The Angel of History (7 page)

The pills came in threes, the trinity, Father the Haldol light green pill, Mother the mellow blue Stelazine, and Child the small white aspirin, the last because they were afraid I might drop dead of a heart attack. Put out your tongue, said the big black orderly, blacker than me with hair like gnarled wool, and above his head, on the eggshell-white wall, floated a pinkish cloud-shaped stain that locked my gaze, Look at me, the cloud whispered, look at me. The orderly placed the pills on my tongue and they disappeared like the host during Mass, I transmuted the body of my savior, and you whipped him, stoned and flogged him, and on a cross you hung Christ around your white necks.

When I finally met my father in Beirut he took me to church to cleanse my soul of desert sand and Muslim sin, I was baptized at ten, had water and oil mix with my third eye, and then I had to go on my knees, waiting with my mouth
open for the host, for the priest with his dulcet tongue singing Aramaic to come at me with his wafer. I was so overwhelmed being in my father’s and His Father’s presence that I barely uttered a word, I didn’t tell him that I’d arrived in Beirut from Cairo, not some desert, no sand there, that I grew up in a house of sin but it certainly wasn’t the Muslim kind, the only religion going on was men worshipping holy pussy. Oh, but I worshipped my father, and if that meant I had to let the Word of Christ dwell in my heart or suck Jesus’s cross then of course I would. Muslim, Christian, I would be what you wanted me to be, I lived to serve, you know I did.

So, Doc, you’re thinking you know how this is going to end, don’t you? You’re thinking a priest and me and only one possible conclusion, but you’re wrong, you’re an American, limited imagination. That priest and his coterie of nuns and priestlets took responsibility for my well-being or lack thereof; dumped in their reeducation camp, that house of torture of a boarding school, with no one to ask about me or inquire after my health, I, the boy with the broken halo, was never sexually abused by that priest, not that one, but there was a nun, Sœur Marie-Claire, who offered her benevolent attention, her gift.

During a Christmas holiday right after I had sprouted a pubic hair or two, I ended up alone in the room, the other three boys went home for the break, and Sœur Marie-Claire woke me up every day of those two and a half weeks. Before the sun rose, my nun played with my erection, she climbed on the bed, lifted her tunic, and fell on her sword. She was fully attired, the whole drag except the underwear, I presume, I don’t believe I ever saw anything past the habit. Always speaking of herself in the third person, she would say, You
make Sœur Marie-Claire feel good and Sœur Marie-Claire will make her
petit nègre
feel even better. Though technically I wasn’t, she called me her
petit nègre
because I was the darkest boy at l’orphelinat de la Nativité by quite a margin, and she was right because at the end I always felt good. I didn’t do much, I just lay there and she would touch me, her hand going under my pajama bottoms, and I woke up and she straddled me, smiling and staring at me with eyes so pale they seemed to be all alabaster, she bounced up and down, jiggled, must have been jelly ‘cause jam don’t shake like that, so yes, she was the aggressor and I was not consenting, let alone an adult.

When I looked into her eyes, which I always did at orgasm because I wanted to see, she wouldn’t be smiling, or I should say that the smile would have twisted into a strange grimace, as if she wasn’t happy anymore, and more often than not, saliva would drool down the left flank of her chin, not sure why that was so, and when I was done, she would just stop. No more bouncing nun. She wiped the drool off her lips and chin, looked left toward the door, climbed off my softening erection, adjusted her habit, Don’t be late to breakfast,
mon petit nègre,
she would say, her back to me, leaving me, leaving me in bed, and after the New Year she didn’t approach me ever again, I guess I wanted her to, I was the refrigerator abandoned on the pavement, I was the Haldol spreading within my cranium and I remembered, I remembered so much.

I have to say your mother was the evil of evils, Doc, ordained in untempered malice in that dark unbottomed
infinite abyss called California. The best thing I can say about her is that she left me alone to dispose of your body, which one might think isn’t much, but after what Chris’s family did, what with stealing the corpse and forbidding us to attend his funeral—well, you were there then, you hadn’t yet died, so you know. I wish your mother had stolen your body, cremating you cost so much, they charged me extra because you didn’t burn on the first try, and I couldn’t give you a memorial since there were so few left to mourn you. She left you because she didn’t care about your death, it was your life she desired, and mine, that queen of vampires, her heart distended with my loss, her veins swelled with my blood.

She stayed away while you were dying, you kept telling me she had a delicate constitution, she couldn’t deal with you wasting away. No mother should have to suffer an offspring’s death, no, she shouldn’t have to ache, you said, being around an unhealthy you would have a deleterious effect on her health. Damn her and her health. I went behind your back and called her. I had no one else, you were the fifth, Lou, Chris, Pinto, Greg had died, and Jim was too sick, followed you within four weeks. I was an exhausted stretcher-bearer, I needed help and I told her you were dying, she said she’d warned me many times never to call, followed by the usual Jesus was going to send me to Hell for corrupting you, for taking you away from her, as if I weren’t there already—just one cliché after another, that was your mother, you should be proud. So many times I asked you to stand up for me, to tell her that I didn’t corrupt you, that no one did. You should have told her you chose me. This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.

She knew when your heart stopped, she must have had a spy, I spy with my little eye something that starts with the letter D, yes, he’s dead. Your family waited until the morticians zipped you up in the black bag before descending like a pitchy cloud of locusts—no, that’s a Yemeni simile, I should use one of yours—like a herd of buffalo, only less attractive. I’d rushed to Jim’s as soon as you were out the door and your mother rushed right in. She convinced one of the landladies downstairs to let her in, she was your mother, she was suffering. Your family arrived with a truck, Doc, with a goddamn truck, she’d been waiting for you to die. She cleaned us out. The landlady described the truck as a moderately sized Dodge, which was probably why Her Maleficence couldn’t make off with the beds or the sofas.

The poor landlady felt so guilty. She told me she should have known something was not quite right when your mother went into the apartment with three of your relatives and slammed the door on her, she was wearing a cerise Nike tracksuit, the landlady told me, you don’t wear that color when your son has just died.

Your mother took the television, she took all the lamps, the craquelure glass coffee table, she took our music, the albums and compact discs, she stole your shoes, my shoes, your shirts, my scarves, I don’t know why she did that. So many little trinkets that meant nothing to anyone but us, all the things that we loved and that belonged with us, your family robbed me of them, except for the tiny porcelain fairy with lavender wings that your mother gave you before she knew you were one, she left that. She stole my notes and journals, figure that one out. She tried to steal the kitchen wall clock, but one of your relatives must have dropped it and left it
broken on the floor, I still have it hanging even though it hasn’t worked since the day you died. Worst, she walked out with my books and the bookshelf, which was what hurt the most. I tried to understand why, couldn’t come up with anything other than unadulterated venom, she judged me unworthy, she wished to extirpate me from your life, to punish me.

The mahogany bookshelf, the only thing in the house worth anything, remember that amazing bookshelf with the caryatids, fourteen delicately carved drag queens holding up the seven shelves. Who knew that wood guy had that kind of delicateness in him, what was his name, Max, wasn’t it? We made so much fun of him, Max the I’m-not-gay carpenter, and he wanted nothing to do with us, he’d screw Lou only when he was sure he wouldn’t meet any friends. Max wanted to be discreet. Lou had to dress in drag or Max wouldn’t go anywhere near him, but Lou loved him even though Max returned to his wife and his kids and his shop every single time. Who knew? Not you—you hated Max, what he stood for, you told Lou that Max didn’t love him, that Max wanted a fantasy, your deft knife sliced deep. Why did you think that everyone should hear the truth about love? You were so American. And you were so wrong. When Lou found the virus swimming in his system, he told Max the not-gay carpenter, who turned crazy, wanted to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, but Max found out he had somehow won the lottery like yours truly, no virus was found anywhere within his vicinity. Max couldn’t have sex with Lou anymore, refused to see him again, could not risk exposing his wife and kids to the virus, the truth, or something. Lou was devastated and did not recover, he was obviously never the same after that since he was now both dying and abandoned, not an uncommon
pairing in our circles,
sola perduta abbandonata,
he never wore drag again, no wig, no lipstick, no leotard.

For two long years, whenever Max had a spare moment, in secret, without a single person knowing, he worked on the masterpiece, hoping to finish it before Lou died. Foot-long caryatids, each unique, bulging thighs on one, chest hair on another, a Cher impersonator, a passable Asian standing on a low stool, one of the most astounding things I had ever seen, and Max had a shipping company drop it at Lou’s apartment. Remember? Lou couldn’t keep it because looking at it caused him so much pain, we’d take it, we both yelled, we’d put the mahogany masterwork in the bedroom so it wouldn’t hurt him. And your mother stole it and the books within it, I don’t know whether she unloaded the books first or just flipped the heavy shelf and all four of your relatives carried it out like pallbearers.

She took my notes and journals, stole the kitten wall calendar with holiday dates circled in red. She wasn’t looking for a memento, she drove off with your car and sold it when she arrived in Stockton. I didn’t mind that so much, it was your car, and I didn’t like to drive, still don’t. But the books, she didn’t even bother transporting them to the horror from whence she came—I abhor Stockton more than you did—she sold them to the used bookstore down the street, knowing full well that I would come across them sooner rather than later. There’s a special place in Hell for people like your mother, she’s probably there now, circle four, quadrant B. Quadrant C, Thomas Friedman’s, is waiting for him completely empty because no human could possibly do enough evil to have to suffer Friedman’s company for eternity, but I digress.

Our landlady insisted that I call the police, I didn’t wish to, I wanted to barricade my door so your mother couldn’t return, and then go to bed, but the landlady wouldn’t drop it. Both police detectives were inconsiderate, kept asking me whether I was sure what was yours and what was mine, as if that mattered. When I told them I was your inheritor, they asked me to bring out the notarized will, and what kind of son would not put his own mother in the will? I didn’t even merit a good-cop bad-cop routine, all your faggot earned was two horribles in matching polyester beige sport coats. No, they wouldn’t call her to investigate, the poor thing, her son had died that morning. All I wanted back was the bookshelf, the policemen wanted me to prove that it belonged to me, did I have a receipt, a bill of sale, I shouldn’t expect them to drive all the way to Stockton to find out if she took the bookshelf.

Amazingly, I saw one of these policemen not too long ago in one of the It Gets Better videos, this one put out by the San Francisco Police Department, he was older now of course like me, white-haired, white face, chubby, still in a beige sport coat—I saw him tell his unseen intended audience, the suicidal gay teens, to buck up and tough it out, they might be getting tortured and beaten up but it would get better, and he should know because he was a heterosexual cop who now had gay cops for friends and they were just like him, and he ended his sappy speech with, You can’t control the wind but you can adjust the sail. I bestirred myself, stood up from my couch, my bare feet sinking into the dough of the carpet, I screamed at my laptop still in my hands, You can’t control the wind but you can break it, you father of lies, and sat back down on the couch, which I bought after your mother cleaned us out even
though she didn’t take any of the couches. I replaced the old one, the black microfiber three-seater, after Deke Dickhead the blond god left, because it smelled a bit like him.

The first night after you died I moved that black couch to block the door because the car keys your mother purloined contained a house key and changed all the locks the next day. I couldn’t sleep that night. You were out of my life and she was in it, I got the worst of that bargain, let me tell you. The first couple of weeks were not much of a struggle, I’m not sure I was able to feel anything. I returned to work because I had to, took care of Jim in the evenings, but I was separate, living in a glass-bottom satellite that orbited my world. I was walking home on a shivery cold evening under a menacing sky when I noticed the dark cover of
The Collected Poems of Eugenio Montale
in the used bookstore’s window, and like a mother goose who can tell her chicks from those of others, I knew it was my copy. The owner bought about forty books from your mother, sold about fifteen, and even though he knew they were my books, my name on my hand-designed bookplates was on each, he wanted me to buy them back. My handsome bookplates made the books worth more. I couldn’t buy them back, I just couldn’t. Before I’d walked a block, Odette, the owner’s young lesbian employee, caught up with me, asked for my address and phone number, and told me she’d get back to me. Four days later, she arrived at my apartment carrying twenty-one of my books—she was small like me, a short wraith of an Ecuadoran, those books probably weighed more than she did. I loved Odette, still do, my everlasting friend. She apologized for not bringing them earlier, she had to wait for her paycheck before she stole the books and quit. She hated that quisling of an owner and wanted to do what was
right. She slept over that night, for we both needed company. All we had was each other in those days.