8495. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, #140

140. WORLD TO COME

Roundabout these days I

take no real exception to

gay people. And it wasn't

much different fifty years

ago. As far as I knew

anyway  -  it was all much

more invisible and left

unspoken. The seminary

guys had any number of

gay priests and brothers.

We didn't even have a

word for it, except maybe

'cute' or something. The

entire ethos of Catholicism,

especially this sort of

cloistered, strange effort

at 'priest' and 'brother'

was all kind of same-sex

oriented anyway  -  placing

complete trust in other

men and their slightly

skewed viewpoints. No

matter, life went on. I, for

myself, knew what I was

in the middle of, but

remained unaffected.

Nowadays, with supposed

equalities having been

agreed upon and terms

reached, about them, it's

different. In fact, it's

everywhere and it's of

no importance at all

except that the factor

of gayness has reached

the colloquial level, so,

once invisible and unseen,

it's now everywhere

and cannot be commented

upon. Strange switch, in

that now the tables are

changed and we have to

be subjected at all times

to their caterwauling.

Entertainment. Advertising.

Theater. Song. Architecture.

The Antiques Industry.

Cooking and Restaurant/Chef

stuff. I just shrug and watch

all the fluffiness in some sort

of awe. Entertainment. Funny

stuff, almost a parody of self.

-

Back in 1967, I wasn't even

aware of any of this  - there

were one or two flamers in

my last high school year, two

anyway come right to mind,

and it never bothered me  -

and then getting to New York,

yes, I began seeing them,

putting two and two together,

and realizing what was up.

The thing that really gave it

away for me was literature :

I suddenly realized what it

was about some of the

characters and situations

I'd be reading. Older men,

young boys, the pick-ups

and hangabouts. One time,

along the street, some black

guy tried picking me up, as

I passed one of those

eat-outdoor sandwich

places. He was sitting

there, and called out.

I went over, he offered

a chair, bought me (hungry

me) a sandwich, and next

thing I knew, incredibly,

I was walking back to his

apartment with him. All

that ensued was what

you'd imagine, except that

I walked out. He'd taken

'it' out, and that was my

cue. He called me naive.

-

Being called naive was, really,

something I could live with.

So it didn't matter. Better for

him that I left anyway. Less I

knew about that crap, the better

off both he and I would be. And

only then did the light go on.

Christoper Street, Stonewall,

all that stuff now known as

LGBT, or Q, or whatever.

The 'SAAB drivers of the

world unite!' thing. Sex was

second-class with me anyway.

It had been done to death.

How many times to you

have to pump the handle

to know what water is?

Know what I mean? Let's

just say I wasn't lonely, nor

without. The real force-field

of all this was reading James

Baldwin. 'Giovanni's Room',

for starters. It was all about

everything combined  -  anger,

sensitivity, longing, need, love

and lust, companionship,

maleness, memory, and more.

'An intellectual compassion for

the world,' I liked to put it. Yes,

sometimes I wished I was a

reviewer with a real platform

to get points across and have

a say. It's still like that too.

Baldwin took sex out of

category, and put it more

where it belonged : Heart.

Soul. Fire. Anger. Stuff I

could live with. If he had

a sister, I'd have taken her.

I met him once, actually.

A cold Winter's night,

dark, about 6pm, maybe

just about Winter,

Thanksgiving time.

He was walking along

at the Lincoln Center

campus of Fordham

University. He was utterly

recognizable, from the

book jackets  -  the big

pop-eyes, the cigarettes,

that face-look. I just, as

we passed each other, said,

'Hey. James Baldwin.'

He smiled, more laughed,

with that gravelly voice

effect he had, and said,

'well that much is true.

How about you?' Which

didn't sound so dumb as

it may read now. That was

it. Nothing more. Sublime

to the ridiculous, I guess.
Among the parameters of the
literary and artistic world,
gayness, and dual-sex too, 
had always been present. All
through history, in fact, if you
delve, it's surprising to see 
who was what. The great 
unspoken. It's all category
anyway, definition and almost
style. Hardly matters now  -  
but there are a lot of people 
who'd be really surprised 
about things if they ever 
started to dig under the 
'covers' of history. 

-

Well, what else are you

going to do? Back in the

seminary, there was also

a black father or brother,

obviously gay. The gay 

one. He drove around in

a new Ford, in and out of

campus, always seeming 

busy and very amused. 

These things were all 

signals to me of some or

another odd thing in the 

world I hadn't yet dealt

with, or even really knew

it existed. What a world

to come, what a world 

to come.