The Wilde West

The movie is something along the lines of Parting Glances with a side of Wilde—slice of life, humanizing queer people, but also with a "taking culture to the Philistines" theme. But toward the end I'm not watching a movie anymore. Instead I'm watching live humans; I'm at the back of the stage for some reason and I am watching the main gay character from the movie perform. Maybe he's Wilde reciting a Shakespeare soliloquy; but really he's everyfag reciting humanity.

This is a documentary film and a reenactment and a deeply personal tragedy all at once. I know what happens in this story. Indeed, the bully hecklers in the audience, loud and rude, are already calling our hero out. It's a frontier saloon and a modern barroom all at once, and a mean drunk is picking a fight: nothing ever changes. I know what happens in this story.

One of the bullies runs out the front door while the other is haranguing our hero, something from the "That queer stuff may fly in Paris or wherever" clade of bigotry; "but here in Ferguson..." (Yes, Ferguson: Brain thinks you are all indistinguishable bigots and assholes.) By this time the second guy is back and he's brought a gun. This was always going to happen. It is Shakespeare after all, and we all know what happens in this story: the faggot dies bloody.

Then I am home. Mom is Joyce Summers (Kristine Sutherland) and she says, "Oh, honey. Are you ok?" I tell her I'm fine and I start up the elaborately curved stairs. In this case I am both walking upstairs and playing with a plastic childhood puzzle toy in which you have to manipulate ball bearings up a "staircase" (which is just a painted image); if your hand shakes the tiny steel balls go everywhere and you have to start over.

But in any case I don't get very far up the stairs before my breath catches and I break down, sobbing. It is now the case that the guy murdered in the saloon was my brother and the whole family, including Joyce, is grieving. Our brother, our son, was violently taken from us. We are all just trying to cope, to ride out the immeasurable tragedy that is the human species.

And then I wake up. And resume trying to ride out the immeasurable tragedy that is the human species.