Gawking, gaping, staring: I can’t say when it
first happened. When first a pair of eyes caught me,
held me in their vice grip, tore skin from muscle,
muscle from bone. Those eyes always shouted,
“Freak, retard, cripple,” demanded an answer for
tremoring hands, a tomboy’s bold and unsteady gait I
never grew out of. It started young, anywhere I
encountered strangers. Gawking, gaping, staring
seeped into my bones, became the marrow. I spent 30
years shutting it out, slamming the door.
The gawkers never get it right, but what I want to
know is this: will you? When my smile finds you
across the room, will you notice the odd angle of my
wrists cocked and decide I am a pane of glass to
look right through? Or will you smile back?
I come from people who have long histories of
being on stage—freaks and drag queens, court jesters
and scientific experiments. Sometimes we’ve been
proud, other times just desperate.We’ve posed for
anthropologists and cringed in front of doctors, performed
the greatest spectacles and thumbed our
noses at the shadow called normal. The gawkers used
to pay good money; now they get in for free.
mmm
Being on stage is dangerous. Just ask Khoi
woman Saartje Baartman, exhibited as the Hottentot
Venus. She paced a cage on demand and posed for
French naturalists. After she died, her genitals
became a museum display for over a century. I listen
to the histories and everywhere hear the words freak,
savage.
mmm
The gawkers think I’m deaf or “mentally
retarded.” They think I’m a 20–year–old guy or a middle
–aged butch. They can’t make up their minds,
start with sir, end with ma’am, waver in the middle.
They think I’m that pane of glass.
I spent so many years shutting the staring out.
Friends would ask, “Did you see that person gaping at
you?” and I’d answer, “What person?” It’s a great survival
strategy but not very selective. In truth the door
slammed hard, and I lost it all, all the appreciation,
flirtation, solidarity, that can be wrapped into a gaze.
I couldn’t imagine anyone, much less a lover,
reaching beneath my clothing, beneath all the ugly
words, beneath my shame and armor, eyes and
hands returning me to grace, beauty, passion.
Never imagined this: He cradles my right hand
against his body and says, “Your tremors feel so good.”
And says, “I can’t get enough of your shaky touch.” And
says, “I love your cerebral palsy.” Shame and disbelief
flood my body, drowning his words. How do I begin to
learn his lustful gaze?
mmm
Being on stage is an act of faith. Just ask
William Johnson. African–American and cognitively
disabled, he stepped up to the freak stage; donned an
ape costume and shaved his head, save for a tuft of
hair at the very top; became the monkey man, the
missing link, the “What–Is–It.” He died a rich man,
affectionately known by his co–workers as the “dean
of freaks.” But he could have just as easily been a lonely,
frightened man, coerced, bullied, trapped by freak
show owners and managers. I listen to the histories
and everywhere hear the words savage, defect.
mmm
These days I practice gawking at the gawkers;
it’s an act of resistance. If I had a time machine, I’d
travel back to the freak show. Sneak in after hours,
after all the folks who worked long days selling themselves
as armless wonders and wild savages had
stepped off their platforms, out of their geek pits, from
behind their curtains. I’d walk among them—the fat
women, the short–statured men, the folks without
legs, the supposed half–men/half–women, the conjoined
twins, the bearded women, the snake charmers
and sword swallowers—as they took off their costumes,
washed their faces, sat down to dinner. I’d
gather their words, their laughter, their scorn at the
rubes who bought their trinkets and believed half their
lies. I’d breathe their fierceness into me.
The gawkers have turned away from me,
laughed, thrown rocks, pointed their fingers, quoted
bible verses, called me immoral and depraved, tried to
heal me, swamped me in pity. Their hatred snarls into
me.
They never get it right, but what I want to know is
this: will you? If I touch you with tremoring hands,
will you wince away, thinking cripple, thinking
ugly? Or will you unfold to my body, let my trembling
shimmer beneath your skin?
I practice overt resistance and unabashed
pride, flirting as hard as I know how. On the Castro, I
check out the bears, big burly men with full beards
and open shirts. One of them catches my eyes. I hold
his gaze for a single moment too long, watch as it
slips down my body. He asks, “Are you a boy or a
girl?” not taunting but curious. I don’t answer, walk
away smiling, skin warm.
In another world at another time, I would have
grown up neither boy nor girl, but something entirely
different. In English there are no good words, no easy
words. All I have is the shadowland of neither man
nor woman, a suspension bridge tethered between
negatives. One day we may have a language to take
us to a place that is neither masculine nor feminine,
day nor night, mortise nor tenon. But for now, what
could I possibly say to the bears cruising me at 3 p.m.
as sunlight streams over concrete?
mmm
Being on stage is risky. Just ask Billy Tipton. He
worked the jazz stage with his piano, saxophone, and
comedy routines; lived for fifty years as a
female–bodied man; married five times; and had
three sons. The gawking started after his death as
the headlines roared, “Jazz Musician Spent Life
Concealing Fantastic Secret.” I listen to the histories
and everywhere hear the words defect, queer.
mmm
It usually only takes one long glance at the
gawkers—kids on their way home from school, old
women with their grocery bags, young professionals
dressed for work—one unflinching glance in return.
But before they turn away, I want someone to tell me
just once what they’re staring at. My tremoring
hands? My red hair? My broad, off–center stance,
shoulders well–muscled and lopsided? My slurred
speech? Just once. But typically one steely glance,
and they’re gone.
There is a freak show photo: Hiram and
Barney Davis off stage—small, wiry men, white, cognitively
disabled, raised in Ohio. They wear goatees,
hair falling past their shoulders; look mildly and
directly into the camera. On–stage, they played
“Waino and Plutano, the wild men from Borneo,”
snapped, snarled, growled, shook their chains at the
audience. Rubes paid good money to come watch. I
hope that sometimes they stopped mid–performance,
up there on the sideshow platform, and stared
turning their mild and direct gaze to the rubes, gawking
at the gawkers.
They never get it right, but what I want to know is
this: will you? When I walk through the world, will
you simply scramble for the correct pronoun? Or
will you imagine a river at dusk, its skin smooth
and unbroken, sun no longer braided into sparkles?
Cliff divers hurl their bodies from fifty feet, neither
flying nor earth–bound, three somersaults and a
half turn, entering the water free–fall without a ripple.
Will you get it right?
I’m taking Hiram and Barney as my teachers
and looking for the places where staring finally turns
to something else, something true to the bone.
Where strength is softened and tempered, love
honed and stretched. Where gender is more than a
simple binary. Where we encourage each other to
swish and swagger, limp and roll, and learn the language
of pride. Places where our bodies become
home. Gawking, gaping, staring: I can’t say when it
first happened.
freak show 1800s, everyday encounters
written 2002–2007
Eli Clare