Emperor 2

Emperor of Dust

Published: 18 May 2017

Excerpts taken from “An Inhabitant of Carcosa” by Ambrose Bierce (whose works are now public domain.)

It’s been closing in around me, suffocating me – sticky little fingers pawing at my borrowed skin, encircling me – agents surrounding me and taking notes – notes they’ll turn into reports, reports written on tippy-tappy-typewriters and filed in grey cabinets marked A through C, D to E, F, G and yadda yadda yadda. They know too much already, more than I’m willing to let out, to give away – to give away for free anyhow. I want to move on, need to move, to take a step away from the mirror and take the time to turn around, to look at something different for a change. Maybe she was right. Maybe I should’ve applied myself. Focused less on getting high and jerking-off and spent a little more time considering my limited options.

She wasn’t right – not right to write the things she did. Whatever. It’s time – time that’s the kick. But not here, no. Here it’s standing still. Not fetid, not stagnant nor moribund, just still. Just still and comfortable, an embrace to a warm buxom bosom. Writing on a page more than freeze frame on a movie. Left to right, drop a line and repeat from the top. It’s good, not good but feels right… given the circumstances. Time that has stilled – frozen in this brown bar where some girl’s voice on the jukebox sings a soft lullaby I don’t know.

Drawing patterns on the bar, a toothpick in sticky sweet liquid, long since spilled: I write a name, I write my name and not liking the connotations I score through it and write another… Milan’s name. Something about it that feels reassuring… but that passes quickly and I score through it like the last. Hesitate. Write another name; write his name: John – in spilled beer on the bar. The N trails into a larger pool, connecting to the liquid that stretches further along the scarred wooden surface, and like that – click – he’s a part of everything, connected to everything, touching everything. I could write a novel of him in front of me – I owe him that – paint him… an impression of him at least – my impression of him in the streams of other people’s spilled drinks. Could I do him justice in that? Could I paint every line of his body, every fleck of colour in his rusted blond hair? His soft, welcoming, brown eyes – demanding the love of every man who bravely met them? Could I paint that little crease in the corner of his mouth – the corner of his smile, the one that invites others lips to his? Porcelain skin, just as beautiful, just as delicate, broken by me and glued back together by him oh-so many times? Could I paint that spark, that bright burning light, a firework shooting through the night sky and exploding high, exposing the rest of us below – the poor, cold huddled ants that we are. I run a finger through the liquid, disconnect him from everyone else and feel a little better. Feel a little better that I’ve cut him off from the rest of us. It eases the guilt I feel.

I like, no, I appreciate this bar and I appreciate the yellowish brown walls around it, and the smell of booze in the air, the taste of whisky on the back of my tongue and the five or six people who’ve chosen to spend their night here with us, with me. The blonde barman, cute in his teens, handsome in his twenties now worn around the edges in his thirties – cleaning out old optics, the old guy two stools down – head resting in the crook of his elbow, the couple at the table by the door, dressed in their best – not talking, the two college kids, animated, arms waving in over the top gestures – their whole bodies given over to the telling of their story, the forty-something queen by the jukebox, jeans sagging exposing white cotton, I imagine these faces, these same faces – all new to me tonight sure, repeat this same pattern with ease and regularity and it feels right and it feels proper and it’s… comforting.

It’s beginning to feel like I’ve lost some time, staring at what’s left of his name on the bar, at the empty tumbler to my right, the bottle of Japanese beer in my hand. It’s beginning to feel like I’ve been looking at these for longer than I can remember. Mustering the energy to take another gulp of my drink, I realise I’m probably drunk. No… No, I am. I’m drunk.

My mother asked why John wasn’t with me when the car pulled up the house – before anything as grand as “I’m happy to see you,” or “Welcome home,” or “Hello.”:

“Where’s your friend?”

“Nice to see you too Mother.” As I stepped out of the car the driver took my bags from the trunk and delivered them into the house.

She air kissed my cheeks, her right hand barely touching my arm: “Yes.”

“John stayed in Budapest. He might come out later.” I lied.

“Probably for the best,” she said turning her back to me and walking into the house, “your father never liked the effect he had on you.”

I stood at the foot of the steps and watched her sashay in the house still talking as if I were right behind her, I caught little as she talked. My mother always assumed every man woman and child hung on her every word.

Bringing back what little focus remains I score through his name and write another… I write His name in the scrawled symbols that passes for a written language. How do I even know how to write it? It comes out larger than the others had, takes up more space, fills more of my field of vision and staring at it for only a moment I feel something rising into my chest and I slam my palm down into it, smearing it and crack my elbow on the corner of the bar – pain shoots up through my arm and into my shoulder and maybe it’s the drink but for a second I want to vomit, launch yesterday’s meals and the last twenty-four hours’ worth of booze over the bar – but manage to hold it.

“You OK there pal?”

I look up – cradling my elbow and squint before I see it’s the barman: “Yeah, good thanks.”

The man behind the bar probably means I’ve probably had enough and he’s probably right. But I think for a second, maybe longer because he’s growing impatient with me.

“Actually I would… I’d like another beer… and another… whisky… another whisky chaser…”

“You no think you’ve maybe reached your limit there pal?”

He needs to see that I’m OK, that everything is OK and that another couple of drinks aren’t going to throw me for the loop I have no doubt he’s used to seeing. There’s composure in me somewhere maybe…

“Honestly I’m fine… Please another whisky… Another whisky chaser and another beer.”

I smile wide enough that the look he shoots back at me nearly knocks me from the stool but palms slamming on… sticky surface and I’m fine… I’m fine… Everything’s fine…

I think I’m being cute, he probably thinks I’m being an idiot, but I hope, I hope I can tell from those blues that he doesn’t think I’m doing it on purpose.

While he turns his back to me I see a woman in a pink sweater on the muted TV: Blotchy pale and red face, prescription glasses and bad brillo-pad hair. The caption below her calls her “Angela Maine: Chairperson of the Christian Rights Organization UK”. The subtitles have her complaining about Satanic music and the screen cuts to the Bartleby Reign music video for their song ‘Carnival of Hearts’. I vaguely remember reading on the flight home that they’d been accused of backmasking black magic incantations into the tracks of their latest album… Angela Maine thinks she’s fighting for the souls of the nation’s children. Angela Maine thinks she’s on the side of the Angels. Angela Maine has worse to worry about than the Devil…

The barman pours me another whisky without paying attention to the measurement and pops the cap off of another bottle of beer and I’m sad he doesn’t do it with his teeth. He holds on to the beer as I reach out.

“Just dinnae throw up in here OK pal, cos it’s me that has to clean it up like and I’ve had enough of clearing up spew fae the floor ye ken?”

“I promise… dib-dib-dib – I won’t hurl on the floor.”

I hand over the money before shuffling over to an empty booth, maybe a seat with a back rest… I down the last third of the old bottle and neck the whisky, feel my throat burn – the taste still unfamiliar, and lay my face on the table.

Someone spilled their rum and coke. I wipe my face with my fingers and bring them to my tongue.

There seems to be a pattern developing. A pattern that goes beyond tonight, beyond the day before it and into the weeks and months preceding and I’m beginning to see this as some giant cosmic joke, some giant cosmic joke at my expense and I don’t get it, I don’t see the punchline for the set-up. Or maybe, maybe it’s all set-up, a punchline free joke perhaps, perhaps the punchline is that there isn’t one because it’s all set-up and that’s the kick. That’s the fucking kick that was… The kick that has men leap from bridges and makes desperate women drown their babies in three inches of bath water. Truth is… shit, why can’t I focus?

I sit up and clear a swig of the beer before waving to the man at the bar, who’s getting even better looking as the night’s progressing, and I ask for another couple of drinks. He looks tired, tired of me? Does he have a boyfriend? A family maybe? Somewhere better to spend his Thursday nights? Is this how he imagined his life would turn out? Late thirties – I’m guessing – and working shifts in an Edinburgh gay bar, did he want to be a dancer? A Prima Ballerina performing in The Nutcracker for the Ballet Russes? An actor on stage in London’s West End – Sykes in Oliver “Oh wouldn’t it be luvver-ly…” or something more serious maybe Pinter or Rattigan? A singer, a businessman, a writer, a teacher or a doctor maybe, maybe a diplomat to some foreign land filled with sand dunes and swarthy brown men with thick black moustaches and he would end up getting pumped by some Sheik and being his Tuesday wife which suits him down to the ground because the rest of the week he can focus on his water colours?

“What did you used to want to be when you grew up?”

“Heh?”

“What did you used to want… want to be, like as job when you were at school?”

“No that it’s any of yours like…” he shifts on his feet and looks at his hands. “I dunno…”

I smile big and broad.

“I used to want to draw. Kids books ye ken? Illustrations and the like.” He pops the drinks down on the table and starts back toward the bar, empties in hand. “What about you?”

Without thinking: “Chet Baker.”

“The jazz guy?”

“Yeah man. Early Chet mind… Real early Chet… not sixties or seventies Chet. Not spread eagled sweaty and toothless on the cobbles of Amsterdam Chet. Good Chet. Godlike Chet!”

He smiles at me. “He’s on the jukebox; a few of the older punters on Sunday afternoon will put him on. Yeah, he’s good, I guess? No really my cup of tea like but I get it, why other people like him I mean. He plays trumpet right? Can you play?”

“Oh, Oh God no. Love music, music is everything, but no, I can’t play a note. Tried but seriously, bad, bad… bad noise. Can’t dance either, would you like to dance? To see me dance I mean? The music it moves me… but it moves me ugly.”

Before turning back to the bar, he smiles at me and I think maybe it’s not so bad after all which lasts for all of… what? Three seconds? Four maybe? Then he comes back to me, not the barman, John. His face hidden behind smoke in my mind – like in life – all smoke and mirrors. All smoke and mirrors like some awful stage magicians trick. All smoke and mirrors like the rest of life, his life, my life, the life I imagined we would have had together. Not cherry trees and semi-detached homes, not kids and a couple of dogs but some wild ride of foreign cities and art galleries and gigs in muddy fields, flowers in our hair and poetry readings in all night bistros, making love all through the day in hotel rooms and fucking on the beaches with strangers all through the night. A future of bags slung over tanned shoulders, holding hands while thumbing for rides along endless stretching highways disappearing into dusk. But that’s all smoke and mirrors. Before my Pharaoh gave me that book.

The Book?

I quickly check my coat pocket in a blind panic – fear rising in my chest – my hands trembling. I haven’t held it in a few hours is it still…

It’s still there. Still in my pocket… Still daring me to do something with it. I will. I have to. The idea came to me when the pieces of my life started falling into place… All I need is the liquid cash to set up the stage… The means and the will are there… falling into place…

I rap my fingers on the table, down the whisky and finish one beer before starting in on the bottle the barman just brought me. I should stop after this one, I’ll break my promise. I can feel it stirring, a geyser bubbling away in the pit of my stomach. I stand, I stumble, I knock over a chair, I fall against the old queen and look up apologetically through my big fluttering girlish eyelashes before shoulder barging the door to the gents – the geyser’s gone beyond bubbling – reached boiling – can feel the throb in my head and the trapped gas in my chest pushing up-up-up – fall through a cubicle door and nearly crack my head open on the rim of the piss covered porcelain but grab it with both hands instead and… the smell! The great unwashed toilets of the world… and then it comes… Every bad deed, every bit of foul language, every lie and deceit, every immoral thought, every immoral thought I followed through on, all of it rips like a volcanic eruption through my throat. Molten rocks of burning vegetables, chilli and rice, undigested, sprays – an oncoming tsunami, thick orangey/brown gloop coats the back of the bowl. Breath, inhale, breath, exhale, breath, wipe that shit running from my nose on the cuff of my shirt, and again, one more, more liquid, more pain, I’m sure that was my liver, and it feels like my brain might’ve been in there too. Breathe, inhale, breathe, exhale, breathe, breathe… breathe. I rest my head on the side of the bowl, someone’s piss on my cheek but it’s cool and my skin’s burning. Breathe, inhale, breathe, exhale, breathe… breathe… My breath withers…

“The grass withers, the flower fades, When the breath of the LORD blows upon it; Surely the people are grass.”

The funeral itself was a staid affair – the effort of the occasion concentrated solely on its finishing. What other way would my family do things? What we were doing was not bidding farewell to my father – we were not celebrating the life of the man who had achieved more than most could dream of – what we were doing, we were doing purely so it would no longer need to be done.

When my eyes weren’t tracing the bored faces along the pews or in the arches of the church roof above me they would drift to the thin middle-aged vicar wrapped safely in the robes of his false religion. He spoke precisely and to the point while his bony fingers performed some puppet show from the pulpit – his words small and conservative compared with the fluency of his body language.

Standing between him and my Mother after the service’s end – shaking the hands of those whose names and faces I couldn’t recognize as they offered insincere condolences – I played my part – the dutiful son and heir returned from his travels. They used words like “brave” and “strong” – uttered so often that all I could do was nod my head and offer a sad, shallow smile. None of it meant a thing.

After the crowd of sadly smiling ghouls had made their way into the churchyard and my mother thanked the vicar with all the warmth of an Edinburgh January morning, I stood there with the man in his vestments in silence for a moment – until he said: “I know things are difficult right now Gabriel but you can find comfort that your father is in a better place and soon the pain of his passing will become easier to manage . All wounds heal. All scars fade over time.”

“He’s not in a better place. He’s dead. Your little sideshow here provides no safe passage for the passing to any foreign lands. You saw the faces of the congregation… My father left this place alone, unmourned… and in the passing of time: unremembered.”

“Gabriel? You’ve deserted your faith?”

“To be honest, Reverend, I’m not sure I ever really had any. Religion of any denomination is the failure of a society’s willingness to accept that beyond this brief existence exists nothing that has any care for humanity. Nothing that thinks on us with kind loving benevolent eyes. Nothing but the void.”

“So we’re wrong? They’re all wrong? Two point two billion Christians? One point six billion Muslims? A billion Hindus? Not counting the faiths of Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists? Nihilism is not a substitute for faith Gabriel.”

I chewed my tongue a little before reaching into my pocket and pulling out my cigarettes. With one between my lips I lit it and inhaled sharply – watching the smoke as it plumed out into the churchyard when I exhaled. “All of them. The whole business of faith is the result of frightened children blindly stumbling forward in the dark to embrace the callow cynicism of better educated men who, without a hint of irony, call it divine wisdom.”

“You’re calling faith callow cynicism?”

“I’m calling bullshit on anyone who looks up from this piece of sod into the emptiness above us… cold and vast as it is… and sees anything but a wide carnivorous sky. If you’re trying to sell me snake oil, a cure for what ails me, then you had better provide proof of concept.”

“And faith? Proof isn’t needed when you have faith.”

“All faith is, Reverend, is proof of humanity’s own shallow fears and misunderstandings. You seek the love of a God who doesn’t exist to give it, so instead you take the acceptance offered to you by your gullible parishioners. Your church, all churches, feed on the approval of the poor bastards that your ‘faith’ mistreats.

“We’re not alone Reverend. Far from it. But if you knew… could fathom even the smallest speck of what’s out there… Of our place in the universe…” I stopped, a thought coming to me as I reached for the copy of the book in my overcoat pocket. “Tell me Reverend… Have you seen the Yellow Sign?”

Lifting my head and arms from the bowl I realise I’m kneeling in an entire day’s’ worth of piss and it’s soaking through my dress trousers. Fuck you metaphor!

I stand, I stumble, I come to rest at the sink and look at myself in the mirror and for a moment I want to vomit again. How about you clean yourself up? I splash some cold water on my face, dig my fingers into my nose and try and snort out whatever’s left up there. Soap dispenser, bluish foam, scrub my face, lips to faucet, rinse my mouth out, gurgle, spit, fill cupped hands with water, rinse my mouth out, gurgle, spit, wet hands through short unkempt hair: yeah, that’s never going to look right. Nothing I can do about the wet patches on my knees… Looking back into the mirror I startle and back away – see that His Thing stands crouched behind me – grinning through it’s broken yellowed teeth – the dirty ivory mask that covers the top half of its face mostly hidden beneath the hood of the thick red robes. I blink hard. Try to shift it from my vision but feel it’s thin claw-like leathery hands on my shoulder. I hadn’t seen it since Budapest. Since that last fuck with Milan – the visions of his body hunched and broken over the chair…

“I’m going to do what you want! I’ve already started.” I blink my eyes trying to move that Thing from my vision – but it stays there still. Silent. Waiting for what? It knows my mind. It knows I’m going to do what it asks… for Him.

I… I always have:

The last time that I saw John was in Budapest – with our bags packed and passports in pocket we were ready to make our way home. I’d given Milan some money – told him to make himself scarce for the night – squared things with our landlord Eddie so that the boy could stay there for another couple of months. All that was left was the leaving.

Ready to go – I searched for John – finding him on the balcony overlooking Ecseri – sitting on the recliner hunched over my copy of The King in Yellow.

With the book on his knees – one hand holding his head, the other turning the pages – I stood at the door and watched him a moment before taking a seat on the metal chair across from him. I didn’t remember giving him the book. I must have though, I thought, it had hardly left my sight since it had come into my possession.

“How are you finding it?” I asked lighting a cigarette – watching his still face – the muscles didn’t move – they didn’t have to – you could see like a duck swimming on a pond that all the hard work was hidden from sight and that beneath the surface of his expressionless face, his mind was kicking wildly. When he didn’t answer I sat back crossing my legs and took a long drag of the cigarette – letting the exhaled smoke drift over the balcony and into the evening air.

“If you’re struggling with some of the French I could translate for you…”

He didn’t answer – just turned the page quickly and kept his eyes focused on the words. I wondered again how he had gotten the book – showing little interest in the past weeks – what had prompted him to pick it up then? Had I asked him to read it? I couldn’t remember.

The evening had cooled a little but the heat was still taking an exhausting toll on my body. Without asking I reached across and took his beer from the table between us – still cool – droplets of perspiration crinkling the label. With the bottle at my lips my eyes stayed focused on John – his eyes sweeping left to right and his fingers nimbly turning the page. Perfect concentration. I took a slug of the beer and turned to the street; enjoying the change that evening had brought – the road less busy – the people less frantic – from the Turkish cafe across the street I could hear the chink of glasses toasting and the welcome chime of laughter shared between friends.

For an hour I sat there – rarely taking my eyes from my partners face – I smoked three or four cigarettes – finished his beer and helped myself to another from the cooler by his bare feet. Evening turned into night and the sky darkened – the lamps flicking on in the street below us one by one – I switched on the external light of the balcony as he continued to read. I watched as he re-read certain passages – either trying to decipher their metaphor or struggling with the translation – his eyes darting back up and to the left – dragging ever more carefully over the words. It was at one such point that I noticed it. A dark cloud passing behind his eyes – almost imperceptible…

Everything rested, then, on how he interpreted the book. Willing accessory… equal partner… slave or victim. Was his mind worth the credit I gave it?

I licked my lips with anticipation – wetting the pink cushions and dragging my bottom teeth over the top. He was there. John was on the last few pages of text… The fates of Queen Camilla and her sister-daughter Casilda, of Casilda’s brothers and lovers Uoht and Thale, the implications wrought by the arrival of the Stranger and The Phantom of Truth and… of Him… weighing terribly on John’s mind. I stubbed out my cigarette and leaned forward in my chair as he read those last perfect lines of exquisite ruinous celestial candour.

John closed the book and held it in his hands while I sat perfectly still – his chocolate brown eyes looked up at me – no – not at me but through me – finding instead of his companion and lover of four years, the devastating beauty of that truth.

I watched as he put the book gently down on the cast iron table between us – his fingers idly stroking the green fabric surface. Without letting sound slip past his lips he mouthed: “How come you hither?” with sad impossible eyes. He stood – stepped forward to the railing of the balcony… and threw himself from the building.

I heard the hollow thud of his body hitting the concrete – the whining screech of tires – the rumble and wet crunch as they crushed his bones – a woman’s scream and the howl of a crying child.

Sitting silent – unmoving – I waited until the distant sound of sirens began to leak into the commotion below. I picked up the book – perhaps the last copy in existence – and slid it into my bag before slipping out the back door and making my way to the airport.

It was sneering at my memory:

“I just buried my father today!” I whisper as I look down through heavy eyelids- avoiding its gaze in the mirror.

“Sorry to hear that…”

I look up and for the first time notice the old queen from the bar standing at one of the urinals. The sound of a heavy stream of piss hitting porcelain. How long has he been there?

“Sorry…” I stutter. “I was talking to myself.”

“It’s OK.” He shakes his dick and zips up his jeans before walking over to the wash basin next to me and rinses his hands. “You seem young. What are you? Mid twenties?”

“Twenty-five.” The eyes look older though.

“Still too young to lose a parent.” He squeezes soap from the dispenser and runs his hands under the tap again, “You sure you should be out by yourself tonight? I can call you a taxi. You should probably be with your family.”

I look up into the mirror – It still stands there hunched in the corner – that smile never wavering – it’s right hand wandering idly beneath it’s red robes.

“I’m Craig by the way!” I watch him wipe his hands on a paper towel and toss it into the sink before reaching out for me. I take it and shake it – before I know what I’m doing I thrust his oversized paw down to my dick – he grins and responds by groping at me through my trousers – leans down and forward to kiss me but I roll my head back – No – not for you.

He unzips me and snaps the button – his chubby fingers wriggle their way into my underwear – curl around my already stiff prick.

“Nice!” he sighs as he works the length. When he moves in again for a kiss – I grab onto his shoulders and force him down to his knees.

The old queen wraps his lips around my cock and my body shudders as I grip the ceramic basin behind me to keep steady. He pulls at my trousers – at my underwear and rolls them down my legs, past my knees and lets them drop to my ankles. His hands reach around and grab my arse cheeks – kneading them in his meaty fingers.

I look down at his balding head – see the shimmer of the light on his scalp between the thin light brown hair. He’s good at this – his tongue circles the head of my prick as his wet lips are wrapped tight around the shaft. He sucks and slobbers as one hand reaches around and begins to gently tug at my balls – he rolls them in his palm and squeezes softly – dragging them slightly downward. With one hand I grip the back of his head and force him further down onto my cock. I feel his throat encircling the head of my prick and without thinking about it can feel myself about to cum. It hasn’t taken much – the release needed more than I suspected. As I grab tight onto the back of his head – feeling the folds of skin in his neck – I impale his face as I unload down into his throat…

Vision blurring. Spots like rain drops on a windscreen. I black out.

The outskirts of a dead city…

…Awash a pale mauve light…

…projections on a torn yellowed canvas – shadows of flickering flames long burned out distorting…

…broken rock, weather worn and sunken into the dried lifeless earth, whispers:

That dismal burial-place? A graveyard to civilization. Blasted or drowned. How long without life or natural light? How long beyond human aid? Alone here, in Mercury’s latter-day twinning, I stand on withered grass and in silence call aloud John’s name…

When I come to it’s to the barman shaking my shoulders. I guess he see’s me crack my eyes open and hears me groan because his sigh of relief fills the bathroom like a flood. I risk looking down and see that the old fuck afforded me the dignity of putting my cock away before taking flight.

“The auld fella flew out of here like lightening. Said you’d collapsed.”

“I’m fine.” I sit up and press my cold palm to my burning forehead. “I just…”

“I’ll call you a taxi. Get you to A&E…”

“No!” I stand and he stands with me – his arm on my bicep. “Really. Just light headed. Haven’t eaten much the last couple of days.” I turn to look in the mirror and see him glaring at the back of my head with a furrowed brow. “Honestly. I’ll be out in a minute.”

He leaves and I’m alone. Breathe. Breathe.

I turn and with hands at the bathroom door breathe, inhale, breathe, exhale, breathe, breathe… there we are… back straight, a pretence of composure on my face and out into the emptying bar – I return to my booth, finish my beer, breathe…

Whenever I roam through roses…

Something warm, something more familiar. Chet Baker on the jukebox.

I look around and see the barman standing, returning my smile. He nods over to the old couple at their table and we watch as their hands sit clasped in their seat. One of them allows himself a sweet, reminiscent smile.

The barman sits across from me outstretches his hand and I receive it.

“I’m Matt.”

“Hey Matt… I’m Gabe, Gabriel, but really just… just Gabe.” His handshake is strong but soft, he’s not giving himself away but he is inviting me to share in him. I like holding his hand, it’s warm and is offered with sincerity and without expectations. It’s a connect. A connect in a world with so few.

“Thank you… for the song, it’s good to hear.”

“Look, I’m no in the habit of this ye ken, but… ach… you OK man?”

I don’t know how to respond and if I spend too long thinking about it then the response, even if in the affirmative will come out mumbled and insincere and seeing as he’s been nothing but – with me, here, in this brown bar tonight, I don’t want to offer some bullshit… but shit, I’ve already taken too long and he’s knows that I’m internalizing and I should speak before he thinks I’m wallowing or being ignorant or…

“Thanks, yeah, better than most, worse than some.”

“Bad day?”

“Bad day, bad night… week, month…”

“You, don’t do things by halves eh?” A smile on his lips. “Look, I called last orders when you were in the back room, I’m closing up in ten minutes or so, you can help if you like, walk me home, I don’t like going down Leith Walk on my own this time of night, you can tell me what’s bothering you, maybe I can help.”

The rest of the night stretches before me, phatic conversation to something more meaningful, from street to sofa, from one last glass of wine to fingers snapping at elastic – wet open mouths and engorged cocks, sticky, comical fumbling and falling asleep on thin worn carpet, waking up with a head pounding and a day or two of regret. That seems unlikely.

“Matt that sure sounds swell… I’m just going to go outside and have a cigarette; I’ll wait for you there.”

That smile again, that look in his blues that means he’s picturing the same roll call of events unfurl for the night as me. He stands, walks back behind the bar and nods to the old couple as they leave, a little happier than when they came in. I’m too drunk for this surely. I’ve a record for not being able to finish the job in hand when drunk, no problem starting, just finishing and I get bored and come to think of it I don’t really want this and if he thought about it neither does he. I fumble in the pocket of my gay bar bathroom floor stained jacket and pull out my tobacco, papers and a filter tip, with lint fluff stuck to the end. My fingers struggle but muscle memory is heaven sent and I’ve managed to roll a smoke without making too much mess over the table.

Stand.

Make it to the door without losing too much balance.

Turn and look to Matt.

Smile.

“I’ll be a few minutes OK; I’ll meet you at the door.”

Smile.

And nod.

And exit the bar.

And hear a car horn blaring at someone trying to cross the wide road.

And a couple, a young woman in a gray mac with a galloise hanging from her bottom lip. A man in skinny black jeans, black leather jacket and shades has his arm draped around her. They walk between the traffic islands with no concern for the tin cans passing either side of them.

Find my clipper.

Light the cigarette.

Hear two women laughing somewhere down the street.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe…

To Be Continued in Issue #4

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