Vol. II. Issue. III September 2011 - The Criterion: An International ...

www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165
upright position. I lifted his hand and it was a heavy stone, which dropped like a paperweight
back to his horizontal side. I woke up to see Manet’s Olympia on my wall. I prayed to her.
Give me back my hope, Olympia, soften my injuries. But she only said in reply, “Death, Morir,”
My trip to Houston resulted in seeing Olympia's estranged godlessness through the eyes of Cy
Twombly. She became for me nothing more than a fortune-teller’s scribbles on canvas. I know
that my dad will likely die from his cancer. I’m waiting for it. My mom is waiting, even my
grandmother. We wait in sustained lament.
I also wait for my lover. I keep texting him back. My words drop into an abyss. The names I
write to him aren't nice, but at least I mean no harm, I only mean to tease him. I call him dirty
girl-names like "cunt,” “bitch-slut,” "knife-wound." But he ignores these messages. He writes
back asking if I’d like him to bring a dildo to strap on and fuck him with. I don’t know if he’s
serious or not. He’s probably been with someone else all of this time that I’ve spent waiting,
maybe even a boyfriend. He’d take anyone who he could practice a different set of scripted lines
on. He needs an audience, I guess. Then he’ll come to me with what's left. Who knows whom
his other lover is. It could be my neighbor, my boss, my best friend. It’s been almost two years
now. And still, it feels as if we've only just begun.
These have been confusing years for my parents who keep asking about my love life. They want
me to tell them if I have boyfriend or not, if I’ve been dating. It seems that now more than ever,
my dad wants to know that maybe I'll have children someday. In part I think its because he’s
afraid I might not. In part it is also because he’s begun to die. I don’t quite know if he believes
he’ll survive the cancer. It is an uncommon form of melanoma in the sinuses and there have
only been about one hundred similar recorded cases in all of medical history. I know his wish
for me is to ensure that he lives on, in me. And all of the while, underneath my adamant
abstinence from any portrayal or depiction of courtship to ease my parent’s minds, there was
this: Seth and me and our little rendezvous.
Perhaps the times we meet are less real to me than those other parts of my life like my job and
my family because there is no proof of him except for his tie. The secrecy of it makes it more
like a dream and certainly the state of mind I'm in when he rolls around makes it less real to me
due to sleep-loss. I feel like the hours we spend together are exiled from my other hours. They
are hours imprisoned by his determination to exclude me from his regular life and confine me to
those few hours before the break of day, or just after dawn.
There is another Olympia painting I know of, painted by Jean Michel Basquiat. His Olympia is
less discreet than Cy Twombly’s, if there could be such a thing. He explores the filth that Manet
didn’t even know he had kept intact. The painting is called Three quarters of Olympia Minus the
Slave and I saw it in New York City during my first year in college. As if my father’s trips to
museums hadn’t been ample introduction, I decided to study painting. As Basquiat’s title
suggests, there is no black servant in the painting. Basquiat’s whore is a man. It is a transvestite
who touts an almost-etched coat of arms above his head. There are almost-hands painted in
completion but they are disassembled lines. There is no black servant. Perhaps it is supposed to
be the vision of the room seen from the black-servant’s perspective, a parody of Manet. There
are no flowers. There is not a pose. There is just an ugly piece of art that contrasts stunningly
with Manet's pretty little thing. The rich, white courtesan is dismantled in Basquiat's depiction.
She is long forgotten. There are mismatched eyebrows. There is no head of hair. An inscription
reads, "Woman dry her neck by Edgar ©." The French word, “Absinthe,” is only almost legible.
It is painted over in big scouring gestures of white paint. There is red paint, too. There is blue
paint, too. It looks like some kind of bitten thumb aimed at the French.
Vol. II. Issue. III 272 September 2011