A Review of Tricks and Treats: Twenty Tales of Gay Terror and Romance

Tricks and Treats Twenty: Tales of Gay Terror and Romance by Michael G. Cornelius

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Yes, as Michael Cornelius reminds us in the introduction to this collection, we have all been afraid, and "we are going to be afraid again, at some point in our lives." For some of us, those fears will be "scary shadows, stormy nights, the creaking of a rusty iron gate. Loud voices. Sirens . . . Fear is perhaps the great universal experience" (1). As for romance in a crazy world--is he right, there are "few things scarier than falling in love" (3)? Think of how it felt to fall in love for the first time--and think of all the insane, crazy, things you did--and that you "happily [did] them--and would do them again . . . Love is, after all, greedy and beautiful and needy and all-encompassing. It makes us better than who we are, which for most humans, is truly a terrifying thing" (4).

And, when one adds in the complications of being gay in a society that taught so many of us for so long that we were other than human, and not worthy of love or loving, and that homophobia and bigotry are valid responses, well, that just ratchets up the terror, doesn't it? Yes, falling in love, loving, can be truly terrifying and this terror and this love is what Cornelius is exploring in these twenty well-written tales.

In "Clay," Cornelius explores these themes of terror and romance through the reimagining of the myth of the golem, this time told in a small Southern town that has no special festivals and apparently, no excitement--except Bulk Trash Pick-Up Day. Yes, that bad, and don't look for this date on your calendar. As Billy explains it, this is "just the day when folks in [his] town take all their big, hulking, useless pieces of kay-rap that they have been hanging on to for the past year or so--some cases, for decades ..." (20), and put them out on the curb. Billy is one of the town outcasts: abandoned by his dad, a drunk mother, and a screw-up. After "borrowing the principal's car and "bumping" into one of the town's only school buses, he was given the choice of juvie or the military. He chose the military--only to be caught there having sex with another soldier.

Now Billy is the "town faggot," and in the junk business, and to avoid competition, he picks up trash from the local synagogue--trash left out a day later than the Christians. This gets really interesting one year, when in the synagogue trash, Billy finds a "statue of a man, bigger than life-sized and an impressive sight to behold [and] brown the color of old clay and solidly built" (25). The golem. Things change for Billy after that. He has strange dreams, dreams of wild sex with his golem, and once he figures out the magic that animates this clay man, the dreams become real. Clay, aptly named, becomes Billy's lover, and his defender. The gay bashers who hurt Billy get bashed and the redneck bar gets trashed. Revenge is sweet. And Billy, he lives happily ever after, with his golem.

"Apocalypse. Now?" is both a dark and dangerous tale, and funny as well--and that Cornelius can combine these seemingly disparate elements in one story so successfully is an amazing gift. Jorge has been trapped in Bandleburg, Kentucky since he was twenty-seven. He is the town sissy. "Safe in the confines of the town's only beauty salon, Jorge was a dishy, swishy, sissy who could charm the old ladies" (43) and by being a predictable stereotype he could survive in a town where they liked the obvious and predictable. Jorge has humored the old ladies and survived, but he is lonely: he wants to find love. But now the zombies are out there and they know that live, edible people are inside the salon and they want in to feed.

Then, Evan, the UPS man shows up, "Manly, strong, handsome Evan, gentle Evan, who with his cocoa-colored skin was as much of an outcast as Jorge" (48). He had escaped the zombies but came back--for Jorge. Now he can confess his true love. And now Jorge has something to fight for.

Love is the theme of the collection's concluding tale (and one of my personal favorites), "Faeries in the Wood," a sweet coming out tale of college love, and faeries--a counterpoint to the darkness that is a continual thread in this collection. Four college boys are on a road trip, a quest as it were, to do field research for a folklore assignment exploring faerie legends in New England. For Ben, this is a dream come true: to be one of the guys, hanging out, doing guy things. He has always been the outsider: the skinny Chinese kid, "string bean, weirdo," or worse, "chink, gook." He is desperate to belong and when Scotty and Clark and Wally take him into their group, he is both dumbfounded and overjoyed, especially since Scotty is one of the campus golden boys. Ben doesn't quite believe that Scotty wants to be friends with him, hang out with him. Ben has "always wondered if it was all some colossal practical joke, and if someday soon, he'd just be the geeky gook stuffed back into yet another smelly, cramped locker" (324).

Now Ben is on a road trip, a quest, to find evidence of faeries. Faeries, it turns out, "are forever observers of human kind . . . They hate humans who act irresponsibly, or irreverently to them." Humans who have offended them will be "[bedeviled] . . . [with] loud knocks and noises, [stolen] possessions . . . spiders in their beds . . . Fairies also dislike humans . . . any human who is not true to himself" (324, 325). Ben is tested on this trip, especially when the boys pitch their tents out in the woods. Things happen. Loud knocks, noises, nettles, and spiders, which absolutely terrify Ben. "[H]is dream come true"--camping out with friends, hanging out, is a disaster . . . "everything sucked. Everything kept going wrong" (337). And he is also haunted by a constant mental refrain, even as he finds himself more and more drawn to Scotty: you don't fit in with them. You don't belong with them. When he finds out Wally and Clark are longtime lovers and that golden Scotty is gay as well, the refrain gets louder. Clearly the faeries were on his case. That golden Scotty is gay is unbelievable. All of which brings Ben to finally face his own truth: he's gay and he is in love with Scotty. This story has a happy ending. Ben achieves his quest: the grail of being true to his self, and the hand of the prince.

Not all of seventeen other tales in this collection do end with happily ever after, but then love, straight or gay, doesn't always work out or win. Sometimes the good guys lose. There are monsters out there, including giant flying squids and creatures that look like humans but aren't and eat bone marrow as a steady diet. Zombies, lots of zombies. Some of us want to be monsters; some of us are. We don't always get what we want; sometimes we do.

In this collection of gay tales of terror and romance, Cornelius explores the mysteries of the human heart in tales that are light and dark, tales of monsters and the all-too-human. You won't be disappointed.

Recommended.



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