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.
Charlie is sitting on the sofa and looks restless. He drinks a glass of red wine. Mouthful after mouthful. This means that he wants something, or there will be an awkward question.
I slump in the chair opposite. He picks up an old magazine and flicks through it, all the time watching me. A photograph falls out and lands on the cushion. Charlie picks it up and looks at it with a look of surprise. What is this photograph? He is a poor actor, and this routine has obviously been rehearsed. He holds it up for me to see. It is a black and white image of a pair of feet and the words, ‘My feet, Andrey.’
“Whose feet are these?” he asks. “
“Are you jealous of a pair of feet?”
“Why should I be jealous of feet? I’m merely interested as to who this Andrey is, the one who also signs it with a kiss.”
Charlie is staying here and has given no indication that he’ll be leaving anytime soon. He feels threatened. “Where is this Andrey?”
That is a good question. What happened to Andrey? I have no idea.
Andrey was from Krakow and was here because somebody recognised his potential as a model. He stayed in the apartment for a few weeks and did a photoshoot for an arty magazine for which the photographer placed snails on his face. Like many Polish boys, he was blessed with the look of an angel, but the harshness of the language sometimes made him sound abrasive.
The thing about Andrey was that he cared little about good looks but was obsessed with his feet. Big bony feet: his shoes were size twelve. We were never lovers; he was far too good looking for me to consider it. But he used to lay on the sofa, the one where Charlie sits now, and liked me to massage those exquisite feet.
Andrey wanted me to rub and tickle them and he’d squirm with pleasure until he nearly had an orgasm. (I once knew somebody that reacted the same way when I rubbed his nipples). He told me that the part of the brain that processes the sensation people get from feet was next to the area that perceives genital stimulation. It seems bizarre now but appeared perfectly normal then.
One day, Andrey had gone. I never knew where. But a few months later I received the photograph by post. The one being waved accusingly at me now. I once looked up Andrey online and it appeared that his modelling career hadn’t taken off. There was nothing. Not even a hint on social media.
I tell Charlie. “The photo must have come with the magazine.”
There is an old woman who lives across the street. She says she is 95 but seems to have been telling me that for the past ten years. She never sleeps because she seems to watch TV 24/7. She rarely goes out, which is quite understandable for someone who might be 105.
But once a week she gets a bus into town. It stops outside her apartment building and when she returns it waits ten minutes for her creaky bones get off. She pulls a red shopping trolley with big white spots and walks slowly along the pavement.
When she gets to her door, she rests on her walking stick and stares into a large plant pot that contains a palm tree. She does this for five minutes as though looking for somebody.
She rarely speaks, but this morning, as she followed the same ritual of plant pot gazing, she caught me leaving our apartment and summoned me with her walking stick.
“How are you, Mrs Hayward? How are you finding the secret of eternal life?”
She frowned. “That boy,” she said. “The latest. The one with the old car. He walks around without any clothes on… and with the lights on.”
“I’m sure he isn’t, Mrs Hayward.”
“Oh yes. I’ve noticed this is what foreigners do. Please tell him to put clothes on.”
I keep telling Charlie that when he struts around the apartment in his underwear then people will see him. He will tut. “Who wants to see inside?”
“It is because he is an artist,” I tell Mrs Hayward, “And when he paints, he likes to paint in his underwear.” This is true. “But I shall tell him that you like looking at him.”
I’ve been going out on Sunday nights for longer than I care to remember. There used to be ten of us, but girlfriends, boyfriends, marriage, kids, and growing up, gradually cut us down to two. Now it’s just Ants and me.
We chat about our week, share our secrets, and drink too much. I never appreciated that Ants would become my best mate. He’s seen me through some serious shit and my feral past amuses him. I’ve got older now.
When weekends became part of my working week, after I crossed that divide between host and customer, Sunday night became the start of my weekend.
We drink until midnight, much later than we used to. And when we say goodnight and Ants heads home, he contemplates what I will get up to.
I shall let you into a secret.
I am a night walker. I wander the murky streets of the city, ones that are empty of people, and where life seems only to exist behind the lights of high rise apartments. Once, I wanted to be the centre of attention, now I find that I like my own company instead.
I’ll wander the streets for a couple of hours, anywhere I choose to go, a new route every week. This dark and lonely world is one where you see things differently.
If you look closely, the city never really sleeps.
Lurking in the shadows are the homeless and the street drinkers. There are the screams of students who couldn’t give a shit that people are asleep. Sometimes you might see a copper in a car but it’s in their best interest to ignore you. There are the fire engines that wail into the night, silent ambulances that light everything shocking blue, and Ubers that dash from one job to another. But you can also hear the chimes of church bells that strike on the hour. For the most part, the city is still. If it rains, all the better, the dirty streets get wetter, cleaner, and the air is fresher. Nighttime is when the city is at its calmest.
At times like this I am inspired. I can think clearly, choose subject matter to write about, and the foundations of the next story appear to come from nowhere.
There is a downside.
We forget that alcohol makes you brave, and it takes you up dark alleys that people won’t dare enter even by day. If I do meet someone, we’ll eye each other with suspicion because these can be perilous streets too. I’ve had a few fights and years of brawling in bars and clubs prove convenient. I fight dirty. And the human body wants to get rid of the drink, more and more frequently, and I’ve pissed in more shadowy corners than I’d like to admit.
But I’m usually on my own, a lone wanderer, innocent and inquisitive, taking photos on my phone because nobody else wants to.
The night never ends here, because afterwards there are the bars that open obscene hours, ones that close when the sun comes up, but this is always another story, one that I shall tell Ants about next Sunday.
I want to take a photograph of you. On my phone that is. No, I don’t know you. We are total strangers. We almost walked past each other but something made me stop and turn around and shout after you. I want to take your photo.
I know that you think I’m strange, but it’s what I like to do. I take photographs of things and put them on Instagram and if I’m lucky about three people will like them. It’s a record of my life, the things I’ve seen and done, things I like. It’s a bit like keeping a diary.
Why do I want to take your photograph? Because I saw you in the street and thought you looked interesting. In plain terms, I liked the look of you. If I don’t take your photo, I’ll never see you again and will forget all about you. I’ve learned that the best photo opportunity is the one that presents itself, that moment, and if I hesitate it is lost.
I’ll show you my Insta page to prove I’m not unhinged. You are kind enough to say that you like my images. No other person does, and I thank you. But I’m glad you agreed to let me take your photo.
And you stand by parked cars in the pouring rain with your arms outstretched and raise your chin so that raindrops splatter your face. You think it looks good. I don’t disagree. You stand shivering, with short wet hair, boyish smirk, and a soaking wet white tee shirt that shows your nipples.
I thought about the actor Kevin Spacey, a man who has been cleared of sexually assaulting four men. A jury found him not guilty of nine sexual offences against four men in their 20s and 30s, between 2004 and 2013. He is a relieved man because had he been found guilty; he would have probably faced a prison sentence. All good then. Not quite. Because mud sticks. His reputation is in tatters, and it will still take a brave studio to cast the actor in future productions.
I also got to thinking about the society we live in. One that allows people to go running to the authorities when it suits them. I won’t decry the Me Too movement because what it stands for is correct, people who do wrong must be punished. But each good cause presents its own problems.
For every legitimate claim there are those that will exploit those good intentions and seek an opportunity to make a fast buck. And the authorities are obliged to take everything seriously because they will be scrutinised and subject to intense criticism by the media. Alas, our society now presumes everybody is guilty unless proven innocent.
I do blame the media, the one that I have an interest in, because we’re in the business of clickbait. And people believe everything they read.
I got to thinking about myself. Yes, about me, the law-abiding citizen who does no wrong and treats everybody with respect and dignity. I also think about you, the person who probably holds the same principles that I do.
Let me present a scenario. One that happened only a few nights ago.
I was drinking in a bar and quite fancied the guy next to me. I knew that he fancied me too. This guy has been mentioned here many times before because I refer to him as Bad Boy Jamie. I like my bad boys.
I went to the toilet to relieve myself and was aware that somebody had walked in behind me. I pissed down my leg, fastened myself up, turned around, and there he was. The one person that I had hoped to find myself alone with. Reader, he pounced upon me, and we kissed, and it was fantastic. But it was brief because somebody selfishly chose that moment to walk in. We shot outside the toilet like rats scurrying from a one-star takeaway. It wouldn’t have been a good outcome had we been caught. Boyfriends can be vicious and vindictive.
Bad Boy Jamie was pissed-off and this is when he can do unpredictable things. More importantly, he was pissed-off with me because afterwards I put up a steel barrier between us. He wanted revenge, and truth be known, he’d be more likely to stick a knife in me. But I considered what might happen if he went to the police and said I’d sexually assaulted him in the male toilet. Guilty until proven innocent.
And then a guy I’ve never met might claim that I had sex with him in 2003 and twenty years later he’d decided that he didn’t like it after all. A spurned lover might say that I repeatedly abused him during our seven year relationship. (He’s still bitter enough to claim that happened). And that guy who worked for us ten years back might say that I once used inappropriate language and that it’s been on his mind ever since. Guilty until proven innocent.
Get the gist?
I come from another time when being sexually promiscuous meant something exciting. You might disagree, but there it was.
I’ve never sexually abused anybody and everything I did was consensual. From teenager to man, if I got a knockback, mercifully few, I’d be embarrassed enough to go and hide in a dark corner.
Imagine a police officer knocking on your door and arresting you for your innocent past. It will happen to somebody, you, or me, and it seems that we must live the rest of our lives looking over our bruised shoulders.
I quote my twenty-something friend, Alexander, who recently told me that he’d never have a relationship with someone his own age. Why Not? “Because they all come with baggage,” he said.
That is the crux of the problem. Today’s youth are afraid to explore one another. They’re afraid that physical contact might come back to haunt them. They’re afraid that anything they say might offend somebody’s moralistic inclinations. And they must be careful what they write in a phone message in case it is screenshot and used in evidence. How very sad and boring.
But I fear most for the future. When today’s kids, the ones who know nothing different, grow up to become teenagers, they’ll stick with the disinfected moralism inflicted upon them by this present day melodramatic society. When that day comes, love between two people is in trouble.
Charlie arrived out of nowhere. He says he is from Paris and that’s why he pronounces his name Shar-lee. Charlie also drives an old car, a 1960 Austin A35, which isn’t what I expect a 25-year-old French boy to own. He claims it was a gift from an elderly gentleman, and I presume it was given after Charlie had agreed to sleep with him. A last throw of the dice for an old queen. That was another time and place. But Charlie adores this car, and he has nicknamed it Garçon. ‘Boy’. He is an artist and he gave me a painting of Garçon in exchange for letting him sleep one night in a spare room. I have put it in the hallway and look at it everyday. I can’t help looking at Charlie either because that one night has turned into weeks. I once broached the question of how long he might be staying, and he disappeared into his room only to appear thirty minutes later with a poem he had written. Yes, Charlie writes poetry too. It was in French and I couldn’t translate it, but he said it was in appreciation of my kindness.
Those legs. Smooth tanned legs. I thank the hot weather with its sticky heat for making you wear shorts. You wink at me, and that might have been enough. But I can’t stop staring at those legs and you know that I’m looking at them.
I sit on the steps, and you stand right in front of me so that they are inches from my face. Then you hook your thumb under the edge of your shorts and rub the top of your right leg because it itches. The harder and faster you rub, I see tantalising glimpses of black Calvin Kleins, except I know that these will be cheap knockoffs.
I light a cigarette and blow smoke towards them. It swirls around and disappears up your shorts.
I want to lick these legs, enjoy the salty taste, and bite them like someone who is unhinged. I don’t know what else to do.
You say something like “Do you like my legs? Why don’t you lick them and bite them?” Except you don’t say that at all. Instead, you say, “My girlfriend is waiting outside.”
I can’t say that I like you. Not that I don’t like you. It’s just that I’m not allowed to say so, and the moment I say it, I’m in serious trouble.
If you think about it, I dropped a hint. You didn’t realise that I’d blocked everyone because I needed to be in control again. I unblocked you, only you, and sent a friend request because I needed to. I watched and you accepted my request within seconds. You looked surprised because you thought we were already friends.
You searched the room and found me. That brief glance that made me realise I’d guessed correctly. That moment that seemed to last forever.
“Hey,” you messaged.
“Hey back,” I replied.
“What are you up to?”
If I’d been sober, I might have said, “Navy boy. You are funny looking. You are skinny. Worse than that, you have a girlfriend.”
But I wasn’t sober and typed out my response.
“I like Navy boys. I like that you are called Bailey. I like that you are slim. I like your smooth olive skin. I like those dreamy eyes that give you away. I like that you have a girlfriend but flirt with me. Above all else, I like that cheekiness.”
My finger hesitated, and I didn’t send it.
Instead, I wrote, “Love your cheek. Never lose it. Stay gold.” I added that last bit because it was a line from my favourite movie.
“Eh?” you asked.
“Just continue to be yourself.”
“Thank you,” came your reply.
That was how we left it, and I woke up the next day relieved that I hadn’t given myself away.
But there was a time last night when I had my back turned and someone squeezed my arse. I swung round and it was you. I would have begged you to do it again, but olive turned to crimson, and you quickly walked away.
And so, this miserable orgasm of life meanders blindly on. You won’t message me because I scare you, and I can’t message you because I am equally scared of the consequences.
I asked you to take off your beanie. What made me say that? I needed to see your hair. Take off your hat, I repeated. And you did. Just for me. I hoped that you didn’t have long hair, curly hair, or greasy hair, because I would have been disappointed. But you took your beanie off and it was short black hair. I liked your haircut because it complimented the face that I’d already fallen in love with. You enquired why I had asked you to do so? Because I needed to know everything about you. Are you happy now? I said I was incredibly happy.
Perfectly Hard and Glamorous 