(little) Death in Venezia

Viktor Harrington didn’t necessarily believe in ghosts — at least, not in the conventional sense — because what did he believe in, in the conventional sense? Ectoplasm, unholy moaning & rattling chains wasn’t a picture of the beyond that he could get on board with.  Yet, despite his dismissal, as he roamed Venice’s cubbyholes and canals, he began to firm up his feelings that the city was — and presumably still is — haunted.

Later, once he returned stateside and poured & pondered over photos processed and postcards postmarked, VH struggled to pinpoint the origin of this suspicion.

Perhaps it was as he drank a slightly too hot, slightly too bitter espresso in a cafe down an unassuming alley and felt a sense of déjà vu. For although he had never been to Italy before, never been to that cafe, never tasted that particular espresso, he knew that somewhere, somehow, some way — he had.  For although it was slightly, it was still perfect. (In the espresso’s defense, Viktor’s tongue found almost all hot liquids slightly too hot, which was pretty much his sole character flaw.) Viktor realized that he had tasted it before, when he had imagined the taste of a perfect espresso.

Perhaps it was the utter lack of any cars, cellphones and/or digital cameras — which were not yet ubiquitous — anywhere in Venice proper. Not even a Vespa could be found until one crossed over to the Lido. The entire city was haunted by memories of a pre-industrial, pre-Model T age, while perhaps also being haunted by the fact that it was inexorably sinking.

But the place which presented the purest possibility of some supernatural shenanigans was the ‘bridge of sighs’ (or the ‘ponte dei sospiri’).  The tour guide for his voyage to Italy sometimes made things up, so Viktor was not entirely sure which of the bridge’s origin stories were factual and which were apocryphal.

(The story about the executions is true, but that doesn’t mean that the story about the lovers is any less factual, because how many facts started as apocrypha?)

Allegedly, the bridge of sighs was the last place where criminals stood before they were hung – or is it hanged?

Apocryphally, it had been, or had become, a lovers’ lane of sorts, where lovers sighed as they held hands — or whatever Venetians held.  Sighing, no doubt, deeper and louder if those they held were hanged – sorry, hung.

Which, after all, what is true love except surrendering to the firing squad?

Surrendering to your fate — presumably, a person still believing in true love or the concept thereof would be the type of person to believe in fate.

In soulmates.

Destiny.

All that bullshit.

Because, the truth is that love is bullshit.  All those ideas – destiny, fate, soulmates — are bullshit.

Until it’s the bullshit being sonorously spouted from someone you want to sincerely believe in.

One man’s apocrypha is another man’s fact.

‘Love conquers all…’

‘Opposites attract…’

‘Love is a game that two can play & both can win…’

Platitudes?  Bullshit?  Apocrypha?

Absolutely. Until one faced the emotional executioner and surrendered.

Then, they became as unavoidable and irrevocable as the natural laws of the universe — like gravity.

So whether it was the espresso, the bridge or some other phenomena, VH did firmly believe that Venice was indeed haunted.

Was it merely an illusion?  Had he dreamed it?  Why had tangible taste melted into mere memory?

Alas, this was a time before smartphone selfies, before cheap compact Canons boasting digital DSLRs.

This was a time of film. Disposable cameras, if one were traveling.

Some photos proved even more disposable than others, and didn’t turn out at all. Some were overexposed. Some had segments missing. Some blurred.  Without that documentation, without those snapshots of a concrete place and time, did any of those memories really exist at all?

Or were they merely ghosts?

Without the moments captured, would mere memories be memento enough?

VH had learned from enough, ‘I say “tomato,” you say, “fuck you for not driving me to chemo three years ago”’ fights between his parents to know that memories differ. Are malleable. Mutable.

Heck, he had enough fights with his mother himself to learn that lesson. He had engaged with exes in tersely-worded-but-loudly-said tugs of war between ‘it’s not a big deal’ and ‘it is because that’s NOT HOW IT HAPPENED!’

One man’s memory could mutate into another’s grudge.

A day seemingly without incident in his own mind could be monumental in the recollection of another.

A white sheet becomes a flag of surrender.

Or a ghost.

The man Viktor hooked up with in Venice was haunted.

It wasn’t until later that he realized the man was haunted.

Saying things like:

‘I prefer to be “active” with a man – it feels very much the same as being “active” with a woman.’

Or:

After revealing just enough of himself to be recognized – or at least presume that he would be – he told VH not to tell anybody about this because he was a famous Venetian glass blower, or ‘artist’ or whatever.

(And let’s just say glass wasn’t all he blew. So much for being ‘active,’ eh?)

Because if there were any circles that this still semi-naïve boy (Viktor refused to consider himself a man until, like, 30, though if his parents had let him convert like he asked, a bar mitzvah would’ve solved that problem years ago) was embedded in, it was the Venetian glass blowing scene.

But he was haunted by that once.

Fretted about people he knew knowing who he blew. People that he knew knowing who he quote-unquote ‘knew’ in the biblical sense.

Until one day he stopped being haunted by what might happen.

And started being haunted by what did — the person whom he was going to let ‘in-the-know’ first moved up that timeline.

It blew, it’s true.

No one likes being outed when one has already invented a plan to come out.

But even though it blew, it’s true, the truth was that afterwards, Viktor could no longer be haunted by that sort of thing like he once was.

Because whether one is gay, straight, ‘str8’ or other, the truth is that whatever comes after the truth comes out is almost always better than being haunted by constant fear that the truth will out.

Because no relationship can be without fear.  Even ones out in the open.

We’re all haunted by the thought  that if someone gets to truly know us, they can never really love us.  Marx — Groucho, not Karl — didn’t want to be part of any club who’d have him as a member.  (Though, to be fair, we can’t assume Karl didn’t feel the same.)  Ms. Bradshaw called it ‘secret single behavior.’

What it really is being haunted. Being hunted. By the dark thought that deep down, there’s a deep dark part of us that isn’t meant to see the light.

That we must keep in the closet.  In the attic, yellow wallpaper or no.

Under the bed.

Yet – isn’t the whole idea of fate, of soulmates, of all that, bullshit?

Isn’t the whole idea that one day you will meet someone who doesn’t want to slay your monster, but realizes and cherishes where your wild things are?

If you tame me, I for you, shall be unique.

But what if there are parts that, like Miley Cyrus, can’t be tamed?

That remain foxes, not quite fantastic or silver.

That’s what we fear.

But that’s what we crave.

Someone who knows that it is better to be both feared and loved.

Who can love the parts of yourself that you fear.

Who can fear the parts of you that you may love the most.

Because they love them so much that it is terrifying.

It is putting oneself before the noose.

The trigger.

Behind the wheel with no seatbelt.

It is surrender.

It is supplication.

It is submission and it is sublime.

If love makes us anything, it makes us all fools.

Slaves.

Masters.

Top, bottom, guy, girl, whatever.

It makes us all — well, emotionally, at least — masochists.

(And some of us kneel all too literally.)

Dominants.

Fools.

The heart is infinitely versatile.

We are all too willing to get fooled again.

To risk humiliation.

Humble ourselves.

That we will be the ones in control.  Holding that noose.  We won’t cross the bridge of sighs, we won’t unlock that closet door, we won’t give everything in exchange for nothing in return.

But we do.  We have no choice. Surrender. Submit. Love. Drown.

Hunter Grayson is a lover, a lush, an amateur writer and a professional raconteur.  He can be found tweeting and musing about pop culture https://twitter.com/lethallyfab