Chapter 7 Brighty
Calling all angels
Calling all angels
Walk me through this world
Don't leave me alone.
Calling all angels
Calling all angels
We're trying, we're hoping,
we're loving, and we're hurting,
We're crying, we're calling,
But we're not sure how this goes...
(Jane Siberry & K D Lang, "Calling All Angels", from the soundtrack of the motion picture Until The End of the World, dir. by Wim Winders)
Another legend goes that whenever a child stops believing in fairies and put that into words, a fairy dies. But, whenever a new born baby bursts out laugh for the first time, a fairy would be born.
Brighty was not a fairy, and her death, made JC born again.
It was like a game, boring from my perspective now, yet quite serious then. In Kaohsiung, in a Christian family, a Catholic school, Brighty and JC successfully covered up their sexuality. Years latter there was a time when I went to the hospital to keep Brighty company, we surprisingly, via our conversation, found out that we had crush on the same girl in high school. We both laughed.
We were not close friend until we attended the collage. Home is a mysterious place. One loves it, yet one grows up outside of it, in some cases. Ever since collage, Brighty had not a home. Her room was always packed, as if she was a character from Thelma and Luise, always on the run.
Running from what? her own family, in which the mom and the dad were widely respected as elderlies in the church. Brighty loved Jesus, she even lectured me once, for...what could be the reason one lectures a boy? Lust of course.
But she loved Cho as well.
Cho, if you wanna know the work of God, you gotta see Cho. Ney, let me rephrase myself. If you wanna see a goddess, be it Athena, Hera, or Aphrodite, go see her. The moment she stepped into the room, you can feel, physically, the eyes of all are fixed onto her. It's not just the undeniable beauty that snared me, but the impassivity, the undisturbedness that she posed. "This girl is special," thought I.
So did Brighty.
The next time I saw Cho, it was in a department store, the least possible place for one to find me. And what I saw, also the least possible to me,Cho and Brighty was there, walking airily hand in hand.
For Brighty it was even less imaginable. Never had she planned to come out, not to me at least. I was sort of putting my feet carelessly onto her secret territory. And to Cho, hoo, she was surprised as well. Ain't it nice, now we're all a little surprised.
Why is there such question as "to tell or not to tell?" Because there are people that make a fuss of it. Inasmuch as I made no fuss, Brighty hid nothing from me ever since. And we formed a small circle, two of us only.
That was quite a childlike time we had. Everytime Cho and Brighty had a fight, I had a call. From Brighty. They were sweet to each other, but they could also fight each other over the most petit things. Brighty would call, complaining all about Cho, and I listened. And what I listened most of her complaint was how wonderful Cho was.
"She is over the top in every way," Brighty would say. "So perfect, she's not even a human." And she said directly, "she's way out of my league."
Nowadays people don't say that. People may feel the same way, but they don't say it. For not losing face I think. So now when I think of it, Brighty was quite lovely in fact. So honest.
And Cho joined the circle very soon. She called one day, out of my expection. "Could we go out sometime?" she asked, "it doesn't feel good whenever you have a fight with your lover, you know the next thing will be that she called someone you know but not that well." Good reason. "So I think we sould be friends."
That's Cho, direct, and clever. Bold in a certain way.
It's not necessary describing our meeting-up. What turned out was that Cho and I got alone ever better then Brighty. Brighty was even jealous of me. Of course she knew very well that it was just friendship Cho and I shared. So three of us went on. Things between them didn't change much, only more intimate, and more fights, and more phone calls for me.
And because of that, I saw Cho cried in front of me, one time after their fight, right in front of me. Brighty left and Cho was in tears.
"I am afraid," she said while crying, "sometimes I can't even recognise her. It was very nice being her friend. But lover...she was like fire...burning people up."
Things like this went on and on. I saw them as two in love deeply but struggling for their own problems. The more they want each other, the more they hurt.
"Time washes everything," Kristen told me three years latter. She was referring to another issue of mine. But if you think, what was the thing that time washes away? Memories, isn't it? And where come the memories? Things lost, things no more.
Lu called in the morning while I was in bed trying not to face the predictable hangover.
"Brighty died." Lu siad, briefly.
And I was wide awake, zero hour.
You don't need to know all the details. It was tiring of course. Also I don't want to tell you what I went through in the week. You know you know, you don't know you don't. But there's one thing I want to say.
That morning when Cho came to the hospital, she was crying like...like...like what? Use your imagination, or memory. What I didn't know before seeing her, was that I had no words to say to her. It was hard, what do you want to say? You stand beside her, silently, seeing her all crying, holding her hand, cuddling her shoulders, speechlessly.
Seeing it from now, I was selfish making her the CD. I wanted so much to say something to her, but couldn't. Only once in my life time, I decided to do one thing, and dared to ask the world to help. And the world did, at least two in the world did help me.
"This CD is made to be forgotten." So I wrote in a sheet attached with it.
JC met Brighty and I only one month before her death, in the most unlikely situation, a gay coffee shop, run by the only homosexual book store in Taipei. As I said at the beginning, JC and Brighty successfully covered their sexuality, even from each other. So it was one of the classic surprising bumping-into-each-other I would say. JC was so embarrassed, Brighty and I tried very hard not to expose her, only politely leaving her our number and email.
JC finally find someone she could talk to about her situation, and Brighty took her responsibility, sharing with her all the knowledge she gained from many times of struggles. They had similar background, similar troubles.
So when Brighty died, JC cried like hell over the phone.
Yet one would be surprised how strong and independent JC achieved after that.
Before launching to UK, I visited Brighty's tomb. On the picture she smiles just the way she used to be. So bright, no worries nor doubt in her eyes. It's we that stay in this world that doubt and worry.
Cho is happily with her girl friend now. My CD had come to where it belonged, somewhere forgotten.
Calling all angels
Walk me through this world
Don't leave me alone.
Calling all angels
Calling all angels
We're trying, we're hoping,
we're loving, and we're hurting,
We're crying, we're calling,
But we're not sure how this goes...
(Jane Siberry & K D Lang, "Calling All Angels", from the soundtrack of the motion picture Until The End of the World, dir. by Wim Winders)
Another legend goes that whenever a child stops believing in fairies and put that into words, a fairy dies. But, whenever a new born baby bursts out laugh for the first time, a fairy would be born.
Brighty was not a fairy, and her death, made JC born again.
It was like a game, boring from my perspective now, yet quite serious then. In Kaohsiung, in a Christian family, a Catholic school, Brighty and JC successfully covered up their sexuality. Years latter there was a time when I went to the hospital to keep Brighty company, we surprisingly, via our conversation, found out that we had crush on the same girl in high school. We both laughed.
We were not close friend until we attended the collage. Home is a mysterious place. One loves it, yet one grows up outside of it, in some cases. Ever since collage, Brighty had not a home. Her room was always packed, as if she was a character from Thelma and Luise, always on the run.
Running from what? her own family, in which the mom and the dad were widely respected as elderlies in the church. Brighty loved Jesus, she even lectured me once, for...what could be the reason one lectures a boy? Lust of course.
But she loved Cho as well.
Cho, if you wanna know the work of God, you gotta see Cho. Ney, let me rephrase myself. If you wanna see a goddess, be it Athena, Hera, or Aphrodite, go see her. The moment she stepped into the room, you can feel, physically, the eyes of all are fixed onto her. It's not just the undeniable beauty that snared me, but the impassivity, the undisturbedness that she posed. "This girl is special," thought I.
So did Brighty.
The next time I saw Cho, it was in a department store, the least possible place for one to find me. And what I saw, also the least possible to me,Cho and Brighty was there, walking airily hand in hand.
For Brighty it was even less imaginable. Never had she planned to come out, not to me at least. I was sort of putting my feet carelessly onto her secret territory. And to Cho, hoo, she was surprised as well. Ain't it nice, now we're all a little surprised.
Why is there such question as "to tell or not to tell?" Because there are people that make a fuss of it. Inasmuch as I made no fuss, Brighty hid nothing from me ever since. And we formed a small circle, two of us only.
That was quite a childlike time we had. Everytime Cho and Brighty had a fight, I had a call. From Brighty. They were sweet to each other, but they could also fight each other over the most petit things. Brighty would call, complaining all about Cho, and I listened. And what I listened most of her complaint was how wonderful Cho was.
"She is over the top in every way," Brighty would say. "So perfect, she's not even a human." And she said directly, "she's way out of my league."
Nowadays people don't say that. People may feel the same way, but they don't say it. For not losing face I think. So now when I think of it, Brighty was quite lovely in fact. So honest.
And Cho joined the circle very soon. She called one day, out of my expection. "Could we go out sometime?" she asked, "it doesn't feel good whenever you have a fight with your lover, you know the next thing will be that she called someone you know but not that well." Good reason. "So I think we sould be friends."
That's Cho, direct, and clever. Bold in a certain way.
It's not necessary describing our meeting-up. What turned out was that Cho and I got alone ever better then Brighty. Brighty was even jealous of me. Of course she knew very well that it was just friendship Cho and I shared. So three of us went on. Things between them didn't change much, only more intimate, and more fights, and more phone calls for me.
And because of that, I saw Cho cried in front of me, one time after their fight, right in front of me. Brighty left and Cho was in tears.
"I am afraid," she said while crying, "sometimes I can't even recognise her. It was very nice being her friend. But lover...she was like fire...burning people up."
Things like this went on and on. I saw them as two in love deeply but struggling for their own problems. The more they want each other, the more they hurt.
"Time washes everything," Kristen told me three years latter. She was referring to another issue of mine. But if you think, what was the thing that time washes away? Memories, isn't it? And where come the memories? Things lost, things no more.
Lu called in the morning while I was in bed trying not to face the predictable hangover.
"Brighty died." Lu siad, briefly.
And I was wide awake, zero hour.
You don't need to know all the details. It was tiring of course. Also I don't want to tell you what I went through in the week. You know you know, you don't know you don't. But there's one thing I want to say.
That morning when Cho came to the hospital, she was crying like...like...like what? Use your imagination, or memory. What I didn't know before seeing her, was that I had no words to say to her. It was hard, what do you want to say? You stand beside her, silently, seeing her all crying, holding her hand, cuddling her shoulders, speechlessly.
Seeing it from now, I was selfish making her the CD. I wanted so much to say something to her, but couldn't. Only once in my life time, I decided to do one thing, and dared to ask the world to help. And the world did, at least two in the world did help me.
"This CD is made to be forgotten." So I wrote in a sheet attached with it.
JC met Brighty and I only one month before her death, in the most unlikely situation, a gay coffee shop, run by the only homosexual book store in Taipei. As I said at the beginning, JC and Brighty successfully covered their sexuality, even from each other. So it was one of the classic surprising bumping-into-each-other I would say. JC was so embarrassed, Brighty and I tried very hard not to expose her, only politely leaving her our number and email.
JC finally find someone she could talk to about her situation, and Brighty took her responsibility, sharing with her all the knowledge she gained from many times of struggles. They had similar background, similar troubles.
So when Brighty died, JC cried like hell over the phone.
Yet one would be surprised how strong and independent JC achieved after that.
Before launching to UK, I visited Brighty's tomb. On the picture she smiles just the way she used to be. So bright, no worries nor doubt in her eyes. It's we that stay in this world that doubt and worry.
Cho is happily with her girl friend now. My CD had come to where it belonged, somewhere forgotten.
posted by kevin | 07:38
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