Two Boys Kissing(32)

We think of ourselves as creatures marked by a particular intelligence. But one of our finest features is the inability of our expectation to truly simulate the experience we are expecting. Our anticipation of joy is never the same as joy. Our anticipation of pain is never the same as pain. Our anticipation of challenge is in no way the same experience as the challenge itself. If we could feel the things we fear ahead of time, we would be traumatized. So instead we venture out thinking we know how things will feel, but knowing nothing of how things will really feel. Already, Craig and Harry are far beyond any expectation, any preparation. They must make up each minute as it comes along, and in doing so, they are creative. Yes, creative. You do not need to be writing or painting or sculpting in order to be creative. You must simply create. And this is what Craig and Harry are doing. They are creating a kiss, and they are also creating their stories, and by creating their stories, they are creating their lives.

This can be a very painful process.

We, who can no longer create, can stand for hours and days and months without feeling anything. You wouldn’t think that we would miss physical pain, considering all the pain that we went through. But we do. We miss it. We miss the price we paid for life. Because it was part of life.

Craig and Harry are exhausted, to a degree we can understand well. Some might think them foolish, to put themselves through this, especially if they fail. But we understand the need to push beyond expectation, beyond preparation. We understand the desire to create, to step on new ground. To feel every ounce of space you are taking up in the world. To endure.



Around the world, screens light up. Around the world, words are flown through wires. Around the world, images are reduced to particles and, moments later, are perfectly reassembled. Around the world, people see these two boys kissing and find something there.



Around town, boys and girls wake up. Around town, men and women mobilize. Around town, complaints are made and disbelief feeds within an echo chamber. Around town, breakfast is served and breakfast is taken. Around town, it feels like an ordinary day, but also not, if you know what’s happening on the lawn outside the high school.



Camera crews from local TV stations begin to arrive.





Shortly after waking, Peter is at his computer. This is what you do now to give your day topography—scan the boxes, read the news, see the chain of your friends reporting about themselves, take the 140-character expository bursts and sift through for the information you need. It’s a highly deceptive world, one that constantly asks you to comment but doesn’t really care what you have to say. The illusion of participation can sometimes lead to participation. But more often than not, it only leads to more illusion, dressed in the guise of reality.

The headlines on Yahoo don’t require much of Peter’s head. The latest exploits of a rich girl with her own TV show, the latest poll showing that for the first time ever, Americans prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate. Peter has to take in these words before disregarding them—so much information pushing its way into your consciousness, trying to take residence so you will watch the new show, buy the new chocolate. He quickly clicks on to the feed of the two boys kissing, and is relieved to find they are still there, still kissing. Twenty-two hours gone, less than ten hours to go. He scrolls through the comments and finds a lot of encouragement and more than a few haters. These words are now in his bedroom, now in his life. How can he not take them personally? If you let the world in, you open yourself up to the world. Even if the world doesn’t know that you’re there.



The camera crews unload their equipment. The reporters check their makeup, gauge the light. Harry takes some satisfaction from it—attention was the point of this, and now it has come calling. Craig feels a slight uneasiness, and also a little relief that he doesn’t have to worry anymore about his parents seeing this without warning, turning on the channel and finding something unexpected.

The news teams—there are three of them—are pushy. They want to ask questions, want to get close. The police officers keep them back on the other side of the non-caution tape. But still … they suck all the air from the area. They are the new center of gravity for the crowd. There are people now who haven’t been seen before, who haven’t spoken up before. There are Craig and Harry’s friends, yes, but there are also people who think this is criminal, that it should be stopped, that it is an affront to the high school, to the town, to society. The cameras search them out, and they gladly allow themselves to be found.



You are always so willing to broadcast yourself. You have grown used to the ubiquity of lenses, the everpresence of cameras, whether they are in your friends’ pockets or watching you from atop streetlamps. For us, it was a choice to be on camera. There was a long and labored process to retrieve an image, to draw it from film and expose it onto paper. If we broadcast ourselves, it was usually just to the other people in the room. We were all actors, just as you are all actors now. But our audience wasn’t as large as yours. And our performances, like those on a stage, were fleeting, uncaptured.

Harry and Craig felt nothing when it was only their own cameras that were on. Even as tens of thousands of people were watching, they didn’t really feel the eyes on them, no more so than usual. There was the perception that the people watching were friends, not strangers. But it is different when a camera crew takes aim. It is different when they can hear the reporters telling their story from a reportorial remove. They had been thinking of themselves as a cause, but now they feel reduced to a curiosity. And they can’t speak for themselves. They can’t say a word. They must continue kissing.