_ | \ | \ | | \ __ | |\ \ __ _____________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ _____________ | ___________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ ___________ | | | _/_/_____ | | > > _/_/_____ | | | | /________/ | | / / /________/ | | | | | | / / | | | | | |/ / | | | | | | / | | | | | / | | | | |_/ | | | | | | | | c o m m u n i c a t i o n s | | | |________________________________________________________________| | |____________________________________________________________________| ...presents... I'd Rather be Dead than Live in California by Oxblood Ruffin 09/01/1997-#336 __///////\ -cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc- /\\\\\\\__ \\\\\\\/ Everything You Need Since 1986 \/////// ___ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ |___heal_the_sick___raise_the_dead___cleanse_the_lepers___cast_out_demons___| Toronto is an unusually grey city. Today it rained a dull monochrome from the heavens to the concrete. I think that most people become morose during this kind of weather and I am no exception. I wandered the house aimlessly, had some filler conversation, did some low surge napping and skimmed the Web. Eventually I ended up browsing through Bruce Chatwin's, "What Am I Doing Here?" - a lovely collection of his essays and travel pieces. Somehow I thought I had read the entire book but was surprised to have missed a eulogy to an American artist, a painter who had died quite tragically and at far too young an age in the Dutch lowlands. It was either through some weakness of my own or because of the rain that I could not concentrate. I drifted and caught myself and tried to read again and drifted some more. Finally I gave up in favor of another nap. There was no sleep. The rain rubbed the window arhythmically and suddenly I was back in New York with Paul. I could feel myself smiling. I had met Paul at Tavern on the Green where we both worked as waiters. I was working evenings while I looked for more suitable employment in the United Nations community and he was enduring the same hell on his way through graduate school. Paul was being groomed for the upper echelons of American art criticism at Columbia University. I believe he was born in Connecticut and had been educated at Princeton. I do not think he was more than twenty-two or three but he had already published extensively. But more interesting for me, he was a kindred spirit. It started with California. One evening before the shift began the waiters crowded around the bar trying to impress one another. Somebody mentioned that California was _the_ place to go. Plenty of work, beautiful women, blim blam. I said it was a place fit only for trees and sunblock, or something like that. Immediately Paul clapped me on the back and introduced himself. He then vilified every scintilla of life form on the West coast. It was a total slash and burn performance, and devastatingly funny. From then on we formed a bitch brigade. I was the straight man - so to speak - and he was, well, he was Paul. Nothing escaped our censure. The Maitre d' was a moron, the food sucked and anyone with a new haircut was an easy target. I think knowing him then helped me get through that purgatory of hollandaise and ass kissing. But Paul had to leave shortly after we met. He contracted scarlet fever and was off for about six weeks. Paul came back finally but he was different. There was a lingering redness in his face and a sort of deflation in his spirit that troubled me. Not long after his return we stood in the middle of the main dining room. It was slow. Somewhere between the hors d'oeuvres and main plate of our first table he told me that he had AIDS. I understood that he told me that he was going to die. It was surreal, like a horrible accident where you have to check your normal emotions because there is no other choice. I stood there calmly and put my hand on his shoulder. We just looked at each other in a quiet dining room. And then I asked if he had spoken with his friends and family about this. He said that he had not and left to go for the entrees. Finally some normal feeling returned and I began to cry. I left the floor with my head down and got up to the change room with no one noticing. I felt depressed and light at the same time. After Paul's doctor, I was the only one to know anything. I thought that I was an odd choice for this confidence because I am not homosexual and I only know the gay gestalt as a tourist. Perhaps it was our common contempt for California. For whatever reason, I was deeply touched. His trust somehow took the sting out of his news. Paul deteriorated very quickly and did not work very long thereafter and after he left I never saw him again. Early one morning some months after he left Tavern on the Green the phone rang and my girlfriend took the call. She gasped and passed me the phone. It was our friend, Eric. Paul had died. He was the first person I knew who had died of AIDS. From then until now that list has grown exponentially. Paul was cheated and so was art criticism and so was everyone who might have savored his wit and wisdom. Some days I think we have lost an entire generation and the better part of a community that I still do not know as well as I should. And some days when it rains I think of Paul, my old friend who makes me feel so warmly morose. This feeling - according to Tibetan Buddhists - is the cornerstone of spiritual growth. The ability to clasp sadness as a friend, they say, is somehow the beginning of true happiness. So perhaps today I am a little more connected than I would otherwise be, sitting here in the waning rainfall, the monitor glowing out of the window into the darkness. And even though it may be true that Los Angeles has a better climate than Toronto, I would rather be dead than live in California. .-. _ _ .-. / \ .-. ((___)) .-. / \ /.ooM \ / \ .-. [ x x ] .-. / \ /.ooM \ -/-------\-------/-----\-----/---\--\ /--/---\-----/-----\-------/-------\- /lucky 13\ / \ / `-(' ')-' \ / \ /lucky 13\ \ / `-' (U) `-' \ / `-' the original e-zine `-' _ Oooo eastside westside / ) __ /)(\ ( \ WORLDWIDE / ( / \ \__/ ) / Copyright (c) 1997 cDc communications and the author. \ ) \)(/ (_/ CULT OF THE DEAD COW is a registered trademark of oooO cDc communications, PO Box 53011, Lubbock, TX, 79453, USA. _ oooO All rights reserved. Edited by Grandmaster Ratte'. __ ( \ / ) /)(\ / \ ) \ \ ( \__/ Save yourself! Go outside! Do something! \)(/ ( / \_) xXx BOW to the COW xXx Oooo