Come Back by Sky Gilbert

pitiful of all) because of me. They were lost little boys. They were not lost because they were homosexuals. They were lost because homosexuality at the time meant being excluded from the most aristocratic of artistic professions. These were the florists, the interior decorators, the hairdressers, the chorus boys — forever, they thought, relegated to the subsidiary arts. No one else would hire them, because they were freaks. They were lisping, effeminate, outcast ninnies.
    I wish I could say I loved them. I loved performing for anyone who would really listen. And many of them did. But that’s as far as it went. I watched my funeral on TV . Of course, you already know that; I told you about it. But I don’t think I ever told you the extent of my disgust, which was realized, in practical form, by my laughter. It was very cruel laughter — what can I say, I’m not going to apologize. I had a good laugh. Who were these freaks? And I don’t mean their effeminacy. How many prancing girlettes placed wreathes on my coffin, and knelt down to kiss it, one pinky raised in the air, their painted eyelashes damp with tears? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sorry their lives were so harsh. But their much-vaunted love for me was all about a human impulse I’ve never really understood — the stupid, desperate (and this is the worst part), unimaginative need to be a part of a pack, a herd — to be, once and for all, accepted.
    People always natter on about how I wanted love.
    All she wanted was love. And the homosexuals gave it to her. And that love killed her.
    Fuck off.
    I was a fucking artist and I knew what I was doing. I was damn good at it, even when I was fucking lousy. And I always gave them a show; I always gave everybody a fucking show, not just those crazy homosexuals.
    And later? Later it was much worse. I mean, back in the day, I didn’t have contempt for them really — or tried not to. But after my “death,” they continued to buy my records and it went beyond beyond. Don’t get me wrong, the records are okay. But I really was a live performer, a living performer. You had to see me live. And here they were collecting my records and gossiping about my demise. Here they were enjoying interviews in which I’m drunk or clearly on drugs (and there were many such instances). And they only did this because they wanted to
belong
. I was a drunken lighthouse, a shot in the dark, the delirious painted-pony mascot they hoped would lead them out of their social insecurities.
    I don’t think that later, in the seventies and eighties, when the drag queens were still doing me, they had any idea of who I was. I mean, maybe some. But most were just going through the pathetic old routine because I had become part of their identity — part of their little jokes. To be known as my “friend” was another word for homosexual. I had simply become as mundane as the rest of popular culture.
    I’m not saying it’s any more sad and contemptible than people who flocked so recently to see
Holiday
— you know, the musical they did about Madonna’s life. God, that creature lived for
so long
— it was such an awfully long time they had to wait before they could get the rights to her songs. But when at last she kicked the bucket, they could finally buy out that shyster son of hers. (What’s his name — Jesus? What a businessman he turned out to be.)
Holiday
is, of course, an inspiredly boring title. And how did they manage to make all those “slap my ass” songs mainstream? The people who go to see the Madonna jukebox musical are just as contemptible as the homosexuals who bought my records and came to worship me. It’s about identity, selling brands and belonging; so sad, so lonely, so solipsistic and resting like an atom bomb at the hollow centre of capitalism, where commodities define us.
    My father, on the other hand, was another kind of