the militant queer goes a-walking | Joseph Spece | The Hypocrite Reader


Joseph Spece

the militant queer goes a-walking


ISSUE 54 | DEGENERATES AND DECADENTS | JUL 2015

And first the militant queer thinks to herself ‘Old Starbuck would blanch at seeing his name run so, & through the mud.’

She himself is from Europe maybe, drinks coffee in quiet stasis. She does not take coffee ‘to- go.’ He goes walking in W— with just a watch and proper sets of hands & an open way of knowing. He thinks ‘I have worn a t-shirt when I ought not.’

O there is much to be disgusted by on the streets. Storefronts. Punning advertisements. People hand in hand speaking to each other of every fatuous thing, men and women stuck tight and kept tight by exchange of bromides. And the two that twine legs upon a bench wearing each his appropriate plaid or seasonal check and what’s become a meet number of tattoos, these two discuss health magazines.

These see that wine has fallen out of favor for dark chocolate, and will get stocking at the popular store where both can be seen shouldering baskets and bright wrappers, and each showing meet amounts of thigh, each being just homo- enough to stomach.

The militant queer thinks to herself Old Starbuck.

There are many hetero- couples at a party and the militant queer walks by, wondering why anyone gives herself, in the center of life and when at his most vigorous strength, why anyone gives himself to the rearing of children instead of closing in a quiet room to reflect. The hydrangeas cast a purple light. Men and women and the Not let me hear about, but never husbands and wives, love let me hear about, searing love, solemn love that cuts the night into awful stone limbs, never marriage.

And of a famous transgendered being on the television: is she any less alone in his body for having one million viewers? The hydrangeas cast a purple light.

‘No I do not support the Team Spirit, nor sorority nor fraternity, nor family-by-blood affection’ says the militant queer aloud at the intersection of Belmont and Prospect. All full of gnarly and joyful intent, she walks against the flow of traffic, crossing. ‘A typical perversion!’ he says aloud.

There is a tinny chorus of beeps and the militant queer, full of evil intent, screws up his face at passers-by. Throw pillows valued at $215 and ribboned child-accessories are clutched with great alarum.

And before the shops and parlors in W— at least one wife is quite glad marriage has entitled her to family visitation should she be struck lame by a screwed-up face and no coffee in hand, and her overfed toddler suddenly assured of low income brackets.

And someone breaks chew in a restaurant, dripping pig gristle thereby. Into his linen he says ‘Legislate them queers.’ Grease gathers to a pool in the saucer. The hydrangeas.

The militant queer would not have governance for good or ill, however, since the order of governance is based on concepts of her negligence—but then, strangely, his eradication. She says aloud: ‘I am the Ahab of this place possibly.’ But then who would triumphant Moby be?

‘But then cosmopolitanism is intimately homo-,’ he thinks. Clothing, groomedness, pop anguish, masks of the brute, the hard fakery of masculinity and femininity, the COLLEGIAL & PROFESSIONAL, facile communicative modes, commerce, propriety, commerce, cosmetic beauty. ‘Yes,’ she declares aloud, ‘W— is intimately hetero-, no doubt.’

What about thinking. What about interrogating our embrace of chummy solidarity. What about ending the romance with willful stupidity & dressing stupidity in that mock-heroic down-to-earth bit.

Before the barbershop, a labrador regards the militant queer with curious, true attention.

The atmosphere does slow a bit & motes sparkle in the afternoon heat. Not for the first time she thinks ‘Perhaps I shall wager with the wind.’