creep Before you start to read this book, take this moment to think about making a donation to punctum books, an independent non-profit press, @ https://punctumbooks.com/support/ If you’re reading the e-book, you can click on the image below to go directly to our donations site. Any amount, no matter the size, is appreciated and will help us to keep our ship of fools afloat. Contri- butions from dedicated readers will also help us to keep our commons open and to cultivate new work that can’t find a welcoming port elsewhere. Our ad- venture is not possible without your support. Vive la open-access. Fig. 1. Hieronymus Bosch, Ship of Fools (1490–1500) creep: a life, a theory, an apology. Copyright © 2017 by Jonathan Alex- ander. This work carries a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 International li- cense, which means that you are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and you may also remix, transform and build upon the material, as long as you clearly attribute the work to the authors (but not in a way that suggests the authors or punctum books endorses you and your work), you do not use this work for commercial gain in any form whatsoev- er, and that for any remixing and transformation, you distribute your rebuild under the same license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ First published in 2017 by punctum books, Earth, Milky Way. https://punctumbooks.com ISBN-13: 978-1-947447-10-3 (print) ISBN-13: 978-1-947447-10-3 (ePDF) lccn: 2017950838 Library of Congress Cataloging Data is available from the Library of Congress Copy editing: Mariana Flores Duron Lizaola Book design: Mariana Flores Duron Lizaola & Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei Cover image: Pere Borrell del Caso, Escaping Criticism (1874). Courtesy of Banco de España, Madrid. Jonathan Alexander Creep A Life · A eory · An Apology For Wayne Koestenbaum, whom I’ve never met. Contents Introduction · 15 A Life · 31 A Theory · 73 An Apology · 119 Acknowledgments Who wants to be thanked for such a book? Perhaps it’s creepy to insist on expressing gratitude, but here goes. For support, for being there, for working with me on either this or an adjacent project, for seeming to like me despite my creepiness: Karen Yescavage, David J. Lumb, Jon Hughes, Jami Bartlett, Jackie Rhodes, David Wallace, Martha Marinara, Michael Szalay, An- drea Henderson, Susan C. Jarratt, Nasrin Rahimieh, George Lang, and Sue Cross. Antoinette LaFarge provided superb draw- ings to illustrate some of my creepier points. Jon Hughes (pho- topresse) took the fabulous photograph of me on the devastated beach of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. And, as always, Mack Mc- Coy has been my constant companion, even when I’ve kept him in the dark about my writing. Sorry, Mack, and thanks for just being you. I also thank Ron Carlson for reading and commenting on a full draft of the manuscript. Special thanks to Tom Lutz, who first published bits and pieces of this work in the Los Angeles Re- view of Books, one of my first — and best — homes for this kind of writing. Thanks too to the editors at Computers and Compo- sition Digital Press for allowing me to recast some of my writing about Glen from Techne: Queer Meditations on Writing the Self. Thanks also to Mark West, who solicited some writing about growing up gay in the south, and the editors of Southern Quar- terly for first publishing some of the passages about my early love affair with the Baptist hymnal in the essay “Outside Within: Growing Up Gay in the South” (vol. 54, no. 3/4). And, most as- suredly, I thank Eileen Joy who welcomed this project with open arms and generous spirit, and Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei who shepherded me graciously through the production process. In so many ways, this book owes its largest debt to Michelle Latiolais, colleague and friend, who not only introduced me to the work of Maggie Nelson, which inspired me in many ways, but who then read and commented on the full manuscript, pointing out where my creepiness strayed into the downright uncool. In deepest gratitude, thank you, Michelle, and I hope it’s not insulting to have your name so closely associated with this little project. Introduction I’m sitting in a hipster coffee shop — excuse me, coffee lab — not far from my home in Irvine, California. Like most days, the sun is peeking over the mountains through some morning ocean fog, and the traffic has already started to accumulate. For over a year now, I’ve gotten up early to head with my laptop and fetch an overpriced cup of coffee, offering myself the best hours of the day for writing. This coffee shop is one of the ones I frequent. The coffee is actually very good, and the baristas, all young folk with their careful haircuts and corded pants, just a touch of blocky plaid creating contrast with the sculpted curves of facial hair, have gotten to know me. Somewhat. At first, they seemed hesitant. I’m not the usual clientele. I’m nearly 50, and while I can dress well, I have often shown up here in my sweatpants and a t-shirt, baseball cap not quite keeping the stray curls of my long forehead hair in check. I must look unkempt, at best, on those days. But the coffee jockeys have become accustomed to me, and some familiarity has lessened their intuitive contempt. I take my $4 cup of coffee — something called Alchemistic, which is, some mornings, stunningly good: the hot water sift- ed in some magical way through the specialty coffee in a fancy machine made by a company called Alphadominche, that only makes these machines for upscale coffee shops—and head around the corner of the coffee bar to write. It’s just a little after 7 a.m., and the place will slowly fill up within the hour. No one will talk to me — probably a combination of my sitting here typ- ing on this machine but also my obvious misplacement. Which one of these is not like the other? The lesson is well ingrained. A 15 creep young guy, immaculately coiffed, with what I call precision hair, can flirt with the baristas, male or female, and keep coming back day after day, a welcome sight. He’s a good-looking dude, and another regular like me, someone I sometimes see pulling up to the shop in his sporty little blue Mini Cooper. I have neither his youth nor good looks, the winning combination. But I have come to know my place as I sit here typing away. I do try at times to be friendly, to approach the generational barrier, to peek at what’s on the other side. It’s not easy, though. I once asked to see a young woman’s hand tattoo as she set a cup of coffee down in front of me, and she looked at me as though I’d slapped her. She showed me, but it was… weird. I try to remember that this is the generation of “trigger warnings,” and it’s often a hair trigger, eas- ily set off. My showing up here isn’t part of their curated world. I’m the oddball out, as we used to say. Indeed, “odd” doesn’t capture it. I begin to worry that my pres- ence here is… creepy. These kids want to serve one another, be seen with one another, not be on display for me. I’m intruding. And in forcing them to accommodate themselves to me, I’m act- ing a bit strange — and I know it. But maybe I’m overstating the case? Maybe I’m just feeling my years as never before. After all, I’m easily double the age of most people here, sitting with my laptop, pounding away at the keyboard, letting loose an unex- pected chortle as I write my way into some insight that is prob- ably only fascinating to me. They might think I’m autistic. Or worse, lonely. But I return, perhaps masochistically, to buy the expensive coffee in this place I don’t quite fit in. I take out my phone to check text messages. Often the usual: various friends pinging me, one in particular from Ohio, a for- mer colleague and dearly loved soul who, just a few years older than I, has been diagnosed with MS. We enjoy quick regular chats, often daily, continuing to be a part of each other’s lives if only for moments at a time. She can’t walk anymore, can’t work, and can barely read, so little messages from two thousand miles away help keep her at least somewhat connected to the world. 16 introduction Frankly they do the same for me. She’s been such a part of my life the past twenty years. Then I look through my photos. I’m always taking shots of things that interest me. One of the baristas, one I’m a little bit attracted to, comes around and bends down right in front of me, scouting out something beneath the counter. I hear the fum- bling as I watch his ass bob up and down with the search. It’s so quick I barely notice that I’m snapping a pic of his behind. And again. The phone doesn’t make a sound. He finds what he’s look- ing for and walks away, but not before looking over his shoulder to ask me if the Alchemistic is okay.