Call Me

by P-P Hartnett

  “So so, only fifteen replies. I had a soldier round in all his uniform, that was nice. I put it in for six weeks. It’s so cheap in Capital Gay. Now, do you like videos? Blue, you know. I’ve got six tapes. That’ll keep you going! You could have an eighteen-hour marathon wank. Mostly American but a few French chickenish ones too. Are you on the gay scene?”

  “No.”

  “I used to be but the ad keeps me pretty busy—I’ve given up relying on clubs and my sort of thing is very safe. Do you think you could cope? Strip? You must be warned, the videos are extremely pornographic. You may end up with your balls a lot lighter than when you arrived.”

  “I’ll bring a large box of Kleenex.”

  “Yes, I couldn’t abide my carpet getting spoiled. Wish you were here strutting it now mate. I think you’re gonna be pretty good by the sounds of it.”

  I shook him off with a promise to try and drop by his place some time in the evening.

  * * *

  The day of my twenty seventh birthday, the fifteenth of June, the midday meal and I was getting an ugly head-on view of my father. He sat opposite me sweating in the day’s vest. Hairy, heavy arms, elbows on the table, knife and fork raised. An exercise in breathing and masticating at the same time, mouth open, he chewed on special offer beef. My mother served him another helping before coaxing a slab of it towards my plate.

  Wearing under my jeans the leather jock strap I’d acquired at the start of the day, I watched him butter and salt his potatoes. No one noticed my thick lip. If they had asked I would have said Hamish had given me a nasty peck.

  My father and the generations before him had come from a fishing village near Cork, dependent on a sea forever hurt and angry. It was an area prone to occasional mental disorder, common enough for a community turned in upon itself for centuries. A harshness of life that didn’t breed optimism but dogmatism, suspicion, aloof superiority, fatalism. People there told meandering ghost stories while awaiting death. (Preferably the death of others.)

  My father was a carpenter before he started up his own building business, serving his apprenticeship in a damp shed in Beara Bay where he made a variety of coffins in different sizes. Handy.

  I’ve learned much from my father: the power of neglect, authoritarianism, murderous rages, deceit and good old fashioned hypocrisy. Zooming from one to ten on the temper scale faster than your average Broadmoor resident, a picture of clenched yellow teeth and jutting chin, he believed in exercising his right to pull/push/grip/shake/slap/smack/bully. I knew his rules at an early age and abided by them. The cold silences, the tick of the clock, all silent for the news at six, seven, nine and ten. I knew what happened if a rule was broken. Those huge, hard hands. From children to mother-in-law, against the wall. Whack! Then the lecture shouted at point-blank range. Or shouting the two favourite words from his limited vocabulary: dumb and stupid. Satisfied only when the teardrops started.

  My three sisters had an easier time of it. They toed the line. They knew he’d come in handy when it came to loft conversions and the laying of crazy paving.

  His slaps had kind of stunned me. I wouldn’t know where I was for a while. That in itself could feel almost nice. Warm and tingly. Tranquillising. Not really there or anywhere. Like stretching and yawning, eyes closed, while taking in the fetid air.

  One night the bogey man met up with my father as he was staggering towards his car, tore out his larynx and fed it to a stray dog. A frequent fantasy. In another, the whole family was lying on an analyst’s couch, staring up at my father who was having to listen to how we felt while he was strapped to the ceiling with ropes, dressed in his Sunday best and gagged with one very large raw potato. I always feared this fantasy might turn on me and he’d piss down on the lot of us or knock the potato out with his tongue and vomit every drop of his insides down.

  I hid when I heard him coming. Under beds, behind bushes, curtains, inside cupboards and wardrobes. While I listened to his tirades from the top of the stairs, I learned to exercise bladder control. I prayed that in his sleep or at the pub, he’d choke on his vomit.

  Intensive fantasy-filled masturbation was always a relief. I reserved the tears and sulks for piano practice and long walks alone. While they fretted over my school fees, they didn’t question why I bed-rocked or why I threw up every day before school. They had no idea I was being bullied.

  I dreaded the school holidays just as much. Being at home. The arrival of my appalling academic reports. The humiliation. With parents who didn’t give quality time chat and an au pair from Limburg, I seemed a bit on the slow side. Delayed speech. I didn’t understand my class mates. I was talking German before I talked English.

  I didn’t belong anywhere. Except with the dogs and cats and the fish in the pond at the top of the garden.

  Admitting there was a problem might have given them an indication of the nature of their son. I hid from them that I was being called a poof, queer, faggot and all the rest. For years. Even by the teachers. (A big shout to St Benedict’s Public School for Catholic Boys, Eton Rise, Ealing.)

  Perhaps a hint of my already non-reproductive instincts, was what worried my parents. They were most distressed years later when I revealed that my remaining testicle had not been covered with lead while undergoing the radiotherapy at Barts. They had continued hoping for grandchildren even when I was living with Ray and getting it up the bum. God bless them.

  Their only boy. Their reluctant bloody show piece. I sulked and glared when their visitors said how cute I was and what long eyelashes I had. The strain of being their ambassador to the world made me feel like a resident alien.

  “So,” my father said chewing, “How’s work?”

  “Rex Features have placed quite a few picture sets lately. One for Stern, two for Japanese magazines. And I’ve just got a commission from Le Point on street markets.”

  Lies, all lies. Had I said I’d just done the cover of Time he’d have said, “That’s nice.” What he wanted to hear was foreign currencies, particularly those with high exchange rates. My mother thought I should be making it with The Daily Mail or putting my play-safe teaching degree to good use. I’m a disappointment. I’m a disappointment to myself most days.

  While eating, I fought the impulsive desire to smash everything made of glass in that cosy, claustrophobic bungalow. Windows, all three tv screens, hidden bottles, dainty Waterford Glass, picture frames of births, baptisms and marriages—rarely in that order. Glass is a bugger to clear up. The grandchildren would have to be banished for weeks. Glass splinters get everywhere.

  “Well, your honour, the defendant’s early years were friendless, closed years of postponed promises, unkept favours. Slovenly years, disordered.”

  But I got through the meal without any obvious discomfort. I sat and listened to the same same same fucking stories. Family: none of my business—nothing to do with me.

  When I told them about Ray and me, when I left home to live with him, their symptoms of trauma had been stiff lips and silence. They didn’t accept a single invitation to visit. Not once. They hated Ray and he hated them back. His attitude was kind of refreshing. Direct. My mother telephoned lots when Ray finally snuffed it, but neither came to the stupid service. Not that I’d have wanted them to.

  “What would you like for Christmas?” my mother asked as I was leaving.

  It’s mid June, I thought, for Christ’s sake!

  “My father’s funeral would be nice.”

  “I’ll see what I can arrange,” she said, giving me a kiss on the cheek, half smiling.

  * * *

  At Mr Strut It’s, the video player was on like a tap, pouring out taken for granted porno on a movie-size wall screen in fabulous Dolby Surround. The video was linked up to the hi-fi, drenching us from mounted speakers. He’d covered his carpet with the kind of polythene sheeting decorators use, a neat precaution against stains or bad karma.

  I sat on my bike, emptying his fruit bowl in slow, juicy bites. I’d made a rule when ca
rrying my bike into his living room: No touching! Placing three seats around the cramped low-ceilinged room, I told him he could move from one to another but he had to stay in the chosen seat for a minimum of three minutes.

  Being given boundaries in his own home he found both humiliating and wonderfully exciting.

  At one point a wasp flew in and made for the fruit bowl. The performance was halted as he (inordinately terrified) swatted the insect to death with a copy of The Guardian.

  When his seedless grapes, two oranges, a Golden Delicious and an above average sized banana had disappeared though the appropriate orifice, it was time for the laziest striptease ever. Ridiculous, with the bike as some sort of improbable erotic symbol.

  Thankfully, he kept his clothes on. Neat circles and squares cut out of his cheap jeans exposed bits of flesh, like he’d been practising shape-cutting exercises aimed at lower ability kids. He rubbed himself every now and then in a most pathetic way. He’d worn the crotch thin. I made him put his hands on his head like a naughty boy for that.

  With my eyes closed I could press the PLAY button in my head, rewinding recent shaggable glimpses by fruit stalls, at bus stops.

  I imagined I was far out of London in a wood, up a tree, wanking off all alone as I’d done for years before Ray came along. I saw a picture of James Dean like that once—up a tree, clutching his dick. Paid by the hour, so the story goes. Amazing what actors get up to when they’re resting.

  When I opened my eyes I’d shot beyond the protective polythene he’d laid down. I’d sprayed the video, splashed a Californian hunk faking it for the camera to subsidise a paltry allowance. The things a boy has to do to get through college. He clapped when I’d finished my little show piece, though I don’t know what Equity would have made of such a performance.

  “How did you get that gorgeous love bite? It’s fab! I adore love bites. They’re so slaggy. Do us a favour and give me one. Go on. It’d freak them out at work.”

  I began to think of a few things which would freak him out. Not only him, but his neighbours, those colleagues at work, estranged family, the tabloids. The BBC, Sky, CNN and NHK. I said I’d give him a love bite people would talk about if he washed off some of that aftershave first. He toddled off quite happily to soap and splash the vital parts. Ritualistic last minute ablutions he’d mastered great speed in performing.

  While he was behind the locked bathroom door, racing to get back to some tactile contact, one of the many illegal videos featuring minors went into my pannier along with a couple of postal orders already made out to The Pink Paper and Gay Times. Taking just two was hardly greedy: there were whole bunches of coupons for Boyz lined up ready to lure others into his den.

  As he over-optimistically douched and lubed, I considered two choices: doing him a favour or creeping out while I had the opportunity. When he came in I was lacing up a pair of Dr Marten boots inherited from Ray. I still wore the black leather jock strap from the shithead in Muswell Hill. A surplus of oil covered my body.

  “Oh, very nice!” the queen said.

  My chest reddened with each deep sniff of poppers. Perhaps I had that shiny black in my eyes that dogs get when they want to screw or when they see something they’re desperate to rip apart. All of a sudden he was whispering like a sissy:

  “Hey, I don’t want no trouble.”

  How I hate a double negative.

  He moved to the windows. When he drew back one of the three sets of curtains he saw that I’d bolted each and every window catch down. He eyed me with pathetic speculation: What the…? Something must have begun to pound in his head in that room which had the not unfamiliar stink of a Thermos Night Sauna cabin in Amsterdam or Dublin’s Incognito off Aungier Street. He’d only wanted a nice slow quickie as he’d turned the key in the door, letting me in. What had he let himself in for? Even I didn’t know.

  “You said you wanted a love bite, my lovely. You’re gonna get one. Get down there.”

  Twisting an arm around his back and putting a hand over his mouth was as easy as in the movies. Nine To Five by Sheena Easton began to play in the flat below, very loud. I was the only one who smiled at this.

  “Hurry up now. The quicker we do this, the quicker I’ll be out of here. The more you comply, the fewer the injuries,” I said, winking like it was the greatest bit of fun in the world.

  His mouth tried to open behind the palm of my hand. He wanted to say something. I kept my fingers shut tight, squeezed against his face, as if super-glued.

  “Shut up! Don’t talk. Just get down there. Now!”

  I released his mouth, gripping his neck for variation.

  (Whispering) “Please.”

  “Shut up! Come on. On the floor.”

  (Whispering) “I can’t while you’ve got hold of my neck. Oh.” (Then faintly) “Help.”

  “Sh … Sh … Shut up. Keep quiet and you’ll be all right.”

  “Don’t undress me, will you?”

  “No fear of that, ugly.”

  “I’m expecting a phone call at ten o’clock,” he said.

  “I’m scared.”

  The man lay obediently on the edge of the polythene sheeting. With the rope I’d decided to bring at the last minute, something Ray had used on me once or twice for fun, I tied his wrists to upper femurs. The body felt very warm through the clothing that covered it. Interestingly, his little dick was semi-erect. I did every button of his shirt up to keep his body odour in as much as possible.

  “I want to put this in your mouth.” (Pause) “Right in.”

  “No. No way. Can’t we…”

  “I’ll slit your throat if you don’t shut up.”

  I kung-fued the creep a few times playfully.

  He stared at that pair of stained pink knickers which Janis had searched high and low for before realising her queer little visitor had pinched them. Maybe he caught a whiff of her cunt, a quick smell of the jogger’s rectum or the stink of the spunk the garment had wiped off my bedroom mirror the night before as I removed them slowly from a Sainsbury’s grocery section plastic bag. Perhaps he was also catching a whiff of organic carrots. I’d like to think so.

  “I’m going to put this in your mouth. Keep it in and you’ll be alright.”

  He shook his ginger head from side to side.

  “Hush now.”

  “I’ve got your number in my diary,” he threatened.

  “And I’ve got your life in my hands,” I informed him.

  (Heavy breathing, sounds of distress, then childishly)

  “Oh. Oh.”

  “Open wide. If you don’t…”

  “Oh Euan, please.”

  “Shut up or you’ll get a taste of my sewage pipe.”

  (Laboured breathing)

  “Open wide for Euan. Open wide, love.”

  “What’s this for?” he dared ask. So I slapped him. Finger marks showed quickly.

  I think he said, “I can’t breathe,” when I pushed the knicks right to the back of his throat. Had I videoed all this, the Hi-8 cassette later being discovered among the contents of a brown suitcase kept under my bed, those sounds might have been described as muffled or indecipherable.

  When I covered his face, his breath misted the clear polythene and he looked quite angelic, fading into soft focus by the minute. He now had a fully erect dick. I gave that tired little organ a firm-to-hard wanking through the denim. It probably hurt.

  Though his attempts at speech should have been indecipherable, it’s amazing what you can pick up just on rhythm and intonation:

  “I do hope you’re not going to kill me,” he tried to say, just above the volume of a seductive schoolboy’s last muffled plea.

  “Let’s pretend I’m a serial killer,” I said. “A serial killer wanting to beat the record. Forget Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, Nilsen, Sutcliffe and West … I’m going to be the best!”

  That’s when the sobbing started. His mind was rewinding recent reports of queens cut down in their prime, in their homes, necks slashed.
You can never be too careful.

  “You have potential, as a statistic. Ooh you’re lovely. Give us a kiss.”

  As his life flashed before him, which must have made tedious viewing, he pulled the face of an ugly cartoon character who’d just tasted something very hot, making his mouth open as wide as possible. I spat into it.

  That’s when he pissed himself, spoiling the carpet, howling “Nnnggahnoo!” (Followed by a gurgling noise.)

  “Try not to be so overtly feeble. What would your poor mother think? Shurrup crying.”

  The thumb of my right hand pierced the thin polythene. I plucked Janis’ sale item out and entered his mouth, feeling the hot, high roof. He gasped like a bad actor in a Crimewatch UK reconstruction. Then he blinked, like he was about to say something, but he didn’t. Sheena finished the final chorus downstairs. As the song faded he gulped for air.

  He was absolutely silent, just like I used to be when on the receiving end of a thrashing from my father.

  He wondered if it was all over. He’d come in his pants, loneliness and despair jutting out on his face in the seconds in which he ejaculated. He’d also, without a doubt now, shat in them. So much for the prolonged douching.

  I pictured the piano falling down in slow motion on to him as the clock ticked by. Yawning, I decided against it. I’ve always been very considerate towards neighbours.

  “Thank you,” he said. “That was really lovely.”

  As I knelt beside him, his body odours were no longer concealed by aftershave. His face and neck were wet with sweat. I gnawed at the jugular. “Nnnggahnoo,” was the sound he chose to repeat.

  Spitting faint traces of blood back into the body, aiming for the back of the throat, I missed. He squeezed both eyes shut like it was acid.

  Gargling for safety’s sake with a drop of gin from the bottle he’d offered when I arrived, probably laced with sleeping pills (you can never be too careful), I sprayed his carpet with gin. Then I untied the knots Ray had taught me, cheerful as a Blue Peter presenter.

  “There now. Tell them at work how you let strangers come knocking at your door, show them your slaggy neck. That’ll freak ’em out, duckie!”