The Last Invisible Continent: Essays on Adoption and Identity

By Michael Allen Potter

These twelve essays span nearly twenty years of research and activism that chronicle one man's search for his family. Together, they explore the concept of personal identity from the perspective of someone who was erased completely by adoption in The State of New York.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Allen Potter
• Release date: Aug 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311746276

Michael Allen Potter

Playwright, poet, essayist, music fanatic, Ivy-League dropout, fake orphan, transit freak, popular loner, publisher, vegetarian, coffee addict, snow lover. Graduate of The Nonfiction Writing Program at The University of Iowa.

Book preview

The Last Invisible Continent:

Essays on Adoption and Identity

Copyright 2013 by Michael Allen Potter

v. 2.0

All Rights Reserved

Cover Image: Van Scheyndel, Gillis, d. ca. 1662

Renselaerswyck [sic] Map

58 x 179 cm.

New York State Library Call Number: (7474) [1631-1632]

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eISBN: 9781311746276

No part of this text may be reproduced without written permission of the author.

Acknowledgements

This collection of essays represents over twenty years of research, search, study, and activism and, for their support and expertise, I’d like to thank the editors of the following publications in which these essays first appeared, often in slightly different form:

Lifestyles of The Queer and Domestic in The Sentinel

"Le Roi Inconnu" in On the Page Magazine

G*d is Electric, Jesus Electrochemical in Believer, Beware (Beacon Press)

The Re-Education of Michael Allen Potter in The Concordiensis

Checking The Bastard Box, in Adoptionland: From Orphans to Activists (Against Child Trafficking USA)

"In Propria Persona" in Metroland Magazine

Ten Years After, forthcoming in Snapshots of Reunion (EMK Press)

I owe quite a few people quite a lot for all of their continued support, including (but, by no means, limited to): Pete, JoAnn, Squishy, Shoe + J, Curtis Nedoba, Dr. Clancy, Jordan Smith, Patricia Foster, James McKean, Robin Hemley, Ori, Jeff Sharlet, Peter Manseau, and David Miller (who currently hosts Think Out Loud on Oregon Public Broadcasting and has never, to my knowledge, served a single term as mayor of Toronto).

Contents

Copyright Page

Acknowledgements

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

1: Lifestyles of The Queer and Domestic

2: Notre Dame de la Ville Eléctrique

3: Le Roi Inconnu

4: G*d is Electric, Jesus Electrochemical

5: Norway Day, 2001

6: The Re-Education of Michael Allen Potter

7: Foreign Arrivals

8: Checking The Bastard Box

9: In Propria Persona

10: Flesh and Blood

11: Ithaka, 1989

12: Ten Years After

About the Author

The Last Invisible Continent

Kartografisk Utgaver

– New York –

for Kirk

1

Lifestyles of The Queer and Domestic

I have a problem with the media’s depiction, and the public’s perception, of the gay lifestyle. As a gay male twentysomething, I am constantly looking for positive role models in American culture – A gay De Niro, an openly-queer Garth Brooks, or a lesbian President whose First Lady gets misty-eyed at the inauguration.

Unfortunately, most photojournalists and television crews take it upon themselves to represent homosexuals, and our lifestyle (singular), with images of drag queens and bikers who all live at the YMCA. In order to break down some of these stereotypes, I would like to relate to the Union College community a rare glimpse into the lifestyle of a gay graduating senior.

On a typical day I wake up sometime after noon with my partner, and we roll the strange man (that one of us has picked up the night before) down the front stairs and onto the pavement. After a night of unprotected sex and I.V. drug use with dirty needles, we usually fight over things like mouthwash (as Simple Chronic Halitosis is bad for any relationship, gay or straight). Morning breath overcome, we kiss passionately and shower for hours.

Because we’re both dealers and don’t have set schedules, planning the day’s activities, and coordinating our outfits, can be a bitch sometimes. If it’s warm, one of our favorite things to do is retire to our second-floor balcony on University Place and couch fish the day away (yes, we even watch Beavis and Butthead). Armed with our RonCo Pocket Fishermen, we try to lure attractive males into our apartment for nonconsensual, deviant sexual activity. The Boyfriend usually hooks a box of grape-and-strawberry Nerds and casts it to the street below because he’s a pedophile and WE DO RECRUIT. I usually hook a can of Busch Light by the tab because I’m into jocks with Party Naked attitudes.

If it’s cold or raining, we like to grab a roll of quarters and head to Rotterdam Square Mall and hang around the arcade. We divide the money and entice wayward teenage boys into the bathroom where we get them stoned and strip them naked in the handicapped stall. We compare notes and hickies in the car on the way home after the Rent-A-Cops make us leave at the end of the night. If we’re in particularly good spirits, we stop the car outside of Kelly’s Pub or the Union Inn, get baseball bats out of the trunk, and straight bash until the real cops show up.

***

Any similarity between persons mentioned in the preceding paragraphs and actual persons, living or dead, is strictly coincidental. Names and places have not been changed to protect the innocent [at the time of publication], but the scenarios are as far from reality as they could possibly get.

The Boyfriend and I have been together for a year and-a-half, and have lived together with straight Union students for well over a year. We both have full-time jobs (The Boyfriend has two) and I was in school part-time until the end of last term, which is good for us because the stress of my thesis had us headed for divorce. We shop together at The Price Chopper, pay bills, get sloppy drunk, make dinner, pay rent, make love, pay tuition, fight, and occasionally find the time to enjoy a quiet Friday night at home with a bottle of wine and a cheesy movie from Blockbuster. We basically do normal couple things, but unlike our straight counterparts, we will one day have to deal with the fiery pits of hell because we’re gay.

In all seriousness, I do have a problem with some people’s perceptions of gay people, which is (in part) why I have chosen to write this article. I have tried in other ways to change certain attitudes about homosexuality on campus. The Boyfriend and I got decked out in jackets and ties for the Winter Formal at the Ramada this past February because I felt that it was wrong for me to feel intimidated about attending an all-school social event as an openly-gay student.

Anger at societal conventions was my primary motivation for buying the tickets that day in the College Center. The Boyfriend was absolutely thrilled after I asked him to go with me. He could hardly contain his excitement, assuring me through clenched teeth that it would be fun. What began as a political statement, however, turned into a damn good time.

Several beers into the night, still painfully aware of the conservatism that pervades Union College, we hit the dance floor and surprisingly didn’t get hit by anyone else. I don’t think people took us seriously until we started kissing – not in a friendly/platonic quick-peck-on-the-cheek fashion, but full-on making out. Some people stopped dancing to stare, but others were polite and kept dancing while they stared. The Boyfriend and I, however, never felt the need to stare at other couples mid-P.D.A.

We both look too normal to be gay. We hear that all the time from unsuspecting acquaintances who are caught off guard by a parting kiss or an I love you. I guess if their only frame of reference is images of men in heels or leather thongs on T.V., then I can’t take offense at this statement or assume that they’re complete morons. For individuals to assume that there is a single homosexual lifestyle is just as ridiculous as asserting that there is a single heterosexual lifestyle based solely on the behavior of male transvestites, who are predominantly straight and/or married men.

I went to military school, was an officer my senior year of high school, and haven’t lost the brush cut. The Boyfriend was in a fraternity, was Interfraternity Council President for a while at his college, and hasn’t lost the brush cut, either. Often when I meet new people at Union they ask me what house I’m in. More often than not, before I can tell them that I am adamantly independent and have painted The Idol black for Gamma Delta Iota ("G*d Damn Independents), they answer their own question. Chi Psi they usually say triumphantly, pleased with their ability to stereotype so quickly. I tend to smile and light a cigarette in these situations, thinking of the heated discussions" that I’ve had with The Boyfriend in the past about the pros and cons of Greek life.

I was very impressed with the recent appearance of Rod and Bob Jackson-Paris [in May of 1994] in Memorial Chapel and commend the Peer Facilitators for bringing such aesthetically-pleasing social activists to campus. I was initially thrilled by the number of students who pre-empted The Simpsons for the lecture, but became slightly discouraged by the freak show atmosphere that developed in the mad rush between the College Center and the Chapel. The Jackson-Paris’s are more than prefab, anatomically-correct Ken and Ken dolls to most of us in the gay community. They represent hope for societal tolerance of same-sex couples in the future, the hope that we will soon be able to walk hand-in-hand through the world as lovers without having to constantly watch our backs. Their stories about feeling different as children and adolescents are also reassuring because they are common, even unifying,