by Paul Mendez
Owen sat back, with his arm across the top of the settee, and Jesse leaned in close to him, finding his home. It was wonderful, the feeling of being listened to by someone, when he was speaking from the heart and not from the Bible.
“There’s six billion people in the world…”
“And rising,” said Owen.
“Yeah, and six million Jehovah’s Witnesses. If Armageddon happened tomorrow, would that mean that six billion people would all die at the same time, blitzed like in a blender?” Owen laughed at the image. “I don’t get it. I can’t see it. How will those six million be individually picked out to be saved? I really used to think, as a kid, that one morning I’d wake up and look out my bedroom window and the whole earth’d be rubble, like the aftermath of Hiroshima or something. Like, literally, everything flattened, except because we were Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jehovah would’ve somehow spared us, us and the other Witness family who lived on our estate. Our houses would be the only ones standing, untouched, everything else crushed down to chunks of concrete with rusty bits of metal jutting out, and the odd foot sticking up with a heel on, the odd bloody hand with a wedding ring. The whole earth would look like the landfill site my dad worked on. And for a minute, we’d all be celebrating; we’d all run out our front door and jump up and down and be like yeah! We made it! We’re in the New System! Jehovah saved us! We’d be thinking, we’re in paradise! And I suppose my family, and everyone I grew up loving, believes that to the death. But then the reality must dawn on us at some point that actually, practically speaking, we’re far from being in paradise, cos you know what, we’re gonna have to clean all this shit up first, and that includes burying six billion dead people, all of them in different states of mash-up, between the six million of us spread really thinly all over the globe. That means we’d have to bury a thousand people each. That’s not paradise.”
“I buried my dad with a spade, me and a few other blokes. It’s fucking back-breaking.”
Jesse rolled up his note. “And where? I mean, what the fuck? Can you imagine what the smell’d be like? The diseases that’d breed? The fight for food once we’ve raided all the supermarkets and all the fresh stuff’s gone out of date? What would happen when people realised the pangs of distress were greater after than they were before? That the thing they’d waited all their lives for turned out to be harder than their old life? That they’d started dying again, from dust inhalation or food poisoning or blood loss or starvation? Cos their doctor, who wasn’t a believer, was dead? That they were starving and freezing cos their central heating didn’t work, cos the people at the gas and electricity board are all dead? Most people freak out if they run out of petrol and have to walk half a mile with a can to the garage. What would happen when people realised God actually hadn’t been able to wipe every tear from their eyes, and when they realised all the nice people who lived on their street or worked in their office, who just so happened not to be Jehovah’s Witnesses, were all dead?”
Feeling emancipated, Jesse sat forward and sniffed up his line.
“I’m glad you’re out of there,” said Owen, as he tapped and rubbed Jesse’s back. “It wasn’t a good place for someone like you.”
“Thank you. So am I.”
“You know what your story reminds me of? You’ve lost your centre of gravity, so to survive, you’ll need to take steps to create another. I’ve got a novel upstairs just for you, called Against Nature. I’m not sure what you’ll make of it. It’s an intense read, by a late-nineteenth-century French author called J.-K. Huysmans, who worked full-time for the French civil service whilst writing these brilliant masterpieces of early modernism, on their headed paper, in fine hand. Remind me and I’ll lend it to you, if you want.”
Jesse nodded his head, lay back against Owen’s body and lit his spliff. The next song, a synth and bass guitar–led instrumental, was again quite different from anything he had heard before, yet somehow familiar, like the incidental music at the end of a sci-fi film shot in a desert with an orange and dark blue sky, representing the dwarfing great beyond, worlds man has yet to discover.
“Of course, I’m not comparing you to the hero of the book, des Esseintes,” Owen continued. “You’re very different people. He’s a fading aristocrat from one of the oldest families in France. But Parisian high society is so integral to his life, just as the Witness doctrine still is to yours, that he needed to do whatever he could within the boundaries of his sanity to disassociate himself from it whilst remaining himself, and it seems like you’re in that place, or are about to access that place. I wonder whether that might not have been your principal reason for becoming a sex worker.”
“I suppose so.” Jesse felt as if he was being read to at bedtime by Daddy. He had forgotten that this was the exact reason why he became a sex worker. “I couldn’t survive in this world if I was convinced everyone I walked past in the street was evil and about to be punished with eternal death.”
“Yeah, because the Witnesses don’t believe in heaven or hell, do they?”
“No.”
“So what does happen to us when we die?”
“From dust you are and to dust you will return.”
“So our bodies might crumble, but what happens to our souls?”
“Who knows?”
“Do they return to God?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you still believe in God?”
“I don’t think so.”
He found he had said that too quickly, and therefore wondered whether it was true or not. They had passed from the world of Public Image Limited into that of Mary J. Blige, which, in terms of mood and depth, didn’t feel that different, Jesse was surprised to find. With a depressive for a mother, he’d lived with this album since it was released when he was twelve. It was a favourite of hers; it put a voice and words to her pain. God, or at least a belief in God, had given Mary her voice. Jesse was in awe of Owen’s taste for Mary. Everything he did, everything he surrounded himself with, deepened his appreciation of him. Jesse wanted to be equally in his orbit. He deserved someone as loyal and open-hearted.
“When’s your birthday?” Owen asked.
“May 23,” said Jesse.
“Gemini. Interesting.”
“What are you?”
“January 6. Capricorn.”
“So you’re a stubborn goat and I’m a two-faced bitch.”
“Goats believe in what they believe and stick to it. That’s not a bad trait.”
“And I’m not actually a two-faced bitch. But I can be one thing and its opposite in the same mouthful.”
“Your eyes are like nothing I’ve ever seen,” said Owen, surprising Jesse. “So bright and clear, and endlessly saying different, fascinating things. You might be talking, and I’m listening, but at the same time, it’s your eyes that tell me the truth. Like upstairs earlier, when I was sitting on your bed and asked you if you enjoyed sex with your clients, I could tell you did but that something was really missing for you, because you’re looking for connection. You’re looking for someone who will look at you like they belong to you and you belong to them. You’re looking for real love. I can see in your eyes that you are capable of it. Those eyes will never change, unless you change them. Only you have the power to do that. Nothing outside of you can spoil you.”
Jesse wanted to say something corny and absolutely true like That’s the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever said to me, but instead remained silent and clicked his fingers to the vintage soul beat. Mary’s lyrics exposed the intimacy in the room. Jesse suddenly found he couldn’t look Owen in the eye. True Gemini behaviour. They shared the spliff and nodded their heads at the class coming out of the speakers. Owen realised what was missing, and tapped Jesse on the shoulder gently. Jesse leaned forward and Owen got up to light the fire, using kindling and logs.
Jesse suddenly felt restless; he
was neither hot nor cold, and his palms and the soles of his feet were moist. He got up and shook the life back into his limbs. He thought “You Bring Me Joy” might be the ultimate Mary song. Floor-stamping drums, bright, so simple, with a dissonant low piano chord played percussively, lyrics sung understatedly—there is melancholy even while she sings of a true love. Age, authority, style. He looked down at Owen’s back as he poked the fire. If this was something that was happening between them, Jesse was overjoyed at the thought of where his life might be going. If it was just this night hanging out together, and life would go back to normal the next day, he would still cherish it forever.
The fire was catching, and over the CD sounded a bit like the crackling at the start of a vinyl LP. Jesse wondered what Owen’s wife and children were doing. With his freedom of mouth he almost asked, then somehow had the presence of mind not to. Owen would be open with him about such things if and when he wished to be. Jesse carried on smoking the spliff and dancing with his feet together.
When Owen got up, satisfied that the fire was going well, Jesse handed him the spliff. Their eyes locked as Owen approached him, and Jesse almost bent double with the ache. Owen put his hand on Jesse’s waist, and they moved together to the vintage soul lick of “I’m the Only Woman.” I would be your wife, Jesse thought, but still, could hardly look Owen in the eye. He had an erection, but knew he could do nothing about it. He had to pretend he was slow dancing at a Kingdom Hall wedding with one of the elderly sisters to an old Nat King Cole number before he could contain himself, which wasn’t easy with a spliff in his hand; weed always made him horny, but since that man, what he had realised about himself was that he had to switch off his dick and switch on his brain if he was going to survive in this world.
Owen leaned his cheek against Jesse’s, very gently, as if to try it out. Jesse tried his hardest not to tremble. Owen’s body warmth was wonderful. Jesse thought he could share everything with him. What was life about other than to find someone with whom you could share everything? Every thought, every success, every drama? Mary, what are you doing to us? Jesse closed his eyes and rested his cheek on Owen’s shoulder. That was the moment of trust, of letting go. He didn’t mind if he dribbled. He’d found someone who could love him, whom he’d be willingly led by if he was blind. He’d found someone he could love. He’d found someone whose shoulder he could fall asleep on. “You Gotta Believe.” He’d forgotten how romantic My Life was. His mother had bought it on cassette so she could play it in the car. It sounded good in the Sierra Sapphire, but better here, on a proper hi-fi, with the clarity of CD mastering. Back then, Jesse relished the relaxed, happy vibe of the general nineties R&B landscape. Now he could appreciate it for its musicality. It reminded him of What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye, Lady Soul by Aretha Franklin or Wild Is the Wind by Nina Simone. His mother should’ve gone to prison for getting rid of all her classic soul vinyl.
The lyrics meant little to him as a twelve-year-old boy who had been conditioned to accuse all love songs, particularly sung by black women, of desperate schmaltz, but in this man’s arms, now, they meant everything, and Jesse wondered if—hoped, actually that—his mother felt the same love from Graham as he was now feeling from Owen, because then he might even be able to forgive her for choosing him, and their religion, over her son. Here he was, just like her, being loved by a white man. It was a little bit corny of him, to be slow-dancing with him to “I Never Wanna Live Without You.” Owen held the spliff in front of his face, so Jesse could smoke.
“She’s so amazing,” Owen said, as the song entered a coda. “Like Billie Holiday. Not like other contemporary singers who are all about the precision and power. Mary J.’s about the emotion and energy, the chiaroscuro, the pain. This is her best work. Every song. Still sounds so good. Don’t you think?”
Jesse nodded his head, too content to speak. An escalating blaze of strings and brass immediately retreated to a whimpering guitar phrase like a pining dog’s, over which Mary pleaded. Owen sat down and chopped lines again on her face, while Jesse sang along, every word, in his low tone, unintentionally performing for Owen, who sat quietly, watched and listened, smoking the spliff. When the verses were finished, they took it in turns to hoover up their lines. It was good coke.
“That line Look what you done to me!” Owen said. “That’s worthy of all the soul greats. Otis, Levi, James Brown…”
Owen filled their glasses while Mary cried herself to sleep on a bed of shimmering violins, waiting for her man to come home, their dog whining at the door. He stretched his arm back out along the top of the sofa behind Jesse’s head, and Jesse rested his hand on Owen’s thigh.
He wished he had saved himself for this moment, that he had never been touched by a man in his life. That he hadn’t been wounded by that man, or breathed the air in “Dave” ’s squalid drug den, or fucked that man in the toilets at Compton’s, or been picked up by the man in the Bentley, or hired by the stale-smelling elderly man from Southampton who insisted on coming to his room, or the Northern Irishman with the penthouse apartment and the rimming stool, or the Mancunian blue-lipped with poppers, or the policeman in Dorking who called him a nigger and got him to spit on him and beat him up, or the Indian man in Bermondsey who liked him to fuck a line of coke up his arse and asked him to leave at five in the morning when he’d got too high, or fucked mercilessly by the masseur who lived on the Charing Cross Road and refused to pay him just when he’d run out of money, or made love to by the married black man at the sauna who had the biggest dick he’d ever seen, or drunk gin with the handsome, hairy Russian guy whose sweat drops he loved catching in his mouth, or tea with the lawyer in Covent Garden whose skinny little ass took the deepest, hardest fuck he’d ever given, but who had invited round a black boy even younger than him, in school uniform, the next morning while he was still there—Jesse, embarrassed, just left; he should’ve said, What the fuck you doing here, boy? Get out!—or beer with Rufus, whose big daddy arse he had enjoyed so much and come in over and over, but whom he hadn’t heard from since. He wondered what had happened to him, with that suspected jewellery theft and suspension, but it didn’t matter now. He was with Owen, and if he could wait until January, when he would get tested again and hopefully, hopefully, be negative, then they could have all the sex they wanted, and nobody would need to use a condom because Jesse would never need anyone else and he would make sure Owen never needed anyone else. And they already lived together. He realised it was unlikely, and he couldn’t even pray! Besides, what if Owen was just another bad man waiting to reveal his true self as soon as he’d taken from him the sex he wanted? What if he was another Rufus? Were all men the same? Jehovah destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because the men wanted to fuck the angels he sent. He had heard a Witness say that Jehovah allowed the AIDS virus because he couldn’t wait for Armageddon to punish the disgusting, evil gays.
* * *
—
Boxing Day. The 1980s. His mother’s family. The men in the sitting room chat cricket and football and drink rum, the women in the kitchen watch soap operas and drink tea. The biggest, oldest men, with the hardest laughs, get a seat; the biggest, oldest women, with the hardest laughs, get a seat. Otherwise standing-room only, and the kids would play in the long hallway trying to work out the old stereogram that hadn’t been played since before any of them were born, sometimes getting a little too excited and incurring a wrathful Tap de naise! from their grandmother, the meaty contents of whose dutchpot, swaddled in gravy like savoury honey, had gathered a crowd of thirty people at any given time, family or not, to her little stove.
Jesse knew he should be with the men but he always stayed with the women. They were louder, more fun, more exciting. His aunties, girls in their late teens, would laugh and joke and watch the soaps with their elders, but when the front curtains were drawn, and Jesse’s grandfather was too drunk and merry to do anything about it, they would paint up their faces and dash out clubbing,
laughing at their own audacity as the door clapped shut behind them and their heels clicked through the gate into a waiting BMW. How little Jesse wanted to go with them, to cross over into the flashing lights, to drink Babycham and dutty whine to R&B.
Chapter 5
It was morning when he woke up on the settee in the front room. The Christmas tree was on, its lights still flashing inanely, the lamps on, the rug folded and the coffee table drawn up in front of him like they’d been pushed in by a high tide. There were two whisky glasses on the table, with the bottle, Laphroaig, half-empty and topless. The peaty smell had been attractive when they were drinking it but was now odious. A scum of white powder coated the cover of My Life, and there was still some coke left in the open second wrap. Owen’s laptop lay closed where he had been sitting. Silence.
Jesse reached into his jeans pocket for his phone. It was quarter-past eleven. Where was Owen? He felt horribly lonely. His head ached and his sinuses were swollen. He got up and went into the kitchen to pee in the downstairs toilet, then upstairs to Owen’s room. The door was wide open; he wasn’t in there. Owen must have needed to go out, and didn’t want to wake him. Perhaps he’d driven to Anya’s, to surprise his daughters first thing. Perhaps the pain they had gone through together made Owen want to be back with his wife. Perhaps he’d seen sense, and put his marriage before his desires. His car keys, normally at the back of the work surface, were missing. Jesse’s bedding was still in the washer-dryer. He couldn’t deal with being awake, so he ran upstairs to his clean room, stripped off and got into bed, pulling the top of the duvet over his head.
The doorbell rang obnoxiously, perhaps only fifteen minutes later. Jesse resentfully got out of bed and put on his dressing-gown, and was at the top of the stairs calling, Coming! when he heard a key enter the lock and watched from above a blonde woman let herself into the house. His heart was still racing from the coke. Was she the police? She looked like one of those TV Special Branch officers. But she also looked like she’d been crying. She carefully closed the front door behind herself and stood in the hallway with her back against the radiator and the long front pieces of her hair tumbling over her eyes.