“The fuck we gonna get those two for their wedding, Helen? They’ve got everything man.” Helen said, “Well, you could make them something or we can look around, maybe find something local?” “Good call.” They were planning a major party, with a Fifth Element theme – an old sci-fi movie, costumes by Jean-Paul Gaultier. Scar thought it wouldn’t stretch queer imaginations too far.
Here’s the writing routine. Boot up the iMac, lay out two nice, flat, matte black gadgets alongside (cellphone and iPod), hook up the music, light a cigarette, open the file. Unless I’ve had some kind of epiphany beforehand, I then spend ages just scrolling up and down the pages, wondering whether to pause and flesh stuff out – and sometimes that is exactly what I do. Slave to the word count. Some days, like today, the whole process feels like shitting bricks. Stressing about the deadline badly now too – got a full day’s work tomorrow then I have to go set up a new computer for someone, then a friend’s coming over with a bottle of wine. I’ll have all day the following day, but then I’m out of here until the day of the deadline. Gods. Just under 12 000 words left to do and fuck all clue what any of those words are going to be.
Scar fired up the forge and started work on the wedding gift – figures of Sam and Veto, back to back; dressed, accessorised and posing like Tank Girl. Rough edged, bronzed, industrial-core art for the most famous hackers (security consultants!) on the planet.
The Sister Retrieval System
There was a cough behind her – Jesus, could she never just get on with her own work in her own workshop without interruption? She hauled off her goggles, turned round and almost fell over. “Nina?!” The woman nodded and Scar could only stare. She could see herself in the younger, more feminine face, she saw her parents too. “Hi,” said Nina.
Scar made coffee, “I never thought you’d talk to me again,” she said. Nina took a deep breath, “I owe you an apology, Siri. I’ve been through a lot of this with my therapist. I was angry with you for leaving me alone after Mom and Dad died – then I heard you went off to be queer and …” “OK yeah,” said Scar, “I get the picture and although I wish I didn’t have to understand, actually I really do understand. Just promise me this isn’t going out live on some skanky talk show feed and we’re good.” Nina grinned.
Seemed like everybody Scar knew had a shrink. Scar got a gut full of them in clinics and rehabs and tended to avoid them like the plague. She had a theory they were all more batshit than she was anyway.
They went back to the loft so Nina could meet Helen and the two clicked immediately. It was surprisingly comfortable, felt like something had healed somehow. Looking at photographs of Nina’s two sons, Scar felt something like wonder. “You didn’t want me near them before,” she said, painfully and Nina looked stricken, apologetic, wounded. Scar didn’t feel like blaming her for a global fuck up, so she just said, “Can I meet them?” and Nina half nodded and half wept, smiling all the while. It was good, it was good, it was good!
The Return of Michael Malgas
Impossible as it seemed, Michael Malgas went even more supernova on the art scene.
News of the data-genocide had filtered through to artists too – there was a benefit concert, which raised funds that probably went to Oxfam as usual; arty and solemn ads were inserted into screenfeeds. Michael went straight (ha not very ha) for the jugular.
Interfeed transcript:
Interviewer: Your latest exhibition has been, to put it mildly, controversial – what’s the message?
MM: For centuries now, centuries, anybody who doesn’t conform has been rejected by that great amorphous thing we keep referring to as “society” as if it was a gentleman’s club. We – and I put myself very firmly in the non-conformist camp – have been treated like *censored* for far too long and let’s face it, there just aren’t enough of us to *censored* the rest of you lot right up …
Interviewer: Um, can I just …
MM: … don’t interrupt me, you techno-floppy, you’re there to nod, look pretty and listen.
Interviewer: I …
MM: So we live with you, while you either try to hide us, segregate us, stop us or just steal whatever good stuff we have. None of you have any *censored* *censored* notion of what it’s like to grow up different, disliked, disapproved of … and so on and on and on and it never *censored* well stops no matter how many religions preach tolerance. So ja, my little gulping friend, I am here to complain as loud as I can about it. Now, you probably have another question on that little screen?
Interviewer: Uh, yes … Mr Malgas … sir … your work, “Freaks Have Feelings Too” has caused an outcry from generally opposing groups …
MM: Of course the word “freak” offends many people on many levels, but I think I have a right to name it and claim it for myself. When I grew up, they called me a “fokken hotnot”. Then I was a “disgusting lesbian” and then a “he-she pervert.” Stuck in the middle of race and gender my whole *censored* life I tell you! Not black enough, not white enough, not male enough, not female enough. Society, young man, has labelled me a freak and I am too *censored* old and angry to fight it off any more. I have spent my life trying to fit into a world that doesn’t want me – can you imagine how tragically disappointing it is to be thwarted that way? We live in a world that only accepts you as a freak if you wave a qualification or a credit card at it.
Interviewer: So you’re reclaiming the term, the way lesbians reclaimed the word “dyke” during the previous century?
MM: Something like that ja – scream the word, paint it, just say it till it loses its sting.
Interviewer: Your latest work, your self-portrait – it’s caused extreme reactions too; the gentlest thing anyone’s said about it, is that it is explicit …
MM: Well it needed to be explicit. Since I began my transition from female to male, daily I have been interrogated by people, often perfect strangers, who want to know what is going on with my groin. And I gave the same answer all the transgenders give; usually *censored* *censored* *censored* off, it’s really none of your business! Because honestly, since when is “Hello, what’s between your legs?” a normal part of any conversation?
Interviewer: It’s been called porn …
MM: That’s a joke hey, at my age. It’s more of a medical record. Everyone’s so keen to check out a transgender groin, you don’t have to go to porn sites any more, you can just check mine out. There it is, not trying to be beautiful, not trying to be anything except me.
Interviewer: And what are you?
MM: Oh I don’t give a *censored* what label you put on it, on me. Freak is fine, if that’s your thing. Man. Transgender. I am not ashamed of any of these things. I wonder if anybody would consider “human being” as a label for me, because that is the one that matters more than any of the others the world can dream up.
Interviewer: Your decision, as an eminent artist, to not only reveal yourself so entirely, but not to charge admission on any of the exhibitions, has also startled the art world – what made you decide not to make money out of this massive event?
MM: If I was younger, I’d take “massive” as more of a compliment (laughs) but ja, if I was taking home a fat profit, people would say I was being mercenary. I thought about donating the proceeds to charity, but then I would still be accused of having an agenda. Also, I would be drawing yet another line between the “freaks” and the heteronormative, neuro-typical, whatever the *censored* you want to call it sector of the public and I didn’t think that was fair either.
Interviewer: Getting any hate mail?
MM: Like you wouldn’t believe. Again, I am old now, not so protective of my own existence. What can you do, but literally read it and weep. My whole life I have believed in justice, now I tend to think justice exists, sure, but perhaps not in a nice, elegant, karmically balanced kind of way. Not the way I want it, necessarily.
Interviewer: Is there any hope of a tolerant society?
MM: How long has man roamed the earth? There hasn’t been one so far and we’re wearing out the planet fast. Hell, never mind the freaks, this planet hasn’t even got it right enough to feed everyone. Maybe we’ll get it right in time for the next big bang hey.
Interviewer: Not an encouraging perspective …
MM: I’m old, I’m tired.
[roll credits]
“Actually,” said Helen, staring at “Freaks Have Feelings Too” on her screenfeed, that image is just beautiful. Why does anyone find it disturbing in the first place?” “Because they wanna,” muttered Scar. “Blue would be so damn proud!” said Helen. It was true. It was a courageously amazing thing to do; sure it was a sensationalist nine day wonder, but after those nine days, Michael’s photograph would still be there in the public domain, unashamed. He’d given his audience the freedom to be freaked out by it, to get used to it, to get bored with it. Maybe one day people would look back and wonder what the fuss was all about. Maybe.
“Freaks Have Feelings Too” became that year’s hit t-shirt, street tag, sticker, one hit wonder pop song. It became a meme, a free franchise – Michael had refused to maintain any form of copyright on his photograph or its title, he just created it and then gave it to the world. Naked Michael became as inoffensively beautiful as a Michaelangelo statue, as ubiquitous as that Ché stencil. He became a mascot, a hero to so many minority groups, that many people forgot why he was ever branded a freak in the first place. People just dreamed him into their own myth and history. It didn’t change the world any more than Ché did, but it changed some minds and some attitudes.
Ginger was over the moon – all that publicity was a guarantee her film would be a hit, she felt sure of it.
The Lean, Mean Dyke Wedding
Mrs and Mrs Banks-Davies arrived at the dock with pale skin and big grins. Alright, neither of them had started calling themselves or each other “Mrs” but “Ms and Ms” still doesn’t sound all that married, does it? Long story short, they were married in Japan and in South Africa for the jol. That old warship got scrubbed out, but not decorated at all – Veto had this plan that all the guests’ costumes would kind of form the decorations instead and, against that peeling paint and metal, the idea worked like a charm.
The sun set over the sea, livid against the pollution and gorgeously dramatic. Lit only by storm lanterns, everything suddenly looked softer, warmer. People made speeches, people cried.
The party was kind of like a scene from ‘Fifth Element’ and kind of like that party scene from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ back in the nineties. And the music fitted in too. Parts of it was just like the old days – young people dancing mostly, with the older folk sitting around smiling benignly just tapping their feet – until the whole crowd loosened up enough to lose their inhibitions and hit the dance floor whether they could dance or not.
The whole thing went out as a webcast, of course and you can bet it got a shedload of views, both live and archived. Ginger did an edit of the whole thing later, with Sam and Veto grinning and yelling, “Freaks have feelings too!” at the end of it, with a soundtrack that made it a nightclub-feed hit within days of its release.
And the honeymoon? Of course there was a honeymoon. The world’s most sophisticated hackers surprised their friends by piling into some kind of reconditioned Mad Max machine and hauling off across the Namib desert. “Control Alt Delete won’t work out there!” yelled Scar nervously as they left.
Finding a New Perimeter
What kind of future do you dream, when you let go of logic and allow yourself to dream anything at all?
Helen dreamed a house and a small garden, where she’d plant things and have the time to watch them grow. She dreamed a big, grey, female cat, which Scar immediately named “Dave.” There’d be enough space for her to be sociable and for Scar to be antisocial when she got that way. There’d be walls full of books and art and just enough tech to make life easier. There’d be enough money so that she could write and Scar could make art without worrying about how to pay the bills. Unspecified people and/or machines would take care of the housework, but they’d cook together when they felt like it.
Scar thought it was a most excellent dream and quietly added a film library to it.
They both dreamed that they had met young enough and in a safe enough world to have children. They dreamed of a world where nobody raised an eyebrow at queers at all.
(It really was a good dream).
Scar started work on ‘The Last Polar Bear – 2029’ and kept dreaming.
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