The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 22

Is this seemly behavior for a Hindu wife?

Standing naked, black skin gleaming, her garland of human heads drips fresh blood on the lily-white corpse of her husband. Her red tongue sticks out nine miles and even dead he’s got a hard-on.

What’s going on here?

According to the commentator Dasgupta, originally the corpse was just a corpse, a heap of corpses, demons slain in cosmic battle. It is the touch of the Mother’s foot that turns the śava, corpse, into Śiva.

Nothing pure or impure. Nothing holy or profane.

Thus it is said: she herself has become everything,

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 21

When I was six I knew that when I slept a witch came with a rattling shopping cart to carry me off to the land of dreams.

About the afterlife I had no questions. I knew that when I died the shopping cart would ascend through all the invisible worlds, which were stacked one on top of the other, like a multi-storey parking garage.

Actually two parking garages. One was Heaven and the other, Hell. Heaven was on the left. Sometimes. Other times it was on the right.

That was the problem. Heaven and Hell kept switching places. You had to be very careful not to choose the wrong one and wind up in Hell by mistake. Needless to say, Hell put on a good show. At the edges it looked absolutely splendid. What you saw was a woman sipping a cocktail beside a pool full of gentlemen. It wasn’t until too late, until you’d already chosen, that you saw the cocktail was molten lead, the pool was pus and the men were all talkers with big opinions and no genitals. You had to look carefully and try not to get dizzy, as the devil offered you unlimited free pinball machines.

Heaven, on the other hand, was honest and humble, and generally lost out.I looked, and waited, and tried to decide. Meanwhile, my shopping cart kept going higher.

Where was I headed? I hadn’t a clue. Only the cart knows where it is going, up higher and higher, someplace unimaginable.

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 20

In this dream I look out the window of a cabin into a snowstorm. I see only trees and I know that I am very far from any road or town. The snow deepens; I will be trapped for many days. This is when I ought to pray, I think. Just then a man steps out from behind a tree. He is a tall broad-shouldered woodsman, and naked except for a ski cap.

Snow falls on his fine hairs and his prick points to the sky.

I went to the wilderness to be good, to clear my head. All day I sat with my holy books and good intentions. All day I burned with hopeless desire. He has found me, even here.

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 19

Wouldn’t it be nice, if everyone just went ahead and did what they were going to do anyway—but this time without beheading any cats?

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 18

One day Nasruddin’s disciples found him in the vegetable market, crouched down beside a brimming basket of chilies, crying inconsolably. They watched, astonished, as he bit into the fiery chilies one after another. His face flaming with pain and surprise, tears rushed from his eyes and blood from his cracked lips as he continued, nonetheless, to eat the chilies one after another, without respite.

Finally someone grabbed his hand and the disciples asked, “Nasruddin, why are you doing this!”

And through his tears, Nasruddin said, “I keep hoping I’ll find a sweet one.”

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 17

I was a college kid disguised in a wife-beater the first time I walked in the door at Club Stud, 220 South Broadway in Denver. The bartender looked me over and said, “So you came to visit us, huh? That’s all right. You can have a lot of fun in the gutter.”

Later, when it was my turn on the street, I would go to the all-night diner where that same man worked and, if no one else was there, he’d give me a free bowl of biscuits and gravy, then blow me in the mop closet. If he heard the front door rattle, he’d run out to pour coffee and leave me there, my jeans shoved to my knees, my head leaned on the wall beside the mop heads, and I prayed, in the long term, for a less doomed life, and, in the short term, for the guy to get back in there, and meanwhile I reminded God and the Devil that I really did not want to get arrested, not for anything.

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 16

It should not be underestimated, the profound solace and reassurance the devout receive, just from hating queers.

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 15

In theology, as in India, the problem is Partition. Some bozo came along and drew the line in the wrong place. We live in exile now; half the family is over there. We have left, back in that other country, a lot that we need.

The body and the soul, for the chance of being together, must risk a dangerous crossing. Reunions are rare.

Some of us are sneaking over, in the dark of night. Of course it is appallingly dangerous. You can come with us if you want.

How good are you at running in the dark?

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 14

Maybe the genie feels entirely at peace as he waits all day and all night in the lamp.

Slouched against the cool dark bronze with his feet stretched out in front of him, thinking, “I did it. I made her queen.” Even if he’s a little bored, he knows the score. She’ll either ask him to move mountains or she won’t. He might wait for years--or maybe this very hour he will fly through the air again, a palace in his palm.

Whatever happens, he belongs to her. She’s the queen of the world. She’s got two wishes left.

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 13

Of all the qualities to be desired in a lover, shape-shifting is the best. Admit it. How much easier to love someone if they are, well, someone else, at least occasionally. Your sweat-soaked warrior, also a college boy, bodyguard and confidante, and sometimes just one of the girls. Put a diamond stud in his ear, so you can spot him, when he turns back into a bear.

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 12

Don’t be fooled and imagine we’re praying for evil. That wish has already been granted. We have more than sufficient evil, thank you, and if anyone else is running low, well, we are willing to trade some of ours—for even the cheapest red wine.

What we are yearning for is a visit from that inspired guttersnipe, sent irregularly from Heaven to enrage the Religious Right. The patron saint of snow days and public sex. The policeman’s untied laces. The fire drill that goes off at exactly the right time.

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 11

Milarepa, murderer and black magician, fearing the tortures of hell, devoted himself to spiritual practices. He meditated in his cave until his skin turned the green of nettles, until word of his spiritual prowess reached the pointy hairy ears of the demons.

And one day the demons went to visit him.

He greeted them at the door, “Lust! Spite! Envy! Despair! How are you! Come in, come in.”

The demons, a little taken aback by this reception, took off their spike heels and sat on the floor. Milarepa served tea and they all sat around like society ladies until Demon Spite remembered that this was not why they had come. With a couple kicks and a snarl he rallied the other demons to action and they crashed around the cave hissing and flashing their teeth and filling the air with their hot stinky breath.

Milarepa continued to sit calmly, sipping his tea amid all the destruction and clatter, like a mother possessed of unshakeable calm at a birthday party for pre-school children.

Seeing that chaos was having little effect on their host, the demons started in with the threats, revealing to him scenes of unspeakable pain and, when that didn’t work, delirious pleasure. Like traveling merchants they showed him everything they had on offer—but Milarepa was unmoved. Finally, the most terrifying of the demons roared--showing its cavernous mouth, its teeth like black blades, and its breath was the smell of corpses in plague time--and Milarepa, hospitable as ever, placed his head into the demon’s mouth.

And the demons vanished.

Alone in his cave, Milarepa continued to sip his tea.

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 10

Of all the devil’s lovable qualities, the most endearing must be his endless concern for the needs and sufferings of lonely people. What a ministry! Who else is concerned with the miseries of solitary adolescents, skinny women in trailers, old men no one likes? When I was fifteen I went into the swamp to await a visitation. Beaver had flooded thirty acres but in one place land jutted out and at the end of the spit was a stand of cat o’ nine tails. These cat o’ nine tails, turned golden in winter, formed a kind of spiritual antennae. To speak here was to be heard in the other world.

I talked to God and the Devil. I had no doubt they were in cahoots. “Show up either one of you,” I said. “But wear a flannel shirt and blue jeans and shit-kicker boots.”

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 9

For a long time I had a non-fraternal identical twin, born from different parents on the same day. Anthony was a confidence artist, a honey-tongue shoplifter, a smack-addicted hustler. He was pure charisma, I liked him a lot, that is, until I started making comparisons between my dear brother and myself.

I was in college, I worked part-time, I lifted weeks thrice weekly. I meditated and prayed.

(What was I doing, then, in that dead-end beached-whale alcoholic hustler bar, that bar where you could get arrested for just showing up and crabs just by sitting on a stool? I was slumming. Of course I was. Slumming and making some pocket money.)

Anthony, on the other hand, was clearly on The Wrong Road.

Other differences: Anthony had a warm animal in his walk, a better smile, his boyfriends were all rich or well-hung and they nearly ran each other down competing to rescue him. He wore beautiful clothes he stole fresh every day. Anthony had more friends. Of course he did. He was more fun to be around.

Maybe I was down on my luck, just scraping by, but I’d contracted Presbyterianism as a child and I was certain that this was not how things were supposed to work.

Late one night Anthony and I were sitting tucked behind a dumpster off 8th and Broadway. Anthony had a bottle of Peach Schnapps. I’d bought us nachos from the Circle K. He’d just gotten out of detox; I was supposed to take the GRE in Colorado Springs the next morning.

“I was raised in a good Catholic family,” Anthony told me. “I was raised to believe in Jesus Christ the Redeemer.” It was getting cold and we huddled close together. He smelled like schnapps and smoke, like the polyester and starch of that day’s stolen shirt.

“Anthony,” I said. “Let's suck each other off."

We’d never done that before. Of course not. We never had any money and we weren't, either one of us, free.

“Twenty bucks,” he said.

“I paid for the nachos.”

We looked around us at the narrow space between the dumpster and the wall.

Anthony had the most beautiful warm brown eyes. Those eyes he kept right to the end. “It’s not just the Holiday Inns I miss,” he said. “Sometimes I even get nostalgic for motels.”

He went along with it, right there in a corner of the parking lot. I suspect it was partly out of sympathy for me.

In this way our fates were cast together, two brothers tumbling in the dark behind a dumpster off Tenth and Broadway, until it was impossible to tell, who was lucky and who was not.

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 8

Doug was my role model the whole time I worked at the sex club, right up to the time he stole his boyfriend’s money and car, and disappeared. I still wish him well. I hope he never gets caught. I hope his life in the next place is better than it ever was here.

We worked together, Doug and I. I was maintenance, went around all night with a spray bottle and a rag, wiping come off the floor. Doug was the doorman. All night men came in off of Colfax, shame-faced mostly, impatient, breathless, already regretful. They carried a grudge against the hunger that had brought them to this place, again. Doug always smiled, and he spoke to everyone gently. Even the way he passed strangers their change was tender. He absolved everyone twice, once when he buzzed the door to let us in and again when he buzzed and let us out again.

Doug wasn’t young anymore, he had AIDS, but he still looked like a kid, a very pale sad-eyed kid, and just the way he said ‘Hello’ and ‘Good night’ made you feel like no matter what you did, no matter what your sheets looked like when you were done, Doug would always root for you, would always argue that, no matter what, the future you deserved was a good one.

Tags:bathhouses,gay,compassion

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 8

Doom. Certain doom—and meanwhile constant surprises.

The basic situation: children fall into the street on the first day of school. Americans go on bombing weddings. Young men decide to do the right thing but don’t get around to it in time.

How many times have I sensibly decided, henceforth I will be sad? Sorrow, I thought, is like a black suit in Japan. You ought to be able to wear it for anything.

Then even doom is a fuzzy blanket is snatched from us. Disaster withheld.

Here comes another fool now, hauling blueberries into intensive care.

Just when everyone is assembled and the widow begins to cry, the guest of honor coughs, sits up in his coffin, and even the Japanese must hurriedly change their ties.

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 7

In the foothills of the Himalayas I learned to hide from nuns. Those nuns lived in mud huts and, after sufficient austerities, they started legal battles against each other. Threw subpoenas through windows. ‘Your mud hut is six feet over the boundary’ etc.

The monks were just as bad. One monk brought his favorite cheese from New Delhi and when someone stole half of it he went on a rampage for days. (People aren’t apple trees, you know. There’s no telling what you’ll get from us.)

The master announced, “Send a delegation to New Delhi. The cheese must be restored.” The monk started to cry and said, “Please, no. I don’t care about my cheese anymore.” He had to beg the master not to get on an all-night bus to buy cheese for him. For weeks if anyone even said the word cheese his eyes would fill with tears and he'd apologize all over again.

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 6

The last time God spoke to me—which generally happens only annually and then with something that sounds like it came out of a fortune cookie—what God said was:

Choose the right rebellions.

I could only hope that this was a clarion call for more beer, more porno, and more nights at the baths.

But that, alas, would not be the rebellion. That’s the routine.

The struggle to find the living thing and stay with it as it shudders through me. To be awake the morning I wake up alive, like Margarita Nikolaevna after she’d wept for her beloved master every day for a year and one morning she woke up and knew: something is going to happen.

That same night she was flying naked over Moscow, smashing out the windows of prominent literary critics.

Oh Margarita, Yes! The right rebellions!

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 5

It is enough to allow the entire sky to hang above you, to return to it when you can, and not perpetually retreat to a series of dark, cramped, consolatory rooms.

The sky, unnerving as it is, is enough.

The Devil, Dearly Loved, Renounces Evil / 4

One of the first men who ever fucked him, he explained, was an albino with a cock ten inches long. “Everyone had to experiment with him, men and women both.

“The trouble was they’d always tell him that afterward, that they were just experimenting. Me, I tried to be kind--but to say so is to already be cruel. I was just seventeen. What did I know?

“He went a little crazy, drank all the time. His face covered over with soft downy white fur. He still came to parties and stood in the corner with his sunglasses on. All night long he called people over, one by one, showing them first his huge pale cock, then his delicate pink eyes.”