You Look Like Vincent Gallo
Everybody tells me I look like Vincent Gallo. I got Louis Garrel one time, but that was just on Hinge. I told her I had to look him up, that I usually get Vincent Gallo.
‘Do you also sell your cum online?’ she asked. I said only on my birthday, which was the following day, but she didn’t know that. Then she unmatched with me.
I look like Vincent Gallo. I look so much like Vincent Gallo that I was once asked to do a Q&A at some AFTRS postgrad North Shore mummy mansion’s screening of The Brown Bunny because they thought it’d be funny to have a Gallo impersonator defend the film from their academic tirades (‘The blowjob is a metaphor for my self-destructive tendencies being exhumed from my soul through an act of raw, metaphysical intimacy!’). They didn’t pay me, I just did it for kicks. I had a girlfriend once. She’d always interrogate me silently, waiting for me to berate her for having her elbows on the table, or for not cleaning my chef’s knife properly; tallying the days it’d take for us to enter the hypothetical ‘blue period’ of our ‘time spanning’ together, but it never came in the form of such banal disrespects. It simply came, and then she left.
‘You know, Ezra, you look a lot like Vincent Gallo,’ my English teacher told me when I was fifteen. It was the first time I’d heard of him. I imagined he was a celebrity chef on account of my newly formed obsession with MasterChef UK and the fact that Gallo sounds like ‘foie gras’ when you want it to.
‘Who’s that?’
‘He’s a filmmaker, and thank God you only look like him,’ she said.
I felt confused and hurt. As she began to teach, I took my phone out and perused photos of Vincent from over the years. Then I read about him: how he put a cancerous hex on Roger Ebert’s prostate, harangued a teenage Christina Ricci while making Buffalo ’66. And, of course, I read through his website, where he offers his sexual services to ‘naturally born’ women for $50,000, as well as his sperm for $1,000,000, though his racist nature does disqualify women of ‘extremely dark complexions’ from purchasing his disturbing merchandise (but if you’re Aryan, please enjoy $50,000 off of your next order).
Why did my English teacher, as would so many others in my future, see this man when she looked at me? This misogynistic, bizarre delinquent? Why?
Later that day, I locked myself in the bathroom and examined my face in the mirror for half an hour. My clogged pores, the small tufts of facial hair I had growing in irregular intervals, curling like sparse pubes on my face; my eyes, forever shadowed by my elongated browline and inability to stay asleep at night. I looked for a sign of him, something deeper than a boy becoming a man, than ethnic ambiguity, but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see him.
I’m twenty-two now and I get called Vincent Gallo as much as I do Ezra. It’s become more than a jab or a nickname to me, it is a name that I go by. At a crowded train station, a mother might call out to her son Vincent, and I’d be the one to turn my head first. When there’s a character in a film named Vincent, a tinge of euphoria irks the base of my spine as I feel I’m being represented, broadcasted to peoples’ collective consciousness through popular culture.
Vincent…
A close mate of mine had a party a few weeks ago. The theme was ‘Cancel and Scandal’; genius to some, frightening to others. People spent hours pondering which celebrity would be the Beast of the ball, whether it was even okay to spend not only time but money replicating the appearance of notorious sexual predators and war criminals. The need for such contemplations was never on my table, as, due to my predisposition, my controversial personage was chosen for me.
I entered the party alone and began my search for the host. Michael Jacksons and other disgraced musicians populated the room. There was even a George Pell, whom we all looked at and frowned upon but admired nonetheless. Out on the veranda, amongst a posse of Donald Trumps conversing in character, I found my friend Caligula, decorated lavishly in family heirlooms and second-hand silver. He handed me a goblet of red and told me that someone else had also come as Vincent Gallo. I choked on the wine and released a few crimson dribbles.
‘He looks a lot like you, actually,’ said Caligula, wiping the wine from my chin with a purple toga picta. ‘Fucking baby.’
‘Who is he?’
‘I don’t know, some friend of a friend. But it’s crazy…’
‘What is?’
‘Two Gallos at the same party is nuts… but it’s not just two Gallos, it’s two people who look like him.’
I ventured further into the backyard to find this poser. There were subsects of heinous lookalikes around me. It was like an odd (but not unpleasant) wet dream.
Marilyn Monroe and Logan Paul were making out against the back fence. A gust of wind made her skirt arc around her waist perfectly, like rolling clouds. I nearly cried. Then I saw him, that Gallo. He smiled as I approached.
‘Well, well, well. Heart cookie coming right up,’ the Gallo said, extending his hand to me. I took it in mine.
‘What?’
‘It’s a quote. You’re Gallo, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah. What’re the odds of this, right?’
‘I know. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who looks like me before.’
‘Neither. But do we look like each other, or do we both look like Vincent Gallo?’
‘Or Louis Garrel.’
‘You’ve gotten that, as well?’
‘Only once. And recently.’
I took a sip of my wine, let it age a minute in my mouth till it was the same temperature as my body. I swallowed. ‘Same.’
‘What’s your name, mate?’
‘Ezra. Ezra Christensen.’
Vincent Gallo gasped. ‘Are you serious?’ He began to blush.
‘Yes. Why, what’s the matter with that?’
‘My name is Edward Christensen.’
My mouth gaped, as if to receive something hard and average for $50,000 of my hard-earned; as if I were a merry little fish grabbing at flakes of fish food, telling myself that the Heavens is what feeds me, knowing deep down that the world cannot be that binary and predictable.
‘You’re fucking kidding.’
‘No,’ he said, hunched over and laughing, the dramatic fuck. ‘How fucking crazy is that?’
Marilyn had finished with Logan Paul and came to ask what was so funny. As Edward told her, the world began to slow. For a few moments, I was alienated from reality, and within that black, soundless space—caricatures laughing like ghouls around me—I began to run the numbers.
The Gallos, the Garrels, the lookalikes. Me, Edward… both Christensens. How is this real, my life? Is my curse deeper than appearances and Gallo-shaped phenotypes? Is it genetic? Has there been deceit in my family? One that could shatter its constitution? I’ve never looked like my father. That’s a fact. But my mother, dear, sweet, dainty mother—vegan because she could never hurt a fly—has she ever been in possession of $1,000,000? And, if so, why? Why would you do such a thing? How could you?
‘My son,’ I hear a voice say.
‘Who said that?’
‘Turn around and look at your pop.’
I spin and there he is. Wearing a skin-tight Yes tour shirt and purple underwear. Son of Vincenzo, my father, Mr. Vincent Gallo himself.
‘How you doin’, kid?’
‘This isn’t fucking real.’
‘Oh, come on. You’re not a dumb-dumb, are you? You’re not fucking stupid.’
‘You’re not my dad.’
‘Look, it’s not up to me what your mother decides to do with her money.’
‘Is this some kind of joke!’ I scream. Time returns to its natural speed. The partygoers can see me, and I them, once again.
‘Hey,’ Edward said, ‘relax, man.’
I grabbed him by his stupid leather jacket. He began to squirm.
‘Is this some fucking joke?’
‘Let go of me!’
I threw Edward to the ground and spat on him. I don’t know why I did that last part. Blame my father.
‘You’re no Christensen,’ I said. ‘You’re not even a fucking Gallo!’
Caligula tried to grab me as I left the party, but I knocked his hand to the side and exited as fast as I could, thinking how ironic it was that I’d made myself the most controversial individual at a party where someone was proud to have dressed as Jeffrey Epstein.
On the street outside, I immediately called my mum. No answer. I tried again. Straight to voicemail.
‘Fuck,’ I screamed, kicking over a recycling bin and then picking it up. I looked toward the sky. The clouds were thick and low. I lifted my fists toward them and screamed.
‘Who am I! Dear God, who am I!’
I fell to the ground, defeated. Then I took my phone out and went onto Vincent Gallo’s website. To the cum-selling page. There, at the very bottom, the bullet: ‘... the purchase of Mr. Gallo’s sperm does not include the use of the name Gallo. The purchaser must find another surname for the child.’ I gasped.
Mum texted me, ‘I’m at work, what’s the matter?’
‘Call me!!!’
‘Why??? Is everything okay???’
‘Nothing will ever be okay again unless u call me now.’
Her name appeared and I answered before my phone could sound or vibrate.
‘Where does our last name come from!’
‘What? It’s—’
‘Don’t bullshit me!’
‘I’m no—’
‘I know Dad isn’t my father!’
‘What’re y—’
‘Vincent Gallo is my father and you bought his sperm for a million dollars!’
‘Ezra!’
‘Tell me the truth!’
‘Okay! Okay.’
I waited for her to say something, anything, but she couldn’t through her tears. I hung up and went on Reddit. I was immediately overcome with the rawness of the internet, depraved and unfiltered. It defeats me. This place shouldn’t exist and no-one should be allowed here. That didn’t stop me from strolling through its grand isles, all the way to the subreddit on Vincent Gallo. How could I never have thought to come here? Don’t all roads lead to Reddit? To a page’s pinned comment?
‘Oh fuck.’
He was left with the name of our savior. Gallo remained the persona, but I, and Edward, and many more (secret flocks of siblings in America, Germany, Nepal; waiting to be discovered) were the sons of not Gallo but Jesus Christ. Christ’s son.
Christensen.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
That night I dreamt I was walking through an Eastern-European hamlet.
There are people dressed in medieval garb. Some have swords, others dirty clothes. Their faces are blank. Even the children can’t muster a smile or coo as they run by, chasing dogs and each other.
Then, my father approaches me: clad in a leather jacket, neck scarf, tight jeans.
‘You see, places like this, they never have Lan-choo tea. You can’t get it anywhere. You ask for it and no-one’s ever fucking heard of it, it’s like this place exists outside of everyone else’s collective reality. It’s like it’s not real.’
‘What about regular tea?’ I say.
‘Regular tea? What do you mean by regular tea? By whose definition are you basing your opinion off. Your own? Tea experts? Are you a tea expert, kid?’
‘No, but—’
‘That’s right: but. Who… who… I mean, what… what son of mine is so clueless? I mean, you really have to be… that comes from your mum, not me.’
He looked around, rubbed the back of his head with the hard part of his palm.
‘Do you know how many siblings I have?’
‘Shut the fuck up.’
And that was my dream.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
It’s been a few weeks since I found out about my nature. I haven’t spoken to my mother, nor did I reach out to Edward, my darling brother, to talk to him, to know what his favourite movie is, if he doesn’t like the feeling of cotton on his back as well. If I can buy him a beer. I was wallowing with all this on a half-hour-turned-ten-minute break at work, tired enough to quit, when I got a text from Caligula. It was about a screening of Buffalo ’66 at the Hayden Orpheum in two nights. My father was doing a Q&A.
I booked a ticket immediately.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tonight I will meet my father. I will dress nicely, in something he can appreciate: a Yes t-shirt, leather jacket, and tight denim jeans. I will be civil and control my temper. I won’t assault him, or make him say the name of my mother and brother. Over and over. Until he apologises. Not just for what he’s done to me, but to the world. Apologise for his treatment of Christina Ricci, for murdering Roger Ebert with black magic, for the hubris of renaming himself after an individual who died for all our sins: even his own.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
The entry to the cinema is congested like a rock concert. The attendees are wearing leather jackets and wife-beaters, eagerly waiting to have their merch and skin signed by Dad. Some girls have dyed their hair and cropped it like Christina Ricci did in the film. I push through the crowd and ignore their insults, the hands that grab and attempt to pull me to the end of the line. Someone mutters ‘the kid is hot’ as I pass them by.
Inside, behind a white camping table, he sits. His hair is longer than I thought it’d be. So is his beard. He looks more like a thawed-out caveman than he does myself. And then he sees me. He sees me and his eyes widen. He stands up and opens his mouth. He points at me.
‘My boy!’ He cries out, a virgin tear rolling down his cheek. He wipes it away. ‘That’s my son!’
The crowd turns and faces me, looking me up and down, waiting for me to say something, to move, but I do neither.
Vincent Gallo rushes toward me. He slows down and takes me in.
‘You’re my boy,’ he says. The alcohol on his breath is fresh and old at the same time. He lifts his hands and puts them on my shoulders. ‘You’re my boy.’
Then he holds me, always pulling tighter, like no matter how much he strains I could never be as close to him as he wants me to be. And he caresses me. My back, my hair.
‘Dad…’ I say, but nothing follows. There’s nothing to say; just things to feel. So I hold him back, I pull him close, and together, in each other’s arms and hair and body and genes, we heal.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Ezra Christensen is an aspiring writer living on Gadigal country. He is currently studying Creative Writing and Social and Political Sciences at UTS. When he is not writing, Ezra enjoys cooking vegan food for his friends, injuring himself at hardcore shows, and wasting his money on alcohol and comics.
‘Do you also sell your cum online?’ she asked. I said only on my birthday, which was the following day, but she didn’t know that. Then she unmatched with me.
I look like Vincent Gallo. I look so much like Vincent Gallo that I was once asked to do a Q&A at some AFTRS postgrad North Shore mummy mansion’s screening of The Brown Bunny because they thought it’d be funny to have a Gallo impersonator defend the film from their academic tirades (‘The blowjob is a metaphor for my self-destructive tendencies being exhumed from my soul through an act of raw, metaphysical intimacy!’). They didn’t pay me, I just did it for kicks. I had a girlfriend once. She’d always interrogate me silently, waiting for me to berate her for having her elbows on the table, or for not cleaning my chef’s knife properly; tallying the days it’d take for us to enter the hypothetical ‘blue period’ of our ‘time spanning’ together, but it never came in the form of such banal disrespects. It simply came, and then she left.
‘You know, Ezra, you look a lot like Vincent Gallo,’ my English teacher told me when I was fifteen. It was the first time I’d heard of him. I imagined he was a celebrity chef on account of my newly formed obsession with MasterChef UK and the fact that Gallo sounds like ‘foie gras’ when you want it to.
‘Who’s that?’
‘He’s a filmmaker, and thank God you only look like him,’ she said.
I felt confused and hurt. As she began to teach, I took my phone out and perused photos of Vincent from over the years. Then I read about him: how he put a cancerous hex on Roger Ebert’s prostate, harangued a teenage Christina Ricci while making Buffalo ’66. And, of course, I read through his website, where he offers his sexual services to ‘naturally born’ women for $50,000, as well as his sperm for $1,000,000, though his racist nature does disqualify women of ‘extremely dark complexions’ from purchasing his disturbing merchandise (but if you’re Aryan, please enjoy $50,000 off of your next order).
Why did my English teacher, as would so many others in my future, see this man when she looked at me? This misogynistic, bizarre delinquent? Why?
Later that day, I locked myself in the bathroom and examined my face in the mirror for half an hour. My clogged pores, the small tufts of facial hair I had growing in irregular intervals, curling like sparse pubes on my face; my eyes, forever shadowed by my elongated browline and inability to stay asleep at night. I looked for a sign of him, something deeper than a boy becoming a man, than ethnic ambiguity, but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see him.
I’m twenty-two now and I get called Vincent Gallo as much as I do Ezra. It’s become more than a jab or a nickname to me, it is a name that I go by. At a crowded train station, a mother might call out to her son Vincent, and I’d be the one to turn my head first. When there’s a character in a film named Vincent, a tinge of euphoria irks the base of my spine as I feel I’m being represented, broadcasted to peoples’ collective consciousness through popular culture.
Vincent…
A close mate of mine had a party a few weeks ago. The theme was ‘Cancel and Scandal’; genius to some, frightening to others. People spent hours pondering which celebrity would be the Beast of the ball, whether it was even okay to spend not only time but money replicating the appearance of notorious sexual predators and war criminals. The need for such contemplations was never on my table, as, due to my predisposition, my controversial personage was chosen for me.
I entered the party alone and began my search for the host. Michael Jacksons and other disgraced musicians populated the room. There was even a George Pell, whom we all looked at and frowned upon but admired nonetheless. Out on the veranda, amongst a posse of Donald Trumps conversing in character, I found my friend Caligula, decorated lavishly in family heirlooms and second-hand silver. He handed me a goblet of red and told me that someone else had also come as Vincent Gallo. I choked on the wine and released a few crimson dribbles.
‘He looks a lot like you, actually,’ said Caligula, wiping the wine from my chin with a purple toga picta. ‘Fucking baby.’
‘Who is he?’
‘I don’t know, some friend of a friend. But it’s crazy…’
‘What is?’
‘Two Gallos at the same party is nuts… but it’s not just two Gallos, it’s two people who look like him.’
I ventured further into the backyard to find this poser. There were subsects of heinous lookalikes around me. It was like an odd (but not unpleasant) wet dream.
Marilyn Monroe and Logan Paul were making out against the back fence. A gust of wind made her skirt arc around her waist perfectly, like rolling clouds. I nearly cried. Then I saw him, that Gallo. He smiled as I approached.
‘Well, well, well. Heart cookie coming right up,’ the Gallo said, extending his hand to me. I took it in mine.
‘What?’
‘It’s a quote. You’re Gallo, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah. What’re the odds of this, right?’
‘I know. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who looks like me before.’
‘Neither. But do we look like each other, or do we both look like Vincent Gallo?’
‘Or Louis Garrel.’
‘You’ve gotten that, as well?’
‘Only once. And recently.’
I took a sip of my wine, let it age a minute in my mouth till it was the same temperature as my body. I swallowed. ‘Same.’
‘What’s your name, mate?’
‘Ezra. Ezra Christensen.’
Vincent Gallo gasped. ‘Are you serious?’ He began to blush.
‘Yes. Why, what’s the matter with that?’
‘My name is Edward Christensen.’
My mouth gaped, as if to receive something hard and average for $50,000 of my hard-earned; as if I were a merry little fish grabbing at flakes of fish food, telling myself that the Heavens is what feeds me, knowing deep down that the world cannot be that binary and predictable.
‘You’re fucking kidding.’
‘No,’ he said, hunched over and laughing, the dramatic fuck. ‘How fucking crazy is that?’
Marilyn had finished with Logan Paul and came to ask what was so funny. As Edward told her, the world began to slow. For a few moments, I was alienated from reality, and within that black, soundless space—caricatures laughing like ghouls around me—I began to run the numbers.
The Gallos, the Garrels, the lookalikes. Me, Edward… both Christensens. How is this real, my life? Is my curse deeper than appearances and Gallo-shaped phenotypes? Is it genetic? Has there been deceit in my family? One that could shatter its constitution? I’ve never looked like my father. That’s a fact. But my mother, dear, sweet, dainty mother—vegan because she could never hurt a fly—has she ever been in possession of $1,000,000? And, if so, why? Why would you do such a thing? How could you?
‘My son,’ I hear a voice say.
‘Who said that?’
‘Turn around and look at your pop.’
I spin and there he is. Wearing a skin-tight Yes tour shirt and purple underwear. Son of Vincenzo, my father, Mr. Vincent Gallo himself.
‘How you doin’, kid?’
‘This isn’t fucking real.’
‘Oh, come on. You’re not a dumb-dumb, are you? You’re not fucking stupid.’
‘You’re not my dad.’
‘Look, it’s not up to me what your mother decides to do with her money.’
‘Is this some kind of joke!’ I scream. Time returns to its natural speed. The partygoers can see me, and I them, once again.
‘Hey,’ Edward said, ‘relax, man.’
I grabbed him by his stupid leather jacket. He began to squirm.
‘Is this some fucking joke?’
‘Let go of me!’
I threw Edward to the ground and spat on him. I don’t know why I did that last part. Blame my father.
‘You’re no Christensen,’ I said. ‘You’re not even a fucking Gallo!’
Caligula tried to grab me as I left the party, but I knocked his hand to the side and exited as fast as I could, thinking how ironic it was that I’d made myself the most controversial individual at a party where someone was proud to have dressed as Jeffrey Epstein.
On the street outside, I immediately called my mum. No answer. I tried again. Straight to voicemail.
‘Fuck,’ I screamed, kicking over a recycling bin and then picking it up. I looked toward the sky. The clouds were thick and low. I lifted my fists toward them and screamed.
‘Who am I! Dear God, who am I!’
I fell to the ground, defeated. Then I took my phone out and went onto Vincent Gallo’s website. To the cum-selling page. There, at the very bottom, the bullet: ‘... the purchase of Mr. Gallo’s sperm does not include the use of the name Gallo. The purchaser must find another surname for the child.’ I gasped.
Mum texted me, ‘I’m at work, what’s the matter?’
‘Call me!!!’
‘Why??? Is everything okay???’
‘Nothing will ever be okay again unless u call me now.’
Her name appeared and I answered before my phone could sound or vibrate.
‘Where does our last name come from!’
‘What? It’s—’
‘Don’t bullshit me!’
‘I’m no—’
‘I know Dad isn’t my father!’
‘What’re y—’
‘Vincent Gallo is my father and you bought his sperm for a million dollars!’
‘Ezra!’
‘Tell me the truth!’
‘Okay! Okay.’
I waited for her to say something, anything, but she couldn’t through her tears. I hung up and went on Reddit. I was immediately overcome with the rawness of the internet, depraved and unfiltered. It defeats me. This place shouldn’t exist and no-one should be allowed here. That didn’t stop me from strolling through its grand isles, all the way to the subreddit on Vincent Gallo. How could I never have thought to come here? Don’t all roads lead to Reddit? To a page’s pinned comment?
‘GALLO’S REAL NAME: My dad was a bouncer at CBGB’s in the 70s and 80s. He always talked about the bands he got to meet—Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Cro-Mags—but the one that really blew him away was Gray. The manager told him to keep an eye out for any underage people trying to get in on account of Basquiat being a member, so he ID’d everyone that came by, no matter how old they looked. An hour before the band started, a scrawny kid came up to the door with his hands in his pockets, skipping the line and walking straight up to Dad. The kid said he was in the band. Dad read the names on the guestlist and asked to see his ID. The kid said his name was Vincent Gallo, but Dad insisted on seeing proof. He eventually handed Dad his ID but the name by his photo was not Vincent Gallo, it was Jesus Christ. Dad asked him if it was a joke but before he could respond, Michael Holman came and got him. After the show, Gallo split a cigarette with Dad. “So, why is your name Jesus Christ?” he asked. Gallo said it was for a performance art piece he had coming up. He was going to recreate Jesus’ crucifixion suspended by wires above Times Square. “It’s what people will remember me by,” he said, “if I’m even worth remembering.” But he never did it.’
‘What the fuck?’ I said, reading through it once, then twice, confused and scared and wondering how this could lead to not one, but two so-called ‘Sons of Christ’ meeting at a dress-up party.‘Oh fuck.’
He was left with the name of our savior. Gallo remained the persona, but I, and Edward, and many more (secret flocks of siblings in America, Germany, Nepal; waiting to be discovered) were the sons of not Gallo but Jesus Christ. Christ’s son.
Christensen.
That night I dreamt I was walking through an Eastern-European hamlet.
There are people dressed in medieval garb. Some have swords, others dirty clothes. Their faces are blank. Even the children can’t muster a smile or coo as they run by, chasing dogs and each other.
Then, my father approaches me: clad in a leather jacket, neck scarf, tight jeans.
‘You see, places like this, they never have Lan-choo tea. You can’t get it anywhere. You ask for it and no-one’s ever fucking heard of it, it’s like this place exists outside of everyone else’s collective reality. It’s like it’s not real.’
‘What about regular tea?’ I say.
‘Regular tea? What do you mean by regular tea? By whose definition are you basing your opinion off. Your own? Tea experts? Are you a tea expert, kid?’
‘No, but—’
‘That’s right: but. Who… who… I mean, what… what son of mine is so clueless? I mean, you really have to be… that comes from your mum, not me.’
He looked around, rubbed the back of his head with the hard part of his palm.
‘Do you know how many siblings I have?’
‘Shut the fuck up.’
And that was my dream.
It’s been a few weeks since I found out about my nature. I haven’t spoken to my mother, nor did I reach out to Edward, my darling brother, to talk to him, to know what his favourite movie is, if he doesn’t like the feeling of cotton on his back as well. If I can buy him a beer. I was wallowing with all this on a half-hour-turned-ten-minute break at work, tired enough to quit, when I got a text from Caligula. It was about a screening of Buffalo ’66 at the Hayden Orpheum in two nights. My father was doing a Q&A.
I booked a ticket immediately.
Tonight I will meet my father. I will dress nicely, in something he can appreciate: a Yes t-shirt, leather jacket, and tight denim jeans. I will be civil and control my temper. I won’t assault him, or make him say the name of my mother and brother. Over and over. Until he apologises. Not just for what he’s done to me, but to the world. Apologise for his treatment of Christina Ricci, for murdering Roger Ebert with black magic, for the hubris of renaming himself after an individual who died for all our sins: even his own.
The entry to the cinema is congested like a rock concert. The attendees are wearing leather jackets and wife-beaters, eagerly waiting to have their merch and skin signed by Dad. Some girls have dyed their hair and cropped it like Christina Ricci did in the film. I push through the crowd and ignore their insults, the hands that grab and attempt to pull me to the end of the line. Someone mutters ‘the kid is hot’ as I pass them by.
Inside, behind a white camping table, he sits. His hair is longer than I thought it’d be. So is his beard. He looks more like a thawed-out caveman than he does myself. And then he sees me. He sees me and his eyes widen. He stands up and opens his mouth. He points at me.
‘My boy!’ He cries out, a virgin tear rolling down his cheek. He wipes it away. ‘That’s my son!’
The crowd turns and faces me, looking me up and down, waiting for me to say something, to move, but I do neither.
Vincent Gallo rushes toward me. He slows down and takes me in.
‘You’re my boy,’ he says. The alcohol on his breath is fresh and old at the same time. He lifts his hands and puts them on my shoulders. ‘You’re my boy.’
Then he holds me, always pulling tighter, like no matter how much he strains I could never be as close to him as he wants me to be. And he caresses me. My back, my hair.
‘Dad…’ I say, but nothing follows. There’s nothing to say; just things to feel. So I hold him back, I pull him close, and together, in each other’s arms and hair and body and genes, we heal.
Ezra Christensen is an aspiring writer living on Gadigal country. He is currently studying Creative Writing and Social and Political Sciences at UTS. When he is not writing, Ezra enjoys cooking vegan food for his friends, injuring himself at hardcore shows, and wasting his money on alcohol and comics.