My second grade class was embroiled in a high stakes bingo game. The winner was to receive a mechanical wind-up walking toy, constructed in metal and painted to resemble a pencil with a goofy grin. With a certainty and clarity that comes from a Southern American unwillingness to openly concede desire, I know that I have never wanted anything more, with such purity of necessity, before or since. I did surprisingly well. With one fateful letter-number combination, two students simultaneously shouted out the appropriate response to a line of five tokens. Actually, the shouts were not quite simultaneous; I called "bingo" first-I knew it then and I know it now. The teachers couldn't determine, however, whether Joey Withers or I was quicker on the draw. After verifying that we both indeed had winning cards, the adults naturally used some number-guessing type of elimination game to rob me of a lifetime spent in blissful coexistence with my walking pencil. With a furious "No!" in a volume that only a betrayed seven-year-old can muster, I took my "consolation" prize and smacked the edge against the laminated surface of my desk. The cloudy glass-like candy heart detonated, louder than I expected. Red sugary shrapnel ricocheted in all directions. Pink crystalline sucker dust, sweetening the moist paths on my tear-streaked face, settled over the post-apocalyptic stillness. Fluorescent lights buzzed over the stench of artificial cherry. Although I was devastated, heartbroken as it were, no one else was hurt.
Over the course of the following thirty years, who knew that want would become so compromised? The typical benchmarks of success--flashy car, roomy house, trophy wife--don't motivate me, or don't apply. Automobiles have consistently proven to be the spawn of Satan. Purchasing a home usually means that you are half of a couple and don't hate the city that you are currently in. AIDS-phobia continues to neutralize my openness for romance and intimacy.
What I wouldn't give for a toe-curling jolt of raw passion, or if not that, a nice leisurely suspension of disbelief. Unfortunately, men with even a shred of allure are never quite bisexual enough. Pining after too many charming straight boys has "burned out my engine." Pretty faces seem determined to speak.
After almost two decades in which everything has been stripped of meaning, is it possible to ever find value in anything? Can even a fraction of innocence be restored? Does the moment come when I finally stumble across a cause, project, or individual with an undeniable appeal? Fighting for my life would imply that I had one. How do I find inspiration packing a force equivalent to the energy required to claw my way around the obstacles and out of this limbo?
One final word to Joey, wherever he is now: "Watch your back."
Lobby/Permanent Collection/Temporary Exhibit
The Tim Kramer Memorial Auditorium/Sculpture Garden
Wellbutrin Cafe/Gift Shop
Audio Guide