J'HABITAIT EN ENFER
from La Monde Invertee the sequel to the bestselling autobiography Born Normal by Canadian superhero, businessman and wit Jean-Paul Beaubier, the Northstar.
The one thing that always surprises me is how easy it is to lie and be believed. For instance, I have stood up and told the world that I joined the Front Liberation du Quebec while I was still studying at college at the urging of my childhood confidant Raymonde Belmonde. And everyone believes me, there it is in black and white printed upon the pages of my New York Times Bestseller "Born Normal" with every edition, every printing, every copy making it truer. And I lied. Just before Xavier came to me in supplication offering a teaching post, Harvard had asked if I would care to join its hallowed ranks and lecture upon the business realities of the multinational in this the age of telecommunication. Quite amazing really, I'd think you'd agree, for someone whose nonexistant business degree is not even worth the paper it's not printed upon. I never even set foot in college, I just let people assume that was where I was; dieu, I belonged to the student front of the partie, ainsi I must surely be a student. (Let's leave my membership of a certain terrorist organisation out of it for now). It is also remarkably convenient, not that I have anything to do with it as some people would have you believe, that many of those who were in the know have since departed this vale of tears and often in quite spectacularly violent ways. That's not to say I wasn't learning, quite the opposite in fact, and all from the mouth of my first true love Leon Dupont . And you can keep your mind out of the gutter, I was talking about his words and wise counsel, I don't have the faintest what you thought I meant.
Leon Dupont, what can I say that will express how much he meant to me, how he was my guide and my protector, how my whole universe revolved around his every word, his every gesture. I can say nothing, nothing at all, that shall speak fully of his place in my heart, of how he opened that door in the wall I had built in my mind and dragged me into the world that had rejected me, of how he taught me of love and the strange and marvellous workings of the human heart. And, of laundry, of how to iron a suit, of vacuuming, and of, that most exquisite of wonders, getting dinner on the table before he returned home from work. I am not ashamed it admit it, I was a houseboy. And I loved every minute of it. Thinking about it, perhaps I was ashamed of it even when I came out to the world as I stood in front of a hundred cameras and microphones and said that I loved other men, but I wasn't then, I didn't have to sail between the Scylla and Charybidis of fame and noteriety, I didn't have anything else in the world to care about except my own happiness and that of my lover. And I certainly learnt a lot, and, believe it or not, not everything revolved around sex or housework (a rather underrated activity I find, if more men did housework… it would definitely impact upon how often I get laid although for better or for worse I can't tell.) I probably know more about the ups and downs of the world stock markets over the course of this century than most university specialists in the field. Sex is a very powerful stimulus to learning, although one that will never be adopted in state schools, and that I still possess the cowboy boots he bought me certainly testifies to that (although that may just testify to how infrequently I wear them, they tend to wreck both wood flooring and bedsheets). Most people we met assumed I was his nephew, with him to be inducted into the family business, I went to board meetings with him and posed as his secretary. I also acquired the habit of wearing glasses with plain lenses to make myself look more mature. This was my great period of faux maturity, I think I was twenty-one for at least seven years running, five before the event and two after, and I still have to ask my sister how old I will be next birthday, a suitable warning to any who wish to emulate my career. In general, I learnt a lot and how to remove candle wax from a carpet and a good recipe for guacamole are always of use, even if Stalin returns from the grave and succeeds in a final victory for Communism.
Many people ask me my views on Communism. And I'll reiterate, as I'm a bloated plutocrat living off the labour of the proletariat oppressed beneath my corporate feet, you can probably guess. As a former political radical, it's a bit harder to guess, if all else fails you can always get the communists to issue a statement of solidarity, even if it's the kiss of death as many political exploits are concerned, you cannot fault them for enthusiasm, and, if all else fails, you can always laugh at them when you become part of the establishment you were fighting against while they are still trying to think of a good rhyme for communism.
And now, as my boyfriend likes to say, back to the scheduled programme. Jean-Paul Beaubier houseboy and maker of a mean guacamole, is a description not often heard on anybody's lips, perhaps now because it sounds absurd, impossible even. But this Jean-Paul Beaubier is not Jean-Paul Beaubier, mutant adventurer; not Jean-Paul Beaubier, businessman and entrepreneur; not Jean-Paul Beaubier, the queer Quebecker; he is merely a boy. A boy running from the gates of hell seeking safe harbour in the netherworld between the living and the dead. He is running from the tenth circle of Dante's Inferno, the one where live bad bad little boys whose parents God has taken in his infinite mercy to be with him in heaven while they remain unworthy of his love. I don't really talk about my childhood, my childhood in the orphanage of St Sebastien, my childhood in the tenth circle of hell. This is the greatest lie of all, I lie without even speaking, I talk only of vague feelings and bury even those in a mire of information, if you believe me, my life didn't even start until I was twenty-one (although which year of the many years I was twenty-one I do not know) and I came into the world fully formed as a man.
This boy, the real boy hiding behind the mask of confident manhood, is running with his feet impossibly fleet just above the snow carpeting the streets of Quebec leaving no footprints no trace of his passing; he is running from the love and infinite mercy of God with no plan only the dream of escape. His life thus far has been full of the love of God, even though he was undeserving of it, unworthy of it, even as the loving cane leaves long and tender kisses red as blood across his hands to teach him that he should not question this love, that to do so is to question the very order of God's divine creation, that to do so makes him such a bad evil boy but he still merits and will be saved by God's infinite mercy. Yet as he writes out the Hail Mary upon the blackboard, the blood dripping from his aching hands staining the chalk a strange shade of rose pink, he cannot but repeat the question for which this is his penance in his mind; if this is God's love, why does it hurt? And he doubts. The brothers say he thinks too much, that this is what lets the devil in and makes his tongue bold and him defiant. He wonders if these devils, if they exist at all, live within the brothers' hearts and minds.
The running boy knows he's different. He runs a grey figure in the night, he has swapped his pyjamas for his day clothes, he has no coat and yet he does not feel the cold. In truth he feels nothing at all but the elation of freedom. He does not even notice the way his feet do not touch the ground. He knows that they can never catch him if he never slows down, he feels as if he could outrun the sun let alone all the demons of hell. He knows that this is the right thing. But what if he is wrong, he asks himself, he thinks of the turmoil in his heart and mind, the way he feels about the other boys, how the way they move sings to his very soul. The screams in the night haunt his waking hours. The whimpers and sobs of the boy in the next bed cut through his heart; the bruises on his arms and legs make him burn behind his eyes and a sharp bile rise in his throat. He moved faster than they could see last night and followed them, but he is sure they could hear him weeping as the boy younger than him screwed up his eyes in the futile hope it would all go away, he wanted to snatch him up in his arms and get away, he wanted to drive his fingers into their eyes and hear them scream for mercy, he was at once angry and terrified and sick. Is this what love is? To hurt what you love? Is this what the strange passion in his heart sings for? Is that why he was a coward and did nothing? Because secretly he craved it? Yet he feels sick in his own skin and wants just to hide and wash away the sickness. Despite everything the brothers have done; he still doubts.
All that time the boy is Jean-Paul Beaubier and yet he is kept locked so deep within my heart that I can only see him as someone else, another strange boy with grey hair and blue eyes, a dream of me, acting out my nightmares while I stand in the audience and weep for him. I can but watch as he becomes just another runaway in the sea of people visible yet unseen who dwell in the city as ghosts.
You can see the boy every day as he loiters in the streets and alleyways and yet you do not, he is very nearly invisible as much a part of the street as the mail box and the lampposts, you are relieved he doesn't ask you for cash or a cigarette, you shiver at the strange look in his eyes, yet you never wonder how he manages to live, and then your wallet's gone and so is he. Pickpocketing is rather simple and curiously satisfying, when you move faster than your victims can see. With the leisure and safety to pick your target, you can live very well on a wallet a day.
Then the impossible happens; the boy finds his wrist held, it takes a moment for him to react, to slow down and slip out of that world of slowly moving statues, and shock claims him, one of the statues has grabbed his wrist and holds it tightly, the boy looks around in a panic and his heart beats faster in his chest. And then he hears the man's voice, it is calm and like nothing he's ever heard before, every word is like honey upon his soul and shines like the sun through the clouds that encircle his heart. And when this vision suggests that he comes home with him, all he can do is nod mutely. His instinct is to trust; yet he does not know of trust, nor friendship nor compassion. And he does not know of love, yet already he is learning of its foundations.
That man is Leon Dupont, my guardian angel and my saviour and I shall learn from him of love and compassion, and eventually I shall love him with all my heart. But that is yet to happen. Tonight the boy will sleep in a spare room at the back of an apartement on the Rue Soleil. And I will watch him there, watch his chest rise and fall, watch how his hair moves upon the pillow as a smile breaks upon his lips and I will weep for I know the boy will die in his sleep and I shall be born.