Brother Hood: A Harrowing Memoir of the Beautiful Cruelty Men Inflict Upon Men When They Are Pioneers of Domestic Boundaries in Their Usual Bed on a Night Full of Rain While a Cruel Joke of Destiny Lies in Wait Around the Corner Like a Bandit with Bad Nerves – (“Il Quartiere della Fratellanza: I Ricordi Sinistri della Crudeltà Bella che Gli Uomini Infliggono degli Uomini Quando Sono Pionieri dei Confini Domestici nel Loro Letto al Solito in una Notte Piena di Pioggia Quando uno Scherzo Crudele del Destino Attende dietro l’Angolo come un Brigante con Problemi Psichiatrici”) (Two Homosexual Men Negotiate the Boundaries of Domestic Bliss)
November 12, 2009 in Brother Hood, Homosexuality Pioneers
3:17 AM
WW: Dogs can’t chew tobacco. You know why? Because they don’t have lips.
LL: OK. Please. It’s three in the morning. I’ve been trying to wrestle that bottle of amphetamine salts from your hands since midnight.
WW: But you weren’t complaining when you saw how great the furniture smelled! “See!” I said, “It smells like sage. Fresh sage! That’s the sage oil for ya!”
LL: Yes, it smells lovely. Just like fresh sage. I appreciate furniture that smells like fresh sage. I do. I really do. But it is very late. I want to sleep.
WW: Your little spates of fatigue sure come at unusual times! I just polished all that furniture by myself! Can you smell it?
LL: And you did a great job. Can’t we please try to sleep now?
WW: I hope you’re attacked by animals that have cancer.
4:35 AM
WW: Why in the holy fucking name of God did you wake me up?
LL: I don’t know…
WW: I was dreaming about the most beautiful fucking fruit stand I’ve ever seen in my entire motherfucking life. It wasn’t just a plain ol’ fruit stand, but a series of three separate, individual fruit carts, each more beautiful than the last. And the third cart had just passed before my eyes, and I was reappraising it…
LL: Reappraising?
WW: Yes. Fuck you. My eyes were moving across the cart from left to right. Hands were showing me things. Because they’d cut these perfect, dark purple rectangular prisms of cactus fruit, and they were just showing them to me–showing them to me– as just one of the many dozens of kinds of exotic fruit I might like to have in my fruit salad. Now, mind you, this was just the third cart. There were two others. I hadn’t even begun my reappraisal of them, and then you woke me.
LL: Well, you just woke me during my cop dream.
WW: What the fuck are you nattering on about? Your “cop dream”?
LL: I was pulled over by this really hot cop, and he said he wouldn’t write me a ticket if I sucked his dick.
WW: I don’t want to hear about it.
LL: It was just a dream.
WW: I DON’T want to hear about it. This was the most beautiful fruit stand in the WORLD. There were THREE carts. THREE INDIVIDUAL CARTS. They were made of white wood and stainless steel. And glass. Clean glass. With bright, shiny, polished stainless steel metal tongs. And ice. Lots of clean, clear, beautiful ice. Party ice. The kind of expensive ice you get at nice parties where people actually spend lots of money on something as important as good, clean, clear ice. But you wouldn’t know anything about those kinds of parties, would you?
LL: Why do you always have to bring class into everything?
WW: Because it’s always relevant, goddamnit. But it doesn’t matter now. Those carts are gone and I’ll never see them again.
LL: They aren’t gone. They exist still, somewhere in the Land of Dreams.
WW: And where the FUCK is that? It’s not like I’m ever going to get there. It’s not like you’re ever going to get there. How dare you? You know how much fruit salads mean to me. We’ve been through this a million times. Admit it. Admit it! It’s always me. When we go to the market, I’m always the one taking the time to build and maintain those crucial relationships with the fruit sellers who have the very best fruit. The fruit sellers, mind you, whom the peasants have told us have the very best fruit. This isn’t just something I’ve imagined. It’s something the peasants have told us! And you just stand there, sitting on your hands. It doesn’t matter to you. Why do you pretend that it does? How can we ever get beyond this? How can we ever learn to love and really trust each other? How can we ever solve the problem if we can’t admit the problem exists in the first place?
LL: A problem is just a solution waiting for love.
WW: Waiting for love to what? TO KILL ITSELF?
LL: What does that even mean?
WW: Look, I’m not going to argue about this with you. Those carts are gone.
LL: I told you, they are in the Land of Dreams.
WW: And where the fuck is that?
LL: Beyond Candy Mountain, down Gumdrop Lane. Where hope has real hair and realistic skin, and possesses superhuman strength and speed, and runs on atomic power. And speaks in a monotone voice.
WW: Oh, dear God. Dear sweet, fucking God. Leave me alone.
LL: And you wanna know something? Let me tell you what happens on Gumdrop Lane. The little bears go to their parties on Gumdrop Lane. Yes. Gumdrop Lane. And these are very nice parties. And the little bears like to drink a special liqueur made from honey and anise. But sometimes they drink a little too much at these parties on Gumdrop Lane. And as they’re stumbling home, their pants fall down, and guess what happens? All the traffic on Gumdrop Lane can see their underpants.
WW: Oh, God. I’m begging you, please help me.
LL: And let me tell you something about the Land of Dreams. They take public indecency very seriously, which is something you may not understand. Because the Land of Dreams isn’t just some amoral shithole. It’s a very serious place where actions have consequences. And when the drunken little bears let their pants fall down, the cop handcuffs them.
WW: Oh, let me guess. The same cop from your grotesque sexual fantasies?
LL: Yes!
WW: You sicken me.
LL: And sometimes the cop handcuffs the little bears and tells them to suck his dick…
WW: Oh, dear God! Please, just stop. This can’t be happening. God, no! Just leave me alone.
LL: Why can’t we be honest?
TO BE CONTINUED…
