The Claw

M: I struggle with what feelings to share on social media. I wonder what the point is (especially when they’re negative feelings). Am I looking for affirmation or am I honestly trying to start a dialogue? Am I blowing off steam in a seemingly consequence-free realm or am I genuinely compelled to take a stand (that I would stand up for in person)? And who are my words aimed at? The choir of my friends or the dissenters hiding in digital corners?

(Oh, the trolls are real, people…)

And what are the implications for your feelings when I share mine publicly?

This weekend after the Orlando shooting both G and I felt compelled to say… something. I took to Facebook and he posted an open online letter to his extended American family. I think G’s more torn-up about what happened than I am, which is unusual. I think he feels closer to it than I do. Perhaps because he grew-up in the good ol’ US of A, it feels more real to him.

I imagine that most of our circle is on a similar emotional page re: the shooting: sad, disgusted, scared, angry. But maybe you’re not?

Do we post angry, frustrated, saddened feelings on social media to find out and reaffirm who our allies really are? Maybe we want to be part of a community of loved ones, past lovers, acquaintances, colleagues, FWBs, who FEEL collectively about something; a sort of emotional zeitgeist. Solidarity, however, seems complicated. Sometimes it’s an achievement but perhaps more often, it’s a myth, a wish, or a deranged projection.

So, what happens when you realize that, actually, not all your friends and family do feel the same as you? There are a plethora of nuanced positions being taken on what happened in Orlando (around radical Islam, mental illness, gun legislation, homophobia, security), many of which are incongruous with one another. While these positions tend to get classified as “thoughts” as opposed to “feelings,” they’re so interwoven with affect and emotion that such a distinction in the first place seems irrelevant.

Perhaps, then, it’s worth taking a step back from the “rational” critical thinking about what happened last weekend (with all its accompanying political perspectives) and letting an affective picture get painted. G’s gonna do that next.

Here’s to love, in all its abstract, awkwardness–

G?

G: M was supposed to write the post himself this week, but my dungeon heart feels vulnerable. These instances where I allow myself to spill my guts seem to come at the rare occasion when the world brews the unbearable and force feeds it down our throats. I feel possessed with an awkward and unfamiliar sensitivity, and so in the name of this blog, I feel I must share.

Sunday - As I watch the mass attack in Orlando get cleaned up and filed into denial, I look out the window for something, anything, else. The results are not fabulous. I don’t see 100 something bullet-spewn bodies writhing or lying dead on the sidewalk, but I do see a bunch of idiots walking by. One man and his barking dog pass by an older man who swears and waves his hands and tells everyone within earshot what a menace to society the dog is. I stop looking when I see him reach for a large plank of wood and wave it menacingly in the air above the dog, who at this point looks like it is laughing at the old man. A barking dog? Imagine that. Another man drives by in a black SUV with a pair of those obnoxious truck nuts swinging from the hutch, beats-a-blaring, and wags his middle finger at the woman driving in the car beside him who is attempting a lane change. Changing lines; how dare she! I burp, and a bit of vomit fills the back of my throat. As I swallow it back down to where it came, a woman sitting on the concrete wall in front of my window picks a wedgie, and it takes her whole hand to do it.

I imagine 50 dead bodies inside a giant version of one of those arcade games where you manipulate a metal claw to win a stuffed animal. In my reverie I control the claw telekinetically. As it plunges deep into the glass box of corpses, the pressure of the pile causes several bullets to spit out of wounds and collect at the bottom like lychee fruit in Bubble Tea. In my first attempt I manage to snag just one young faggot and a handful of bullets. His hair is platinum blonde and his fingernails alternate pink and black. He wears a FCKH8 t-shirt and a Latinx rainbow wristband. I sit him on the wall next to the woman with the wedgie. I clean him up real nice; I put fresh gel in his hair, sew purple star patches into his t-shirt where each of the 7 bullets entered, and I re-do his nails. I make them all pink with white tips. He probably wouldn’t approve, but I like it. I am going to let these two decide what they’d like to talk about.

I plunge the claw back down into the container of dead queers. It goes deep this time and I manage to snag three bears, two butch dykes, two fag hags, and one supportive mom. I know immediately where I am going to put the dykes! Cleaning them up is easy because they only have one bullet in the back of each of their heads, so I simply wipe up the blood and slap a couple of fitted caps on them. They weren’t wearing hats, but I feel that these suit them. I place one dyke in the passenger seat and one in the back seat of the car with the woman who is trying to change lanes. I rig up the front seat dyke’s middle finger and aim it at the asshole driver in the next lane over, and I set up the backseat dyke so that she is engaged in a brilliant and courageous display of mooning. The woman in the driver’s seat is too busy concentrating on the road to give the moron in the neighboring car a piece of her mind, so I am jazzed that she now has some help from these kick ass lesbians.

I am not sure what to do with the three bears at first. I contemplate bringing them inside with me, but it’s such a nice day out, and I bet they’d probably have more fun in the park, lounging like glistening sea lions by the edge of the water. So, I strip them down and lather ‘em with sunscreen, which is quite the time consuming activity when that much hair is involved. They’ll have fun there.

I sort of hate the term “fag hag,” and I wonder if these two lovely ladies would have welcomed such a label. I position them on a bench near the barking dog episode. I want them to intervene - to appease both the dog and the old man - to be supportive in the ways that their gay best friends often take for granted. I take a peak into the three bullet holes in their bodies - two in one, one in the other - and through each wound I see the silhouette of one of my three female best friends. I sob as I mend their flesh shut.

My stomach is grumbling, enticing me to leave the window and venture to the fridge. But I can’t leave the daydream yet. I haven’t yet had the chance to press the big red button that I have programmed with the power to bring all these dead queers back to life, and which I imagine is sitting right on the ledge of the window sill. I also have yet to find a place for the supportive mom the claw brought up. I need only ponder for a moment; her story comes to me easily. She went to the bar to pick up her twenty-one year old trans son, who had just recently come out to her. She knew that picking up her son this time just like she used to when would he call her from the bowling alley when he was fifteen was what she needed to do to show him that she was “ok with everything.” She had parked out front, put on her hazards, and reluctantly wandered into the front hall of the club to find him. She wasn’t pleased about having to come in, but when her son called for the ride he sounded so happy (and so drunk…) and he begged her to come in quickly to say hi to his friends. “I want to show everyone my kick-ass radical uber cool mama!”

I start to feel dizzy. I sit down at my table in front of the window. I position the sensitive mom directly across from me. I look at her for a long time. There are no wounds. Is she really dead? Was she playing dead? Had she suffered from cardiac arrest, or an aneurysm? I am not sure where to put her, so I just keep her there with me.

I don’t know how long I cry at the table with the supportive mom, my face in my hands, but it is dark out when I lift my head and look across the table once again. Now, MY OWN supportive mom is sitting there. Without thinking I crawl across the table and into her arms. She tells me that she won’t lie, “things are not great,” but that pressing the big red button will probably make me feel better.

So I do.

She is right. I watch the scenes unfold for hours. The resuscitated queers perform the mundane just as beautifully outside my window as I believed they could.

Eventually, my mom says she is tired and is going to leave because she has to work early the next morning. After telling me to avoid arcades for a while, she says I should head down to the park to spend the rest of the evening with the three bears. She thinks I will have fun there.

So I do.

And, she is right.

Please Note: G’s daydream, described above, is fictional and terrifying, and the only thing true about it is that the daydream happened. This post is not an attempt to accurately reflect the personalities of those who unfairly lost their lives early Sunday morning.