Scott Capurro
GT
October 2007
Hotel rooms are a cock magnet. Even this traveling tanned carcass can lure away from their offices married men seeking a quick fix in innocuous surroundings.
My room is a model U.N., proving the cultural diversity of Toronto is no myth: Every country, it seems, has been through my door. Most often, however, I’ve entertained black men, many Jamaican, and all ‘discreet’, because they’re cheating on their wives. They lay back in casual business attire while I drain their ballpoints. I watch their faces, eyes closed tight, big smiles, and I wonder how often they reflect on their choices. Maybe, I muse, silently, being gay isn’t just whom one sleeps with. This guy I’m sucking might even make fun of queers with his mates. Am I ingesting self-hatred, masked as pre-cum?
Oprah would weep, and my dick feels hard as a tombstone.
Then his is up my ass and there’s no time for thinking.
One sunny day, I give in to the droning pull of the notorious middle classes and indulge in public transportation. The black youth seated opposite on the subway seems intently submerged into his headphones, head bowed. Thankfully, he’s keeping his rap backbeat to a bare minimum. But he can’t stop himself from mouthing words. He has the music in him, but more importantly, he has a rhythmic story to tell. His feet tap, his head swings, as fellow Canadians look on, or don’t, smiling, or not, in the friendly yet cool demeanor this hinged nation presents.
I understand rap as much as I understand any contemporary music. That is to say, very little. To me, anything recorded after 1985 sounds like screaming children crashing canned hams together. Yet the furor I find impossible to avoid is that so much rap is violent misogyny cradling homophobia. But then so is everyone’s favorite musical, Oklahoma. What makes rap different is that this time, the black man has the gun.
I watch this teenager on the train banging his fists against his knees, settling his scores and expressing his angst with his furrowed brow and I think, but why here? It’s Canada, where ‘fair’ isn’t just a four-letter word. In Toronto, there are more soup kitchens than there are slurping poor people. Canadians actually chat with the homeless. I’ve witnessed a businesswoman discussing the ebb and flow of magazine sales with a vagrant. The conversation lasted longer than my cappuccino.
There are fewer than one thousand gangs in all of Canada. One can actually COUNT the number of gangs thriving in Canada. Nationally, there were 151 murders here last year. And most of those were domestic disputes. The point being: So you’re black, gay, bi-racial, Indian, from Indiana, indigenous, or orange with one leg, a vagina and a penchant for eating pussy – who cares? How’s the weather? Oh god, did ya’ really move all the way from Calgary cuz’ of your allergies? Need a hand with your shoelaces? What the heck, let’s all rap together, seein’ as the winters last nine months and there’s nothing else to do, darnit!
Later, five male police in black shorts ride by on their bikes while I smoke pot. I’m between shows, and I’m working up an appetite. One cop with a mustache sniffs the air, mocks a clownish frown, then waves his index finger at me as if I’m naughty. I wink back. They ride on. I get higher, and the comedy club manager asks if I want a three-way with he and his girlfriend. I swoon, because he’s Jewish; and because I can’t imagine a more progressive society.
That night, my audience is so supportive. I feel cheerful, like Julie Andrews. I want to run through the streets, singing about my favorite things, one of which is a comedy room with visitors from as far away as Chile, China and Chad. It’s a gold mine for a comic who rants about race. They’re laughter feels like flying.
Until I casually mention my penchant for black cock. But I’m white and gay and that gives table seven in the back the license to mutter, “Someone’s gonna get shot tonight.” Then she repeats herself, this very angry black woman. “Someone’s definitely gonna get shot tonight.”
Naturally the room grows silent. I’m quick to the draw.
“What makes you think it won’t be you?”
She and her three friends walk out. Stressed and grasping for irony, I might have dropped the n-bomb, but I’m on anti-depressants, I can’t recall. And I’m not famous enough to be videoed on a mobile. But I am tall enough to be hit by a ‘random’ bullet, so I’m escorted through the service entrance, back to my hotel.
Once online, I sail to the West Indies. Hair of the dog…