the jewish general (1)

andy pink, in plaid —

i haven't written about the jewish general, i'm not sure why. the experience is not one i would trade out — like either my dad's suicide or falling in love with patrick at first sight, both of which i am happy to keep — but the jewish experience, even at a distance, about 10 years, is just so extraordinarily painful that it has been hard to sit down and write about it. of the three major events in my life — my dad's suicide, my split from molly, and the jewish imprisonment — i would say that the jewish general is the worst of the experiences. if anything, my father's death comes in at a rather distant third of the trio, i'm not sure why, and the molly split may be the worst of the three, i guess, but the jewish general has to be the most massively impactful — in the moment, not of consequences later — of the three events.

perhaps the most bizarre of the instances at the jewish general — of which there were many — was my time spent on high-care. i had hastily decided (or it was decided that I was) to give a blowjob to another guy, who was quite a bit younger than me, beautiful, who seemed to want to help me with my sexuality, at 29. being at the end of the line at the hospital, on the mental ward, dusted and extended, i thought it appropriate to at least acknowledge that i needed help with my sexuality, that i couldn't properly function, or handle it, and that perhaps the best way to confront it was just to give this lovely guy a blowjob in the bathroom by the lobby of the hospital; so i did it. it was in the stall, surely there were other people in the bathroom, all of whom would be undone in different ways by being in the hospital, visiting people they loved who were sick or who were dying. but we were in the stall. i remember he didn't say that this was what was going to happen — i wasn't in on the plan, we weren't together sneaking into the bathroom to have oral sex, furtively, for fun, to do something naughty; this was his plan, his decision, really spontaneous, but still calculated, getting me to the stall, my not knowing why we were going there, and then he must have unzipped his pants — we probably weren't in johnnies at the time, being free from the floor to hang out in the garden outside, so a zipper would be involved, and i must have knelt to the ground, spontaneously, i must have known what to do, or what was happening, even if he didn't clue me in on it, and then his dick was present to me, it was thick, and long, though i don't think it was erect, i don't remember the pubic hair, or i think i found out later than he shaved his pubic hair, and i sort of instinctively took his dick in my mouth, very briefly, but very naturally, the thing to do, like walk, and — i've written about this before — it was the most magical, acutely physical and material, experience, i had a real sensation of a tingling, which my psychiatrist later suggested might have been due to the medications, but i doubt it, and this sensation, or feeling, very material and physical, at a certain determined location in my cheek or by my jaw, could have been caused by the scene, so out of the ordinary for someone like me, but in the end i don't think it was the context because the jewish general was such a weird and out of place experience — in its entirety, even as it plodded along for seven months — i was so immersed, at the time, with the unknown — simply new — of the hospital and the situation that to suck on some random guy's dick couldn't have been anything extraordinary in the space of the out of the ordinary. i really only went down the shaft — but all the way — possibly two or three times, and then he jerked back and it was over. but this feeling in my mouth was not the feeling of a dick; it was like a profound sensation that i have never since felt with any other penis. he then instructed me to haul out my dick, which i did, and it was probably flaccid, i am such a bottom that i mostly can't get hard, certainly not while sucking another guy's dick while i am focused on the orality of the engagement, and he put my dick in his mouth, briefly, and then it ended, and i'm sure i didn't say anything as we left the stall and bathroom, but he did say, "i know i'm not gay."

later, on high care, we both ended up there, he only acknowledged the event once, saying, obliquely, that we couldn't do that again, but also offering me his electric shaver in the event that i wanted to shave my pubic hair, which i would never do. he had been a rather heavy coke addict, and his parents had paid for him to go to some fancy rehab center for drugs, which apparently didn't take, and they were trying to get him on mood stabilizers and chill him out. i remember he said that he always felt like people really liked him, that he had a lot of friends, people around, to joke with and talk to, but he always experienced this trace of paranoia that he was ultimately being made fun of for something, a quality of his, something about him, that was funny, or that could be an object of derision, but he didn't know what that thing was. i too sometimes have this feeling, though i always imagine precisely what it is about myself that could be mocked, or sent up, and it, whatever it is, would be an immediate source of shame for me, as if the person had seen me in my totality and then had zeroed in on this feature of mine, silly detail, that they though they could mock.

i have never experienced more profound shame in my life than at the jewish general hospital in montreal, quebec. it wasn't my introduction to shame, but it was a prolonged and steady encounter with shame, tinged with anxiety, an anxiety that whatever the secret was, whatever i should feel most ashamed of, was about to be made present, to everybody.

andy p

i am glad i have begun writing again; the semester was busy for some reason, and with the book, and the exhaustion, i had to give up on the fact sheet for a while; but i am returned to it now, i suppose i have plenty of mildly interesting things to say, and i will try to return to the habit; there is much to say about the jewish general.