Lessons from Cruising, page 2
Mom and Pop are members of a mail-order gay video club. The postman’s gay, so it gives them something to talk about. They all agree that a gay video club is the most gay-friendly face of the media.
They rent lesbian movies too, to show we’re not narrow-minded. Pop is interested. Mom’s curious. I go to the kitchen to make us pots of tea.
We have our favourite actors. Mom likes one because he blushes. Pop likes one because he’s got a dick so big he has to hold it upright. Pop finds that quite sad and companionable.
Me, I like the one who’s nearest to my age.
I like sport.
In every other subject I’m top of the class.
That’s why I like sport.
I’m good at it, but others are better. It’s the one time other boys get a chance to compete.
I like fourteen. Being fourteen flows through me. It does great things to my body every day. I’m supercharged. There’s nothing I can’t do. It’s like surfing the biggest breaker, on and on, riding free and high.
Other kids though, I see it kills them. They’ve got this sexual charge like never before. They’ve got full tanks. And all they can think about is how it drives the piston. That’s cute, but it’s not the whole picture. Sexuality’s not what you can do. It’s what you are.
I like sport.
I like watching the wind feather cotton muscle shirts as kids leap toward the hoop.
I love swimming. Arms arch, mouths gape, as friends freestyle through the blue of the pool, dripping with speed. Shoulders surge through butterfly and breaststroke, water pushing as waves about them. The poise on a diving board, the angularity and stretch of the dives. A swimming pool is a place of extraordinary visions.
The athletics track too. The gazelle-like flow of middle-distance running.
And I love the games they play in sand. Kids whose eyes dart everywhere, I watch them focus in on themselves. I love those moments of stillness. Then bodies loosen into speed. High jump. Triple jump. Such bouncing, unbounded energy. I love that too.
Most visionary of all is the javelin. Timed to perfection on summer days, in late afternoon when the sun is low and light is fetching. Freshly bronzed limbs are taut and shiny. Legs pump into the rhythm of flight, arms strike, fingertips quiver, eyes expand, bodies span wide and the javelin spears the sky.
Then the boys shudder to a halt.
So much work, so much beauty, so much hope. Even when the javelin wobbles straight to the ground, I find it moving somehow.
I love watching sports.
‘Look out,’ they say, in the locker room afterwards. ‘Arnold’s watching.’
And they laugh for me, and drop their towels to strut naked and with pride.
‘Love the world as we love you,’ Mom and Pop say.
And I do.
Lessons from Cruising
Dawn on a Sunday morning, and the Thames was pulling back toward the sea. I put in my hand and the water pushed a wave up over my thumb. I don’t swim. Just a few steps and the river could snatch at my feet and suck me clear of London.
He said nothing. His shoes, black and thin-soled, sank in mud. He wore a mid-length Astrakhan coat, one of unadorned fur from collar to hem. Rich, that’s all I thought. Some rich guy cruising the embankment had stepped down to the river to claim me. I stood and took his arm so he could pull his feet clear. He pulled his arm back and we walked apart and side by side, up the steps near the Festival Hall and then left.
‘You weren’t out to kill yourself then?’
I think the first words someone says to you should be memorable. Those were his. I tipped back my head and laughed. People like me for my laughter. He doesn’t expect to be laughed at. He just stared. I’ve since seen his eyes turn sky blue but then at that early hour of the day they were grey. I shivered.
‘You’re cold,’ he said. I was, but that wasn’t why I shivered. ‘I live nearby. Come and warm up.’
I’ve never heard him tell of the time we met. I expect his story is different from mine. He walked and I followed, his shoes clicking on the concrete slabs and my sneakers silent. I don’t have a type but I’ve got some history and he’s not it. That history’s composed of men who drifted toward me. They’re mostly white, because that’s who I attract, and they live with their parents or wives or boyfriends so my flat’s the place we retreat to. When they’ve gone I go straight to sleep.
How was he different? He’s white like those others, whatever white means. If I painted him I’d use light blues and greys and pinks for his skin. I’m not big on white in itself but my skin looks good against it. I’m basically lean when not paunchy and he’s stocky. He’s older of course, I’d have said by ten years though he’s more, but you don’t think old with guys like him you think silverback. He leans forward when he walks. Someone comes at me like that and I step aside but I’m OK in his wake. He’s my height but a bigger build, his head shaved and his face round but with high cheek bones. His shirt was thick white cotton and embroidered, tailor made in Paraguay I learned later, and open at the neck. No scarf. Dark hairs curled up toward his throat. His neck was thick. After he said to come and warm up, he gulped. I watched his Adam’s apple shiver. That’s when I knew it wasn’t all fixed and he didn’t have all the power. He was vulnerable. He wanted me to follow him and didn’t know I would.
‘What do you do?’ I asked. Those were my first words. Not memorable at all, though I remember them.
‘I’m in manufacturing.’
‘What do you make?’
‘Money.’
I laughed again. Sometimes I laugh just for myself. It defines me. I’m a young man who laughs. He just stared again, turning his head my way a while as we kept on walking.
‘That was funny,’ I said.
‘Apparently.’
‘You’re not into laughing much?’
‘You play poker?’ he asked back.
‘For matchsticks. For pennies.’
‘Not serious then. For you, nothing is serious.’
‘You say that just because I laugh?’
‘I don’t laugh. Hardly ever. Laughter gives the game away. You don’t seem to mind that. You give yourself away all the time.’
‘You say that and we’ve barely spoken?’
‘I’m being open. You know all about me now. I’m the guy who doesn’t give himself away but stays quiet and watches and sees people for who they really are. And this is where I live.’
He nodded to his right and I looked up a high flank of plate glass that was dark but stoked with reflected clouds.
A Tamil manned the desk. That was a surprise; an exotic touch flown in with all the flowers maybe. His jacket was dark blue linen, open on a black turtle-neck. He was my age but darker and glossier, more assured. I wanted to pause and get to know him but this rich man and I had momentum. The Tamil looked up and smiled like he was pleased for us. His eyelashes were long and his smile white.
The lobby was black marble and grey flooring and soaring height. The flowers were vast white lilies on thick green stems. I sneezed as I passed them, my baby sneeze that makes kids laugh. The lift sensor worked on the scan of a thumbprint and the door slid wide. Inside enclosed us in white padded leather and mirrors. The lift rose with no obvious sense of movement. It opened into a hallway walled with cabinets of vitrine glass that were backed by an opaque blue. The contents were a family museum: snapshots and children’s drawings in silver frames; seashells and coral; driftwood carved into a mermaid; a necklace of shark teeth around an ebony African male head. A door of bottle blue led into the apartment itself.
He took my coat away to a closet and left me to stare around the place. Plate glass windows spanned the entire surrounds and rose some twenty feet in height. Armchairs and sofas were grouped in clusters to fill the interior, like attempts to be intimate in a vast hotel lobby.
He returned, and laid a hand on my shoulder to walk me to the kitchen, which was its own white pod lodged in the centre of the room like a comic-book submarine. He dropped his arm and stepped round in front of me. ‘I’m Ken.’ he said.
‘Deepak.’
He looked into my eyes and with his left hand stroked back my hair. ‘Deepak,’ he repeated.
That was enough to do it for me. I melt at tenderness.
The bedroom was a mezzanine. When I woke, wind was pressing rain across the windows. A white cotton robe lay at the end of the bed. I put it on and went to find him. He was dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt in his submarine kitchen, turning bacon and sausage on the grill. ‘Coffee or tea?’ he asked, and cracked four eggs into a pan. ‘I’ve made coffee.’
People take me for Moslem so at least he didn’t do that. He cooked me pork. In fact I’m vegetarian but I ate his breakfast in any case. We sat at a round marble table on white tulip-stemmed chairs and looked out across the city. It was a classic view, with St Paul’s one way and Big Ben and the London Eye the other.
‘Sorry it’s not clearer for you,’ he said. ‘Though in fact I love it like this. It was raining when I viewed the place.’
‘You like rain?’
‘I like water. Rain on windows is always a comfort but it’s different up here with so much glass. It’s like the bridge of a ship. Where do you live? Can you see it from here?’
It’s in Southwark. Not far away, but it’s not the sort of place to feature in a view.
‘It’s a lowrise not a highrise. Just over there. It’s got bars on the window,’ I told him. ‘And a steel door. There’s piss in the lift and dogshit on the stairs. You wouldn’t want to see it.’
His eyes did that quick side-to-side flicker that happens when he’s thinking. Already I could read him. What the hell was he doing with a guy who lives in a place like that? he was thinking.
‘It’s not bad inside,’ I told him. ‘Quite roomy. I’ve spread rugs around and painted the walls bright colours. And it’s got a balcony where I keep my bike.’
In fact I hate the place, but then there’s nothing about my life that I like much. It’s best not to think about it. Here was beautiful.
‘Have you lived here long?’ I asked.
‘Not long. Since the divorce.’ He sipped his coffee, looked out the windows, and then looked back. He told me things about his life. The story was hesitant at first and then he relaxed into it, like he was giving his report to the board. His company buys up manufacturing firms, strips them down, keeps and builds up parts and sells the rest on and makes fortunes. He faked an affair to be rid of his wife, with a young Ukrainian woman who needed start-up money for a midrange fashion retail operation. The affair was out of consideration for his wife. He felt it was less painful and less expensive than bringing a man home to bed. Less messy all round.
‘No-one knows that side of me,’ he concluded. ‘I’m not a man who reveals himself.’
I’ve heard a lot of confessions from men. They tell me their secrets and disappear.
‘Have you got kids?’ I asked him.
He took an iPhone from his pocket, opened a photo gallery, and passed it across.
‘Phil,’ he said.
The first picture was of a baby pushing a red wooden tug through bath water.
‘He’s so little.’
‘Scroll right.’
Phil was a two year-old wrapped in an inflatable yellow life-vest, holding on to the cabled railings of a yacht. Then he was four, sitting on his father’s knee and holding on to a tiller. He was about six, gripping a fish half as big as himself. The photos ran at yearly intervals in the boy’s life. Phil’s dark hair was covered in white paint as he reached a brush up to the underside of a boat. He was pulling himself up from the sea onto a ladder. He was dressed only in dark shorts, his bare feet curled around a mast as he grinned down. Other shots were simply portraits, hands on hips as he smiled at the camera and always with a backdrop of the sea.
‘You took all these?’
‘We go sailing. Every year, as much as we can. It’s what we do together. He’s eighteen now. I keep a log so I’ve calculated it. We’ve spent two years two months and eight days at sea together. Quality time.’
‘That’s rich,’ I said. I handed the phone back and he scrolled through the pictures quickly before shutting it down. ‘You get on well. I see it in the photos. The way he looks at you. You must be a great father.’
‘He’s what makes life important. The rest is context.’ He slipped the phone back in his pocket. ‘And your father … Not so good, eh?.’
I just stared at him.
He smiled. ‘You look shocked. Like I said, Deepak, you’ve got no secrets. You keep giving yourself away. Your tone of voice, the look in your eyes, it reveals everything. So out with it. You know about me now. It’s your turn. Tell me about you.’
That was a surprise. People don’t want my story on the whole. I made something up. I see it as story-telling rather than lies because you tell lies out of self-interest. You tell stories to entertain. Ken watched me. He was amused but I don’t know how much he believed. I had him laughing at least. That was good. We were enjoying each other.
We got into a Saturday-Sunday pattern. It took place along the South Bank, with walks along the river and regular trips into the National Film Theatre. He says theatre’s too bland and music’s too packaged, but cinema’s truly international. He sometimes jetted round the world in the week but was always back for the weekend. He said I was something to come home to. I’ve never asked to flat-sit. His apartment’s vast. I’d feel lost on my own.
It was a Friday and I offered to cook. It was a simple vegetable biryani, and he was late to table so the cauliflower was overdone. We drank a bottle of Cobra each and then he was back to his computer, with two wide monitors that scrolled parallel spreadsheets. I read a novel and went to bed. I found him there beside me in the night but didn’t hear him come in. He woke me with a coffee and then worked the blinds. They wind up automatically to clear the windows. I hoisted myself up to sit against the bedstead and blinked. It was 5.15 and sunlight streamed in. We met in winter and now it was summer. How did that happen?
‘Taxi in half an hour,’ Ken said, and then hurried back to the kitchen to empty the dishwasher. The maid would come later and find nothing to do but he was too excited to do nothing.
Ken uses a company that sends him a Prius. The driver of the Prius had his window down. It was early morning and with the sun out he was enjoying the air. Ken asked for the window to be shut but the driver didn’t understand at first. He was from some East European country, Latvia possibly, and was navigating by a Sat Nav rather than knowledge of the streets. His English wasn’t too good.
‘Shut…’ Ken spoke so loud it was almost a shout and he separated every word, ‘that bloody window.’
The driver complied and stuttered sorry.
‘Stay in London and we might as well drive straight to the A&E room. A sunny day like today and the ozone’s a killer … Don’t get to the hospital early on a hot day like today and you’ve had it. You’ll be caught for hours at the back of a line of people hacking their guts out.’
I’d only known the Ken who walks the terraces of the South Bank. This one was new to me. He was angry. It was like some psychic cord tethered him to the Thames. The further he moved from the river, the tenser he got.
We paused at lights. There was a black cab in front of us and one to our right. Ken swivelled his head. Yes, there was a black cab behind us too. We were surrounded. ‘London,’ he said. ‘Cancer capital of the world.’
‘It’s not so bad,’ I tried. ‘Not now people can’t smoke in clubs.’
He stared at me. I’d given him what he needed; crass stupidity. It gave him focus.
‘So they smoke outside. You think that makes things better? Do you have any idea what we’re doing to our air? Wind down that window right now and you’re cutting several weeks from your life. Guaranteed. Those black cabs out there? They’re the worst. The very worst. Diesel engines spew out nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter so microscopic it feeds into your lungs, your blood, even your brain and you say that’s not so bad. You’re a teacher, Deepak. If you’re as ignorant as that, what hope is there? You especially should know better. It affects your kind most of all.’
‘My kind?’ My tone was sharp. We all have our sore points. He didn’t care though, he blundered on.
‘Your kind. Immigrants. Families who still walk their kids to school. I’ve had maps made. I’ll show you them. London’s riddled with purple lines. Every line is a road that carries 10,000 plus vehicles a day. Tucked inside those lines are houses where kids live. The kids are growing but their lungs are stunted. They’re coming down with asthma. Their grandparents are dying young. It’s living near those roads that causes it. Do you know how many people air pollution kills every year? Thousands. And that’s just here in London. Passive smoking’s got nothing on it. You might as well back up your diesel Range Rover and fit a pipe from the exhaust direct to the letter boxes of the poor. That’s the sort of environmental injustice we’re stuck with. Those that drive kill those that don’t.’
He couldn’t stop. As we drew closer to Paddington his rate of talking sped up, his mind working faster than his tongue. He’d bought up an engineering company apparently, and was retooling it so as to produce air filters for black taxis at low cost. He’d thought it through. Living by the river and in the clouds was the best he could do personally but he loved this damned city. He had to do something. Fitting filters to black cabs was it.
We pulled into the station. Private cabs have their own taxi rank. Reaching the concourse meant passing the rank of black cabs. The Prius was paid for on account. ‘Have you got a fiver?’ Ken asked. A fiver counts as small change which he never carries. ‘Tip the driver with it, will you?’
He took a deep breath before I could answer, opened the door and slammed it behind him, and ran so as to get past the black cabs without breathing.
Ken read The Financial Times and I read The Guardian, and then we swapped sections. We each spent longer with the other’s paper than with our own. I headed off to the toilet before Exeter and as I came back I saw Ken tip the whole stack of papers into a plastic sack in which a woman was collecting rubbish.
