I am standing looking out over the performance studio and wishing myself inside the bodies behind the microphones, trying to will myself into their minds as they read down a stock list of questions for their homosexual guests: “Do you support gay marriage?” “Do you support gay adoption?” “Is it harder to be gay than to be straight?” (Read in a complete monotone of course, but the hosts themselves are not professionals but rather homeless teens we’ve been training for weeks, teaching radio as part of ‘community outreach’ and at each stutter I flinch – while my co-worker stands next to me glowing pride) I want to ask my own questions. I want to say, “Do you think sexuality plays a bigger role in the personalities of homosexual people than in straight people, or is that just a misconception based on the fact that what is heterosexual is considered ‘normal’ and thus is less noticeable?” I want to say, “Do you want the first thing people notice about you to be your sexuality?” I would ask, “Is our culture too sex-obsessed?” Again I attempt to will myself into the teen interviewer. “So, is like, being gay, like, different?” she asks. Kale is sitting out in the other studio talking to the director of the program; Kale who has been bothering me ever so much since I finished “Middlesex” (by the same Greek fellow who wrote the Virgin Suicides actually) and then the same day was told he’s actually female. I walk by the studio under the pretense of getting water and look in. He still looks male (though perhaps effeminate) and they nod at me as I go by. * The day before I’d had to drive a radio teen home and in the car she told me all about her childhood: her father’s death, her mother’s partying and sequential pregnancies with her brother-in-law, this girl staying up until 3am, to take care of her siblings, and I cringed and said sympathetic thoughts and tried to silently convince her to say “I said” instead of “I says.” (She apparently is unreceptive to my telepathy) Before we left she’d wanted to see my house, so I gave her a short tour. “It’s so big,” she said, caressing the walls. “It’s not that big. It’s dirty. You know.” * I’ve been constantly tired lately. It’s the weather (the pope says to pray for cooler times, folks), and getting up at 6am, and working two jobs. My mom thinks I have mono and suggests acupuncture. I make some joke about feng shui that she doesn’t find funny. When your house is built on an underground spring, it’s all a bit depressing. * I stand above the controls on the engineering board and lightly touch dials that don’t need to be adjusted. I watch their levels and wish I were wearing a cowboy hat and a button-down shirt. I decline an offer of a chair, preferring to stand, looming over the switches and feeling so wonderfully and totally in control. Except there’s this slight ticking noise coming from somewhere… * The show the day before had been better. There were four teen hosts, one of whom was a girl from Somalia who didn’t speak English very well. I had her start off the show so she’d end up speaking and she did amazingly well and I smiled and clapped for her. She had a beautiful, rhythmic accent that floated deeply on the air, and the most incredible skin color I’d ever seen. I didn’t tell her that. They were all country kids, these four, and possessed the characteristic nativity. It had been refreshing – they’d read their work without first issuing a disclaimer of its poor quality. I wonder for a moment where I was taught to do that; who told me to fear arrogance so? * My roommate assignment comes in the mail and I try to discern personality flaws from a name and ten-digit phone number. Eventually I make a list of questions and lie on the floor next to the phone slowly dialing the number. As my finger hits the last one, I decide the list is boring and ridiculous and I throw it away. The first ring of the phone catches in my throat. It proceeds to ring ten more times and then I hang up. My hands get clammy. What sort of a Neanderthal wouldn’t have an answering machine?? * The ticking has increased. One of the guests, a seventeen year-old boy, refers to himself as “she.” I pause. That’s the second one. Shouldn’t I be able to tell? Shouldn’t I know? I want to get boots and paint my fingernails a dark purple and pull the cowboy hat over my eyes and glower (I won't). I grin encouragingly at the young hosts. Tick. * After the show another girl in my “mentor” position drives me home. She wants me to come with her because she feels like bitching and (somewhat worryingly) everyone knows I’m always into that. Soon however, we start talking about other things too: music, books, African accents. She parks the car in front of my house and we laugh at each other for awhile. I feel in control and don’t once glance at the shift, out the window, toward the wheel. It seems I could stay in the car talking to her forever. “So, I’ve got to go,” she says. “Dinner is soon.” * The DJ who does the following show has entered the engineering room and I point out the ticking to him. “Hmm,” he says in his best southern accent. “Let’s see here.” He presses a button and sends the signal to a remote location, knocking the station off the air. The ticking continues. Everyone immediately panics. I run to get the director and send her in, and I stand outside talking with Kale. I don’t say anything because there’s never an opportunity to slip in, “So when did you decide to become male?” I run around pretending to be stressed so as to further assert my control, but eventually get bored and pick up the “G” World Book Encyclopedia from 1972. It opens to a map of Greece, over which they have imprinted a giant outline of the United States, presumably so ignorant Americans can better understand its relative size. While skimming Greek facts, I tap my fingers lightly against my thigh and a girl tells me I should try chain smoking as a cure for my constant and irritating fidgeting. * I have one more day of work this summer, two weeks before college, two days before Canada, and I’m tired and the infernal ticking continues. I think of the Tell-Tale Heart. I want to tell someone something but I don’t know what. The humidity sticks my door shut and even my crazy neighbor is out of town. I imagine the whole city empty except me, and my cowboy hat, and this ticking, and sticky car-rides home full of complaints. At work my coke-addict co-worker gives me her e-mail address and tells me to keep in touch. “I want to know what college’s like these days. I want to hear from you,” she says. “What if I go goth? What if I dress all in black and stop talking and decide to live in a weird orgy commune in San Fransisco? What if I flunk out?” “Well, then do me a favor and please don’t frickin' write.” * I slowly pick up all the headphones and wind their cords in circles. I am alone in the studio for a moment and I open the window and can suddenly breathe – the weather has turned. Someone bursts in. “Do you know where the PSAs have gone??” He has hair the color of rust. “And this makes background noise!” He slams shut the window and dashes out. I untie my hair and let it fall over my eyes. I pretend it’s a cowboy hat. ** have a nice friday, sinister. jesse _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. 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