow. I like what you have to say about obligation. I like that you acknowledge liking to write but do not expect me to respond right away. Thank you. I would love to talk, cry, laugh, drink, and maybe even Karaoke with you some time soon. I will need all the love, laughter, and understanding I can possibly get in the present and near future.
Laura and I broke up last night. It's over. Our one-and-a-half-year love affair is over and I need to let go. Letting go is one of the most challenging things for me and I think for many others, but I will try to do it well and in an honest way. I am going home to Turlock tomorrow. I need to be in a totally safe place this weekend because I am afraid of what will come out of me. I need to be in a place that can contain whatever pours out and I want to feel safe enough to not have to repress what needs to be expressed. For me this is my parents' home. My sister Dina and her partner Ester are also amazing in helping me refuel and get a different perspective from the one I naturally move into. You also look at things in ways that I don't instinctively move towards, so I will call on you too. I am afraid to ask for help sometimes because I am afraid of burdening people and I'm afraid to trust people with my pain and vulnerabilities. I am going to try and get past that this time and really ask for the help that I need. Emil, your presence in my life is precious and so valued. I hope we get a chance to get closer and build some intimacy/trust with each other. I move very slow with that usually. But although I am slow I am steady. I will keep your spirit with me as I move through all the stages of this. I love you, Emil. Thank you for your support and understanding, khouna.
With straight-up-assyrian-love,
Shamiran.
Also from Shammi:
I just got your most recent e-mail about seeing your diary on Linda's website, "All Out There". First, let me say that you are one deep dude and that you are now officially on Shammi's list of top 3 favorite writers. I love reading your stuff, Emil. So my little Emil is going public and it's freaking him out and putting him in a state of panic, forcing him to rethink. Not to sound like a bad therapist. But it's understandable. I mean, I'd be a little tripped out, too. You're really putting your gay penis out there for all interested Assyrians to see. Wow, Emil, it's like history repeating itself. Once again, another close Emil friend of mine has exposed himself! But let me reassure you that even if my parents tell me I can't play with you, I will!
Now seriously…
Emil, what you're doing is a brave thing and you do have shelter from the injustice of people's ignorance should it be hurled at you. I am your shelter, Nadia, Linda, Laura, Paul, Tracy, so many of us. You can hide out in us when you are afraid. If anyone does a single thing to threaten you just tell your big sister Shammi and god help me I'll get my whole posse together and kick all their fucking asses! And if no one will stand with me I will stand for you alone against ignorant Assyrian motherfuckers who dare tell us not to express our beauty. Fuck them! And fuck all that stupid Assyrian "Greatness". We need to step into our fabulous greatness the way you are doing by putting your stuff up online and not cowering in a ball of fear and shame. But Emil, do not take any steps you are not ready to take. Don't feel you owe anyone anything. Don't let your steps forward be motivated by guilt and obligation. Let them be motivated by the intense human need to speak/live the Truth that is our only path to Liberation Emil, ask for help, advice, protection from the rest of us. Know where your family is and ask them to nourish you. Nadia had gone through a pretty public outing with Assyrians and would also be a good person to bounce ideas off of. We'll be here for you.
Your khata gourta is watching over you,
Shamiran.
When I met up with Shammi on Saturday night in the Castro I had not expected to be reunited with Amahl, Paul, and Tracy. Amahl, whose consuming eyes have a tendency to sink with unexpected demureness, with artistic sadness, sank her face into my neck and breathed. She likes the way I smell. And she liked the colors I was wearing.
As we walked to the restaurant, Amahl and I talked about my short story, "The Necrophile". She called me "The Prince of Goth". It seemed that she had read beyond the shadowy phrases and glimpsed a deeper layer, and I very much enjoyed her flattering interpretation. She admitted that she had had to read certain sentences over and over because her instinct had told her that there was more hidden there. She loved the ending, she said.
I thanked her, unable to fully meet her glass eyes.
All night she towered awkwardly over me. I felt protected as we walked along the sidewalk with her arm intertwined in mine.
Over dinner the six of us had paired off in disparate conversations and at times it was one person who held our attention. Amahl announced the good news that she had just received a grant for a film she's wanted to make. She talked of her dream to study acting in London. Shammi revealed her plan to travel to Iraq in October. Wael still searched for a residence in the East Bay.
He sat to my right where I enjoyed his closeness.
Again Amahl brought up "The Necrophile", saying she had been most struck by the antiquated language of it. She looked up into the night and compared it to Poe. She could not overcome the darkness of the story, which enveloped the pages, she said.
Darkness I had neither intended, nor noticed. But I suppose there is an endless night that exists in all of us no matter who we are, or what we claim we are, that needs expression. The food was wonderful, the wine, and we looked across at one another and seemed to glow. Paul laughed heartily at the funny things I said.
Afterward, we were joined by others- Nadia, Heba, Ahoo, Odessa, Nadre- for the queer Turkish film "Lola and Billy the Kid" at the Castro Theater. The film was shot in Berlin, was colorful, but dark, textured and rich. In it German and Turkish blended and overlapped, while humor saved the film from being utterly devastating. I was moved and saw in each character the reality of all our lives, memories, and experiences. There were moments when I was paralyzed in my seat by dialogue that fell like dominoes, moving the scenes along, clearing space for the next take.
And in the end when the mother stormed out of the tenement apartment, which reminded me of our first-floor slum in Chicago, and stepped for the very first time onto the German street, the very middle of it, ripping the veil off her head and letting it flutter to the pavement without breaking stride, my heart broke into a million perfectly even pieces.
When wael and I parted our kiss was this time more tender, and I feel that my attraction for him grows. And yet, I would not want desire to kick in. I fear desire.
This morning Jackie stormed into my room in a panic. She could not find her car keys and worried that she would miss her third doctor's appointment. The night before I had offered to accompany her, but she had proudly and vehemently refused. And now she was forced to let me along, and apologetically got into the passenger seat of my car. But still, no revelations, but more tests, more appointments for the right arm that is almost completely numb, with the exception of a nerve-wracking tingling. I hold my breath that it is nothing serious and lasting, nor degenerative. We don't know. We just don't. So, I help Jackie button her blouse, which is delicate, almost as delicate as she; I carry her laundry basket into the garage where the machines are; and I help her fill out the deposit forms at the bank. And we wait…
Jackie never left her bed yesterday. Of course, this worried the women in the household. Mom-Suzie came to the house from Casa De Maria, while mother watched over the elderly. But Mom-Suzie could not talk Jackie out of bed. Later, mother placed a small plate of perfectly cut squares of a fragrant watermelon on the table next to Jackie's bed. When we checked we found that she had not touched them. We leaned over her gingerly, the room a pitch black in the middle of the day. I whispered if she wanted to watch a film with me. She whimpered that she did not.