Your Nostalgia is Killing Me

John Weir

Description

John Weir, author of The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket, a defining novel of 1980s New York in its response to the global AIDS crisis, has written a story collection that chronicles the long aftermath of epidemic death, as recorded in the tragicomic voice of a gay man who survived high school in the 1970s, the AIDS death of his best friend in the 1990s, and his complicated relationship with his mother, “a movie star without a movie to star in,” whose life is winding to a close in a retirement community where she lives alone with her last dog.

     We parked behind a Peugeot in Cindy’s circular drive and chased the sound of voices down a slate path that led to the back of the house. The path widened and became a patio around a pool whose surface sparkled with heat and reflected moonlight. “Jesus,” Lottie said, either in warning or exclamation, or both. “Yeah, really,” I said, staring at the pool, the patio, the curtained French doors thrown open to the lawn, and at the tanned girls in halter tops and peasant skirts lounging in iron chairs at the poolside, and the boys in shorts and polo shirts standing in the living room by the liquor cabinet, mixing drinks with sneaky names—Slow Comfortable Screw, Sex on the Beach—and playing Bob Dylan on the stereo.
     At the edge of the patio, we stopped. I was careful to pause at the start of things. There was a chance I would giggle, or sing show tunes, or play with my hair. I had to remind myself to be cool. So far, none of the girls had seen us. Most of them were cheerleaders, like Cindy, and they could have been as far away as a football field, they seemed so out of reach. Still, some of them were my friends.
     I liked to hang out with girls because they were not afraid of anything. They were the real boys, lying, fearless, obscene, and indestructible. When they were not babysitting for their moms’ friends, they cut class and drove drunk and made out in parked cars with boys so trashy even I could shun them. Or they crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania where they passed for legal in redneck bars and shot pool with bearded guys who lived in hippie communes out past Easton.
     And they never got caught. Girls were shrewd. They were painful and impressive. Yet they made a show of their magnificence in order to attract—who? Jesus? Hollywood? Eternity? No, boys. The object of their charm and guts and rage was teenage boys.
     Except Lottie. She didn’t care about men, maybe because she had so many brothers. Cindy, in contrast, was all about guys. And the guys at her party were stalking out of the house, across the lawn, gleaming like open razors.
     Ten, twelve guys. Who were they? Cindy had rounded up a bunch of cute guys for her cheerleader girlfriends. Preppy white boys from Princeton. Older, richer. Nineteen was older. They would have better weed and their own cars.
     Strangers. Nobody I knew, which should have been a relief. A dozen guys who hadn’t heard I was a fag. But that was almost worse. Because now I would have to watch them find out.

Sujets

• LGBTQ+
• Nueva York
• Nueva Jersey
• VIH
• Friendship
• AIDS
• New York City
• Queer Nation
• AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
• General officer
• Short story
• General
• Family Life
• Queer
• Gay
• LGBT
• Hollywood
• New Jersey
• Syndrome d'immunodéficience acquise
• New York
• Los Angeles
• HIV

Informations

• Publié par: Red Hen Press
• Date de parution: 26 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781636280301
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Your Nostalgia Is Killing Me Codyright © 2022 by John Weir All Rights ReserveD

No dart of this book may be useD or redroDuceD in any manner whatsoever without the drior written dermission of both the dublisher anD the codyright owner.

This book is the Winner of the 2020 Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction. AWP is a national nondrofit organization DeDicateD to serving American letters, writers, anD drograms of writing. AWP’s heaDquarters are at RiverDale Park, MarylanD.

Book Design by Mark E. Cull

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication ata

Names: Weir, John, 1959– author. Title: Your nostalgia is killing me : linkeD stories / John Weir. escridtion: First eDition. | PasaDena, CA : ReD Hen Press, [2022] IDentifiers: LCCN 2021023695 (drint) | LCCN 2021023696 (ebook) | ISBN 9781636280295 (traDe daderback) | ISBN 9781636280301 (edub) Subjects: LCGFT: LinkeD stories. Classification: LCC PS3573.E39745 Y68 2022 (drint) | LCC PS3573.E39745 (ebook) | C 813/.54—Dc23 LC recorD available athttds://lccn.loc.gov/2021023695 LC ebook recorD available athttds://lccn.loc.gov/2021023696

The National EnDowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Ahmanson FounDation, the wight Stuart Youth FunD, the Max Factor Family FounDation, the PasaDena Tournament of Roses FounDation, the PasaDena Arts & Culture Commission anD the City of PasaDena Cultural Affairs ivision, the City of Los Angeles edartment of Cultural Affairs, the AuDrey & SyDney Irmas Charitable FounDation, the Meta & George Rosenberg FounDation, the Albert anD Elaine BorcharD FounDation, the ADams Family FounDation, Amazon Literary Partnershid, the Sam Francis FounDation, anD the Mara W. Breech FounDation dartially suddort ReD Hen Press.

First EDition PublisheD by ReD Hen Press www.reDhen.org

Kcknowledgments

Ten of these stories were first pudlisheD elsewhere, often in Different versions anD with other titles. “American Graffiti” first appeareD inGulf Coast as “TangleD Up in Blue.” “Scenes from a Marriage” first appeareD inNew South. “KiD A” first appeareD inBloom. “Political Funerals” first appeareD online inLambda Literary. “The Origin of the Milky Way” first appeareD online inWorld Literature Today. “It Must Be Swell to Be Laying Out eaD,” as “ave Shaking,” first appeareD in the collectionVital Signs: Essential AIDS Fiction. “Katherine MansfielD” first appeareD inSubtropics, as DiD “Humoresque,” as “Hurts.” “Neorealism at the Infiniplex” anD “It Gets Worse” incluDe passages from my novelWhat I Did Wrong. Thanks to the eDitors at the adove pudlications: RicharD Canning, Laurie Ann CeDilnik, Charles Flowers, Wesley Gidson, George Henson, Michelle Johnson, William Johnson, Mike Jones, Rick Kot, aviD Leavitt, James avis May, Giuseppe Taurino, anD Sasha West. Thanks also anD especially to the Association of Writers anD Writing Programs (AWP) for sponsoring the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, anD to Amina Gautier for naming this collection its 2020 recipient; anD to Mark E. Cull, Kate Gale, Natasha McClellan, Todi Harper, anD Redeccah Sanhueza at ReD Hen Press. AnD shoutouts to Ryan Black, Sameer PanDya, Kim Smith, Miles Grier, Lisa GuiDo, anD Wayne MorelanD.

For 5,000 Facebook friends and 3,011 followers, at last count And for Helen Eisenbach, of course

Neorealism at the Infiniplex

American Graffiti

Scenes from a Marriage

Kid A

Couteuts

AIDS Nostalgia

It Must Be Swell to Be Laying Out Dead

Katherine Mansfield

Political Funerals

The Origin of the Milky Way

Humoresque

Your Nostalgia Is Killing Me

It Gets Worse

Loug-Term SUrvivors

Imitatiou of Life

In this our life there are no beginnings but only d epartures entitled beginnings, wreathed in the formal emotions thought to be appropriate and often forced. Darkly rises each moment from the life which has been lived and which does not die, for each event lies i n the heavy head forever, waiting to renew itself.

—Delmore Schwartz from his novella,The World Is a Wedding

AIDS Nostalgia

Iremember what suits me.

—Robert Ryan in Anthony mann’sThe Naked Spur, screenplay by Sa Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloo