I really can’t stand most young artists. They saunter around in their skin-tight East Village “mantyhose” and begin the routine of softening me up with compliments. Then, inevitably, comes the hit. Do I happen to know an editor who’ll like their manuscript? Would I mind reading it and giving a blurb? In my opinion, there’s a strong connection between that mantyhose and that importuning. It’s all part of one boring snow job. Because I know I’ll never get a piece of the mantyhose, I keep wondering, What am I supposed to get? Certainly not the joy of intelligent conversation, or the discovery of real talent, in the majority of cases.

Christopher Stoddard broke the mold when it came to that routine. In my opinion, he’s startlingly handsome. And no, he’s never given me the slightest “piece” of that. But what he gave me was a magnificently blossoming talent as a writer, a true respect for my work, and a deep affection. They were so rewarding in themselves that I stopped needing to catch glimpses of his mantyhose.

In my varied travels around the globe, I’ve never encountered anyone quite like Chris. He’s been up to his chin in shit, and like the wonderful alchemist that any true artist is, he’s known how to turn it into gold. He’s a brave dude. And he’s a loyal and generous buddy.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t get on his case from time to time.

Christopher Stoddard photographed for EVB by Terry Tsiolis

Bruce Benderson: What struck me about your writing is that it’s fairly honest about some, um, difficult issues. The first book is about a young gay drug addict in San Francisco who’s being kept by a dealer, and later gets entangled in a murder case. What does it have to do with your life?

Christopher Stoddard: I would say that most of what I write about is based on my own experiences.

BB: So you’re saying that you’re a murderer?

CS: Gimme a break, you know what I meant. All I can tell you is that every time I write something I close that chapter in my life.

BB: Your second book, A Death to Organize, is about a young man who’s suicidal. And who identifies with Heath Ledger, who probably wasn’t suicidal, but people, us, suspect that the death had something to do with drug abuse.

CS: Correct!

BB: Who’s the other figure?

CS: Brad Renfro. Who died exactly a week before Heath Ledger died.

BB: And these two icons seem to be the two points of reference for the book. How did that idea come to you?

CS: I’ve always liked the work of both, and when I heard about both of them passing I did find similarities in some of the things I’ve done, in a battle with drugs, or with depression, I guess.

BB: I remember the day he died, and how incredibly moved you were, and, uh, I myself wasn’t so. You compared him to James Dean, and I said, “You see, James Dean’s films aren’t exactly the kind of films Heath Ledger did; Dean’s are a little more eternal.”

CS: Yeah. It’s mostly just a generational difference, because he is that to many people my age.

BB: So you think Heath Ledger has made classic films that 50 years from now will be in the canon of film?

CS: I do. I do. As much as you hate Ang Lee’s films, I thought his performance in Brokeback Mountain was incredible.

BB: I was laughing during all of Brokeback Mountain, but we know how perverse and cynical I am. Don’t his looks have something to do with it, too?

CS: [chuckles] Uh, I definitely find him attractive.

BB: I guess that explains a lot. What about Brad Renfro?

CS: Same.

BB: I like your novel A Death to Organize. It’s about the character planning his own suicide. But how do you think the reading public is going to respond to a book in which the main focus is suicide from the get-go?

CS: Well, that’s my problem. I never seem to want to write about what’s marketable. And I know suicide can sound very bleak. But I found humor in it, and I made it into more of a satire.

BB: I notice in all your writing that death’s a very important issue, and sometimes in both books it has to do with the death of a family member. You really have experienced the death of a family member - your brother, right?

CS: Yes, my older brother passed away when I was 14. It was a hit and run. He was 16.

BB: Isn’t some of the writing in these books an attempt to deal with your feelings about that?

CS: Definitely. In these two books that I’ve written, I do have a character who resembles some version of my older brother.

BB: Is there anything else you really want to say about these books?

CS: Yes, I want to say that while I did have a lot of great ideas, I do think you helped me become a writer.

BB: Thanks. You came to me because an agent took an interest in your writing. He sent you to me, and because it was convenient, I said we should work in my home. So you were coming to my place for about nine months. And I made you read your novel out loud. The whole damn thing.

CS: Yeah, I always like telling that story. We went through it sentence by sentence, and I think that was the best learning experience for me. You offered me not just editorial wisdom, but also spiritual wisdom.

BB: I did? Wouldn’t I, like, get mad at you a lot, and act nasty?

CS: Yeah, but maybe I needed it.

BB: Spiritual wisdom? I don’t know if I want you to talk about it. But what do you think you learned editorially from that experience?

CS: I think it’s about taking your own life experiences and turning them into an art form, as opposed to just writing down exactly what happened.

BB: It was such a difficult process.

CS: Yeah! We definitely had some screaming matches.
BB: During part of that period, you were going through a bad time, weren’t you?

CS: Uh huh, I was dating and then breaking up with someone, in a really bad relationship.

BB: I met him, and I thought he was the most obnoxious person in the world.

CS: [giggling] Yeah.

BB: I hope he doesn’t read this interview.

CS: No.

BB: Oh, he doesn’t read, does he.

CS: I don’t think so.

BB: He told me he watched cartoons, but he was very masculine.

CS: That’s what was important. At least at the time.

BB: What do you think of the gay world in New York?

CS: To be honest with you, I don’t go to gay bars anymore. I used to love it. But I feel it’s lost its luster.

BB: And what about it has made it lose its luster?

CS: I feel like it’s become more and more superficial, and then all the bars seem to be cheap imitations of what they used to be.

BB: One gets that feeling every five years. Imagine getting it, like, 8 times! But what I want to know is, what are you doing in this dirty, expensive city if you’re not using it to meet people?

CS: I try to use it as a muse, but again I’m finding trouble with that, too. And I do go out. I go out to regular bars. Gay people might call them “straight” bars, because those gay people are segregated in their own community. I like to go to the Box, or I spend time at SubMercer.

BB: Where are these places?

CS: Underground, downtown.

BB: What happens at the Box?

CS: It’s sort of like a cabaret, all night. My dog is knocking over the recorder. Sorry!

BB: Oh, oh, get it quick!

CS: Is it still working?

BB: I don’t know. Hope so… So it’s kind of like a cabaret?

CS: They put people on a stage, and, you know, there’s women swinging from ropes - it’s pretty crazy.

BB: Is it a sexual atmosphere?

CS: I would say…

BB: Have you been in New York long enough to notice that the world you knew is somehow gone?

CS: I’ve been here almost seven years, and in the last five, I’ve noticed the difference. Now I find myself writing about how boring it is here. I mean, that’s all there really is to write about.

BB: Are there any writers whom you admire or enjoy reading?

CS: Other than you? I like classic writers. Fitzgerald. And Hemingway.

BB: So masculine.

CS: That’s why I like them. I know it’s so stereotypical.

BB: You mean, so butch.

CS: I’m attracted to masculine men, and when I read Hemingway, it kind of turns me on.

BB: He was barrel-chested, with a big belly and a dirty beard. You like that?

CS: Maybe it’s the characters that he writes about.

BB: Oh, you’re imagining the characters in a more idealized, Heath Ledger kind of way.

CS: [laughing] Basically.

Excerpt from A Death to Organize
By Christopher Stoddard

THEN
I love it when he digs his hips into mine. I don’t really love him, not J - just the act of the pelvic thrust, the lust.  Neither of us has ever said the other L-word. He says he only says it when he’s completely sure, and in spite of my intense feelings for him, I’ll never admit it, either. I’ll only be completely sure when he’s sure. I gauge the validity of my own emotions by those of others. Having faith in myself, making confident decisions, is definitely not one of my stronger suits, and it can be really frustrating sometimes, like when deciding whether to take the subway or a taxi, to order takeout or eat out with friends, to stay alive or… well, you get the picture, and if you’re looking at it right now, you’re seeing J fucking me on his cheap kitchen counter.

NOW
I leave Brooklyn at around 6AM, hail a livery cab with tinted windows and a sketchy driver. “Eleventh and A,” I instruct. He doesn’t verbally acknowledge my request, just drives toward the Williamsburg Bridge, away from the party at my friend’s house.

Only a few more hours of forced sleep while I come off the coke are left between me and The LCD Soundsystem concert, and J. The sun chases me into the darkness of Manhattan. Its rising rays threaten through the mute driver’s rearview mirror. I look to my right and am met by the Save Domino sign in neon red, hanging for dear life onto the old sugar factory, the brightness of the fluorescent protest fading into the coming morn. What a sad grasp for salvation, I think. Nothing tastes sweet these days, anyway.

The few worn stragglers from the remains of last night’s downtown parties, clubs and lounges float clumsily along Delancey to their wormholes, brownstones and cooperative housing. I see the homeless settle into their own cardboard apartments on street corners and in vacant alleyways, with their shopping carts bursting with dated magazines, used soda cans and Ziploc toilets full of the yellowest urine.

The garbage sweeper in front of us kidnaps the debris of another debauchery-filled Saturday night, paves a clean, potholed slate for the last stretch between me and my home. Each block takes an hour in my mind, a century in my soul and less than three seconds in reality, but who’s counting? Finally, we arrive. I pay my speechless chauffeur, thank him for his early morning car service and smooth driving skills. He speeds away, ignoring my gratitude. I ignore his attitude and run inside my home.

continue reading the excerpt

The air in my apartment is stale, as it usually is on early morning arrivals from late night revels. First I peek into the closet to see if anyone is hiding in it, stick my hand through the hanging designer fashions to feel for any warm bodies. Finding no one, I run into my tiny bathroom and flick on the light as quickly as a firefly ignites itself, so I can catch someone hiding behind my shower curtain, but alas, the tub is empty tonight. It’s just me.

Suddenly I sense someone watching me from the fire escape, peeking through the lines between my mini blinds.  Maybe a pervert found a way to unlock the window from the top half, so when I’m peeing in the bathroom, he can break in, hide on the other side of my overpriced pillow-top mattress and attack me when I return. Peering through the blinds, I see nothing but the cigarette-butt-ridden courtyard, which houses my bicycle and several of my neighbors’ - mountains, ten-speeds, and hybrids. Safe to say, I am utterly alone. Not that I’m upset about it. I’m used to it, although I know that I’ll spend my last minutes awake, staring at the window, fighting to keep my eyes closed and finding it impossible to convince myself that there’s no one stalking me from outside, no humans conspiring to invade my wormhole.

Charcoal from the expired Britta filter floats in my chilled pitcher of water, the only cold beverage I house in my mini fridge. There is no food, just remnants of such, as evidenced by the half-empty bottles and jars of condiments. I don’t consider the Grey Goose in my freezer to be anything other than alcohol, and I treat it as such when I drink the dregs of it so I can fall asleep quickly, to get in enough rest before meeting J for the concert. He said he’d go.

Ok fine, there have been a couple of recent occasions between the breakup and now when he’d said he wanted to meet but changed his mind at the last minute, blamed me for doing something that he defined as crazy, but I think he was just making excuses because he’s scared of his feelings for me. He sounded different when he called yesterday morning. He really wanted to see me. The feelings were not just temporary love-epiphanies because he was lonely. I felt real emotion through the phone. During our conversation he played in the background “Never As Tired As When I’m Waking Up” by LCD Soundsystem. That’s our song. It couldn’t have just been a coincidence.

So what will I wear tomorrow, how will I prepare? What I actually mean is what will I wear later today? I want to look my best for J, show him what he’s missing. My new Jil Sander shoes? What else? At-home microdermabrasion? Phyto hair treatment? Done. Done. Done. And please don’t confuse me with some dandy homo, some vain pansy who plays dress up; no, think of me more as a gay Patrick Bateman, only a slightly less violent and considerably less wealthy version.

I’m a serial killer who has lost his edge, a sociopath who’s turned his hatred inward and now resorts to mutilating his mind instead of other people’s faces or bodies. I I I I. Do you think I say it too often? Do I talk about myself too much? Am I self-absorbed? Am I self-obsessed? What do I really want from me?

All I really want is to be happy. All I really want is to go to sleep. I direct my attention to my Blackberry to check the time - it’s half past nine!  Where have the hours gone?  My mumbling mind - hey, did you know there’s a restaurant on 17th and 3rd called Mumbles? I’ve always wanted to eat there and mumble my order to the waiter. Wouldn’t that be hilarious? I bet someone else has already thought of it, though. Someone has already thought about everything you already thought or will think.

No one is original, especially not me, and neither is the overpowering daylight that’s pouring into my apartment through the spaces in between the closed blinds and drawn Roman shades. I turn my cheap air conditioner on high. It acts as a filter for the unbearable noises coming from the apartments of my early-rising neighbors, who are ready to take on the new day before I get a chance to sleep off the last one.

Why hasn’t J called yet to confirm? I don’t know if I can fall asleep until he calls, until we can solidify our plans, pick a time and place to meet.  Should we meet here?  Would it be awkward being alone together in my wormhole? One might compare us to Betta fish at this point in our nonexistent relationship - two Japanese fighters. The kids who run the salon where I get my hair cut keep a couple of them in a bowl on the cashier’s counter. A transparent, plastic wall divides the aquarium, restricting the colorful pair from hurting each other while still enabling them to see each other, so they won’t be lonely. But is that really fair? Isn’t that like a look/don’t touch scenario? It’s a faux companionship. If they can’t get along when they’re in direct contact, what’s the point of remaining close at all?

It’s fucking eleven in the morning now. What am I going to do? I’m just going to call him. Should I call him? I’m not even tired anymore; I slept late Friday night, anyway, and I’ve technically been sleeping since I’m lying in bed with my eyes closed, not to mention the fact that I took a multivitamin and drank two glasses of water before doing so. I feel fine. He’s probably waiting for me to call. I know, I’ll call him and offer to take him out for dinner and drinks before the concert. Yeah, that’s it. That’s what I’ll do.

“Hey J, listen, I know I sound retarded - long night. Ugh. I’m just a little tired and not feeling well. Call me. Let me take you out for a drink before the concert tonight.”

Ten minutes pass and no response. OK, maybe he’s a little unsure. Should I just go to his house like I did the other times he wouldn’t answer his phone?

“Hey J, ha, um, I hope you’re not confused or unsure about me. You can’t be! The arguments we had are completely behind us. Anyway, let me know what you’re doing for the rest of the day. I could totally use a good meal, especially after getting barely any sleep!”

Thirty minutes pass, and I still don’t hear from him. What the fuck? We’re supposed to meet today. Now, just because of some lame second thoughts he’s having, he’s not going to pick up his phone? Who does he think he is?

“J, this is fucking ridiculous. You’re ignoring me because you can’t handle your emotions? Yeah, I’ve been sad and maybe somewhat crazy. But how long have we been seeing each other? You know I hate being ignored. Call me back. Bye.”

An hour has gone by. I may as well have porn on because my thin walls have forced me to listen to some screaming slut getting fucked by my neighbor, his disgustingly jarring voice moaning at every hump. Ah! I can’t wait around anymore! I know J’s home. I’m just going to go confront him in person.

As I’m rising from my pseudo-slumber, I feel my phone vibrate, alerting me to a text received.  Anxious to see who it is, I quickly roll the ball onto the message icon on my Blackberry screen. It’s J! I open the message, am pummeled by his one-word text in all caps: PSYCHO.

The thoughts that immediately follow his foul response are jigsaw puzzle pieces pushed together but not fitting correctly. I use force to connect the unmatched edges until they resemble a solid metal shape in my mind: a box cutter.

.

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