In the City by the Lake by Taylor Saracen

Author:Taylor Saracen [Saracen, Taylor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 13 Red Media Ltd.
Published: 2018-11-28T05:00:00+00:00

17

April 1934

I had never been anything other than myself, not due to excessive pride, but more because I found it unnecessary to identify my qualifying parts when I found their sum insufferable enough. Perhaps I would have related to people better if I had settled into a category: the fairy, the Jew, the Russian. I was so much and so little at the same time. I preferred not to focus on being anything other than alive, and at times not even that. Though I hadn’t pulled apart my strands, I could not avoid the pangs of discomfort I experienced when a piece of me was under attack. The moment Adolf Hitler banned art produced by Jews, I was a Jew, vulnerable to religious persecution and repressed. As soon as I read news of the Soviet Republic’s decree imposing three to five years in prison for those convicted of homosexuality, I was homosexual and an enemy of a country I hadn’t lived in for nearly two decades. I was everything I didn't want to be, seeing how the world thought there was so much wrong with me. Perhaps that’s why, against my better judgement, I had allowed Cal to become my world. He saw me differently than everyone else and made me feel like every fucked-up inch of me was the way it was supposed to be. It was the first time I had ever been fully accepted by anyone and it was more powerful than I’d anticipated, allowing me to get entangled in emotions that hadn’t existed before him. It was the reason supporting Cal as best I could became a given instead of a question.

Despite my advice, I had known it was only a matter of time until Cal went to Abraham about Rosie’s assault. I was surprised he’d had the capacity to hold out until early March, though there was no significance in the delay. I would have much preferred if Cal had expedited the whole thing rather than leave me with the smallest sliver of hope that I was wrong about the inevitability of his actions. Anticipating the worst could be worse than the worst was, but in the circumstance of Cal, Rosie and Abe, I had no doubt the anticipation and outcome would be equally matched in their unpleasantness. Sadly, I was correct. Not only had Abe gotten defensive about the allegation, undoubtedly not allowing himself to believe his new man would want to be with a person like Rosie, he’d also become irritated that Cal had felt compelled to bring the lie to his attention. According to Cal, when he insisted it was the truth, Abraham retorted that even if it was, ‘Rosie is not a beacon of virtue. He’s a whore who gets paid to provide pleasure to men.’ That was when Cal told me he’d lost his patience and shouted that ‘it wasn’t a transaction.” Much to Cal’s dismay, Abe then offered to give Rosie a few dollars to compensate for the alleged attack, hoping to settle the ordeal amiably.

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