Call Me

by P-P Hartnett

  “You probably will luv, pale as a ghost with it. Right, I’ll just get you washed.”

  The buzz of the clippers demolished any boyishness left in me. Ten minutes after the bleach had begun to sting, it was rinsed off. When the colour was applied it was like my head had been switched on. Ghastly. Just the ticket.

  * * *

  I thought it must be him with that first prolonged ring of the doorbell. When the letter-box flap started banging I was convinced. With the fist hammering, then the kicking, there was no question about it. This was not the Interflora man.

  I crept out of bed ever so quietly to have a peep through the spyhole.

  There he was, standing opposite me on the twenty-eighth of August, on the day of his fortieth birthday. He had lacked warmth for so long that he’d opted for hatred to even the score. Having exploded my life through the small ads, the fallout was about to hit.

  D-Day.

  The view I had of him through the spyhole was extremely wide angled, appropriately distorted. He was red in the face, sweating in his macintosh on what had turned out to be another boiling hot day.

  I had known this would happen. Maybe he’d known it would come to this as well. I silently closed the spyhole cover, thankful that it was of the kind that avoided the giveaway sign of lightening/darkening in the tiny lens. I returned to my bed, curled up under the duvet and waited for the racket to stop. What I heard was Jessie telling him to piss off.

  I crept around the flat all morning, keeping away from the windows. Every once in a while I tiptoed into the hallway to check that he wasn’t still on the doorstep outside. It was the strangest feeling when I came face to face with him through the spyhole hours later, to find him staring directly into it, listening out for signs of life inside.

  It was when I went to the toilet that my guard slipped. If I’d looked at the letter-box I would have seen that it was raised and that his two black, shiny eyes were peeping in, catching a waist down glimpse of me in nothing but a pair of old Calvins taking a leak.

  Taking another peek, certain he’d have moved himself along by that time, I got quite a shock when his hand thrust through the letter-box and grabbed the waistband of my briefs. He’d rammed fist and forearm in, grazing both. Veins in the hand quickly swelled up from the grip of the letterbox, tiny drops of blood staining my pants and skin. Each one of his fingers held fast. He just wouldn’t let go. His shouting turned to high pitched, repetitive screaming.

  “You are a whore. I know you are are whore!”

  I had to rip the pants off to avoid them tearing into my scrotum and up the crack of my arse. Once off, they were dragged backwards through the letter-box. Maybe he was thinking he’d actually ripped them off me.

  It was Jessie who phoned the police. When the ringing of the bell and banging of the letter-box flap started again, interrupting the six o’clock news, I strode the lightest of steps into the hallway. Through the spyhole I came face to face with a man in white shirt-sleeves and a black and white peaked cap. I could see Dai standing there, looking silly. I could see Jessie framed in her doorway wearing an apron.

  I opened the door. All three blanched at the sight of me. It wasn’t the Boy George teeshirt they were looking at, nor the baggy cut-down Levi’s with huge buckled belt or unlaced DMs. It was the hair-don’t.

  Tears streaked his face. A clear mucus slimed his upper lip. The staircase stank of him.

  “You look ridiculous,” he whined.

  Jessie went back inside and shut her door but I bet she got busy behind her spyhole within seconds.

  “Have you come about the drains?” I inquired.

  “There have been complaints,” the officer said, nonplussed.

  “I’m sure there have. Be a sweetheart and pop the old fool off at King’s Cross before he misses the last train.”

  I couldn’t have been camper.

  I turned on my heel as the officer was getting his notebook out. The doorbell rang once. I put on the new Felix single at maximum volume, returning to watch the officer have a few harsh words with Dai, tucking his notebook into his back pocket. Then they both left.

  Through carefully adjusted venetian blinds I saw Dai hail a cab. The armpit of his macintosh was many shades darker than the rest of his raincoat. Inside his tightly packed cells a gene spelled N-U-T-T-E-R.

  I put the kettle on.

  * * *

  Those fine, resourceful folk in Hamamatsu have provided customers with fifteen demonstration songs in the depths of the machine’s circuitry. I’d never had the inclination to hear the delights stored within the SONG SELECT section before, but I was in a mood to try something new.

  Unplugging the headphones, I listened to a few bars of Edelweiss (09) through the internal speaker system. Then, using the OUT jack to deliver the pathetic output through my stereo—close to maximum volume—I treated anyone walking along the Goswell Road to four classics chosen at random: Carmen (04), Happy Birthday To You (20), House Of The Rising Sun (08) and Greensleeves (13).

  I wished for rain, heavy rain, the kind I like best, to wash scum off the streets, down into the drains. The forecast said everything was going to be just fine. I felt like getting beautifully drunk. I briefly considered phoning Glenda. I ended up having an early night.

  * * *

  The letter-box flap was up. Being invisible had put me in a new, elusive rank. Where was I? What was I up to? What had become of what’s-his-name? Invitations and press releases had begun to dribble through once again. There was no mail. Nothing.

  I unlocked and swung the door open. No one there.

  I bent down to look through the letter-box to see the view Dai had stolen of me. I checked around the hallway in case some correspondence had nose-dived and skidded somewhere. Nothing.

  Dai had been, that’s what I thought. Back. Back to get me. I was more inconvenienced than scared. I wanted to be anonymous, uncontactable and untouchable. I wasn’t.

  Neither was my letter-box, letting in piss-stinking air from the staircase.

  * * *

  Feeling the way I was feeling, nothing, I could quite happily have slashed my wrists. Slashed my wrists, or jumped off the balcony. Perhaps slashing my wrists as I fell from the balcony, my blood wetting me in a sudden, heavy shower like the rain I like best.

  * * *

  I’ve always liked the Sex Pistols’ cover of Iggy’s No Fun as much as the Stooges’ original. Ideally there’d be two mixes available, featuring the vocal talents of Lydon and Pop over the two different backings. One time I lined up Pistols on CD, Stooges on turntable, to make a rough mix. Didn’t work, but I had a lot of fun trying. It was one of the last things that gave Ray a good laugh.

  I was feeling like going out to a place of wild, natural beauty, getting my cock severely sucked or getting my head kicked in. Funny. Not funny. What I wanted most was to be an orphan. I wanted to disappear, without anyone worrying blandly about me.

  It was one of those days when I’d decided to have the phone plugged in. Living dangerously. Picking up the receiver to ask, “Friend or foe?” brought silence.

  “It’s your mother,” the woman who’d borne me announced, with as little enthusiasm as Ray had delivered the words when we were together. “How’ve you been?” she asked, only wanting to hear good news.

  “Fine,” I said, slipping into another voice. “Busy.”

  “What have you been up to?”

  “Oh, things you could never imagine.”

  “You don’t know what I could imagine.”

  It was a strange thing for my mother to say. There was a pause, which was quite exciting. Excitement is rather rare when it comes to conversing with any member of my family. I wondered if Dai had been on the phone to her.

  “Oh Liam,” she said, voice rising, sounding like her mother’s. “Come home, Liam. It’s your Dad. I tried phoning before but there was no answer.”

  “What’s up?”

  There was a pause in which I crossed my fingers.

/>   “Your father passed away, eleven o’clock this morning.”

  My reflection was warping so nicely in the kettle, shaking the crossed fingers loose. Christmas had come early. I had to turn away from the warped semi-circle of teeth, the corners of my mouth folded up, so as not to laugh out loud.

  “I’m sorry, Liam,” my mother said, as if she were in some way responsible for disrupting my social life over the next few days.

  “How did he go?” I asked.

  Through sobs:

  “He hit one of his moods after walking the dog. I could hear him coughing in the toilet. Then I heard him fall. The doctor says it was a heart attack.”

  Just like Elvis.

  I called a cab then phoned the operator to say I wanted to change my telephone number. By the time I’d confirmed this in writing and packed a bag, the driver was knocking at the door. Within a minute of being in the cab I decided on a detour to Soho. Shaun was going to have to do something about my hair.

  After years of hoping and private planning, he’d died—just like that. I was robbed of two particular pleasures: the cruel, hard gaze I’d direct at him from the foot of his bed while he experienced—point two—a short but painful exit.

  The fact that he’d finally kicked the bucket would be a turning point for my mother and release her from those splitting headaches.

  My father’s funeral left a lot to be desired. Everyone was there, the majority drycleaned especially for the event. The weather had turned cold, September was feeling like February. I wore a grand, jet-black Saville Row coat my father hadn’t got much wear out of. The Paul Smith suit Ray had deviously acquired, but never worn, fitted well. Black.

  I was told in a number of Irish accents what a good man that father of mine had been. It seemed a fair idea to just nod a little and keep my mouth shut. Women had put their heads under hair-driers, men had dressed slowly, applying eye-watering drenchings of aftershave, probably thinking of the business of the will. It seemed like every Irish couple in need of a sandwich and Guinness from Greenford, Hanwell, Kentish Town, Camden Town and Ealing had turned out, equipped with one clean handkerchief which was shared. I didn’t know a lot of the people there. That was a comfort.

  Outside Ealing Abbey, Church of St. Benedict, I studied the flick-up and root perm of the woman from the prefabs in Hanwell as her beefy legs struggled up each of the sixteen steps. My mother had rescued her in the Parish Centre one night when she was ruining her make-up, diluting gin with tears. A peroxided woman who ran up bridal ensembles from Pronuptia patterns on a machine in her kitchen, working round the clock through a haze of nicotine and appetite suppressants to cater for the bad taste needs of the local community. Mrs Piana. What a woman.

  Tawny, dusky pink base foundation was favoured by all the aunts, one even wearing it on the back of her hands to hide liver spots. Ray always took great pleasure in tearing a strip off the relatives, outdrinking the men, pushing the boundaries of a dirty joke with the women, teaching the children rude words and inappropriate hand movements they’d grow into.

  The top-of-the-range coffin was carried by six serious men, not unsurprisingly in black and white, only worth mentioning as it looked so out of place on those chaps who’d surely all once served as car park attendants.

  As a prepubescent I’d served on this altar. I enjoyed giving the incense a mean swing, ringing the bell like a go-go boy in slow-motion.

  Along that same aisle my parents had trotted to marry. Along that same aisle all four innocents had been marched for Baptism, First Holy Communion, then meaningless Confirmation. Along that same aisle sculptured flounce affairs in masses of moire with iridescent pearl motifs, pie crust edgings, wired chiffonette bows shot with silver, dozens of silk roses (blooming and also in bud), teardrop pearls on necklines, lace sashes and rococco themes on veils had drifted. Cunningly concealing foetuses beneath all that swirling silver satin and ivy leaves; packs of cigarettes and emergency make-up in heart-shaped pockets; tattooed forearms under trailing sleeves of antique effect lace in economic polyester.

  I was glad it was a funeral and not a wedding. I’ve always found the spectacle of so many poorly matching hats hellish. Not having to move on to a reception with a display of vibrating electric blankets, digital egg-timers, hostess hotplates and the obligatory wok all neatly ticked off the pressie list was a relief. Black was kinder to people with so little colour sense.

  The opening chords of a hymn I didn’t recognise sounded up. The organist, however, was familiar: a useless retired music teacher who used to drone on about the joys of camping by the sea.

  I put one arm around my mother as she hyperventilated discreetly, placing my dry face on show as I stared back from the front row to witness the advance of the coffin—breaking with all rules of etiquette of course, absorbing clouds of poisoned darts shooting my way from Irish eyes which weren’t smiling. I wondered if his jaw had fallen open in death the way it did in front of the telly so often. Perhaps it had been superglued shut. Eyes too.

  The paid for solemnity of the march down the aisle was upstaged by a cousin’s “special” daughter, Tara, who got busy tearing pages out of a holiday brochure she’d dragged through her life for the past four years. She shouted, “I want go Malta!” God made us all different and he made little Tara very different.

  The idea of selling ices, soft drinks and popcorn crossed my mind when my mother was hamming up her dutiful mourning widow performance.

  I’d only been to one funeral before. Ray’s. The funeral he’d prepared for himself was particularly riveting. No chance of reggae at this send-off. Or OutRage! teeshirts. In death, Ray became not the stink I last saw, but a kind of pure essence of himself, a knot of happy memories defying chronological order.

  Since my father’s death I’ve been seeing things his way a little. I probably caused him a few (hundred) disappointments. Personally, I don’t give a fuck.

  I wasn’t nervous but hungover from days of watching my mother go through cupboards and drawers, wiping out all trace of that man’s existence. I got through quite a few bottles of QC Sherry prior to the big day. People said I was taking it real bad, looking so pale. Gaunt. “Ah yes, he’ll be missed.” “Such a loss.” My arse. I was celebrating, delivered from evil at last.

  I felt nothing for the panto around me as the priest spoke of the monster who’d impregnated an egg in my mother’s womb with a couple of splashes, passing on those genes. I was more than ready for another sherry and a slice of Soreen by the end of the service.

  The pace of the drive to the graveyard was painfully slow.

  The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,

  He makes me lie down in green pastures,

  He leads me beside still waters,

  He restores my soul.

  Watching the falling of soil in that Southall graveyard was frustrating. My memories required a much greater depth of burial. There were far too many people about for me to spit discreetly down into the old grave.

  Why can’t life be pink and fluffy? Like a picture book. Why can’t life be soft and sweet?

  Once the dirt had been pushed over him, six feet down, all cars sped away.

  I kissed my mother on the cheek and sneaked out the back-door when everyone was too pissed to notice, not staying on to empty the ashtrays or hoover up. I was tired of being a son. I was tired of being alive.

  It was strange travelling by London Underground after so long on the bike. Didn’t seem as bad as I remembered.

  * * *

  The Edge is one of those Soho faggot watering holes which goes to town pretending to be laid back in a New Age kind of way. Lots of varnished wood, stainless steel and lighting you wouldn’t notice. Very Key West. A colour scheme suited to a multi-ethnic reception class. Upstairs it’s all very meeting room, show flat. The downstairs area is split into two sections, a below deck ambience bar and a long narrow cafe effort on the street. It’s a hip place to waste time. When people get hungry they go to the Hare Krishna re
staurant next door.

  It was shortly after four. A group dressed in boots, beads and huge buckled belts stood in ballet positions by the stairs, chewing what I guessed to be sugarfree gum. Cash-corrupted fools, waiting to be toyed with and tortured, singing along with another remix of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love and meaning every word of it. Doomed but beautiful wretches, waiting to be wined, dined and sixty-nined.

  My eyes fell on the open back pages of Boyz, pages neatly spread as if ready for me. Like a hint, like an arrow saying, This way.

  Sling, stocks, toys, red, duos.

  Dungeon, playroom. SW17.

  Uniform, CP, Bondage, games.

  Hotel visits. Brian, 0181 682 ––– /

  0956 ––––––. C Cards.

  e-mail: Brian.esc@msn.com

  God bless Brian. And Fabrizio the XXVWE Latino, every stinking inch of construction worker Toby, along with Derek (22) in Victoria—5 mins from tube (Recent photo) and the new, genuine ex-soldier Steve. Fit, tough, versatile manly good looks, 6′ 2″, Can do duos—the lot! Aiden, BJ, Jesus and Jock. More than just the one Mr Gay UK contestant, the occasional porno star and poet. God bless them all, every last queer lad, and there are pages of them winking anyone and everyone their way from thirteen quid a week picture boxes. Just waiting for your call. Picture boxes in Boyz, Thud and QX where little is left to the imagination as to what their best physical asset might be.

  Call me. No, call me. Hey, I can be over in ten minutes … just pick up that phone.

  A detonation of laughter. The lights dimmed a bit. Music up.

  The barboy who served me had flesh and blood encased with skin still tanned from weeks on a beach all by himself. Ivory fingernails, perfect smile, prepared for compliments. A handsome, fiercely groomed, gym-trained young man with no whiff of ‘the game’ as yet. Security Sex Style . This wearer of one jumbo sized silver hairgrip sing-songed the inevitable Can I get you something?

  I fancied a fruit juice (I’d been tipsy for days), but when he cocked his lovely ear to my mouth I asked for a whisky, a double. I had the feeling he was fresh to London, learning the ropes. I wondered what he’d be like a month on, having danced the nights away at GAY, Queer Nation, Fruit, Fridge, Heaven, Trade and The Beautiful Bend, places where sweat drips off noses, pours off walls, runs in rivulets down the small of backs to make arse-licking salty. He was very handsome, innocent. An attractive target to conquer. (How long before the straitjacket of gay identity suffocated him?) Despite that giant hairgrip he was still not quite yet a fully paid up narcotic narcissus. (How would he look if he ever reached the ripe old age of thirty?) I wondered if prostitution would be entered into with the planning, calculation and premeditation a farmer devotes to fields of maize. Or a contact ad fanatic choosing and reviewing sex. Sex as an experiment, a game with changing rules. A commodity. A very special need.