“ I heard Earth, Wind and Fire singing ‘Ba-dee-ya’ on the radio, and I thought, oh no, this is another step towards autumn.” – a woman on the bus referring to the song September.
“There in the shade, like a cool drink waiting, he sat with slow fire in his eyes, just waiting.” – Johnny Hartman singing A Slow Hot Wind.
“He comes from an old Dorset family that made grandfather clocks and had a swan’s head as their emblem.” – a posh woman boasting about the man who her daughter is marrying.
“Hey, is there anywhere to play pickleball around here?” – a student in Starbucks.
“I can hear monks chanting.” – Charlie laid in bed in the middle of the night.
“The drawback is that you always get corn dust up your bum.” – a farmer on the radio.
“Come and look at this rock, it’s shaped like your willy!” – a young girl shouting to her older brother.
He sits like a ghost of last night, knees raw, boots scuffed, a slouch that says he’s seen too much for someone too young to carry it. The alley’s a graveyard of pallets and metal, the air thick with the stale breath of kegs that haven’t been touched since the last fight or fuck. The wall at his back don’t care who he is, and neither does the city — just another boy in borrowed clothes, dragging the hem of his story through concrete and piss. His eyes don’t beg. They dare. As if to say: I’m not lost — I’m choosing to stay gone. Everything here’s worn out —the barrels, the bricks, the boy. But there’s poetry in the ruin, and he knows it. He’s not posing. He’s waiting. For the light to change, for someone to look twice, or maybe just for the silence to settle in enough to sleep.
I saw you several times and you ignored me. Why do I remember that? It was because I thought you were handsome. But ignorance turned into friendship, and I hadn’t realised how generous you were. And that generosity came from Robin Hood. Steal from the wealthy, and give it to others. I met you tonight, fresh faced and smart, a tap on the shoulder, a cheeky wink, and you gave me a bottle of beer. I doubted that you had ever ignored me.
I woke up in the middle of the night and the light boy was dancing around my bed. He comes often. No name. No face. A swirl of sparkly lights that moves from one side to the other. The electric boy blue who wants to be loved.
I have reached the end of André Aciman’s Homo Irrealis Essays, and it has been a long journey. I finished it, and realised that for the most part, I have no idea what Aciman is writing about. As I’ve mentioned before, this is perhaps because I am not as clever as he is.
But I have persevered, and he talks about irrealis moods and uses examples from his interesting life, in books he has read, and in the movies he has watched. I have even taken the trouble of researching ‘irrealis moods’ but became more confused.
I have tried to explain it to my partner and got it hopelessly wrong.
“Something that happened, but might not have happened, but we expected it to happen, therefore it might have happened, but we did not realise that it had happened, and might not have even happened yet, but might still happen.”
I can take satisfaction that I have at least written like Aciman, even if it is entirely incorrect.
There are fantastic lines in the book that I wish I had written… if only I had been clever enough.
It’s been a long time. Almost ten months, but the story resumes. Harry Oldham is an author whose last book bombed. He has been encouraged to return to Sheffield and write about his past. His agent finds him an apartment not realising that it takes Harry closer to his shocking past than she realises. Will his readers want to know the type of person he used to be? (Parts 1-6 are available to read in the menu)
Part 7
It had been months, and I hadn’t added any new chapters to the book. Meghan was horrified. She didn’t understand that the creative process could be painful. I’d opened my notes several times, but I couldn’t bring myself to go any further. Instead, I wrote anonymous blog posts that nobody read.
Winter turned to spring, and Sheffield seemed cleaner and brighter. By the time June came, I was also alarmed. I had until the end of the year to submit the first draft and I’d barely scratched the surface.
But something happened.
I had walked into the city centre and called at WH Smith. I remembered it as being a vibrant place, but on that sunny morning there was barely a soul inside. I didn’t get what the shop was supposed to be. There were only so many pens you could buy, the choice of magazines had diminished, and it was a place that didn’t sell my books. You also had to serve yourself, and if I’d been a young lad, I wouldn’t have paid for anything.
On the way home, I cut through the station that was empty because the train drivers were on strike again, and I bought the latest copy of Granta at the news stand because WH Smith didn’t stock it. I decided it might give me the inspiration to write, because everything in it was better than mine.
I walked over the footbridge and saw a young guy walking towards me. He seemed vaguely familiar and made eye contact. As we passed, I smiled, and he blushed. I looked around and realised that he’d done the same and quickly turned away.
I climbed the steps and sat on the grass in South Park. From here, I could look at the skyline with its cranes and emerging tower blocks. I lit a cigarette and thumbed through the magazine. Then I found a vape in my pocket and puffed on it. I was alternating between smoking the cigarette and the vape, but the sweetness of grape edged out the harshness of the tobacco.
I saw the guy walking up the steps from the station. He wore a grey hoodie and sweatpants and looked about eighteen or nineteen. Grey sweatpants are always an attraction. I sensed that he’d sat on the grass behind, and I resisted the urge to turn around. I began reading a story, it was written in strong Glaswegian about a young kid caught up with gangs that I found hard to understand. Londoners had once struggled to understand me too.
The young lad had moved and was sitting to my right. I looked across and he held my gaze. Those anonymous blog posts are about moments like these, the brief encounters that I embellish with happy endings, when they rarely are.
“I know who you are,” he called. “You’re Harry Oldham.”
I’m never recognised and the fact that he knew me was disconcerting because I’m more comfortable as a name and not a face.
“Have we met?”
“Yeah, we have, and you owe me a cigarette.”
He shifted to my side, and I gave him the cigarette he wanted. He had short blonde hair, blue eyes, and peachy stubble.
“What’s your name?”
”Tom.”
“Does Tom have a surname?”
“Everybody just calls me Tom.”
“Are you always shy?” He coloured up, his crimson cheeks glowing on a pale complexion.
“I’m only shy in front of people I’ve just met.”
“But you know who I am. Have you read my books?”
“‘I’ve read all of them. I suppose I know a lot about you. I’m not scared. Just curious.”
“I’m curious about you too. Tell me about yourself.”
“There’s nothing to say. I’m me.”
He looked down like he’d done once before, and I remembered that he’d once given me a cigarette.
”There are times when you have to tell somebody something.”
“I think you’re approachable, but you can tell me to fuck off if you want.”
“It’s not often I get to meet my biggest fan.”
“I didn’t say that I liked the books. I’ve just read them, that’s all.”
“Why read all three then?” He didn’t answer.
“I thought you and your two mates were going to mug me.”
“That wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have let it.”
“When I was your age, me and my mates would have sat outside the flats and been up to no good.”
He didn’t reply straightaway and seemed ill at ease. He blinked in the sunshine and concentrated on a passing tram. “We’re not all bad. No threat to you. Park Hill’s not a bad place.”
“Do you live there?”
His answer was decisive. “No!”
“Where do you live?”
“Hillsborough. I caught the tram.”
“Cool,” I said, and felt like a dork for saying it. “I once knew someone who lived there.”
“I won’t know them.”
“No, you won’t, because he’s been dead a long time.”
Tom looked inquisitive.
“He was called Paolo and one of the most beautiful boys I’ve ever known.”
“Old people die all the time.”
“I’m not that old, but yes, they do. In my mind, Paolo isn’t old. He never was. He still looks the same. Like James Dean… ”
“Like Heath Ledger?”
“Yes, like Heath Ledger. They’re frozen in time, but we get older, and they don’t, and we remember them from movies and photographs, except with Paolo there are no photos. He lives in my head, but I’m afraid that each time I think about him, the memory is more fragile.”
“Are you a faggot?”
“Yes, I am, but it takes another faggot to recognise one.”
“Not me, I have a girlfriend.”
“And what’s this girlfriend called?”
He hesitated. “She’s not important, and I want to hear more about Paolo.”
It was long overdue and might have been a mistake, but I checked the email repeatedly, and it was certainly meant for me.
The photographer was from Brazil, and he’d chosen me after looking at my online portfolio. This wasn’t going to be a fashion shoot for a glossy magazine. Pablo had a reputation for taking raunchy images, and I hoped that he might make me look like the boys who made me feel inadequate.
The email didn’t give a lot away, but I knew there would be a lot of flesh, and the images might end up on the right side of Tumblr’s community guidelines.
I’d been to photoshoots before and hoped that it didn’t involve a room full of ego-driven males.
Don’t get me wrong. I know a lot of easy going guys, but there are many more self-centred boys involved. It’s an insecure business, one where you’ll be gone by the time you are thirty, and beneath the bravado is the fear that it can quickly be taken away.
The reality is that agencies no longer look at your body or looks. They are far more interested in how many Instagram followers you have, and that puts added pressure on. But that isn’t everything. I have an Insta-famous friend who does a lot of major campaigns and almost nobody knows who he is.
On the day, I turned up at an old factory located in the East End. It was split into separate business units, and Park Studio was on the second floor.
I walked up the staircase with its peeling walls and realised that money hadn’t been mentioned. The shoot would offer little financial reward and fell into the category of providing exposure only. I wouldn’t be leaving my job at Waitrose anytime soon.
I was relieved to find that there were only a handful of people present, those who made things happen. Photography assistant, stylist, make-up artist and the guy who handed out coffee.
After the obligatory hugs and kisses, I was directed behind a screen that served as the changing area. There was another guy who was half-undressed. He was called Luca and was from Italy. We blushed as we swapped our cheap underwear for snowy white Calvin Kleins.
We walked across to the big screen that would serve as the background to the shoot and made small talk. I discovered that Luca’s girlfriend was waiting outside.
At times like this, you mustn’t be self-conscious. Even when you’re practically naked next to a straight guy who you’d assumed was also gay. I was anxious not to make a fool of myself.
Pablo ignored us, played with his cameras, and barked orders about lighting and shading. When he realised that the main event was before him, he gave instructions as to what we should do, explaining the postures he wanted, and the way we had to interact.
The theme was ‘Boys Who Tease’ and that required Luka to be the dominant one, holding, touching, slinging me over his shoulder and placing his arms around me.
This went on for hours, Pablo firing shot after shot, and inventing new angles in which to enhance his standing in the photographic world.
We’d arrived well-groomed and smelling sweet, but by the time Pablo had burnt through his umpteenth roll of film, we were sweating under the hot spotlights, and he complained that our bodies were wet and glistening.
The assistant threw us towels and we wiped each other down. I told Luca that I was enjoying the experience, and he cocked an inquisitive eye.
For the final shots of the day, I had to crouch in front of Luca, who stood motionless with his arms by his side. Pablo told me to close my eyes and tilt my forehead until it touched the band of his Calvins. I was only a hairbreadth away from his crotch, and the slightest movement would have meant that my nose rubbed against his dick.
This was a tricky situation.
Pablo said to hold the position. I tried not to breathe, but I could sense Luca’s trembling body, and smelt baby oil and talcum powder on him. I was scared that I might embarrass myself, and started thinking about my checkout job at Waitrose, about what I might eat later, and about Luca’s girlfriend waiting in the street outside.
Perfectly Hard and Glamorous 