The Sodomite and the Postmodernist
I bring up the notion of the sodomite and the postmodernist, as I feel, and perhaps I alone, that the two are kindred spirits; cut from the same clerical clothe. Not being a religious man, or fool, but one whose eye for detail is unrivaled in things of opposing nature, I feel qualified to stand forth on such matters. Like it or not. I killed a dog, two dogs, so I have reason and insanity on my side. And with these, these two binary opposites, I am capable of anything, within reason or not. Deleuze and Derrida taught me that, as they, among the horde and wattle, knew what best I needed to ease me through the transom of worldly madness. The rest is dross and bad manners, as it should be and is. My friend’s father’s hastily eloped snuffing, and his dear mother’s sweeping and forgetfulness are two such opposites, binaries of my unreasonable foolishness. I neglected to tell you, as I should, as truth is a falsity few can do without, that when flipping madly through my father’s photography magazines I self-pleasured like a banshee on fire. The truth never sets one free, but simply makes lying all that much more unflattering. Good manners and nice shoes, two binaries I could do without. Time is of the essence, so timeliness is essential. Few things are necessary, as I have suggested, but time, in and of itself is one such necessity we could not do without. Chinese flailing and whetstone sharp knives and oddly shaped spoons, these, I conjecture, we could do with less of. Nice shoes, too, for that matter.
I have an indifference to other's pain and suffering and people with dogs. Most people, and dogs, are not worth the bother, as they either bark with impunity or shoot out the windows of my father's car. It's not in people's best interests to push this issue, or any others, for that matter, as my capacity for detachment is unrivaled. This disinterestedness, as Kanto made reference to it, is one of the fundamental ruling principles of my otherwise unprincipled life. Given the opportunity, my heart wouldn’t skip a beat or the hair on the back of my neck raise beyond the level it already is. I am not one to be pushed or cajoled into doing anything against my own best interests, which are few and far between, but mine nonetheless. Dogkilling was easy; dismemberment and resection might prove to be more of a challenge. Patrick White wrote a novel entitled the 'Vivisector', even though that word, or spelling, is nowhere to be found in any dictionary I have flipped through.
I often see people on the street in passing whom I believe to be much older than me. Then, on further inspection, realize that they are not, and in fact may even be my junior. This, I fear, is quite disconcerting, as it closes the gap between others and me, creating an imbalance where none existed before. And imbalances, as you no doubt know, are incorrigible. A withered face, lips sucked into cheekbones sculpted by the blind, a smoking hole, lips so chapped, and gums a pillory of pyloric gaminess that the mere thought of a grandmotherly kiss on the forehead is repulsive. A garish hole where cocks and cigarettes are poked with a fearlessness broaching on insincerity. In passing nothing appears as it seems, nor, for that matter, seems as it appears. All things and those yet to be things are imprecise copies of things that aren’t things at all, but simulacra of some one thing that no longer exists. In this manner, the people on the street in passing are nothing more than things, things as yet to find matching simulacra that will add precision and validity to their being things. If I am such a thing, I care not to know, nor do I see the value in knowing that I am something, a thing, that has neither value nor precision. I would rather not know than know that I know that I am nothing but a cheap copy of some lost and forgotten thing. A secondhand simulacra of something that may never have existed to begin with. God forgive me if He so desires. The rectory parasite is a cheap copy of a rector, a useless simulacra that sees no end to its uselessness. My friend’s father creates things at random and with an impunity that seeks its own dereliction. His mother, dear mother, hasn’t the courage or entitlement to being anything other than a thing his father thought up to sweep the snuff crumbs from beneath the foot of his chair. And that, I fear, is very sad in deed. My sister is all things and no things; she is a representation of the facticity of things in themselves, and as such, beyond the description of things. Perhaps it was she who started the simulacra that invents than discards all things, cheap secondhand copies of things that never, nor could, exist at all. I am nothing, and prefer it that way.
When I was a boy there was a scoutmaster who had clubfeet and a preference for young boys and swimming. He was caught, or apprehended, I’m not sure which, fondling a young swimmer’s testicles in the public pool at the other end of our street. If I recall correctly, he denied the allegations, as would seem reasonable in someone deficient in moral principles, and claimed that he, not the young boy, was the victim, after all, he was born into this world clubfooted and entitled to unprincipled things. He felt that his deformation allowed him carte blanche when it came to rousting boy’s testicles and tugging down their swimming trunks. I would rather have killed him, with a hatchet or a tomahawk, than a dog with principled manners. The other scoutmaster, as there were two of them, as is the custom in scouting, was equally handicapped, but his deformation consisted of larding his authority over a troop of young innocents without the wherewithal or courage to stand up for themselves. He had this abhorring habit of chewing on white mints that left their crumbs and rickets in the corners of his mouth. I would have killed him too, and made a day of it.
This remembering, I fear, will further detach me from what tenuous hold I have on reality; but I will continue just the same, regardless of the casualties to myself. When one is nothing, no thing, casualties aren’t as crippling as they may otherwise seem to the average person, or thing. Dacha and Auschwitz, they resulted in far more horrendous casualties than I will ever need experience. And for that, I am eternally grateful. Their deaths have prevented my own inhuman death, they were my saviors and protectors, the only ones’ to whom I feel an inkling of gratitude and love, all others, all other things, are useless wastes of flesh, blood and teeth. Most men are contagion’s without ever knowing it. Primo Levis, Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin, need I utter another word or name? A charnelhouse, a slaughteryard, a abattoirs’ filthy nails raking smoldering coals over limed white arms and legs, a reminder of man’s inhumanities against man, nothing more. Where was God during all this? Where was He when the woman and children were being raped and disemboweled? Nowhere, I suspect.
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