Call Me

by P-P Hartnett

  * * *

  Shortly after I arrived, rain fell suddenly against the perspex skylight with the uneven sound of a cheap shower. The place was furnished with junk shop finds. Taste not dissimilar to Ray’s. Functional, thirties. He’d got me reclining in a beaten-up armchair, highly contentious Michael Jackson teeshirt draped around my shoulders. Ludicrous. Everything was quite pleasant in the garden flat and the erection in my lycra shorts was as evident as his in denim.

  After maybe half an hour the rain stopped. We’d both got used to having a sound backdrop. Putting down a pencil, he pressed PLAY and Duke Ellington came to life for what felt like a to-the-minute scheduled break from the sketching.

  Charles from Brockley made a fine cup of tea and never got to finish his sketch. A not-bad-at-all kiss led on to a pretty fast blowjob in the kitchen. The kiss was a matter of lips and tongues meeting. No warmth, no tenderness—purely physical. With my eyes closed I found myself comparing his kissing technique with Ray’s. He liked to be on the receiving end of a tongue.

  After the kiss he was down on his knees, a position I supposed he frequently took with his occasional models. In a somewhat routine manner jeans and shorts were lowered, then he got busy throating. I didn’t tell him I was about to come which brought a smile to his face and a groan through his chest as I did. “Mmm,” he went as he pebble-dashed the cork tiles with his load. Although I’d estimate that on the Wechler intelligence scale Charles would score a full IQ of one hundred and eighteen, placing him in the bright normal category, he swallowed. He was okay. He was the kind you could have sleepy Sundays with, the kind who’d iron a shirt for you. Good with mothers.

  One question led to another. A photographer? Who have you worked for? So why have you jacked it all in?

  “I haven’t jacked it all in, as you put it. I’m just taking a break. I could go out and knock off a nightclub feature tomorrow. Anyone can cobble together a bit of copy on some dragged up DJ in her thirties playing records at six in the morning. Some new Steve Strange/Leigh Bowery trash bash door whore, drag king, whatever, but what’s it worth? I’ve been looking over my laminates lately. I wasn’t put on this Earth to document street-style for the likes of An-An.”

  “An-An?”

  “It’s a Jap magazine. A lot of what I do goes abroad.”

  “Standing back from it all for a while then, yes?”

  “Basically, basically I’m fed up with it all. I could go into teaching, I’ve got the qualifications.”

  “The world is your oyster.” He sounded patronising but wasn’t. If the doorbell hadn’t rung, I might have stayed the night. Unexpected Sunday guests fresh from shopping at Camden Lock walked straight on in demanding coffees. Unexpected, uninvited and unwelcome.

  I sat for a polite period, feeling the stubble bristling on my arms before going, saying I’d phone at seven. He was one of the few people I thought I’d bother with again. Bit social worker, though.

  At seven I was in the bath, shaving all over, humming the national anthem—Ray’s old winceyette pyjamas waiting for me.

  * * *

  Yet another beautiful sunset, making me sad. The more beautiful the skies, the uglier the rooftops. A school nurse once said: “If you’re feeling sad, hum to yourself, it’ll help.” Depends what you hum.

  I never really understood the mysteries of the INTRO/FILL IN button, used in the Auto Accompaniment mode to create pattern variations. When this button was held down, the FILL IN pattern was supposed to repeat until released, then the normal rhythm would start from the beginning of the next measure. I think.

  When I sat behind the keyboards I usually focused on a spot far off, a vanishing point somewhere, often unaware of changes in light or temperature, recording the same piece over and over again until it felt right. I had nearly fifty cassettes of the stuff. Sometimes that vanishing point was a body at the bus stop, sometimes the moon.

  * * *

  From the light blue, stone-washed jeans to the perm—gold flashing, very Greek—he was a Daily Mirror reader. He was different from the rest but he too needed to talk. The flat was like a storage warehouse, stacked with goodies for his future dream home.

  “She’s not my big love or anything, she’s just going to have my baby, ‘bout eight weeks from now.”

  “And you’ve also got a girlfriend at the moment.”

  “Oh yeah, but she’s just, you know, just a girl. You know. I won’t marry her. Wouldn’t dream of it. Good for now, that’s all. I want to marry a virgin girl. My parents will choose someone nice. You see, the way I look at it is gay men don’t stick together long an’ what I want is forever. Must be. I couldn’t stand the pain of getting it all together then watching it fall apart. I don’t want to go an’ tell me parents that I’m in love with some guy an’ we’re an item an’ that, right? Then he goes off with some bloke down Brief Encounter or Kudos an’ that’s it. Over. No way.”

  He took a sip of his Pepsi.

  “I’d like a big man, a real hunk. Just us two … but it ain’t gonna happen, right? Cos it jus’ don’t in this world, right? You know what I mean. You know. You know I’m right. I can mess around before I marry but won’t when I am.”

  The book club had done very nicely out of Mr Costas Bourboulous. He’d got a bit of everything for his future family.

  “So, cos you didn’t have nice books and nice furniture when you were a kid, you’ve been collecting all this for when you get married, for your ideal home as you put it?”

  He was smiles all of a sudden.

  “Yeah, that’s my dream.”

  “And you really haven’t even looked at any of these books yourself?” I said, replacing a two pound weight of glossy Van Gogh on the shelf weighed down with taste.

  “No, you see, I’m not educated. It’s too late for me. But I want my children to be educated, see?”

  “And you go to saunas, discos, bars … in the hope of meeting Mr Right.”

  “Yeah. An’ I have a lot of fun too. Down York Hall in Bethnal Green, Starsteam in Battersea, 309 in New Cross, very handy, and Pacific 33 up Holloway. Perspiration in King’s Cross was good, got busted though. Sub Station’s my favourite club at the moment, I’m tired of Heaven. But all I get is a wank, a blow job or two. Hardly very romantic. There are a lot who are right, but gay men just don’t stick together. There’s always temptation. Queers just ain’t faithful. I’ll have a wife in a few years. I’ll be out of this place and have somewhere nice and respectable. My own.”

  Over by the window the British Home Stores’ watering instructions had been ignored. The pretty things were scorched. Waiting to be disposed of, replaced. Seventeen floors below, I saw him again. The boy from half an hour back.

  Arriving too early I’d sat myself down on a bench by the river, just watching the boats go by. He must have been a dangerous fourteen. Too tall for his age, blond with an outgrowing flat-top. Dressed in a baggy black and blue check shirt and jeans, hole at the knee. A Deanager, brimming with pubescent essence. The shirt, printed not woven, was open, drawing attention to nipples like faint stains under the white cotton of his vest, radiating sexuality. An un-fucking-believable looking kid, mouth-watering. The tightest pores. It wouldn’t be long before those teenage looks would be all dried up, his skin crying out for liposomes.

  I was wearing a naff LONDON teeshirt. No illustrations, just bold block capitals in half a dozen colours. L-O-N-D-O-N. Tourist crap. That’s what I thought he was smiling at to start with. Then I thought it was the bike. He sat right next to me. There in the open, illegally close. The close proximity of the boy alone felt like a highly punishable offence. He turned his face towards me slowly and gave a perfect smile. (As he exhaled I didn’t waste the opportunity to fill my own lungs.) The single, steel, horizontal line across his upper teeth drew me like a magnet. I had to rock away a bit on my buttocks to form a suitable gap between our knees. He whistled a single which had gone straight into the charts that week at number five. I liked the tune, had rewatched t
he ‘Chart Show’ video several times, but couldn’t remember who it was by.

  The policeman inside my head moved me along. I had no idea where I was going, just away from him. Timewasting. He followed.

  Under a block of flats he moved ahead, then turned. It was dark there with smelly recesses people wouldn’t want to slip and fall into. Looking down at his trainers, both laces undone, his eyes changed angle slowly, gliding across wet concrete, up and over my body, arriving at my eyes fixed on his. It was the kind of darkness your vision soon adjusts to and so conveniently quiet you could hear anyone approaching even from quite a distance. Enough time to pull your shorts or torn jeans up and move on out like you’d only been mending a puncture or something.

  His hands were plunged deep into his 501s, head tilted back a little. Full frontal come on, come and get me. Belt undone, buckle dangling, young pelvis thrust forward, crotch contours clearly visible and excitingly impressive. A body (his mother had once sworn) made for sex. He was desperate to break open the promising package of his teens.

  His body language whispered to me: “I’ve a calling. I’m every faggot’s cute kid brother, the one they all wished they’d had to abuse.” Had he parted his lickable, bee-stung lips, that’s what he would have said.

  He took a step closer to me as I took two in his direction. I’ve heard that the dark line above a teenage boy’s lip is a lovely, very special texture to tongue, so long as that teenager hasn’t had his first shave. I could have had him there, by the bins, leaving him young, dumb and full of cum. Just one minute with a kid so fresh to puberty could mean years in Whitemoor or some such place. (Who knows who you could meet?) Maybe he could sense I had a condom in my wallet, beside a beautifully sharpened knife.

  I didn’t see the look on his face as I got on my bike, but his wolf-whistle sounded like he was smiling. Yes, it was the same boy, seventeen floors down, below, circling the main entrance of Costas’ building on his racer. At nine, ten, maybe up to thirteen, I’d been dangerous like that: looking for a kiss. Hanging around parks, swimming pools, the edges of a golf course—wanting contact. Didn’t get it.

  “See something you like?” Costas asked.

  We both watched the boy on the bike below while sipping the strongest tea ever from the best of Petticoat Lane rejects. British Rail variety, far too strong. Shelves of china animals and little ladies with parasols sat collecting dust, waiting for a beautiful home and a beautiful wife.

  He wanted action by the time he’d finished his cuppa. He wanted a dick in his gob. He wanted to have his circumcised cock handled the way no woman he’d yet met could. And so did that boy.

  * * *

  Jessie Scott from next door, a strong and friendly woman, was the only neighbour I ever got talking to. She knocked four solid raps soon after I moved in with Ray to ooh and aah the bleaching of the stairs and lift which I did with keen regularity for my first two years there. These oohs and ahhs were delivered in an accent with strong Buchan roots. She caught me crying on the staircase once, having difficulty with the keys, and gave me a hug.

  She was from Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, and proud of it. Her introduction followed the usual formality, the offer of half a cup of sugar or pint of milk should the need arise.

  Her flat was hot and heavy with the smell of roasts and boiled veg. Pride of place went to a large china cocker spaniel with TaRzaN Tipp-Exed at the base. It supposedly resembled a treasured pet, long since gone. Put down. Tears had been shed. She had a son she hadn’t seen in a long while and never said much about. Never said a word about the father and a certain forcefield kept questions at bay.

  “Now Liam,” she launched off, “I wonder if you’d do me a favour. That brother of mine has taken another fall and I’m going to have to go up to visit him in hospital this time. Would you look after Hamish for a while?”

  Hamish was a depressed-looking budgerigar, frozen to his perch. Tiny. Green with a yellow head, blue above the beak. A male. HaMiSh was written in more Tipp-Ex on the frame of his cage. He shivered when Jessie’s face approached to ask if he were a good, pretty little boy. The bird was shrinking with age, but unlike Jessie had no surplus flesh on the bones to draw from.

  “Now, you don’t have to change the water every day if you don’t want to. Every few days will do. He likes lettuce or a bit of cabbage. Here’s a few copies of The News Of The World for his tray. I don’t go in for sandpaper, too pricey and makes a mess. I like to think he likes the pictures.”

  The creature with a brain the size of a split pea looked up, embarrassed at having his shitting needs made so public.

  “Right. Now, if you need to put your hand in then watch out, he’ll peck. He’s a real little nipper. Fast as fast and he’ll be out in a flash, flying into windows and mirrors.”

  Hamish looked stupid amongst his rattling swing, mirror and balls. His eyes were black dots except when excited or saying the only words he knew in Jessie’s voice: “Piss off!”

  “And you will need to put your hand in. His mirror is important cos he thinks it’s another budgie. Needs to be cleaned each day, if you don’t mind.”

  In a plastic bag passed over the threshold that Jessie had never crossed were rations of millet seed, a whole iceberg lettuce, four apples, a cuttlefish and a vitamin block he would not need. There was also a very large chocolate bar and a thankyou card—for me.

  “Don’t let him out, he’ll dirty everywhere and eat your earlobes off. He’s quite happy with his ladder and mirror.”

  Hamish twittered neurotically at first, but he soon settled down. When he sat on my shoulders, stretching forward to natter in my ear, I could feel the innocent warmth of his chest on my cheek, also smelling of age and fragility.

  It had been a long while since there’d been singing in the flat. Ray used to hold me in his arms and sing to me.

  ABUSER FRIENDLY

  Stalking the pages became my very own alternative to tv. I bought every publication running contact ads I could find. Besides the obvious choices (Time Out, Sky, Gay Times and Dateline), I bought Loot, The Spectator, Melody Maker, NME, Private Eye, What’s On In London, Him, Gay Scotland plus the soon to be defunct Phase and Bona.

  Then there were the freebies like Capital Gay, The Pink Paper, Link Up, All Points North, Gay Community News and Guyz, available in bars and clubs. I didn’t reply to ads in Boyz, not even at the discount rate of four for a fiver. Most of the publications wanted a couple of first-class stamps enclosed per reply. Sky was the odd one out, with a Freepost service as an incentive. I was drawn to the odd, the pathetic and bizarre. Easy catches. I replied to ads across the sexual spectrum.

  In the back of The London Weekly Advertiser I spotted an ad: ‘Contacts On Video, The essential new contact service. See your contacts first, LIVE ON VIDEO!!!’

  I sent off a cheque for fifteen pounds, hoping to see the couples seeking single girls, couples seeking single men, couples seeking couples, mature women (40+) seeking men, voyeurs seeking couples, housewives seeking single men (husband present), TV/TS seeking straight guys, all on home-made videos with sound, but nothing arrived. I felt hugely disappointed and wrote a letter of complaint to a south London address.

  I replied to about forty ads, sending the more tasteful free postcards available in Village. Over and over I wrote the same brief reply in royal blue ink, using an italic nib specially purchased for the job. Top right I wrote the full date, beneath which sat my phone number. Slap bang in the middle went the fake name in capital letters. Below this, in neat cursive, I wrote: Call me. (Even if the ad begged a photo or frank letter this is all they got.) Bottom right went the socially dishonest signature, using cheerful and safe rounded shapes. I like to think it all looked more discreet than devious. Recycled stamps were Pritt Sticked down to thick, white Conqueror envelopes. I delivered my replies to the various offices around town on my bike after dark.

  Choosing fake names for myself became an alphabetic chore, more time and effort went into matching a name to an
ad than the random selection of victim. Within seconds of a call for, say, Matthew, I’d know the ad had been in Dateline reading:

  I WANT an aristocratic English young man—6′ tall, slim … a bit like Sting but ideally dark. I’m 29, female, like tennis, badminton, choir, folk singing. Smart businessman for very special friendship with same interests.

  On the wall by the phone my little list awaited calls. Instant recall gave a ring of sincerity, as though theirs was the only ad I’d responded to. Every time that phone rang Hamish leapt from perch to perch, ringing his bell, pecking at his mirror as if in on the game.

  Aaron Time Out SEXY PRETTY WOMAN, 42, likes music, cinema, theatre, seeks attractive younger man for going out, staying in, affection and fun fun fun. Photo/phone appreciated.

  (Affection is more likely to mean infection.)

  Brian Sky TRANSVESTITE, 28. Average height, fashionable, WLTM sincere, understanding, professional male, 18-35, as friend/escort to drag balls, nightclubs etc. Discretion assured. Long letter receives same. Afternoons free.

  * * *

  Cerith Gay Community News

  ATTRACTIVE YOUNG GAY GUY seeks special quiet friend (18+) to share my life with. I live quietly in my secluded home in Brighton near coast. I am totally loyal, caring, loving, non-scene, rather lonely and you will not be disappointed by my looks or personality. ALAWP.

  * * *

  (Attractive means not. A well-known, tiresome fact. Afternoons free, the appointed fucking hour.)

  * * *

  Daniel

  Time Out

  CAUTION! DEADLY SERIOUS ADVERTISEMENT!

  PLEASE STUDY CAREFULLY BEFORE REPLYING.

  You could be aged anywhere between 18 and 24. 6’, clean-shaven and poised between simple college boyishness and bronzed muscular Adonis. You’re the sort “they” call a “hunk”. Your eyes are bluest blue, your hair fair to mid-brown, your smile sparkling. The quintessential model of desirable masculinity and what’s more, you know it. This morning, as always, you spent two hours in the gym. “They” say it’s an obsession but to you it’s a way of life. You enjoy the effect on others—the admiring glances, the way heads turn when you walk into a room. Some day your face and body will make your fortune—that’s for sure. But right now you lack direction—that’s where I come in. At 32 years of age, I am a businessman who has gained success and recognition in a highly competitive sector of the entertainment industry and I am looking for a young guy EXACTLY like YOU to share my expensive, exciting life-style. Why deprive yourself of the finer things in life—good food, luxurious surroundings, prestige cars, world travel—when I can realise your ambitions. Pale imitations beware. This golden opportunity is reserved EXCLUSIVELY for the ONE guy portrayed above. He knows who he is, so will I. Send me your photo NOW and let’s talk.