Come Back (24 page)

One of the ten commandments is . . . don't have idols. Thou shalt not . . . graven images. And all those puritans, and Quakers, and people who hate
TV
and entertainment — they distrusted imitation. And Plato hated it. Not like Aristotle. Plato didn't like it that we imitated the real, because the real was not the real. The real was already distanced from his utopian vision of über-reality. And so to imitate that was to be even less real still. No, he didn't like those lies upon lies upon lies. And then it's in Shakespeare's sonnets — the fake beauty of the dark lady:
the dark lady is art and sex,
that's easy enough to figure out. The sonnet that's all about her painted face — but it's really evil. Shakespeare's work creates a supreme discomfort with this love of paint, with art in general.

Excuse me, where did that come from? It's from an essay by Dash King, about Shakespeare. But that's not something I know. How did it get into my head?

Right, I don't have a head!

We have always distrusted imitation. And even Baudrillard's
Simulations
was a diatribe against a digitalized world — a world in which the real became a copy. Have I become a copy?

Christ, that's not an answer to a question — when you say “don't talk like that” or “don't use
those words
”!

I'm thinking now about Dr. Ahmed. I didn't talk all that much about him. I know you know he saved me and brought me to you. But that's all you know. Well, he taught me to meditate. He took me through those dark times. He took us all through dark times. He is the one who saved us. And I'm sworn to secrecy. I was not to talk about him, because you know who he
didn't
keep alive.

I felt so strange when Michael Jackson was in Dubai and Dr. Ahmed was considering doing the same thing for him that he did for me — giving
him
another life. Liza was there too. And I know she would have wanted another life, and needed one. And you know I love her; I will always. I feel sorry for what I didn't give her. But she didn't turn out too badly. Still, I don't know if she was the
real thing.
Period. You know? I hate to say that, she wasn't
me —
as much as I fucking love her. And there we go. There was something of her that was already in real life a copy. I mean, every child is. I don't think she would mind me saying that. She was a very talented copy — just not the real thing. You know, for some it didn't matter; it never mattered. . . . Maybe that proves your point.

When Dr. Ahmed got me through the final liver transplant and I got the fake liver I have today . . . sorry, that I
don't
have today . . . I almost forgot
I have no body
. Anyway, he taught me to meditate. To sit beside my thoughts and be silent with myself and the world. I learned that my thoughts — which can run to obsession — were not
me.
They were separate from me. I could almost watch them from afar.

So when I was meditating,
who
was watching my thoughts?

My spirit; the real me.

Where has
she
gone? I discovered that person, that spirit. And it's what allowed me to live another forty years after those operations almost killed me, again and again. You can't answer that question, can you? I don't know how I feel about having you here,
supposedly
,
but not talking to you out loud.

Are you saying we might merge? I don't know what that means. Don't ominously say,
You will
. I don't know if I want to merge with anyone.

I remember talking to Noël Coward about the afterlife. We got into a very drunken discussion. As I've said, he bugged me, because he would never get quite as drunk as Stritchie or me. And we talked about merging into the mist of time when we were dead. And he said, “I'm a very bad merger.” I thought it was hilarious at the time. Stritchie told me it was actually a line from one of his plays.

Well, I'd be a bad merger too. You know that about me.

What about my famous personality? My famous pluck? You say my personality is still there; it's what's talking. Or thinking. Or whatever I'm doing. I would say it
is
me — it sure
feels
like me. I guess it would be nice if it
was
me.

But thinking requires a body. It requires a head. Remember Descartes? Oh, I see, we are not in a Cartesian universe anymore. Well, that's a shame. Just like that, you can snap your fingers and now, “I think, therefore
I'm not
?”

I want to hold off on this merging thing. Of course I love you, and I love the fact that you are talking to me in my head, I have to admit. Except — I don't have a head. I love the fact that we are able to answer each other's questions, and argue, and that you are still admonishing me. We still have our personalities, because personality is important. I have a certain amount of affection for what, you know, Oscar Wilde said: Jesus was memorable because he had a peerless personality.

I miss Dash. I know why I didn't want to let him go. Why I didn't want to let the papers go. Because he was so
of the world
, of the body. I miss them all. I miss them so much, the homosexuals. I want to apologize, again, for everything I said. They are precious failures. The precious failures are more important than anything now, because that's what the world as we knew it was.

I remember when I was eight — before I became a star. We made a movie with somebody, I can't remember who. But he was a greasy man like the Cantilevered Lady. So of course the
EBOAM
connected us. No, he didn't molest us. But he put us in a little movie — a short. And the short was lost. And in it my sisters Virginia, Sue and I played moonbeams. I didn't remember much about it. I do remember getting dressed up in elaborate costumes, and that there were lights galore. It was a blinding experience. But we did it because we were troopers. It was work.

We had a supper to sing for.

I thought the movie was lost for many years. And then, when Dr. Ahmed rescued me and kept me alive in his desert hideaway, he told me he had a copy of the movie where we played moonbeams. Or rather, to be clear, he had found the negative of the film, and he had processed it himself. Dr. Ahmed was a real movie fan — hence my existence. I wanted desperately to see it, so he screened it for me.

I swear to you, I absolutely swear: the movie was
all moonbeams
. And I couldn't see myself or Virginia or Sue anywhere in it. I mean, I know we must have been in it, somewhere, in costumes. But this man was such a magician that we disappeared. What I saw was simply a movie about moonbeams. What are moonbeams anyway? Beams of the moon.

“The weaver's beam . . .” Where is that from?

The Bible? Shakespeare?

I don't know why that comes into my head — I don't have one. Wait a minute, “He beat me grievously, in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of a man, Master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver's beam; because I know also life is a shuttle. . . .” Falstaff,
The Merry Wives of Windsor.

How do I know that? Where did it come from? Are you saying that I can access any information at any time? But how do I stop it? I can learn? How? Apparently Dash King discovered that “weaver's beam” was underlined in de Vere's Bible. And this proves that de Vere must have been the real Shakespeare.

What am I supposed to do with all this information?

I'm afraid, Johnny. I love you, but I'm afraid.

Looking back, I wonder if we should have done it; I wonder if we should have gotten into those costumes and dressed up as moonbeams. Or maybe we should have just left the moonbeams alone.

I don't know. It would help if I knew if I were actually
here
. You say one of the things I must do is lose my affection for dying. Why is it that I am so attached to the notion? I suppose it's because at one time the fear of death was proof that we were alive. Now I don't know what I'm saying or thinking. As long as you don't leave me, then I think . . . how can I be all right? I know I'll never be
me
again. What
was
me? I wish you, or I, or someone, could answer that question.

Just tell me it wasn't our fault . . . for impersonating moonbeams. . . .

Copyright © Sky Gilbert, 2012

Published by ECW Press

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LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Gilbert, Sky

Come back / Sky Gilbert.

ISBN
978-1-77041-049-7

ALSO ISSUED AS:
978-1-77090-188-9 (
PDF
); 978-1-77090-189-6 (
EPUB
)

I. Title.

PS
8563.
I
4743
C
66 2012
C
813'.54
C
2011-906972-5

Editor: Michael Holmes / a misFit book

Cover design: Rebecca Lown

Cover images: Ruby Red Slippers © mikeledray/shutterstock;

landscape before storm © Orientaly/shutterstock

Type: Troy Cunningham

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publication of
Come Back
has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada, and by the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities, and the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit. The marketing of this book was made possible with the support of the Ontario Media Development Corporation.