Читать книгу Antkind: A Novel - Charlie Kaufman - Страница 10

I PULL UP TO the St. Augustine Society for the Preservation of St. Augustine Film History (SASFPSAFH) building, which is a minor monstrosity, figuratively as well as literally, designed to resemble a mash-up of the requisite Spanish architecture and the head of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, perhaps the most famous of the St. Augustine–associated cinema; in actuality, it was almost entirely shot in nearby Palatka. The building has no windows other than the Creature’s eyes, which are on the third floor, so it’s dark in the lobby when I meet the Society’s curator, Euridice Snaptem, a roly-poly little woman with a disproportionately small head and fingers.

“So you’re a man,” is the first thing she says to me. “I’ve read your work, of course, but your gender has always been a mystery to me. Truth is, I figured you for a woman.”

“Well, I take that as a compliment,” I say, to say something, and because no one respects women more than I.

“I’m not sure I meant it that way, but …” she says and performs some vague and impatient “no matter” gesture with her hands. “Anyway, this way.”

And she leads me down the hall and some stairs.

“The vault is in the chin,” she says. “We say it’s in the chin because it’s in the chin of the Creature. You may have noticed that the building is in the form of the head of the Creature from the Black Lagoon; the movie was filmed in nearby Palatka. Anyway, your materials are already set up. Nothing can be removed from the chin. When you’re ready to screen the print, make your way from the chin to the first floor, left gill. Follow the signs. Don’t forget to lock the chin. Left gill is Screening Room One. It’s the left side from the Creature’s POV, so, in other words, as if you are the Creature. But everything is clearly marked. If you get lost, call me on my cell and I’ll come fetch you. You shouldn’t have to, though. Everything is clearly marked. The left gill is always left unlocked. Don’t lock it when you’re through. For fire safety reasons.”

She unlocks the chin, I enter, and she closes the door behind me, leaving me alone with the requested materials. I see three CCTV cameras mounted on the walls. This place means business.

My monograph, which is to be entitled At Last, I Am Becoming: Gender and Transformation in American Cinema, will be, perhaps self-evidently, a critical examination of the history of transgenderism in American cinema. The first documented film to explore this terrain was, surprisingly, 1914’s A Florida Enchantment, shot right here in St. Augustine. The film’s logline: Young woman ingests a magic seed that transforms her into a cisgender heteronormative man—or at least cisgender heteronormative manlike, with all the attendant cisgender heteronormative mannerisms (man-nerisms!) and desires. Her fiancé eventually tries a magic seed as well and finds himself mincing about in a bonnet and a dress, chased by angry townsfolk. The film is a fascinating time capsule and will set the tone for my entire book.

I get down to business, poring over the notebooks of director Sidney Drew. What is it to be a woman and why? he wrote, presciently, one hundred years ago to the day. This is the thing we must uncover with this motion picture. Is it a simple accident of fate or is it a calling, perhaps the highest calling, to be a woman? That a simple magical seed can alter this biological marvel we call the human female, is all the evidence one needs that human nature is malleable. It is imaginable that in some distant future time, scientists will devise such a seed, although they will likely call it a tablet or perhaps it will come in the form of an unction. How many of those fortunate enough to be on Earth at that time will partake of that tablet or unction or maybe poultice? I believe many will champ at the bit to find out for themselves how the other half experiences the world. Tiresias, of ancient Grecian mythological renown, had just such a transformation thrust upon him by the goddess Hera and lived as a woman for many years, after which he concluded that the female enjoys nine times the sexual pleasure of the male. I would certainly ingest this tablet, or spread this unction within my anus, or drape this poultice over the root of my phallus or wherever was advised by my primary care physician. My curiosity would drive me to do so.

I pinch my nasal bridge between thumb and forefinger. Drew’s notebook is feeling like a disappointment, muddled, incoherent, and fetishizing. I find it telling that Sidney Drew performed a stage act as half of the team Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew, with his wife’s identity as Gladys Rankin completely erased. After Rankin’s death, she was replaced in the act by Drew’s second wife, Lucille McVey, who became (drumroll, please!) Mrs. Drew in the act, herself erased as was her predecessor. Did Drew hope to be erased himself by taking the pill, to become nothing more than an extension of a man? I suspect he didn’t think that far into his new fantasy female incarnation. I sift through the documents on the desk until I come upon Edith Storey’s notebook. She was the female actor (I prefer the nongendered “actist,” but according to my editor, the time has not yet come for that) who played Miss (Ms.) Lillian Travers, the FTM in the film. I open it at random to find: I have discreetly studied the movements of men. They have a tendency to swing their broad shoulders as they walk. It is quite unlike we ladies, who sashay. I will attempt to adopt that masculine gait, for it strikes me as confident and strong, in other words masculine.

I worry that Ms. Storey might be as unenlightened as her director. I sigh and treat myself to a smallish break to check email. To check Facebook. To check Twitter. To check the various Internet sites I frequent: Clipboard, Chapstick, Nimrod, William’s Anomalies, Punching Bag, The Clerk Report, Peptide, Hollywood Blabb, Pimbleton’s, Work-a-Doodle, Chim-Chim-Cheree, Poli-Techs, Boop Archives, and Ladies Only.

I write in my journal:

Dear Diary, I am 58 years old today and no one has sent an email. My girlfriend may be shooting and there is a significant time difference, so I am not at this moment without hope. Only 43 Facebook Happy Birthdays. An average number of Facebook Happy Birthdays is 79. I am down 36, the age of Jesus when he died, plus 3. Coincidence? I feel alone.

This reductionistic approach of Drew and Storey to the understanding of gender is a bugbear of mine. Can we truly boil our musings on gender down to what amounts to a skeletal distinction? What about the hippy men among us? Are we not men, those of slightly wider hippage? What about women with broad shoulders? Can we reduce gender designation to genitalia? What about the intersexed? Can we reduce it to XY vs. XX? What about the XXY among us? The XYY? The YYY? The XYXYX? Those rare but no less human Z’s? Current scientific evidence teaches us there is no clear demarcation and that any attempt to regiment gender is nothing more than biological Fascism. Hitler would be proud.

Email break.

Facebook break.

Nothing.

I know that if I were to have a child today, I would raise it as a theyby—no gender announcements; the gender would not be disclosed to anyone including the theyby itself. This wonderful option was not available when we had our children, and I believe my children suffered greatly.

MY LAVISHLY HAIRED brother, Lavoisier, has once again neglected to offer me a simple “Happy birthday.” Has he ever been with an African American woman? I seriously doubt it. So for all his obvious success and sexual flag planting, which is in itself a problematic treatment of women, he is not a rebel. He has remained safely within the prescribed racial confines. Has he ever been with a man, even? Not him! Despite his full head of hair and an extremely successful wine distributorship. I am the rebel. Not that I have been with a man, but I would. I fall in love with people, not body parts. I would be with a man! Or even, I wouldn’t even ask. Let it be a surprise.

In order to suppress my rage, I dig deeper into the pile of documents. I bury my rage in research. My time will come if only I stick to the path. The vault, I discover, contains director Drew’s sketched diagrams, handwritten excerpts from the poetry of Whitman, hip-to-shoulder ratios for both males and females. One must consider the possible motivations of Drew. Was he (she) (thon) wrestling him(her)(thon)self with issues of gender dysmorphia, dysphoria, distransia, distendia? This dis list within which we all must sadly live goes on, sadly. Such is the human animal. What a pathetic existence. We are none of us fully aligned with our physical selves, with our assigned identities. Our face is the face we show to the world, as my dream doctor said. Our body is also the face we show to the world. As is our genitalia. If, in my heart, I see myself or at least believe myself to be a waifish twenty-year-old waifu with freakishly large, soulfully sad eyes, pouty lips, perhaps an adorable “boy” haircut, smallish perky breasts—my breast size might well vary depending on my mood—then am I not that? Perhaps some days I feel voluptuous and soft, hippy even (more so than I currently am), with an ample, grabbable (but only with my consent!) ass. Perhaps some days I’m a runner, lithe and small breasted. Perhaps on those days I’m a tomboy. I call men “buddy” and it charms them. Perhaps I’m a secretary, making sure everyone is taken care of. Getting coffee. Baking cookies to bring to the office. If these are the ways I see myself, then these are the ways I insist on being seen. Shouldn’t we all be seen as we want to be seen? What kind of culture does not allow people the freedom to be seen as they wish? This is the transgender struggle. And Western culture has, throughout its history, forced it underground, into the sewers and dark alleys. Why do those townspeople in A Florida Enchantment chase the husband? Why are they threatened by a person’s choice of clothing, by thon’s mannerisms? Of course the movie is not fully enlightened. In addition to the unenlightened gender explorations, the movie features a troubling racial component. Each of the African American characters is portrayed by a white actor in African American face. In addition, there is a troubling inconsistency in makeup application. Whereas most of the characters are simply wearing dark makeup and wigs, there are some who seem to be painted as minstrel characters, accentuating the lips with lighter makeup. But even that is not the most fascinating and disturbing aspect of racial depiction. When Lillian (now Lawrence) decides she (he) wants a valet instead of a maid, and she (he) forces (!) a pill on her (his) maid, Jane, the maid’s transformation (albeit with an added alcoholic component) is violent. She doesn’t become a man, the movie tells us, she becomes a black man, a savage. Whereas Lawrence flirts and sweet-talks his female conquests, the masculinized Jane beats a male competitor nearly to death to win the woman in whom he is now interested.

I INHALE ITS velvety smoke deep into my lungs. Wait. I have no recollection of lighting this cigarette. And there are NO SMOKING signs everywhere. Of course there can be no smoking in a film library. I know that. It would be obvious to the smallest of children, even those with no background in filmic studies or oxidation-reduction reactions. I stub the cigarette out, but only after I finish it and another one.

I take a break to add to my running list of words (and/or concepts) to be included in this or future monographs:

coterie

playful

insouciance

hausfrau

endemic

nervous onion

emotional tourniquet

Guy Debord

cultural priapism

societal zugzwang

Magister Ludi

impish neglect

Why can’t I focus on the task at hand? I need to get back to it.

dendroarchaeology

pilgarlic

Shooty Babitt

theybies

Leiomy Maldonado

2008 Passover margarine shortage