P.C. Politically cultured
I woke up with a migraine, as of late, I’d got used to starting the day with Ibuprofen. I switched on my computer. O had been elected. Coffee downed, cigarette smoked, I left for work with a new spring in my step. The phone stopped my humming; it was F.H “Did you hear? It’s a travesty! We’re going backward” Dumbstruck, I listened to her ranting about what morons Americans were. After ten minutes of this nonsense, I muttered ‘talk later’ and hung up. How could my all-night-partying, pierced and tattooed fag-hag be a republican? Or were her black make-up, torn tights and leopard heels just a cover-up?
Bruce LaBruce’s latest film was being shown at the GBLT film festival the next night and I had a date. I was half an hour late and he was half my size. Note to self: read profiles more carefully. He smiled. “Que alto eres! “ (Wow, you’re so tall!), I smirked back. Art festivals are always a must for cultured, in-the-know homosexuals and Gay Madrid was no different. In the block-long queue, we were surrounded by all sorts but mainly by the beautiful sort; so why was I stuck with a smurf? We stood in line and between cigarettes, I bent down to hear his comments about the weather. This was turning out to be a real pain in the neck, literally.
F.H saw me, waved, cried out “darling” and strutted her way through the queue to grab my arm. Salvation had arrived wearing a No to Prop 8 T-shirt and stilettos; and it clicked! While America had voted for their first ever black president, they’d also revoked the right to marry to gay Californians hence why she’d been so upset. Had been? Still was apparently.
Kissing me on both cheeks (like the good Spaniard she’d become) but ignoring my vertically-challenged friend in the process, she went off on one. “I’ve been to every single show in this festival. Loads of fascinating documentaries about the state of the world, of your world, the killings in Yemen, the bashings in Russia, the Worldwide Bible brainwashing…” Bla, bla, bla “And you know what?” I lit another fag. “No more than 20 of your kind showed up for those. But to see a f***ing movie about a gay zombie, they’re lining up round the block!”
Hmm… What was I supposed to say? Was I supposed to care as much as she did just because they were my people? Has my kind lost sight of our ultimate goal: taking over the world, I mean: being an integral and equal part of society? Or had we done so, so well in fact, that we too didn’t care much about anything anymore but our next paycheck? I mean Yemen is pretty far off, I never go to church and I fled Russia. Granted, I left to pursue my search for a decent husband and if tonight was anything to go by, my luck was running short.
Realising we weren’t alone; she started her speech all over again. The longer, uncut Spanish version lasted till we sat down, my headache was back on. Luckily, gay zombies started to devour each other’s entrails and my need for yet another Ibuprofen was foiled until his hand fell on my knee that is.
