Some Kind of Queer

The name of this party comes from a reclaimed childhood slur. As the androgynous bohemian new kid in a cliquey Middle School, I was ‘infectious.’ Boys who befriended me were in danger of being called ‘faggot’ and girls who did so were dubbed ‘lezzies.’ My classmates couldn’t figure me out at all and used to ask “What are you? Some Kind of Queer?” A few years later, I was sent to Arizona to go to High School and heard the question again from a cousin who wondered why I listened to David Bowie instead of Led Zeppelin. Many years later, I wrote a very short story about it:

Some Kind of Queer — JordyJones — c 2001

“Why do you listen to that faggot music?” I was seething breathing deeply. My cousin was all boy. Real boy. I was quick on the ball. “What are you, some kind of queer?” Yeah. Some kind. It was 1982 and I was in Tucson, Arizona. I looked across the breakfast table at the boy-cousin. I had been sent here to go to high school. It wasn’t my doing, but it was only temporary. I dreamed of escape. No pain, no joy, no power too great, a chance to die, to turn to mold. Listening to the music on the headphones. I said “Do it again, do it again.” My aunt looked worried. She was a little bit afraid of me ‘cause love won’t make me cry. I had cold fire. Like to take a cement fix. I was the Prince. I had read Machiavelli. And Shakespeare, and Plato, and Marx. I was fifteen. Changes. I ran across a monster who was sleeping by a tree, and I looked and frowned and the monster was me. I had seen Harvey Milk on television. Harvey died but he saved my life. In walked luck and you looked in time. And David Bowie saved my life. Feeling so gay, feeling gay. Yeah, some kind of queer.

A lifetime of brothers, sons and grandsons had driven my aunt to decorate poodles. She tried to decorate me. Transition Transmission. Oblivious to her disappointment, I equipped myself with a glam-boy wardrobe of flare-leg jeans and shiny shirts with big collars. You wanna be there when they count up the dudes. Dressed like a priest you was. Tod Browning’s freak you was. I locked myself in my room and listened to Bowie on headphones: a girl who looked like a boy who liked boys and didnít even have the decency to be good at sports. When you’re a boy other boys check you out. Wonder who, wonder who, wonder when. On another floor, in the back of a car. If you want it, boys, get it here, thing. Be a standing cinema. Some kind of queer.

I took my boyfriend up to the balcony at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Gammage Auditorium at ASU to fuck. He was awful nice...really quite out of sight. I stood spread-legged holding the railing, looking into the night sky, waiting for the space invader. Hold on to nothing, and he won’t let you down. Life stands still and stares. Ziggy came out of a dorm-room somewhere. My knees were shaking my cheeks aflame. Drive me there, darling. Taking it hard, taking it hard. Nothing will corrupt us nothing will compete; thank God heaven left us standing on our feet. I came blinking beyond the horizon, and he came in my ass with his eyes shut tight. Life is a pop of the cherry. We’re fighting with the eyes of the blind. Hard wet and innocent before the plague. If his trade is a curse, then I’ll bless you. Holy, holy. Some kind of queer.