I give as well as I get

“Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!
Play the old role, the role that is great or small, according as one makes it!”

- “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”, from Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

“…such acting is a highly developed craft that places a premium upon mental alertness. Before it leaves the lips, every word must be evaluated as to its consequences. A smile that appears at the wrong moment, a glance that is not all it should be even occasion dangerous suspicions and accusations. Even one's gestures, tone of voice, or preference for certain kinds of neckties (italics mine!) are interpreted as signs of one's political tendencies.
A visitor from the Imperium is shocked on coming to the West. In his contacts with others, beginning with porters or taxi drivers, he encounters no resistance. The people he meets are completely relaxed. They lack that internal concentration which betrays itself in a lowered head or in restlessly moving eyes. They say whatever words come to their tongues; they laugh aloud. Is it possible that human relations can be so direct?
Acting in daily life differs from acting in the theater in that everyone plays to everyone else, and everyone is fully aware that this is so. The fact that a man acts is not to his prejudice, is no proof of unorthodoxy. But he must act well, for his ability to enter into this role skillfully proves that he has built his characterization upon an adequate foundation. If he makes a passionate speech against the West, he demonstrates that he has at least 10 percent of the hatred he so loudly proclaims. If he condemns Western culture lukewarmly, then he must be attached to it in reality. Of course, all human behavior contains a significant amount of acting. A man reacts to his environment and is molded by it even in his gestures. Nevertheless, what we find in the people's democracies is a conscious mass play rather than automatic imitation. Conscious acting, if one practices it long enough, develops those traits which one uses most in one's role, just as a man who became a runner because he had good legs develops his legs even more in training. After long acquaintance with his role, a man grows into it so closely that he can no longer differentiate his true self from the self he simulates, so that even the most intimate of individuals speak to each other in Party slogans. To identify one's self with the role one is obliged to play brings relief and permits a relaxation of one's vigilance.”

-on ketman, from The Captive Mind, by Czeslaw Milosz

“Some men found that their senses were quickened by a wound; their ingenuity rose to exceptional heights under stress of danger.”

-from Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies



I got myself in trouble on this blog by using a wildly inconsistent narrative voice. I have done what I have had to do. I regret the inconsistent "unreliable narrator" thing now, though, not in the sense of wishing I could undo it, but because it makes it difficult to be genuine here and now, when I wish to.
I could not go much further without mourning the loss of a man who was a friend to me in a way that far exceeded what the circumstances could have warranted. He gave me a hard time often, which was infinitely kinder than the cruelty of a dismissive fake nicety. It made me believe that I have a potential to live up to. I miss him, and will miss him. When a celebrated person dies, there is a rush to bask in the glow of having been associated with the person for whom the celebration is as high as it has ever been. I don’t want to do that- I drove the elevator in the building where he lived. That’s all. I never saw or spoke with him for more than 2 or 3 minutes at a time. Once, when I was trying to get other work, he wrote me a kind reference. That he would even take the time to do that speaks to his generosity. He was kinder to me than most. I appreciated that. He was a teacher, and he taught me a lot.
I wish that was all I had to say, because the next bit is unpleasant, and I am loathe to associate unpleasantry with the death of a dear friend. But this blog is somewhat journalistic, and just as the papers mourned my friend at the same time that they reported on unpleasant subjects of all sorts, I have to do the same. More than that, the biggest reason I had for starting this blog was to relieve stress and anxiety, and my stress level is pretty high right now.
A few weeks ago, a woman with whom I have a good rapport asked me to look out for her grandson, who was going to be staying in her apartment with his friend while they visited New York. I told her it would be my pleasure to show him any kindness I could, and when he arrived in the middle of the night, I was happy to give him a warm welcome and drive him up to his grandmother’s apartment.
The next day, the grandson asked about me as the elevator operator drove him down. I guess his grandmother told him I’d promised to look out for him. I know he asked about me because everyone on staff knew it within a few hours- the grandson is flamboyantly “gay” , and he was asking after me. It must have made for good gossip. I have dealt with homophobia alot from my coworkers in this building- never mind that I actually prefer women very much, being fairly on the side of heterosexual on the Kinsey Scale. Being well aware that homophobia usually arises from a suppressed attraction to males, I am flattered to be the subject of it. I am perceptive enough to be aware that rumors have circulated that I myself am “gay”, and I have thought it beneath my dignity to deny them. This has not worked to my advantage, because in the minds of many ignorant people, homosexuality is associated with pedophilia, and I wonder if showing kindness to children while being suspected of being “gay” ever made small minds suspicious. But rumors are impossible to disconfirm anyway, and no one ever confronted me with worries of any sort concerning myself. No one even reads this blog. So even if I tried to bait the rumors here, it would have done me no good. On the other hand, if people did read the blog, and saw my rumor-bait, I wonder what they would do. If I was a hyper-protective parent and had great resources, I would go to any length to protect my child. But this is discursive.
Theophilus, the elevator operator who was so quick to spread the story, is violently anti-“gay”. I have seen him mime pulling a pin out of a hand grenade and tossing it at “gay” couples who walk by the building. He has told me that where he comes from, “gays” are often beaten, and that he was happy to participate in such beatings. I had been glad in the few years I have known him to be able to negotiate between my convictions and his and be a friend to him. As long as he was satisfied that I was not “gay”, at the same time that he must have been aware of the rumors I suspect, he didn’t mind that I was as tolerant of “gay” people as I am. While I am deeply bothered by his homophobia and worried by the violence implicit in it, I understand it- Theophilus himself is of a group of people who have long been oppressed by injustice, and his ignorance, and thus his malice, is a function of that.
But things were tense for me the last few weeks. It is easy enough for the people who live upstairs to be “gay”- their money and its power insulates them, to some degree, from the malice of hateful people. But for those with less resources, it can be extremely uncomfortable, if not dangerous, to be “gay” or to be perceived as such.
The grandson left last Sunday. He asked me to pose for a picture with him, one of many I’m sure he took during his time in New York, and I obliged. I liked that I was one of the characters he’d come across in New York, and worth being photographed with. I hailed a cab for them and helped them put their bags in the trunk, even though I was driving the elevator, and that’s the doorman’s job. Sunday mornings are slow, so the doorman was next door chatting with his buddy, and I’m not sure he would have helped anyway- a lot of my coworkers are very standoffish with “gays”. Flamboyant as the grandson is, he couldn’t resist shouting a goodbye out the cab window- “Goodbye, we love you.” I blushed deeply. While I’ve learned to pokerface admirably at this job, when I am truly embarrassed, I blush. And I was embarrassed. Because the doorman, Beefsandwich Batmansbutler, was back by then, and I knew he heard it, and I knew that he would lose no time spreading the story, confirming for all time the rumors that I truly am one of “those”.
Of course, it’s all bullshit, but I have a fine sense of humor and I can take a joke, and I can take a little bit of teasing. I give as well as I get.