Tin Man! Tin Man!

by W. Murray Sexton with Daniel Garza

Anova: Did you have fun in New Orleans?

Columbia87: Hi Anova. I sure did!

Anova: Do you know who this is?

Columbia87: Yes. I thought you had lost interest in me.

Anova: Do I hear some violins playing in the background?

Columbia87: No – I listen to dance music, or sing old show tunes.

Anova: Do you sing out loud?

Columbia87: Yes – I sang “Over the Rainbow” tonight at karaoke. It was a lousy arrangement, though: too low and too fast.

Anova: Oh my, how out of character!

Columbia87: Oh yes: irony. Now I remember you. I just got back from Mardi Gras.

Anova: So is your dick still attached or did you bring it home in a paper bag?

Columbia87: I was expecting to have a super time, lots of sex with lots of pretty boys – and I wasn't disappointed – but…

Anova: You were thinking of me?

Columbia87: I was broadsided by the most romantic week of my life.

Anova: Are you f*cking serious?

Columbia87: I'm always serious – even when I'm joking.

Anova: So you must provide details. I want to know how to sweep you off your feet.

Columbia87: I had a whirlwind courtship while dressed as the Tin Man. What's your email so I can send you a picture?

Anova: It's ********@*****.com. You don't remember. I’m crushed!

Columbia87: Awfully sensitive for a boy who sent me home with a handshake.

Anova: Ouch! It was a romantic handshake!

Columbia87: Was it? Then I must have misfiled it. Hmm. The photo is on its way.

Anova: You were too busy getting worked up for your trip.

Columbia87: Ouch.

Anova: I knew that I was a mere pit stop on your road to love (or whatever). [Anova receives the photo via email] That's a great picture! But who'd want to get funky with you with all that shit on?

Columbia87: Paul helped me put together my Tin Man costume: he covered my oilcan with foil tape, fitted my funnel, adjusted my paint pails so they sat right on my shoulders, and wired my shiny plastic heart to a strand of beads. Then he helped me put on my makeup – nine kinds of silver paint, powder, eye shadow, lipstick, nail polish, and glitter. And all day long he kept doting on me in the most personal and affectionate way. He adjusted my funnel hat when it went cockeyed, and fixed my makeup when it smeared (mostly when it smeared on his face!). Meanwhile, I was having the most multileveled day of self-affirmation of my life.

Anova: Why?

Columbia87: Moms flocked to me to get pictures of me with their daughters. All manner of people – hundreds of them – wanted a picture next to me.

Anova: Yikes. There are several different metaphors coming together all at once.

Columbia87: Most of them are appropriate, except for the one that incited the “yikes.” One guy said: “Tin Man! Tin Man! You shouldn't walk all disco supermodel like that! You should walk stiff and jerky, like this!”

I answered, “You try walking stiff and jerky in silver chainmail lamé gogo boots with five-inch heels!”

Anova: Great: a Tin Man with an attitude. That shatters my whole Wizard of Oz conception.

Columbia87: The shoes were amazing. It was my first time in high heels, and I can tell you from that experience that the infamous runway model walk is no Fashion Avenue affectation. It’s the only way you can walk in heels like that without falling down. They made my hips and shoulders sway dramatically, and made my paint pail epaulettes just dance with the sunlight. It was more than a costume: it was a whole presentation, a tiny slice of street theater. Everywhere I went, I was instantly recognized and completely loved.

That night, Paul and I went dancing at Oz – a big gay dance club on Bourbon Street and Saint Anne. We had the great privilege of watching Wassim perform. Wassim is a world-class flagger from Syria by way of England, with whom, as it happens, my friend from Houston was falling in love. He has a hundred pairs of custom-made flags that he dances with, all very trippy and Tronny in black light, and very, very gay.

Anova: So who were you falling in love with?

Columbia87: I was falling for Paul. While we were dancing at Oz, the heart fell off my chain, and broke when it hit the floor. We looked around, but could only find half. Paul was very apologetic and soothing – “I know how much it meant to you, and how much it symbolized for you. I'm so sorry.”

Anova: But isn't he your friend?

Columbia87: Tom was my friend from New York. Paul was actually Tom's trick from the night before.

Anova: “And on this episode of SOAP....” Sounds complicated.

Columbia87: He first saw me when he peeked through the sliding doors and found me on a sheet on the living room floor between my Houston buddy, Nolan, and Tim – a hot little British boy we picked up at a bar called Good Friends. I smiled and waved.

Anova: You are too much.

Columbia87: Paul fell in love with me at that moment. Later, when I was getting dressed in my skin-tight silver holographic Lycra shirt and silver reflective vinyl pants, I pulled out my cock and offered it to Paul, but he said, “I want more from you than that.”

Anova: And you're reply was?

Columbia87: When Paul handed me half of the plastic heart on the dance floor, I told him, “This is just a piece of plastic – you already have my real heart. Keep this to remember me by.” We went outside and had a good cry. So, after the Tin Man finally found his heart, the first thing he did was to give half of it away.

Anova: Wow! You’ve thrown me for a loop. All this time I thought you were an oversexed maniac.

Columbia87: Then I went out into the middle of the street and serenaded him, and the denizens of Oz on the balcony, with a heart-felt rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” in my full, unchecked operatic tenor voice, to great applause and lots of beads.

Anova: You're such a ham! That’s very sweet.

Columbia87: It fulfilled a big fantasy of mine to win beads with my voice instead of my dick. Paul and I necked awhile, and chatted, and cried. Here I was in the v Murray and Paul ery same costume I’d been wearing all day, except for the shoes. I had had to change into comfortable shoes because I was getting blisters on my little toes. But now I am too busy falling in love with Paul to do the Tin Man prance, and here’s the amazing thing: people are still coming up to us to take pictures, but now they’re not saying “Can I get a picture of the Tin Man for my daughter in the hospital?” Instead, they’re saying, “May I take your picture? I’ve never seen two people so much in love.” By this time our passion was so tangible that it was actually upstaging my costume.

Then we went back inside to dance some more. We watched Wassim perform another flag dance. It was utterly mesmerizing – he's an incredible artist.

Anova: Now I think I know the moral of the story: it’s all in the shoes, dahling!

Columbia87: Then, while we were dancing, Paul looked down and saw a little red glimmer from beneath a drift of broken beads. There was the other half of my heart – scuffed and scratched and trampled from being danced on by all the other boys, but still intact. Paul wiped it off and gave it to me to remember him by.

Anova: This sounds like a novel. Are you sure this is real?

Columbia87: I swear to you that every word of this is absolutely true.

Anova: I think that's part of Tin Man's destiny.

Columbia87: It's bringing tears back to my eyes just writing about it. It was utterly beautiful – until…

Anova: Until what?

Columbia87: We went back to the apartment, and tried to make love – but it was just lousy.

Anova: Oh, no. What happened?

Columbia87: We could look deeply into each other's eyes and make each other cry – but we couldn't get each other hard!

Anova: Sexual irony. It’s a killer.

Columbia87: After four hours of trying, we got in maybe five minutes of penetration. It was tragic, and exasperating.

Anova: Ewwwww! Gross!

Columbia87: Even so, we spent the whole next day together – romantic, but bittersweet. We were both sad, and aimless, and confused.

Anova: Why? Because you couldn't get it on?

Columbia87: And I didn't realize it until later, but I was still feeling some pain from something he had said early the day before. Paul has an extraordinary emotional intelligence – it's like xray vision of the soul. He asked the most ordinary question: “What do you do?” And I gave my usual answer: “I write software to make three dimensional maps of oilfields.”

Anova: Uh, huh.

Columbia87: He said, as most people do, “That must be very interesting.”

Anova: I didn't say that :-)

Columbia87: And I gave my usual throwaway answer, maybe showing a little more pain than usual: “Well, sometimes it’s interesting, more often it's just tedious.” He ripped into me, leaving my entrails stinging in the dirt. “What are you doing wasting your life in a job you don't love, that doesn't give you an outlet for your creativity!”

Anova: Uh, I’m having a hard time with that response.

Columbia87: I was absolutely stunned – but he really hit the nail on the head – I started balling. Here I was literally wearing shining armour, and every exposed surface of skin or hair was covered up by silver paint, and somehow I was nonetheless more emotionally naked at that moment than I have ever been before in my life. That was the moment that I realized what an extraordinary gift he had.

Anova: Which is what?

Columbia87: His emotional perceptiveness. And that was the pain – the whole existential question of what should I be doing with my life – that I was still grappling with the next day, when I was grumpy, only I couldn't put my finger on it at the time. We just wandered around the French Quarter all day, holding hands, chatting. He would occasionally twirl me.

Anova: And what does Paul do?

Columbia87: He was most recently a bartender, and before that a car salesman. I sang several songs to him, mostly much softer songs for his ears only.

Anova: Well it sounds like a pretty intense interaction.

Columbia87: It was incredibly intense, unsustainably intense. I don't think I ever heard him laugh until the fourth day.

Anova: Well I think we've all had those interactions. They're pretty special.

Columbia87: But there was also a sinister air about him – I'm sure I was overreacting, but every once in awhile he would say something odd – something rather off – about how he'd like to kidnap me and hold me hostage forever.

Anova: Is that sinister or just playfully romantic?

Columbia87: Exactly. The fourth time he said something like that was as we were about to get onto the ferry to cross the Mississippi River and go to his house. I told him that the word “hostage” made me very, very uncomfortable. It was like the garage door came slamming down on his emotional availability. He became very distant, and wouldn't let me in again.

Anova: It only made you uncomfortable because (I imagine) that you're in control in many of your relationships and being held hostage is the utmost in letting go of control.

Columbia87: We took the ferry.

Anova: How's that for dime store psychology?

Columbia87: It made me uncomfortable because the whole experience of being adored and fawned over was totally new to me, and I had no context for it at all – except that it reminded me of Greg Louganis's lover in his autobiography Beneath the Surface, who was adoring, but also controlling and abusive. And because I had never heard anyone, ever, use words like those in a purportedly romantic context. And because my ex's ex's ex was a stalker.

Anova: Whoa! That's a bit too confusing.

Columbia87: We walked to his apartment – which was a total mess – a month's worth of laundry was piled up on the bed. He was being very distant – and when I tried to give him copies of the photos we had taken together, he said he didn't want them. I managed to talk him into keeping them – that's why I had made double prints after all – and into keeping his half of the heart.

Anova: Well maybe he was just drinking from a fire hydrant: too much to consume at one time.

Columbia87: Maybe. Just then Tom called me on my cellphone, and said his plans had changed. We wouldn't be able to spend the whole next day together, but he was free for dinner right now. It was a huge relief to me at that instant to have an excuse to leave. I was feeling trapped. I spent an extremely intense evening with Tom, sharing our coming out stories and….

Anova: Well, that sucks. Could you talk about the trapped feelings with him? What was going on with you?

Columbia87: Okay. We had just crossed a body of water to get to his home. That is, as we were leaving my entire known world behind, Paul started talking again about making me his love slave, kidnapping me and taking me hostage, to live with him forever and ever. I didn't know his address, or really how to get back – I felt like the jaws of a bear trap were springing on me.

Anova: Now I know I don't have a lot of context with this person, but some of this sounds a little far out.

Columbia87: All of this is far out, from beginning to end. It's no more far out than my heart breaking in two.

Anova: Well I sincerely hope it doesn't feel like it's been broken in two. I hope you feel you had a very pleasurable (and intense) experience, and that you will continue to have more experiences (maybe even better).

Columbia87: I spent the next day with Nolan, talking his ear off about my feelings about my job, about my coming out story, about what Paul was coming to mean to me, and about my fears surrounding Paul. I spent a good hour rationalizing to Nolan why I wasn't calling Paul back to meet for dinner, when suddenly, without warning, Paul appeared in the kitchen. I was indescribably happy at that moment – but also very glad that my friends were in the room for protection.

Anova: So how did the whole thing end?

Columbia87: Paul and I talked and shared a sandwich he had brought, and then we went back to the bedroom and made love. It was far better than the first time, but still no prize-winning fuckfest.

Anova: Jeez, Louise! What do you want, a porn star award?

Columbia87: Well, I want sex that's good enough to launch a relationship, if that's what it's going to do, because relationships have peaks and valleys, and sometimes great sex can help you get through the valleys.

Anova: And so can good communication, sharing, and love.

Columbia87: Of course – but a huge part of attraction is just animal. Anyway, to my mind it was an experiment, and the result was inconclusive without being especially promising.

Anova: Well maybe that's just a way of playing it safe.

Columbia87: Oh, and I seem to have left out that practically the first thing out of his mouth when he arrived at the kitchen was a longish comic monologue on how I misinterpreted all his talk about taking me hostage – a monologue in which he used the word “hostage” eight more times, to my horror.

Anova: It sounds like he knew how to push your buttons.

Columbia87: I'm the first to admit that even scarier than the thought of being stalked is the thought of being loved – commitment is terrifying to me. But as you say, he was pushing buttons, which is just the opposite of what I would expect from someone who was trying to make a place in my life.

Anova: But weren't you in a five-year relationship?

Columbia87: Yes, I was in a five-year relationship. It might be more accurate to say that I am currently seven years into a five-year relationship.

Anova: I see.

Columbia87: My ex and I are best friends, but there is still some romantic tension there, at least on my side. For example, he got a little miffed tonight when I specifically indicated that I would prefer that he not come along with me to a little impromptu sex party. It's still hard for me to keep from feeling jealous when I see him in an overtly sexual context, even though we've been broken up for two years.

Anova: Wow, you make things awfully complicated for you.

Columbia87: Life would be simpler if we weren't a part of each others' lives anymore – but I value having him in my life, at whatever diminished capacity, far more than I value simplicity. Life is complicated – only fables are simple.

Anova: Yes, I guess, but one can take steps to make it easier, or at least easier to process.

Columbia87: What steps? I thought I was taking those steps when I asked him not to come to the sex party, because I imagined myself feeling jealous both of him and at him at the same time, either for being attractive to a boy I liked, or for being attracted to a boy I liked. That seemed to me to be too much to sort out under the circumstances, so I let him know that I would prefer that he didn't come. As it happens, the whole thing fell apart anyway – and he and I just went to breakfast with one of his current flames. “The whole thing” meaning the sex party – the central figure lost interest. As it happens, this “central figure” was someone I had briefly dated eight years ago; a former Mr. Gay Texas and former aspiring rocket scientist.

Anova: Whoa. There's a lot of stuff going on at your end.

Columbia87: Yes, I suppose there is. And yes, I'm far more than an oversexed maniac – but certainly no less!

Anova: Hey, can I ask a favor?

Columbia87: Sure.

Anova: I need to shut down for the night. I’m not such a good nightowl.

Columbia87: I'm pretty tired too, Daniel.

Anova: You remembered my name.

Columbia87: :-)

Anova: Are you around tomorrow?

Columbia87: Yes.

Anova: Can I give you a call?

Columbia87: Please do. 555-4967