Take Me Away From the Hands of Man
By
Timmy Stillman
(For the Richie I used to know)
He threw away the Grove paperback of The Marquis de Sade's " 'The 120 Days of Sodom' and Other Writing." The surf ate the book and carried it out to sea. He was naked in the early morning mist. He screamed. He willed the de Sades and the Caligolas and the teachers who taught these mad things straight to hell.
He was 16 and he was alone as he put his hands to his erection and shouted CAN YOU DO NOTHING BUT TORTURE AND KILL? IS EVERYONE GONE FUCKIN' NUTS?????" Oh God, he touched his heart that beat too fast. Must I tear it out and leave it cooking on the wars and stupidity and insanity flames of man, for Byron and Shelley's sake? What madness is this here in my groin? What lunacies will this produce?
Can we think of nothing but hurting each other and get the books thrown in our faces by servile teachers who tell us sick sexual gluttony and orgies, are fine, on paper and only on paper, and they better be school-approved paper too, oh glory be, we are such free thinkers now, how goddam progressively we teach, can be defended because they are "timeless classics" which are just pieces of shit by prisoners who mind-slaughter in the name of order, whatever bullshit anarchy they endorse, be us or we'll kill you, hidden not too far between the lines, never love, never understanding, never tenderness, in the name of anything that coalesces into something more than a boy in the South of France on a deserted beach on the beginning of the first day of Spring. Attend to me!
Attend to my body and my soft skin, and do you want to rape it, my illustrious superiors? Genet? Love? Holy crap!!
Is that where the worlds of the scholars and the generals and the presidents march toward and achieve some sort of Armageddon intimacy that is the only kind these prattling fools can possibly enumerate? He fell to his knees on the warm sand. He looked bluely out at the blue sea and thought, oh take me away from the hands of man. Take me away from faithless lying friends. From parents and teachers and the clergy and the Pope and the ministers and the hawkers of morality built on a mountain of shit; at least de Sade was honest about it. About the baseness, about the lies, but what good is it to see that, and then to descend into mounds and mounds of it, in some crack-brain rebellion?
He stroked his penis. He held it so warm in his warm hands. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. Stop telling me what I HAVE TO BE. Stop making up these insane rules and leave me the fuck alone. My friends know how to do it. My teachers know how to punish me when I disagree with them in class. It is not me here. It is not me masturbating on the sand. It is me as a painting on the front cover of a paperback. It is me to get people off and on and then to fear revealing my secret in the center of the secrets. It is not to the gay righters I can turn, for I am a boy who loves boys.
It is not to the freedom people I turn, because I want freedom to be me, and among individuals monolithic, that is not allowed. It is me here and now, come to hear my music, come to hear the words and the songs that are the turnaway friends when I tell them I will not grow out of it, I will not become them, I will not atrophy myself in order to pretend myself growing while living in childish scrawl muscle man magazines.
It is me ANDRE. It is me-- I CAN LOVE. It is me I LOVE BECOL and Becol is 13 and I no longer give a good goddam who knows it. I love his hairless loins. I love his small erection. And his small warm sweet body and his little cameo face.
I don't want to be anywhere at all but in his arms and I do not belong among FOOLS. I do not get patted on the head and told I am a good boy because I regurgitate what fools at Mass or in school tell me to, or I keep quiet and I say nothing about those little flanks I love to curl up to in my dreams and THEY ARE MY DREAMS GODDAMMIT AND I DO NOT GIVE THE HUMBERT HUMBERT excuse/
Why does Simone de Beauvior go on for endless pages defending de Sade--for Christ's sake half his novel is about shit eaters and piss squirting in people's mouths--and all the torture and the puke making heard about these, Bush? Monstrous killings at the end. when de Sade throws his hands in the air, and we answer questions about this on tests????? Oh why was that goddam manuscript ever found in the first place?
He had an audience and did not know it. He masturbated and could feel the rise of cumming. He arched his silver cum and he leaned back on his heels and he fuckin' howled. It was a movie, updated to the Nazis, "120 Days of Sodom" made by Passolini who was murdered inside a public restroom by another homosexual--and this is what they want him to be? Fucking and dying in rest rooms? No thank you.
To bow down in obeisance to the great gods of Thunder and ONE FOR THE GODS and crazy people in AMERICA THE LAND OF THE NUTS declaring war on people who had done nothing to them, like all religions make happen all the time in the name of the PRINCE OF PEACE-and oh God, I am 16, and I know it already.
He sprawled on to the sand, then onto his stomach. The warm graininess of it felt so comforting. He lay his head down and his dark hair was long and Becol watched him from behind a sand fence that was half fallen over, as they always seemed to be. He watched his friend and he was scared of him and for him. Andre has huge dark circles under his eyes. He was emaciated, thinner and thinner as the weeks chugged downward. Becol was not gay, but he loved his friend and wanted to help him, for Andre would cry in class at nothing Becol and the teacher and the class could see--he would cry like he did not know he was crying.
Tears would be streaming down his face as he sat there in apparent concentration toward what the teacher was saying. There would be giggles, but the teacher would hit a stick against her desk and say enough of that, Andre go wash your face. When Andre did not seem to hear, she would shout ANDRE--GO WASH YOU FACE. And ashamed he would know it had happened again, the sea had burst the dams again, and he would stumble up among the whispering from the chairs with forms known as children in them and do as she said. Coming back was as painful to Becol as it was to Andre.
Becol's heart hurt for Andre. Becol sometimes stayed awake in his bed at night, wondering how to help his friend. Becol was not a fool. He knew that Andre loved him but his friend thought he was keeping it a secret.
Becol was dressed in his school clothing. He had followed Andre from his home to the beach where Andre stripped. It was something Andre had been doing for a month now. And Becol felt the need to go to him, to tell him Andre, you are loved, you are needed, don't keep looking for the bad side of things, the bad side of people, there are more writers than de Sade, there are more films than Passolini's, (Some of Andre's thoughts were Andre's screams without Andre knowing it; they had not progressed past the beach as far as Becol knew, and worried when they would) there are more people younger and older and your age too who like boys, who love boys and will not think unkindly of you. Oh Andre, how do I make you not so sad?
Andre was now whispering words to Becol, who he knew was not there. It was more like Becol was not there when he was there which made no sense at all and if Andre's mind had been clearer and not stuffed with rain clouds, he would have realized what that feeling meant.
"Brokeback Mountain" is a movie, Andre thought. So what? Why do I automatically have to like it? William Burroughs makes my skin crawl, why do I have to read him? Young boys in movies make me so happy, are so beautiful, the way their skin glows and their eyes are so big and full of wonder, and there is happiness and they don't know the sad things yet, at least they act like they don't, even in sad roles sometimes, besides it's just acting, and I'm already grown away from them, and never had courage to look at any boys I used to know, in that way. Especially not Becol.
Oh god, he wept, my heart is breaking. War for peace, greed for giving, shamans and talkers and crap on the TV every night and writers of scripts for newsreaders lying their asses off and covering and covering. We don't have a racist problem here? Come on, change the words round and it's not just a minority thing, you vain bastards. They are having racist problems in pristine Switzerland, where the banks are that held Nazi money and stolen Jewish money too and took half a century to kind of sort of maybe some day perhaps admit it--cuckoo clock my ass.
I want to model. I want to shave my pubic hair. I want to be the boy peeing in the fountain in Brussels. I want to be loved and held and I want to be loved and held by Becol because there is no one else, because everybody leaves after they've had enough laughing, because everybody leaves as soon as I pretend I CAN'T FAKE BEING STUPID ANY LONGER AND KEEP IT UP SO THEY'LL STAY AROUND ME--for the fuck what?
Yeah, God, I said fuck, and fuck you too Mr. Almighty good shit who can't move his holy ass to help anybody down here, Darfur, Holy One, for one slight fuckin' example, Iraq for another, Sudan, ass hole, wanna break some manna and throw it out of the sky for them as they're dying, you holy non existent asshole, and god...
And before he knew what he was doing, Becol was running to his friend and knelt to him and held him. And before Andre knew what Becol was doing, before he knew that Becol was even there, Andre held to him and they were so close and Becol said, my friend, and Andre held him and said nothing, for the word friend was already a lie, a profanity in his brain, but realizing Becol said it, realizing Becol was here!
Andre pulled away. He turned his head and gathered his clothes from the pile next to him. He put them over his crotch. He blushed beet red. Becol realizing now what he had done, and where he was and that Andre was naked and had only a few minutes before masturbated, and the sun was beginning to break through the mist and the haze and they had no time left, got up, looking at Andre.
Becol did not know what to say. He was embarrassed. He was only 13 and knew not to be a crybaby in public even if Andre had though it was in private. But he knew what it was to get so angry at the whole world, to just want to scream and rant out at it, and do just what Andre had done today--the first time, the very first, Andre had been in full bellows fury and it scared Becol's heart and he wanted to say you're like a tiger, Andre, god, you were so good, man, you were the best.
Andre had turned from Becol and, still sitting, awkwardly trying to get his pants on. Becol had turned away from him because of the obvious reasons. He wanted to say it to Andre-you were a tiger, and I want you for my friend. No, not the last part. That would give Andre ideas. But the tiger part--yes that part--no, that too might give Andre ideas. See you in school; there was nothing wrong in that. No. It was just best not to.
Andre had on his pants and was now putting on his shirt, not taking time to get the sand off them. Becol started walking away from his friend, as if the other boy was not there. Yes, he reasoned, did Becol, his friend needed space and time with which to think. Yes, that would be the polite thing to do, and Becol was, like Andre, a very polite boy.
So he continued walking up the beach, knowing he would not follow his friend here tomorrow or the morning after that, for it wouldn't be right--for Andre of course. Becol was after all only 13 and three fourths years. It was too big a responsibility for a boy so young. Yes. He was sure of that. That was his out. Not that he needed an out. He thought about today's tests and knew he would pass them, but went over his homework from last night again--concentrated on that hard--just for his grades, understand.
And left his friend back there on the beach, dumping sand out of his shoes. Becal didn't run away at least. He wanted to. But he didn't. You gotta give him credit for that.