likethebeer

This is a photograph of Iraq War vet Ty Ziegel and his fiancée, Renee, on their wedding day. It won the World Press competition for portraiture in 2006. These kids are so frickin' young--he was 24, she was 21 when the photo was taken.

Bleeding heart moment:
The first thing I thought when I saw this photo had nothing to do with the Iraq war. It had to do with a job I had in a bookstore when I was 24. It was before Christmas, and I was doing the turnstile thing--there was a line, and I was just ringing people up and moving them on. And this one man came up who was so horribly burned that it was shocking. He had no hands, just a hook on one of his hands; the other hand ended in a nub. His entire face was badly burned (although I think he had lips, and a nose, but just a hint of a nose). And he was there buying Christmas presents. I'd never seen him before, and I never saw him again, but while I rang him up I was overwhelmed by the guy's courage. Ok, so he wasn't a regular but he went out to get X-mas presents and I was impressed, man. After he moved on and I went to someone else, I just wanted to get up and ask the guy out for coffee, b/c I thought that I'd like to know someone that brave. I've thought about that man over the years. I wish I hadn't been tied to sitting there and I could have at least offered--of course, wtf do you say to someone at that point?

Switchover:
Right now, I'm reading my new book on Wojnarowicz. Man, that guy was angry. His passion is what always got me, but they're talking to people who knew him, and they talk about the fact that he was pissed a lot of the time. Although, while reading it, I'm satisfied, I suppose, that I never did take the trip to NYC to meet him. I wanted to, I thought about it, but I always thought, "Ok. I'm a typical suburban white girl and wtf am I gonna say to this guy who was homeless for 2 years, starting spending time away from home when he was 10--and started prostituting himself--and almost got killed a couple of times? What? 'I really like your work'?"

Turns out, he was kind of annoyed by all the people sidling up to him, and he was quite shy, so I think it would have been really awkward. Because, really, I didn't have any questions that I could ask him that would have been profound, burning questions on my part. I just like his stuff, and that's about what I would have said. And, sure, I guess it would have been flattering but wouldn't have done a whole hell of a lot.

So the fact that I weighed all of this (aside from the fact that I didn't have the money to get to NYC), and reading this book, makes me think, that, ok--I didn't just make up my reticence to see the man. Sounds like he wouldn't have been too crazy by the visit. Aside from the fact that he was dealing with AIDS-related illnesses and a suit with the American Research Council for copyright infringement. And, oh yeah, I had no idea how to find him.

In the end the two subjects that I've talked about are related. They are both about the fact that there were these people who displayed some aspect of humanity that was really fascinating to me, but that I knew I could not breach. I could admire them but I knew that they had gone through something that I could not bridge blithely b/c they'd just gone through things that I could not approach lightly; and any casual approach would just seem trivial.