The Boy Who Followed Fiction

THE BOY WHO 
FOLLOWED FICTION

CONTENTS
___________________

PATRICIA HIGHSMITH
TURPENTINE
MOMMY DEAREST
GOTHIC MODERNÉ 
_______________

MONEY 
WRITING
PULP FICTION
THE BOY WHO FOLLOWED FICTION
_______________

MURDER 101
DOMESTICATION OF CRIME
CALM IMMORALITY
OLGA BACLANOVA
____________________

SORDID OFFICE HOURS
DENNY HALL
DOING RIPLEY
CREW TEAM DRAG
________________

PATRICIA HIGHSMITH

“There was not one 
thing I liked about her. 
There was an unredeemable
ugliness to her.”—Otto Penzler, 
Highsmith’s US publisher
____________

My mother drank—
turpentine to abort me

No wonder, my dears—
I turned out to be
________

So disagreeable and—
mean-spirited as well

I was hard, harsh—
unloving & unlovable 
________

Such a Bitch Queen—
full of anger, hatred

Unfriendly, cold—
I was a nasty Kunt

TURPENTINE 

“She was a totally
horrible woman.”
—Otto Penzler, 
Highsmith’s US publisher
_____________

I was pretty good-looking—
when I was a young dyke

I got ugly later on in life—
simply full of ugliness
____________

Hatred for everybody and—
everything around me

It was always there down—
deep inside me I think
________

Have you ever tasted the—
taste of Turpentine, honey?

I did in my Bitch Mother’s—
wretched pregnant tummy

MOMMY DEAREST

“In November, Highsmith
typed out a tally of how
much it cost to keep her
mother in her Fort Worth
nursing home”—Andrew
Wilson, Beautiful Shadow
_____________________

A total of $15,000—
was needed each year

for Patricia Highsmith’s—
hateful, spiteful mother
_________

Mary Highsmith’s pension—
coughed up $7,486 a year

That left a shitty shortfall—
of $7,814 Patricia paid
_________

Patricia wasn’t very pleased—
her own ordinary expenses

For food and clothing weren’t—
as much as her Witch Mother 

GOTHIC MODERNÉ 

“Work is more 
fun than play.”
—Noel Coward
________________

Proust’s Questionnaire—
can be rather revealing

Thirty-seven loaded—
exquisite queer questions
_____________

My idea of happiness—
would be quite simple

To be Tom Ripley—
one novel after another
__________

Who needs Miss Munch—
when one has a Derwatt

There’s nothing like a—
a fake to queer Picasso

MONEY 

“I would have thought 
she was conserving 
rather than mean.”
—Jack Bond
______________

I figured that my money—
had been hard won

Writing Pulp Fiction—
doesn’t pay that much
__________

Suspense/Murder Mysteries—
there’re a dime a dozen

Plus being a lesbian author—
a Sappho feminist writer
___________

Has always got a lot of—
fucking flak from the Fascists

Just look at Amy Lowell—
enduring that bitch Ezra Pound

WRITING

“The reward of art
is not fame or success
but intoxication.”
—Cyril Connolly,
The Unquiet Grave
___________

When I’m plotting—
and writing fiction

I’m very fond of—
coincidences in plots
____________

And situations that—
are almost but not

Quite incredible—
out of nowhere
__________

They just pop out—
of my head…

How else can—
possibly say it?

PULP FICTION

“That is why so many 
bad artists are unable to
give it up.”—Patricia Highsmith
________

Not a very big bedroom—
a nightstand full of books

Mostly paperback books—
beat-up classic fag fiction
___________

I liked them since I was—
a closety gay teenager

Cruising the drug store—
the bus and train stations
_________

Maybe you think that’s—
queer I like Pulp Fiction

You should’ve seen me—
sucking off those sailors

THE BOY WHO FOLLOWED FICTION

“Tom saw blue jeans
and tennis shoes. The 
boy from the bar.”
—Patricia Highsmith,
The Boy Who Followed Ripley
___________

It didn’t turn out to be a—
mugging, the kid was polite

He was goodlooking like—
some young ones are
___________

And so I took him under—
my wing for the usual affair

Menace lurks in familiar—
places like a bulging crotch
__________

My subversive cold logic—
usually puts 2 & 2 together

I was bored anyway, dears—
I needed a cute new trick

MURDER 101

“Murder, in Patricia Highsmith’s
hands, is made to occur almost
as casually as the bumping of a
fender or a bout of food poisoning.”
—Robert Towers, New York
Review of Books
_____________

He was a cute young freshman—
so many of them around campus

The ordinariness of his male—
beauty was rather stunning
___________

I was used to depicting the—
daily lives & mental mind-fucks

You know, like Miss Capote’s—
travails with “In Cold Blood”
_________

Wooing and schmoozing with-
them, milking out the details

Young psychopaths on campus—
surely a dime-a-dozen, honey

DOMESTICATION OF CRIME

“The domestication 
of crime in her fiction”
—Robert Towers, New York
Review of Books
____________

Implicating the reader—
that’s only half the story

The sordid fantasy that’s—
being worked out, dear
__________

It needs daily life and—
ordinariness of details

The daily lives & mental—
processes of psychopaths
_______

It’s like food poisoning—
that tainted cumly taste

There’s nothing fictional—
about being a gay Author

CALM IMMORALITY

“keeping us on his side”
—Frank Rich, NYTimes Magazine
_________

Keeping us on his side—
demonic American hustler

Keeping Tom mock-heroic—
all the way going down
__________

It takes more than just—
the usual str8t Circus Act

It takes a Trapeze Queen—
like a lovely Olga Baclanova
__________

Entertaining a captive—
audience of astute readers

Takes a sociopathic gay—
con man like Highsmith

OLGA BACLANOVA

I suppose you’ll ask me next—
the social significance of it all

Being a Freak shouldn’t be new—
to any of you now however
____________

Whether you’re a Queen Bee—
up there on the swinging Trapeze

Or down here in the gutter—
pearls wallowing in the sawdust
_______________

Tragic beautiful Olga Baclanova—
once Starlette of the Carnival

Up there above the unruly Mob—
heavenly Star of the Circus
__________________

Only to fall from grace down to—
the carnie sawdust of the rubes

Leered at as nothing more than—
a squawking CHICKEN WOMAN!!!
______________

Clucking cross-eyed hopeless—
just another weird Freak

Fallen from heights of Beauty—
down into the depths of Ugly

SORDID OFFICE HOURS

“Savage in the way 
of Rabelais or Swift”
—Joyce Carol Oates
New York Review of Books
______________

Murder happens all the time—
during office hours in Denny

No big mystery, my dears—
it’s like food poisoning
____________

One gags and almost—
Vomits but not quite really

It takes patience and—
performance to do the Trick
____________

Eliciting the exquisite—
menace of young teen meat

There’s nothing quite—
like it psychopathic pricks

DENNY HALL

“For eliciting the menace
that lurks in familiar
surroundings, there’s no
one like Patricia Highsmith”
—TIME
_____________

Amidst all those old—
aging Hitlerjungend faculty

I considered myself lucky—
not to have that haunting
__________

Sullen Schadenfreude—
during the rather ratty Sixties

I preferred Marlene Dietrich—
and her Weimar Swansongs
__________

You know, like down in the—
lovely Reichstag bunker, dear

“I can’t help it” Marlene sang—
“I’m falling in love again…”

DOING RIPLEY

“Bonjour, madame” she
spat at him. She missed
his face, missed him
entirely, and plunged on
toward the Rue St. Merry”
—Patricia Highsmith,
Ripley’s Game
__________________

I never got along with my—
colleague Professor Schlong

Such a petty pompous—
Prick from the Fatherland
____________

I suppose an ex-Nazi had—
to play it straight for Tenure

He couldn’t conceal though—
his haughty Hitler demeanor
_____________

His pompous Nazi prick—
oozing there in Denny Hall

The Faculty Bathroom stunk—
when he took his shit there

CREW TEAM DRAG

“Drag?” Eric gave a 
mystified smile. “Drag
for what? A party?”
—Patricia Highsmith,
The Boy Who Followed Ripley
__________

It was down in the basement—
That’s where it was happening

The Real Party going on—
that Saturday Night back then
_____________

The usual Str8t Frat Party—
Going on up there upstairs

But down in the Basement—
That’s where the Action was
__________

The hunky naked Crew Team—
dancing in drag on tables

Loud music and lots of dope—
male hunks make hot dames!!!!