Story:
The busy streets of Gran Canaria were suddenly alien to Kevin. People
pushed past him without looking and without apology. No one spoke to
him and he spoke to no one. He wasn’t in the mood. He needed somewhere
to sit, alone, and think things out. A bar maybe, not a screaming,
loutish lads’ bar with five pint beer glasses and thumping music but
somewhere secluded and quiet. But where?
He stopped, looked down a set of steps and gazed at the concrete and
steel shopping centre below him. It was night now. Above him the sky
was orange in the spill of thousands of street lamps. No starlight
could penetrate that haze. Beneath, in the wide bowl of the open square
of the shopping centre people were strolling, heading towards the many
bars that were opening around the dusty, dry park in the centre. Maybe
down there he would find a quiet corner to sip a beer, calm down and
think. Up at street level, cars and taxis drove on their horns, fumes
and chaos filled the street. Down there had to be quieter than up here.
Hoisting his bag over his shoulder he headed down the steps.
No one paid him any attention down there; he was just another tourist wandering the square looking for some evening distraction. The bars were half empty as he made a circuit of those that bordered the park. Some were still closed, blacked out windows and padlocked doors suggested that this area came alive later in the darker hours of the night. He passed a sauna, it too looked closed. Black walls, a neon sign displaying its name in flickering, not quite working, script: The Locker Room.
‘That’s original,’ Kevin mumbled and walked on.
The building beside it, set back from the path under the overhang of a walkway above, looked even less promising. ‘The Pink Pamper’ stated unashamedly that it was a beauty parlour for men. Kevin snorted a laugh. And the next, ‘The Sling’, also blacked out and looking like a squat. It was aiming for a military theme with camouflage netting drawn in spray paint across its façade.
None of these places were what he was looking for. He reached the end of the pavement and turned left. A wide open bar was next, plastic tables and chairs outside, garish lighting inside and, at the back, a long stage decked out with gold curtains and vases of huge flowers. A few people were gathering towards the front, presumably expecting a show of some kind. He heard an Abba song playing and decided to give that one a miss.
Finally he saw what he was looking for: a small, dark bar that resembled an English pup. A few high, round tables stood empty on the forecourt, tall steel stools around them. Inside he could just make out a few guys leaning on the bar drinking pints of beer and staring up at something over the top of the optics. He could not hear any loud music and there was no crushing crowd. He decided that it was time to stop and sit and so pulled himself up onto a stool at the back of the forecourt, in a corner. Unobtrusive, out of the way. He dumped his bag by his feet, took out cigarettes and lit one up.
A woman appeared by his side; a large, overweight motherly type who held no attraction for him whatsoever. That was a good start. So much had happened in the last twenty four hours, he had so much to think about, that the last thing he wanted was any kind of sexual distraction.
‘Hi,’ the woman said cheerfully. ‘What can I get you?’
She had an accent that Kevin couldn’t place. German maybe? ‘Lager.’
‘Big one?’
‘Oh yes.’
She nodded in agreement, as if Kevin had just come up with a brilliant idea, and marched back inside. He waited for his drink to arrive before getting on with the task he knew he had to complete. To work out what the hell was going on. He did not have to wait long, she was back in a flash with a cold, foaming pint of lager. She placed it on the table and slid a till receipt under the ashtray. Kevin thanked her. She looked at him for a moment.
‘Are you ok darling?’ she asked, tilting her head to one side. ‘You look pale.’
‘I’m fine, cheers.’
He felt anything but fine but he was not in the mood for conversation. She seemed to understand this and raised a smile. She patted his hand with hers and winked.
‘He’ll come around,’ she said and then she was gone. He?
Well, yes, all Kevin’s problems related to men at that moment. How did she know?
He swallowed half of his beer, dragged on his cigarette and stared out into the harshly lit square. ‘So Kev,’ he whispered to himself. ‘What’s the story?’
He stared blankly ahead as the events of the last day flicked through his mind; disjointed images that together made up a short film. He saw them as sketches in the corners of pages, little drawings of stick men that moved as you flicked through the book. The film ran for only a few seconds and then he found himself back where he was. Alone in a strange bar with nowhere to go and no one to talk to.
That was ok he didn't need anyone to talk to. He had himself for that. He didn't need Trevor pushing him around, telling him what to do. He didn’t need anyone to show off to, to compete with. He didn’t need Trevor and Sparks in order to have a good time. So being alone wasn’t an issue.
So what was the issue?
Well, being caught with his fingers up Matt’s arse for a start. He almost smiled when he remembered Trevor’s face. The sunburn pink had faded immediately to a ghostly white, his jaw had dropped, his shoulders slumped. And then they had risen, all of Trevor had ballooned out like a puffer fish trying to protect itself. And then he had gone berserk. Effing and blinding, trying to climb over the rail between the two balconies, the girl he was with holding him back, Matt backing away and running inside, Kevin following him. He remembered grabbing for his clothes, he was pulling his shorts on when Trevor crashed into the room, grabbed his shoulder, span him around, pushed him back onto the bed. He couldn’t remember what he was shouting but he had known it was aggressive; threats probably.
Kevin had managed to push him off and fled down the stairs, his sandals in his hands. By the time he was out into the warm evening air he was sweating, cold with fear one minute, hot with shame the next. He was barely aware of his legs as he ran, he was disorientated, couldn’t remember the way, just knew that he had to get away from Trevor before he was killed. He had run back towards the beach, the dunes, until he saw something he recognised. And then he had kept on running until he reached his apartment.
But Trevor had found a quicker way back and, by the time Kevin entered the apartment building, he was already storming up the street. He heard him shouting insults, threats, lies. Kevin had shouted back. Now that he was away from Matt he could think more clearly, or so he thought. Trevor had caught him on the stairs, spitting at him, taunting him, threatening him until Kevin managed to struggle free and push his way past into the flat.
All he could remember then was knowing that he had to get out. He had to get away from Trevor and Sparks and Matt and queers and talk of sex and drugs and clubs and…
He took a deep breath and sat back away from the table. His cigarette had burned to the filter. He stubbed it out and lit another. He sipped his beer, it was already warming up in the balmy evening.
‘Now what?’ he asked himself. ‘Nowhere to kip, no one to hang out with.’ Matt.
No way.
He could go back to Matt’s place and…
No way.
The apartment. Trevor?
No.
Then where?
The motherly woman was back at the table, putting down a bowl of peanuts and eyeing him suspiciously. He tried to smile at her but it didn't work.
‘I am going to stick my nose in your business,’ she announced and heaved herself up onto a stool.
Kevin just stared at her and felt his heart sink.
‘You will tell me about it.’ She grabbed a fist full of peanuts.
‘I’m alright,’ Kevin said.
‘I don’t agree.’ She threw her head back and flattened her palm against her wide mouth before closing it around the nuts and chewing. Her eyes were back on him. Waiting for an explanation.
Kevin thought about leaving, he wanted to be alone. He even reached for the till receipt so he could pay and go. But something stopped him. Maybe it was her manner, she did not sound like the kind of woman who took no for an answer. Maybe it was simply her presence? There was something calming about it, something reassuringly decisive and parental. Kevin left the receipt and lifted his glass instead.
His hand was shaking. What the fuck was going on?
‘I don’t try to pick you up darling,’ she said. ‘Wrong age for you am I?’ It sounded like an insult. It had meant to be a joke. Luckily the woman laughed. ‘Wrong gender dear.’
Oh great. Now he had fallen in among German lesbians. He looked over his shoulder. The guys in the bar were ignoring him. But he now noticed that they were wearing leather over their jeans. They looked like construction workers; checked shirts, thick shoulders, heavy bodies, huge moustaches. All of them.
Kevin turned back to her and shrugged. He did not know what to say. ‘You are like one of my boys,’ the woman said. ‘I like you. If you want to…’
She broke off and looked up to the street, across the square and above. A siren wailed loudly and a blue light flashed quickly past, distracting her for a while. Kevin glanced up, saw the ambulance tear past and looked down. By then she was looking at him intently again.
‘If you want to talk, talk,’ she continued when the noise had gone. ‘If you don’t, don’t. My name is Ute but my boys all call me Doris. Why is a mystery to me. So, are you talking?’
Kevin did not want to talk. He did not want to tell a stranger, an older female stranger, what was on his mind. He wanted to go home to bed, sleep and wake up in the morning being Kev again. Hanging out with his best mate, searching for girls, getting pissed, having a laugh. He wanted everything to be normal. He did not want to tell her anything.
But he told her everything.
And she listened as he poured it out: the guys in the dunes grabbing him, the young redhead lad coming to help him, the way he had spoken to him, how it had made him feel, what had happened afterwards and how his best mate had caught him. The fight, the argument and the storming out. He left out only the intimate details and how he felt about it all. He just gave her facts.
Telling her, hearing himself speak the series of events, helped him exorcise his mind and when he had finished he somehow felt clean, washed. It was out in the open. Now he could decide what to do next.
Ute was nodding her head and thinking. Someone inside called for another drink but she just waved her hand and bellowed, ‘take it yourself.’
She put her flabby hand back on Kevin’s and gave it a little squeeze. He heard his knuckles crack.
‘Thank you,’ she said. Her voice was soft and serious. ‘Now may I ask you a question?’
Kevin shrugged. He had nothing else to add. He felt stupid enough already.
‘You have the choice to return to your friend, this Trevor, or you can maybe go to the other one, Matt? Yes, Matt. You could go to him. You have three things to sort out.’ ‘Three?’
‘Of course. One moment.’
Ute turned back to the bar and bellowed again. This time it was in German and Kevin had no idea what she had just shouted. A guy inside shouted something back and then Ute was talking softly to Kevin again.
‘One, you decide if you make up with your straight friend, but I would wait until tomorrow for that, straight men take longer to cool than gay men. Two, you decide if you find Matt and deal with that. You liked what you did is not my business. But, if you did like what you did then you should find Matt and talk with him. Either way you must put his mind at rest that you are well. Gay men worry more than straight ones about this kind of thing. These are your two issues, two cakes only half baked. Both need another hour in the oven to finish them off. If you don't, then they will go soggy and fester in there and three people will get emotional indigestion. You understand?’
Story to be continued...
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