{"id":123249,"date":"2018-03-21T19:27:28","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T23:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=123249"},"modified":"2018-03-21T19:35:46","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T23:35:46","slug":"2018-whiting-awards-brontez-purnell-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/21\/2018-whiting-awards-brontez-purnell-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Brontez Purnell, Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Brontez Purnell, whose\u00a0\u201cexplorations of blackness, queerness, maleness, and Southernness take sharp, confident turns between raunch and rhapsody,\u201d has been publishing, performing, and curating in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than ten years. He is the author of the cult zine\u00a0Fag School<\/i>, frontman for the band the Younger Lovers, and the founder and choreographer of the Brontez Purnell Dance Company. He is the author of\u00a0The Cruising Diaries<\/i>,\u00a0Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger<\/i>,\u00a0and\u00a0Since I Laid My Burden Down<\/em>.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

An excerpt from<\/em> Since I Laid My Burden Down:<\/em><\/p>\n

Before DeShawn left for Alabama and before his uncle\u2019s death, others had gone. For instance, Arnold was dead. Dead, dead, dead as Latin. He sank<\/em> with the Titanic. He flew the coop. That monkey had gone to heaven. It seemed that all the wild men around him were dying faster than he could keep track. Arnold was not the first, but he was of note.<\/p>\n

DeShawn received the message on the morning train, on the way to classes in Oakland, and he hopped on the next train back to nowhere. There was nowhere to mourn the dead boy. Arnold had not lived in any one place for long, and had pulled so much shit that no one really loved him that much anymore. Or maybe they were waiting to love him again after he climbed out of the hole he had dug himself. Like he would appear out of thin air, a magician\u2019s assistant with a tiara and a sash that said \u201cHealed\u201d or something. The dead boy died before completing that magic trick. He would be that type of memory: one to forget. Three days of crying ensued and then a phone call. Arnold\u2019s final roommate called DeShawn and asked very sweetly if he would clean the dead boy\u2019s room. DeShawn said yes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This would be his last favor to Arnold. He had loved Arnold. No one knew they were fucking, and from outward appearances it probably seemed like a casual camaraderie. Fucked-up boy loves even more fucked-up boy. It was rainy, and DeShawn showed up with supplies to clean the dead boy\u2019s room.<\/p>\n

There were old clothes, new needles, crack pipes, Lorca poetry, and books by Bukowski. The dead boy was gentle-featured and very, very handsome. He had tried to get clean this last time, couldn\u2019t, and then stepped in front of a car.<\/p>\n

DeShawn\u2019s mind shifted to his faraway youth, a certain redneck boss with permed and teased hair, smoking and sharing her thoughts on suicide. She said, \u201cIf you are brave enough to jump off a building or shoot yourself in the head then you are BRAVE. ENOUGH. TO. LIVE.\u201d<\/p>\n

He took it as truth because an adult had said it. And he had believed it, up until the point that he knew someone who stepped in front of a car. Up until the point he stepped in front of that car, Arnold had not been a brave person. He was fatigued, and he had made a choice. DeShawn stood over an unopened jigsaw puzzle. He wondered what Arnold felt the moment that car struck him. Had he regretted it? DeShawn believed in energy, and he believed in the other side. He lit candles, paid respect to the eight corners, and prayed\u2014that is, hoped\u2014that the gentle, handsome departed boy was resting in power. He asked whatever god was listening to hear him on this. He set up Arnold\u2019s altar\u2014a white candle and a glass of water\u2014on the highest point in his room.<\/p>\n

There were, of course, people around town who liked to talk. They called the handsome dead boy a junkie, and after that they called him a thief. This was true. \u201cHe was also a loved child of God,\u201d offered Arnold\u2019s mother. Maybe this was also true.<\/p>\n

Away from the talkers and gossipers was Arnold and DeShawn\u2019s criminally minded and largely harmless inner circle. It is a beautiful thing to surround oneself with people who have pulled too much sketchy shit to ever judge anyone. The type of people you could fuck over, as long as you prove it wasn\u2019t anything personal. Everything around Arnold went missing\u2014rent money, LPs, stamp collections. Naturally, there was some resentment. But then again, everyone saw in Arnold a brother who was in deep pain. Which made his trespasses not forgettable, but forgivable. Somewhere, Arnold had his wings.<\/p>\n

But there was still the matter of cleaning the room. DeShawn knew he couldn\u2019t clean it all at once. It would take days, and that was fine. There wasn\u2019t the dead boy\u2019s laughter to hear on the phone anymore. There wouldn\u2019t be his physical presence in the room, by the window strumming a guitar or smoking, or standing naked, with the most beautiful erection you could imagine. The place where Arnold\u2019s life made a rude exit was now a black hole, a deterioration in the film loop. This void meant there was time. Cleaning up a mess takes time. DeShawn knew that in order to clean up the dead boy\u2019s room, like, to really<\/em> clean it, he would have to put on the armor of detachment. Detachment was a beautiful thing. You needed detachment to be nonjudgmental. He didn\u2019t want to say that Arnold was a selfish piece of shit for dying. He wanted to feel noble about it. He stayed neutral and nonjudgmental as a strategy to keep moving, a bargaining tool to keep the darker thoughts at bay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Brontez Purnell, whose\u00a0\u201cexplorations of blackness, queerness, maleness, and Southernness take sharp, confident turns between raunch and rhapsody,\u201d has been publishing, performing, and curating in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than ten years. He is the author of the cult zine\u00a0Fag School, frontman for the band the Younger Lovers, and the founder and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1441,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33429],"tags":[33430,21277,33461,33462,33463,71,33458,29646,93,33452,33459,33460,27948,1253,20510,21641,1384],"class_list":["post-123249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whiting-awards-2018","tag-2018-whiting-awards","tag-bay-area","tag-brontez-purnell","tag-brontez-purnell-dance-company","tag-fag-school","tag-fiction","tag-johnny-would-you-love-me-if-my-dick-were-bigger","tag-novella","tag-san-francisco","tag-since-i-laid-my-burden-down","tag-the-cruising-diaries","tag-the-younger-lovers","tag-whiting-award","tag-whiting-awards","tag-whiting-foundation","tag-whiting-honorees","tag-zines"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n2018 Whiting Awards: Brontez Purnell, Fiction<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read an excerpt from 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