Enthusiastic boys, unaware that they are being watched from a distance.
Energetic boys who don’t appreciate the luck they are blessed with.
Passionate boys who are not like the persona they project.
Naughty boys who talk like gangstas but are deep-down sensitive.
Fashionable boys with silver threads around their necks, who dress like they think they should, and not how they they would like to. Moschino, Hoodrich, North face, Stone Island.
Boys who stuff their hands down their underwear because they think it makes them hard. Boys who pretend their sweet smelling piss and cum fingers are guns.
Handsome boys who don’t understand that they are ancestral sons of Adonis who grew up on our council estates.
Boys who like boys, but must like girls, who are always fat girls.
We are envious, and we weep at the unfairness of it all.
How can someone who says he is Polish be called Levi? What’s more you have more of a Yorkshire accent than I do. Yet you tell everyone that you are from Poland. The fact that you say it all the time suggests that you are probably lying, or at least living in some fantasyland.
When I first met you, you bounced. It was like you jumped from a distant place and landed right into my path. That boundless energy makes you bounce. Never standing still, jumping from one person to the next, and you tell each one that you’re Polish when you’re clearly not.
Last night I came across a chubby guy, early twenties, who had a broken arm. He stepped out from a dark doorway and caught me by surprise and I nearly punched him. He looked me up and down and I knew that somewhere about his person would be a knife.
It was a quiet backstreet, nobody around, but you bounced from nowhere. I was preparing to fight, and then you presented yourself as if it was the most natural thing to be there.
“You’re a fat pussy,” you told the lad.
“Shut the fuck up, Levi.”
“How did you break your arm, Szymon?”
“I broke it arm wrestling.”
“Leave my friend alone, Szymon.”
I looked at you. “Where did you come from?
“I followed you.”
The lad called Szymon looked uneasy. Two against one, and he had a broken arm.
“Why do you do this to me, Levi? I have never disrespected you. Why do I not disrespect you? Because you’ve never disrespected me before.”
“That’s not true Szymon. I’ve never liked you because you are a Polish cunt.”
“You disrespect a fellow countryman?”
“I disrespect those that threaten my friends.”
Szymon looked at me. “Spierdalaj! I will let you off this time.”
Szymon slipped back into the shadows and I was left looking at you with your cheeky grin and slightly protruding ears.
“Why did you follow me?” I asked.
“Walk with me,” you said. “There is something I want to ask you.”
“The weather’s pretty shitty in the Isle of Man. It’s a fact,” said the young lad. “It always rains and is colder than the mainland.” He blames the Irish Sea. He’s having a good time away from home but finds the busy bars here claustrophobic. There is more room to breathe when you live on an island. When I ask why he’s here, he says he came to see Jeremy Corbyn at The Leadmill. I think, why the hell would you travel all this way to see Jeremy Corbyn? Is Corbyn a bloody singer now? Is that why he’s at The Leadmill? Get a life. The lad starts talking about politics which is unusual for someone so young. My eyes glaze over and my replies to his questions are predictable and uninteresting. I’m bored, and I wish he’d tell me how fantastic I am instead.
‘I’m Coming Out’. I think that the crashing drum beats at the beginning are bloody marvellous. I think that Nile Rodgers was pissed off that they remixed his song and that Diana Ross was a difficult bitch to work with. She didn’t realise that ‘I’m Coming Out’ was a gay thing. I think that it should have been sung by a man. Johnny Mathis? But he made an album with Chic in 1981 and it didn’t get released until 2017, so Nile Rodgers might have been pissed off with him too. He probably thought, fuck these big stars next time.
Last night, Jeff Buckley visited while I slept and he climbed into bed beside me. I told him that he was dead, and he whispered gently into my ear. “That’s for the best. If I was alive I’d be 57-years-old and you might not like me anymore.”
I walk through the railway station and see that there are lots of policemen standing about. They are bored and seem to be talking mindless shit to each other. They make me feel guilty for something I might not have done.
But I am guilty of thinking that the railway station might be a good place to pick somebody up.
There is a good-looking student guy who walks in the opposite direction eating a banana, a fresh banana, firm and yellow. At this moment, I wish I had a banana just like it.
He disappears and I see a young guy who could be a model. He is dressed in a zebra-patterned jumpsuit and fashion boots that would look ridiculous on anybody else, but he carries it off. He is incredibly handsome, with a tanned face and wavy black hair that is tinted with blonde and has long dangly earrings.
The guy is holding a small suitcase, and I speculate that he might be going on holiday somewhere warm. He is waiting for someone and scans the station looking for that person. I guess that he’s looking for his boyfriend.
Once or twice, he catches my eye and holds his gaze for a second and it makes me excited. Then I realise I’m standing gawping and he probably thinks I‘m a bit freakish.
A girl comes up behind him, kisses him on the cheek and they both walk towards a platform. I contemplate pushing the girl under an incoming train but remember there are policemen nearby.
Then the guy with the banana reappears, and I think that ten minutes is an awful long time to be eating the same banana. He walks past and casts a sneaky glance in my direction.
It is after midnight, and I want to sit outside on the balcony. I want to read The Sick Bag Song by Nick Cave.
It is starting to rain, like it has done all summer.
I look at the folded umbrella at the table with the two chairs propped against it. There is an ash tray, that is really a pudding basin, overflowing with cigarette butts. There is also a thin paint brush, an empty can of Diet Coke, and a piece of white Lego.
They say that The Sick Bag Song began its life scribbled on airline sick bags. I don’t scribble.
I tap notes into my iPhone, and people think I’m on Grindr all the time.
I open the sliding door and listen to the raindrops. I hear a girl shouting in the street below.
“Wait Laura, I can’t keep up in these shoes. You’re a fucking slag!”
My phone pings. It is a group chat.
“Hey Anthony, will you take a photo of the full moon?”
I can’t see the moon because of the rain clouds.
I go to the bathroom and run a bath.
I go back to the window and think that I’m probably in a bad mood.
I’m in a bad mood because there are many things I want.
There are lots of books I want to read. There are movies I want to watch. I want to write a novel like The Catcher in the Rye I want to be a recluse like J.D. Salinger. I want to be a photographer. I want to make the balcony into a lush garden. I want to redecorate this crumbling apartment. I want to be able to eat chocolate like I used to. I want to do a lot of things.
I think about all these.
I go to take the hot bath and realise that I’ve added Oral-B 3D White Mouthwash to the water instead of bath creme.
I empty the bathwater.
I go back to the window.
Thunder rumbles. I want to go outside and put the umbrella up. I want to sit underneath it and read The Sick Bag Song and listen to the rain.
I tap all these notes into my iPhone. One day these notes will make a story.
Perfectly Hard and Glamorous 