I'm Trying to Reach You. Barbara Browning

that him commandeering the uke? She never looked him in the eye. Then again, she never looked up in that Satie dance, either. Was she being shy, or furtive, or a little hostile? Was she teasing him with that bump and grind?

      His musical performance was equally perplexing. It was something between a lullaby and a howl. Was he serious about this “boy” and “his gal” business? In the pixelated, low-def video, it wasn’t easy to discern the moth’s age, but, to use that term I recently invoked in reference to myself, she seemed “mature.” The carper, or what you could glean of him, looked older still. There was a moment when he leaned slightly in to the video frame, and a small tuft of silvery hair became visible, along with the edge of a pair of reading glasses.

      I watched this video three more times, even though I found it somewhat disconcerting. On the surface, it was just another oddball home video, but I couldn’t shake that sense of menace. Then I felt embarrassed and told myself I should get back to moving those commas around in my manuscript. I closed the browser. I moved the commas. I stared into space for a while and thought about writing fiction.

      That night Sven texted me: “got u a present.”

      He attached a photo of what appeared to be a cheesy reproduction of Degas’s painting, La classe de danse, with the figure of the ballet master replaced by a bounding, open-mouthed, alabaster-skinned Michael Jackson. The ballerinas looked on in boredom – one staring at the ceiling, one sucking on her fingers, another examining her slippers – this, in keeping with the original. It doesn’t seem like a very likely scenario, really. If MJ were to have shown up in some dance studio like that, I’m pretty sure the ballerinas would have snapped to attention. But the implications were interesting. The painting appeared to be an acknowledgement of his stature as a master of movement.

      I thought I knew where this piece came from. Sven works at the Östasiatiska Museet in Stockholm. While the museum mostly houses Asian antiquities and the occasional contemporary art star, there’s generally a middle-aged Chinese guy who goes by the name of Andy outside the museum selling his own low-brow oil paintings. These are mostly reproductions of European masterpieces, a few with these oddball substitutions. You can also commission him to feature your face on, say, John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Madame X. He usually charges around 750 kronor for a painting, which is roughly a hundred bucks. But since Sven knows him, he probably got a break. Naturally I was very touched that he’d gotten me this present. I’d mentioned to him my preoccupation with MJ ever since receiving his text.

      You may get the impression from this gift that Sven has a camp sensibility. On the contrary. He’s actually extremely sensitive. That’s why I didn’t send him that YouTube link of Natalia Makarova. I thought it might make him cry. I’m also not sure how much of a sense of humor Andy has about his paintings. While he gives the impression of being a very happy person, Andy also seems pretty sincere about the things he loves. I’m not really sure about my own degree of irony. I think it’s medium.

      Sven said he’d put the painting in a tube and sent it by DHL. It would probably arrive in under a week.

      It was a little hot in the apartment that evening. I don’t really like air conditioning. I thought I’d go down to the garden and sit near the fountain for a while. There’s a homely little fountain they sometimes turn on. I took that queer theory book down with me. It was almost dusk, so I knew I wouldn’t get much reading done. I’m not sure exactly how I thought I might incorporate this book into my manuscript revisions anyway. It seemed relevant, but if I started addressing more theoretical material, I was pretty sure I’d end up expanding rather than contracting the citations, which were already embarrassingly bloated. I had spoken briefly with an editor from Routledge at PSi, and he asked me about the potential market for my book. I made the mistake of saying something about its “citationality” being of potential interest. I could see from the look on his face that I was badly misconstruing the meaning of market.

      I sat on a bench in the middle of the garden and opened the book up again to that passage from Silvan Tomkins.

      If you like to be supported and I like to hold you in my arms, we can enjoy such an embrace. If you like to be kissed and I like to kiss you, we may enjoy each other. If you like to be sucked or bitten and I like to suck or bite you, we may enjoy each other. If you like to have your skin rubbed and I like to do this to you, we can enjoy each other. If you enjoy being hugged and I enjoy hugging you, it can be mutually enjoyable. If you enjoy being dominated and I enjoy controlling you, we may enjoy each other…

      I’m sure a lot of readers might consider some of this a little comical. It has something to do with that question of irony I was thinking about before. About Sven and Andy and the painting. But I also think that Silvan Tomkins was very sincere. So the business about biting and sucking is really not dirty but sort of sweet and also a little eccentric. And the business about being dominated is really not just about sadomasochistic tendencies. It struck me as simultaneously more tender and more disturbing than that.

      It was starting to get dark. I looked up at the moon, which was partially obscured by the branches overhead. I was sitting under a willow tree. There are two very beautiful willow trees in that garden. And suddenly I realized where I’d seen the carper before.

      I was sure of it, and it terrified me.

      It was Jimmy Stewart. From Zagreb.

       THE MAN I LOVE

      After considerable internal debate, I decided I was being paranoid. Really, my various “leads” didn’t seem to point in any obvious direction except away from my manuscript revisions. I knew I needed to buckle down.

      I’m not, as I already said, a particularly paranoid person. I don’t generally assume the worst of people.

      Sometimes little kids will ask me outright if I’m black. If responsible adults are present they usually look mortified, but I don’t mind, of course. It’s an honest question. Sometimes very, very old people will also ask me this. This is a little more troubling, as I sometimes get the feeling they might go on to say, “because you don’t really look that black,” and then expect me to say, “Thank you.”

      I sort of expected Bugs Bunny’s sister to ask me this. But instead, on the morning of June 30, 2009, after making her painstaking trek down the hallway to the impatiently honking elevator as I held the door, after slowly maneuvering her walker into the car, she looked up at me, smacked her gums, and asked: “AH YOU JEWISH?”

      I said, “EXCUSE ME?”

      She said, “I SAID, AH YOU JEWISH?”

      I answered, a little apologetically, “NO, I’M NOT.”

      She looked at me for a minute, and then she asked, “AH YOU CATOLIC?”

      I wasn’t sure if it was worse to be totally godless in her eyes, but I find it hard to lie, so I said, “No, actually I was raised without religion. I’m not really a religious person.”

      She said, “WHAT? I CYAN HEAH YA!”

      I said, “NO.”

      She said, “LEMME TELL YA WHY I’M ASKIN’. I GOTTA FWEN’ WHO’S CATOLIC, AND SHE TOL’ ME, LISTEN, IF YA EVAH LOSE ANYTING, YA GOTTA PWAY TO SAIN’ ANTONY. YA JUS’ SAY, ‘SAIN’ ANTONY, HELP ME FIN’ MY STUFF.’ LIKE… YA LOSE YA KEYS. YA SAY, ‘SAIN’ ANTONY, HELP ME FIN’ MY KEYS.’ AND YA KNOW WHAT?” Bugs Bunny’s sister paused for dramatic effect, her eyes twinkling. “YA KNOW WHAT?… IT WOYKS!”

      I said, “I’LL REMEMBER THAT.”

      She said, “I’M TELLIN’ YA, IT WOYKS!”

      I made a mental note to tell Sven about Saint Anthony.

      Bugs Bunny’s sister also never asked me if I was gay. I don’t really look that gay either.

      I’ll tell you why I know it was June