Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore - The Freezer Door

Copyright 2020 Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Semiotext(e)
PO BOX 629, South Pasadena, CA 91031
www.semiotexte.com

Cover: David Wojnarowicz, Untitled, 1988. Acrylic on two chromogenic contact sheets, mounted on glass 11 x 13 inches. Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and PPOW, New York.

Design: Hedi El Kholti
ISBN: 978-1-635-90130-6

Distributed by the MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, and London, England.

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To everyone who still dreams of the city

To everyone who still dreams in the city

To everyone who still dreams

For JoAnne, 19741995

For Chrissie Contagious, 19742010

For David Wojnarowicz, 19541992

One problem with gentrification is that it always gets worse.

But then I go into a Hooters, and its a vintage clothing store. A friend of mine is trying on breasts. This is why I like dreaming.

I remember when faggots kissed hello. We had so much to fear and so we feared nothing, I mean we feared one another but we feared fear more. Kissing one another on the lips, this was joyous and commonplace, a legacy we were inheriting, an arthow to stretch out our lips in front of our faces, how to queen it up in front of a loving or hostile public, how to emphasize connection or disdain.

We kissed hello because we had to. We had to know we could kiss like this, a simple greeting but something splendid and transgressive even when mundane, or thats what it felt like for me when I moved to San Francisco in 1992, and I was 19. This kiss didnt necessarily feel like a radical act, it was just something you did if you were a faggot, whether in suit and tie or broadcasting the pageantry of outsider imagination. Was this something that united us? I wouldnt have said so then, but maybe Im saying it now.

Yes, there were the ones who turned their cheeks, too good for this kiss unless they explained the sudden turn by mentioning a cold sore, one just starting or one in the past, whichever way we hoped we were taking care. Sometimes you knew someone had really bad breath, but you kissed her on the lips anyway, it was okay to endure a little discomfort to avoid seeming snotty or scared. Unless this was one of those queens who would grab you and start feeling you up, that was a good reason to avoid contact.

You kissed the ones you loved and the ones you didnt even like that much, sometimes even someone you hated, just so you wouldnt seem shady. Too much garlic was never a problem, we kissed anyway. We kissed the living and the dying, knowing that the dying were part of the living and we wanted to keep them with us.

Maybe this was a dreamI mean I know it wasnt a dream then, but maybe it is now. Now were more afraid, afraid of one another, so even the gestures of intimacy disappear. Most of the time I dont even think of kissing someone hello anymore, I reach for a hug if possible and this can be beautiful too, but in a different way. How strange to think that in the early-90s, when it felt like everyone was dying, we were less fearful in certain ways.

When Im washing my hair in the shower, and suddenly I think what the hell am I doing? Oh, Im in the showerthis is one of the things I do in the shower. Sometimes repetition leads to revelation, and sometimes revelation leads to repetition, which leads to no revelation ever again.

You know when you notice someones looking at you, but youre not sure, so you do the same thing you were just doing, so you dont look like youre looking? I was holding a piece of chewed-up licorice root in front of my face in between two fingers, getting ready to throw it out the window. He lit a cigarette. I hate cigarettes, but thats the place for them, downstairs and outside and away from my window. He crossed the street, looked back, waited, so then I literally leaned out the window. He came back. Eventually I said do you want to come up? And he did. Thats when I knew my life could start again.

Theres a certain kind of knowledge, growing up in a particular body, socialized to be a particular thing you will never be, knowing this and learning to grow with it instead of against. Maybe Im saying we all need different kinds of people in our lives, right? When anything becomes homogenous, theres a problem. When anything becomes so homogenous that people dont even think about it, thats worse.

I used to live in a neighborhood where no one belonged, and so we all belonged. Now I live in a neighborhood where faggots look at me like I dont belong, and so I dont. Soon they wont belong either, but this wont make anything better.

Theres too much desire without desire. Too much desire for desire. Not enough desire. Sometimes we remember the dead, and forget the living dead. And sometimes we forget everything. We make art so we dont die. And still we die. Silence is a kind of memory, but memory should never be a form of silencing. Maybe there are exceptions. I know a process can be collective, and a collective can be in-process, but what about a collective process without collective process?

Knowing the gap between what you want and what you yearn for, can there be hope in this? Maybe Im saying that yearning often comes from spurning, the brokenness from that glance, the desire for seamlessness. Maybe theres no way not to be broken, only a way not to feel broken.

But then I actually make the move, first my leg close to his, then my hand a friendly brush against his cheek, eventually were making out and this is when my brain can relax. Maybe not just my brain but everything. This is what it means to have a body.

The conversation is important because its not important. This is what people do at bars.

At some point he asks me where I live. His names Caleb. I ask him if he wants to come home with me. He says: Im undetectable.

Wheres the transition, I mean its like hes online. I guess some people are always online.

I say Im negative. He asks me if I fuck raw, he says he wants to fuck my brains out. I say no, I use condomsbut we dont have to fuck, there are lots of other things we can do.

The truth is that I wasnt even thinking about fucking, I just wanted to continue the way this was making me feel. He says no its not going to work out.

But still Im here, in my body. I want to be here. I want to be here, in my body. With him. Youre adorable, he says, later, when hes back and were making out again.

AdorableI love that word.

He asks me where I live again. I guess hes that drunk.

He yells over at some guy who just arrived: I wanna fuck the shit out of you.

I remember a phone sex ad from 2001, with someone who looked just like this other guy, pretending to be a gas station attendant with rhinestone studs in his ears and jeans with textured pockets. We cant always be attracted to people we dont immediately think are tragic. The way my heart stops a little and I feel the sensation of not moving. But why? I dont want anyone to fuck my brains out.

Caleb says lets switch positions, so now Im next to James, who makes clothes. He likes my clothes. Maybe Caleb wants me to go home with James, is this strange or kind or a little bit of both Im not sure but I like James too.

This is what happens at bars, or can happen, if youre lucky.

James says do you live in Seattle? Because Ive never seen you around. And I say thats because I dont go out. So he wants to know why.