trouble of chivalrously beating up a guy –
or flat-out attempting to break your
arm over his head – you should break
your arm over his head. Or something.
What’s a pacifist to do when someone
stands up for you like that; when some-
one is such a sweetheart? We must really
love liking one another. “I really like you.”
“I really like you, too.” Or something. With
your proclamation you probably placed your
hand neither firmly nor gently on the cheek
of my ass. I dramatically squeezed my face
and attempted a show off shock with “You’re
crazy!” There are moth-eaten ways in which
we do love each other without trust. Everyone
here is a hustler. Trust is not an option. Like?
Love? It is not reduction to call these words
quite inevitably “relative” (as they say). Who
took whose whatever is one of the very few
possible headlines you might find in the morn-
ing, or whatever time you read (if you do, in-
deed, read). The other main topic is bedbugs.
This one took up an entire ‘resident’s monthly’
a couple of weeks ago. It was the only one
I have attended thus far, and likely will re-
main so. It is advised to maintain an unidenti-
fiable sexuality. Doing this eliminates a good
portion of deleterious attitude. So, for ex-
ample, when a sexuality clue to the contrary
happens to be dropped during casual convers-
ation, especially among three or more people
at once, there is a great risk of torture and/
or death. To reiterate, it’s of grave import to
remain straight, even if you happen, on occasion,
to feel otherwise. Keep in mind that anyone
you pass in the shelter hallway or at the cafeteria,
anyone casually walking by your bunk bed of a morn-
ing or evening, will (most often silently) be taking tabs.
The mental notes are easy enough that one can be
entirely comfortable with them within very short
measure (“Normal, normal, he’s okay, normal, he’s
straight, this guy must not be because I’ve yet to
reach a clear conclusion, normal, normal, gay,” etc.).
Other words can be substituted for the word “gay,”
but whichever your choice, it is imperative that one’s
jaw is squarely clenched, teeth nearly grinding into a
powder on the tongue and lower lip, whether tabulating
aloud or silently. Just bear in mind that tabulation is
always of the utmost import. After completely missing
my hero break his arm over the bigot’s head, defending
the existence of myself and of my particular sexuality,
I didn’t feel very normal; not very straight at all. And
me, an utter pacifist. “That’s some chivalry,” I say,
directly to my hero’s broken arm. “Well, it’s only
two thousand dingledy-dings for fuck’s sake,” the
arm’s face replies – a face which, as if only just
noticing it, is so much more beautiful than I’d
ever previously imagined it to be.
