Farrago '05

This is my farrago from the '05 Forensics Season.
Boy loves boy, and girl loves girl; an prospect a lot of people would rather not acknowledge. The topic has been covered in various pieces of literature, a few of which I will share in novel cuttings, song lyrics, and poetry.

Lynn Hall wrote Sticks and Stones in 1972. Tom is new to Buck Creek, Iowa where he befriends Ward, a writer, who has been discharged from the Armed Services. In my first cutting, Tom has just confessed to Ward that he has never really liked women and he sees himself as being alone for the rest of his life.

“God,” Ward said. “This is it. I’m going to kill the whole thing, but I can’t keep quiet any longer. Now just shut up and listen till I get through, will you? When we first met each other, I told you I’d gotten a medical discharge from the service because of asthma. I didn’t. I was discharged because of a ‘homosexual involvement’ with another guy in very firmly that any genuine love is a good and necessary thing, whether it comes from a man, a woman, a child, pet, or whatever. I believe every individual should try to find the kind of love that fills his needs, no matter what society says.
“No, don’t interrupt. I’m not finished yet. You’re wondering about you and me, so I’ll tell you as honestly as I can. Because I am a writer, and because I am the kind of person I am, I don’t like having a lot of people around me, but at the same time I AM human and I do need someone whose…close. I’m not talking about anything physical now. I just mean someone who cares about the daily details of my life and someone whose live I can care about in return. You could call it a kind of love if you wanted to, but I want to make one thing clear right now. I’d never in the world endanger whatever friendship you might feel for me by making any kind of, you know, physical advance or anything like that, that would be unwelcome. I have my pride, and I can understand your feelings about the whole thing.
“So, I’ll just say it once, and then we’ll forget about it. Yes, in the purest form of the word, I love you. It’s been very good for me to have somebody I can feel this way about. But, by god, I never wanted you to be hurt by it.

Come to My Window was a song written and preformed by Melissa Etheridge and written while she was in college to a lover.

I would dial the numbers
Just to listen to your breath
And I would stand inside my hell
And hold the hand of death
You don’t know how far I’d go
To ease this precious ache
You don’t know how much I’d give
Or how much I can take
Keeping my eyes open
I cannot afford to sleep
Giving away promises
I know that I can’t keep
Nothing fills this blackness
That has seeped into my chest
I need you in my blood
I am forsaking all the rest
I don’t care what they think
I don’t care what they say
What do they know about this love anyway

Alex Sanchez’s novel Rainbow Boys was published in 2001 and deals with 3 high school boys “coming out” to their families and friends. In this portion of the book, Nelson, an openly gay and flamboyant boy, is trying to get his best friend to realize that he cares about him in a way other then as friends.

Nelson stood up and stretched. “Come on Kyle. Let’s do something!”
“Like what?” Kyle asked.
“I don’t know. Aren’t you dying to find out what sex is like?”
Kyle gave a shrug. “I can wait.”
“Wait! Life’s to short, Kyle. It’s passing us by. I get bashed every day for being queer, and I haven’t even kissed a guy yet. That’s pretty pathetic.” He shook a cigarette from his pack. Then a brilliant idea dawned on him. “Hey, how about if we practice?”
Kyle raised an eyebrow. “Practice what?”
“You know…” Nelson lit up a cigarette. “Making out.”
Kyle pressed his glasses up on the ridge of his nose looking confused. “With who? You mean-“ He suddenly sat upright. “You’re crazy!”
“Why not?” Nelson insisted. “It’s just practice.”
Kyle shook his head. “I can’t kiss you. It would feel like…kissing my sister! You’re my friend. It would feel to weird.”
Nelson cupped his hand over his mouth to test his breath. “You afraid I have AIDS? Rabies?”
Kyle glared at him. “Mad cow disease.”
“Screw you!” Nelson puffed on his cigarette. “You’ll let my dog lick your face, but you won’t kiss me? That makes me feel really special.”
A guilty look crossed Kyle’s face. “It just doesn’t feel right.”
Nelson decided to make the most of Kyle’s guilt. “I’ll put on some mood music.” He ran to the stereo and grabbed a Tony Bennett CD. “It’ll be fun.”
“No way.” Kyle shook his head.
Nelson threw his arms around Kyle.
“Mon cheri! The night is young, the moon is full, and you are so handsome.” He began smacking kisses on Kyle’s neck.
“Nelson, stop it!” Kyle pulled away. Nelson rose up to kiss him on the mouth, and Kyle swung to block him, but instead his hand hit Nelson’s chin with a smack.

Walt Whitman was a great American poet. In the following poem, O Tan-Faced Prairie Boy, was published in his Leaves of Grass anthology, which was banned when first published for some of the explicitness of his sometimes erotic poems.

O Tan-faced Prairie boy
Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift,
Praises and presents came and nourishing food, till at least among the recruits
You came, taciturn, with nothing to give –we but look’d on each other,
When lo! More then all the gifts in the world, you gave me.

My final piece is a monologue adapted from the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. Matthew reads the following as his eulogy to his best friend, and lover Garreth.

Garreth used to prefer funerals to weddings. He said it was easier to get enthusiastic about a ceremony one had an outside chance of eventually being involved in. In order to prepare this speech, I rang a few people, to get a general picture of how Garreth was regarded by those who met him. Fat seems to be a word people most connected with him. Terribly rude also rang a lot of bells. On the other hand, some of you have been kind enough to ring me to tell me that you loved him, which I know he'd be thrilled to hear. You remember his fabulous hospitality...his strange experimental cooking. Most of all, you tell me of his enormous capacity for joy. Joyful is how I hope you'll remember him, not stuck in a box in a church. Pick your favorite of his vests and remember him that way. The most splendid, replete, big-hearted, weak-hearted as it turned out, and jolly bugger most of us ever met. As for me, you may ask how I'll remember him, what I thought of him. Unfortunately there, I don't have words. Perhaps you will forgive me if I turn from my own feelings to the words of another splendid bugger: W.H. Auden. This is actually what I wanted to say:
'Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephonePrevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.Silence the pianos and with muffled drum,Bring out the coffin...let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle, moaning overhead,Scribbling on the sky the message: He is Dead.Put crepe bows 'round the necks of public doves,Let traffic policemen wear black, cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East, my West.My working week and my Sunday rest.My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song,I thought love would last forever: I was wrong.The stars are not wanted now, put out every one.Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.Pour out the ocean and sweep up the wood,For nothing now can ever come to any good."