by Livia Ellis
This is nothing short of wondrous.
We slip into the back of a car.
The driver is instructed to take us to the nearest hospital.
We have to pay in advance.
I’ve never heard of such a thing.
We have to pay in advance.
She has no cash or credit cards. Her money is locked up with her stuff back at the club.
My messenger bag is in the back of the taxi taking Elon and Roland home. I sincerely hope Roland is the sort of man that has the presence of mind to check the back of the taxi before leaving.
This is why people have to pay in advance.
We have a problem.
Get out.
Would he be willing to take… (What do I have on me – a fountain pen, the key card for the hotel room I had to get earlier in the day, my phone, and my watch) my word I will get the money to him the next morning?
No. He likes my jacket. Looks like good quality.
It’s Tom Ford. It’s excellent quality. Surely worth a trip to hospital. (I remove the Tom Ford suit jacket which is coated in ten kinds of filth from my tussle on the ground and is blown out at the shoulder seem. I pass it through the barrier to the driver. He examines the stitching and the lining. He doesn’t notice the rip in the shoulder – or if he does he doesn’t care.)
He’ll take the jacket.
Marvelous. I’ll be certain to tell Elon his ruined suit jacket paid for my five pound taxi ride.
What about the tie?
Just so we’re clear – in addition to the jacket he wants the tie?
Yes.
Doesn’t that seem a bit bold?
There’s a rip in the jacket. Don’t think he didn’t notice that.
I remove the already loosened blue and silver Burberry London check tie.
The tie is examined. He’ll take that too. Nice belt.
No. I will not give him a Gucci belt for a ride to the hospital.
What else have I got? Nice watch.
No. (I half expect him to leave me shoeless and in my pants if I don’t put a stop to this.)
Do I want a ride to the hospital or not?
The watch was a gift from my father. I will not part with that. He either needs to take us to the hospital with what he has or I want my shit back and we can just walk. Just because we’re desperate, well-dressed, and I’m injured doesn’t mean I’m some kind of fucking chump. The jacket is trash, but the tie is worth a good seventy pounds.
We seem to come to an understanding.
In exchange for my suit jacket, my tie, and what little remains of my dignity, he drives us perhaps a kilometer.
We’re dumped at the curb of the closest A&E. The finest the NHS has to offer.
I cannot be certain, but I believe the man receiving curbside care could be overdosing on heroine. The twitching and the thrashing are subtle yet potent clues.
We slowly back away and enter the harsh fluorescent interior of the hospital.
Clearly everybody who is somebody is at the A&E. Who would have known the place to be on a Thursday night is the hospital?
The Esthetician slips her arm through mine.
If I leave her alone with these people she will hunt me down and kill me.
Ditto.
After being shuffled from person to person I’m made to wait and then wait some more.
There is a divide down the room. On one side are mothers with sick children.
On the other side the rest of us.
We are relegated to the half with the meth addicts, the mouthy drunks, and the damaged. I think, although I can’t be certain, I am in good company with several other prostitutes.
I want to rise to my feet and call them my brothers and sisters.
Is this who I am? I suppose it is.
There is a group of perhaps a dozen women. Hen party. It has to be. There is a woman with a sash that reads Maid of Honor vomiting on her shoes as the Bride (or the woman I assume is the bride as she’s wearing a pink plastic princess tiara with a veil attached) holds her arm and a busted shoe.
One woman, the mother of the bride according to her sash, is too fat and too old to be wearing the stretchy purple dress that covers her body like a sausage casing. On her head is the most astonishing contraption. A headband with two springy wires topped by pink plastic cocks. I’ve never seen such a thing. Bouncing cocks on a headband. What woman with a shred of decency would go around with such a thing on her head?
I must get one for mum. I must. Mum would die. She’d absolutely die.
These women are proof that booze does not make a person better looking. Quite the contrary really.
If I were to take pictures of them, they’d probably be horrified at the results.
So I take pictures. Lots of pictures. I’m practiced at being sneaky. When my battery is charged I’ll send them to mum. She’ll enjoy this.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch my reflection.
I don’t recognize who that is, but it’s not me. I’ve become someone else entirely. Probably someone closer to who I would have been if dad hadn’t married mum and she’d gone with plan B which I can only assume was to raise me on her own.
Who would I have been then?
James?
Maybe. Probably. James isn’t just a name carried down on my father’s side.
But I never would have been James. Not in mum’s family.
Jimmy.
Jimmy Wright. Martina Wright’s boy Jimmy.
That’s me. Jimmy Wright. My alter-ego. The me that gets into fights and rolls around on the filthy rain soaked ground trying to get purchase on a smaller and meaner man’s arse.
Jimmy Wright would get into fights.
I look to the Esthetician in her feathers and stage costume. She’s wearing this rather pretty sequined cocktail dress which is far more understated than I would have pegged her for. She’s making a valiant effort to fix her makeup and her hair. All in all, she does look rather lovely despite the run in the rain and the split lip.
I start to laugh.
What’s so funny?
We are funny. Would she ever have imagined this is where her day would have ended?
Not in a thousand years. What was I thinking getting in the middle of that?
I’ve never been in a fight before.
She never would have guessed.
Is that sarcasm?
Noooooooo!
I felt an overwhelming need to rescue her from That-No-Good-Son-of-a-Bitch-Martin.
I am sweet. Not too bright sometimes. But very sweet. Do I know what she did before she was an esthetician?
No idea.
She was a junior capoeira champion.
Cool.
The only person in any real danger was That-No-Good-Son-of-a-Bitch-Martin.
In my best Jimmy Wright from South London accent I tell her that I’m the man and it’s my job to lay the smack down on any comers that want to mess with my biotch.
I’m the man?
I’m the man.
She’s my biotch?
Yes. She’s my biotch.
She laughs so loudly security moves to watch us.
We laugh. We can’t stop laughing.
That’s right. I’m the man and she’s my number one biotch.
Some of the other prostitutes and pimps in the room give us a look. There’s respect in those fleeting glances. Rolling around in the dirt and the grit of the street has provided with cred.
Oliver the fussy pretty boy is dead and may he rest in peace. I’ve turned a corner and I can feel it. I could probably go work for Boris busting knee caps and not feel as if I were lowering myself. If there was a bottom for me to hit, I’ve either brushed against it or at least felt it rising to meet me.
The superiority and aloofness that was so much a part of my core being a year earlier has been replaced by something far more basic and useful. I’m a street fighter in attitude and deed and I’m not afraid to get dirty.
I’m cha
nging. Maybe not for the better or maybe not for the worse. Change doesn’t have to be either good or bad. Sometimes it’s just change. Adaptation to the environment. It’s fucking Darwinian. A year ago I never would have thrown down and gone ghetto on some punk ass dickhead. As I sit in the waiting room surrounded by the addicts, the downtrodden, the pimps, the whores and the desperate, I realize something about myself. Not only do I have the capacity within myself to be like them, I am them.
If the world was to go apocalyptic and we were required to fight to live, I would rise up from the ashes and kick some ass. I wouldn’t be taken down by my preciousness and inability to get my hands dirty. Uncle Harvey might be right after all – I do have the blood of a working class butcher running through my veins and it is not a bad thing.
The Esthetician and I burn time during the wait practicing a sort of shtick. The subculture that populates the A&E in the darkest hours of the night is worthy of the name subculture. We fit in beautifully. I’m Jimmy and she’s Bubbles.
Something sparks a new fire of laughter with the women of the hen party. The cries that rise from them are like sirens.
The woman with the bouncing cocks on her head fascinates me. I want to get near her. Be within that sphere of influence of that bullish woman.
I leave the Esthetician. I go to the women. They’re rowdy and filled with a faux joie de vivre – an exultation at all things that simply has to be exhausting.
I ask the woman with the bouncing cocks on her head where she got them. I adjust my inflection and word choice to match their bawdy boisterous caterwauling.
I’m Jimmy Wright. Martina Wright’s boy.
I tell the truth. My mum would go mad for something like her headband with the dancing cocks. She’s sick. If I can make her laugh I make her laugh.
I’ve accidently made them sad.
This wasn’t my intention. I don’t use mum’s sickness as a tool.
But whether purposeful or not, I have become the focus of their love and devotion.
I’m petted and my hands are held.
I don’t understand this overwhelming show of affection. Somehow I’ve instantly become their son, lover, brother, and cousin.
They are sadder for me than I am for myself.
I simply don’t understand this.
I’m not certain how to extricate myself from these women.
I don’t want to be rude.
But I’m pretty certain I have no way of escaping them without external help.
It’s around two in the morning when a doctor decides to grace us with an appearance and extricates me from the women.
The Esthetician and I entertain ourselves at the expense of the doctor who could probably care less.
I wear the cock headband.
Our clever repartee is fueled by our almost obsessive need to play these roles and get some sort of reaction out of the doctor.
He’s not playing.
My finger is dislocated.
No shit.
The doctor doesn’t even really look at me. I think, but I can’t be certain, that we are beneath his contempt. In fact, I’m certain we are beneath his contempt.
My finger is set with a hard snap. I’m given enough drugs to keep a junkie happy and sent on my way.
Jimmy and Bubbles – no one would believe me so I decide to keep it to myself forever more. This is my joke with the Esthetician.
I have the key for the hotel room that I used earlier in my pocket.
We agree that she’s not going back to That-No-Good-Son-of-a-Bitch-Martin. She’s had enough. She takes the key to the hotel with gratitude. I drop her in the taxi. I’m still not certain how I’m going to pay for the ride as I have nothing left but my watch, shirt, trousers, shoes and socks. And the cock headband of course. But that is more precious to me than gold. I won’t part with that.
But I do give it to the Esthetician to hold. I don’t know where the night is going to take me, but I’m fairly certain I don’t want to be carrying around a headband with bouncing cocks.
She doesn’t offer to have me come up to her room. For this I am eternally grateful. I don’t want to cross that line. We are friends in the purest sense of the word. I’ve gone to battle for her and I know she would do the same for me. We are warriors. Not lovers. I know without question or hesitation, she has my back.
Olga may be Mickey to my Rocky but the Esthetician is my Apollo Creed.
Eye of the tiger.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Place between Dusk and Dawn
I’m too wired to go home. Besides. I have no keys to get into the house and there is no guarantee ringing the doorbell would rouse anyone. Uncle Harvey should be home, but his habit of sleeping with earplugs in lest his own snoring wake him is nothing short of legend in the family.
I text Emer and Elizabeth simultaneously.
I need cash and keys. Long story. Battery nearly dead. Help!
Elizabeth texts back.
They’re both working at the club. They’ll sort me out when I get there.
This is good. As I suspected they probably would be, they’re both working at the Platinum Palace. Boris’ “gentleman’s” club. His island of man swine in the middle of London.
Emer and Elizabeth are unique in their willingness to work the club. Mi Young, Olga, and Talitha don’t work the club. I know that Olga started out in the club. Simone occasionally works the club. Mi Young won’t be caught dead in the club.
I have no idea about Talitha. We’ve never really had a chat.
I tell the taxi driver to take me to the Platinum Palace.
At the door one of Boris’ imported thugs pays for the taxi for me.
He makes certain to get a receipt.
I’m let in without having to wait in the line of men behind the ropes.
I’m one of them.
These are my people.
I keep walking until I find what I’m looking for.
I don’t make a habit of going to the club, but when I do I can be certain I’ll find at least a few familiar faces.
Avan, Sasha, Gregory, David, Brian, and Harold – fucking Harold – are sitting in a curved velvet booth. They look like an Armani advertisement.
I would think Boris would refuse to let Harold into his club on principle, but no. Boris doesn’t have beef with Harold. That’s between the Matchmaker and Harold. In fact, although I can’t be certain, I think Harold is doing jobs for Boris on the side. Jobs the Matchmaker probably wouldn’t touch with a ten foot hot poker.
I am welcome at the table without hesitation. This is my band of brothers. We are in the same boat on this voyage of the damned.
Avan makes room for me.
What the fuck happened to me?
I got into a fight.
With a john?
No. Never mind. I don’t have to flag down a waitress. One appears. We don’t have to pay for the booze, but we do have to tip. I’d rather pay for the booze. It would be cheaper.
Bombay gin neat.
Elizabeth brings a bottle of gin.
Bottle service. The hallmark of an elitist den of iniquities.
She sits on my knee and drapes an arm around my shoulders.
She nibbles my ear.
She coos over my injuries.
She whispers filthy sweet nothings.
She holds the glass for me and pours the booze through my lips.
Gin, glorious gin, hits my system and takes the edge off the strain of the night.
Do we fuck?
Yes.
Usually when I come to the club it’s because she’s working.
I’m not going to say there’s a vast conspiracy to keep Olga in the dark about what I get up to behind her back, but to borrow a phrase that is both accurate and succinct, what happens at the club stays at the club.
This has been going on for weeks.
Not months.
I’m not that much of a cad.
There was a golden hour in my relationship with Olg
a when I didn’t imagine I would need or want more.
Then something happened.
I like to blame it on her meltdown over Saint Patrick’s Day, but I know it was edging up on us before then.
If I really think about it I started to feel antsy around Valentine’s Day.
I refuse to apologize.
I will not be hamstringed by modern dictates of western morality.
I won’t.
Love has never made me a saint. I’m not certain it will ever make me monogamous.
Maybe it might in time.
But I sincerely doubt it.
How did I arrive at this place?
How did I come to the conclusion that I’m fighting against my nature to try to be monogamous?
I’ve decided to be honest with myself.
I lied to my former fiancée about my inability to be monogamous.
Part of me can’t help but to wonder how she would have reacted to the truth.
Instead of being honest with her and myself, I lied. If I had been honest and told her that this was how I was, then perhaps by removing the thrill of deception I might have lost the taste for screwing around.
There is no greater way to take the joy out of doing something forbidden than to make it acceptable.
I’m done pretending I’m capable of monogamy.
Does this make me an asshole?
Probably yes. At least in the minds of many people that assume sex needs to be put into a box. I don’t get them and I don’t expect them to get me.
I’m not saying there won’t come a day when I’m done exploring the world of human sexuality, but for the moment there are no guarantees.
I have lovers. Plural. Elizabeth is on that list.
Olga chooses to ignore this except for when it suits her. Olga is not exactly opposed to mixing it up in our private life.
Elizabeth rises from my knee and takes my undamaged hand.
What happens in the VIP rooms stays in the VIP rooms.
This is where Elizabeth and Emer make their money at the club.
It’s quick and dirty money, but I know perfectly well the two of them make bank when they work the club. If I were an attractive woman in her early twenties, I’d be working the VIP rooms from open to close. That’s where the smart money is.
We walk through the club which is laid out as a sort of maze. It’s easy to get lost in the club.