The End of Mr. Y

  "Coffee?" I said. And I wanted to slap him, this shaking mess. I wanted to tell him to be a man. If I wanted to fuck girls for the rest of my life I wouldn't be doing this, would I?

  A waitress came. They all speak French here, or at least, they affect convincing French accents, so he said, "Café au lait," in a stupid English-French accent, and then added, "Merci."

  What an idiot. And now? Now I want to piss on his face. I want to drown him in my shit. I want to take pictures of him drowning in my shit and send them to his girlfriend. I want to write a concerto all about him drowning in my shit and play it at his funeral, and out of a permanent speaker system at his grave, so all his relatives will have to listen to it forever.

  But I was still hopeful when he looked at me across the table.

  "How have you been?" he asked me, as if I had cancer.

  (You're the cancer, Robert, you miserable little tumor. You've given me cancer of the heart.)

  "How do you expect?" I said.

  I think what I meant to say was: Fine. Great. My life is full of pink balloons.

  Well, that's more attractive, isn't it?

  He lit a cigarette with shaking hands. I taught him to smoke, of course. I taught him to smoke, and I taught him how to drink, and I taught him how to fuck me. I showed him what I'd suspected: that two men are more powerful than the cancelled out yin-yang of cock-and-cunt. We discovered it together: the beauty of the male body. Don't you remember, Robert? I even bought you a reproduction of Donatello's David when I could hardly afford food. In return you bought me a bust of Alexander the Great.

  And you said you'd move in with me.

  Sitting at the table just over an hour ago, he didn't look like someone who was about to leave his wife and move in with me. On the other hand—I suppose he would be upset if he had just left his girlfriend (they're not married, despite the two kids). Maybe that's it, I thought. Maybe he's upset because he's told her and he's going to have to come back to my flat tonight and I'll give him vodka for the shock and suck his cock so hard that he'll never leave me again. I just wanted the chance to convince him it should be me. I see Robert as a fish with the hook still in his mouth. If she tugs it, he goes back: I know that for sure now.

  Robert's sitting there with the cigarette, frozen in time. My mind won't play this memory like a film: It pulls me around like an Alsatian, making me go here and there.... And now I'm thinking I should write a guidebook for others in my situation. Or ... Yes. A Web site. I could send her the link, just so she knows.

  Howtotakeitupthearse.com

  Probably exists. And that's not what I want, anyway.

  Robertisabastard.com

  Not general enough.

  Whenstraightmenpromisetogogayandthendonot.com

  He sipped his coffee. I was facing the door; I'd placed myself there like a little welcome mat (another fucking stupid English invention) waiting for him to wipe his feet on me. So he sat there sipping his coffee, looking beyond me to the wall, covered in postcards from Paris, and I just watched people leave like bacteria looking for a new host to infect. No one new comes in at this time of day; it's as though the place has taken an antibiotic.

  "Are you OK?" Robert asked me.

  "I'm confused."

  Last night he was due to come over to my flat to celebrate the beginning of our new life together. I'd finished my relationship with Catherine, and all that remained was for him to leave his girlfriend. He didn't come. Instead he phoned me at midnight and in a stupid whisper said that everything was too complicated and that he'd meet me here tomorrow. I said I'd bought flowers. He said he had to go. I suggested coming to my place rather than here—after all, this place is virtually next door to my flat. He said it wasn't a good idea.

  So there we both were. And I knew he hadn't done it.

  "You haven't told her," I said.

  He was still shaking. "I did tell her," he said. "I did it last night."

  "Oh my God," I said. "I didn't know. Sorry. Shit. Are you all right?"

  I leaned across the table to touch his arm. Obviously he was now forgiven. He had done it. He had told her. Well, that was what I'd wanted. Actually it was what we'd both wanted. But where did he go last night? Just as I started wondering about that, he moved his arm away from my hand.

  "Don't."

  "Robert?"

  "I told her. I told her I was leaving her."

  "But that's good, isn't it? Unless ... Well, obviously you will be upset, but I can help you with that. It's all going to be all right now."

  "I'm so sorry, Wolfgang. I've changed my mind."

  Microwave my fucking soul, why don't you?

  "I told her. I said, 'I'm leaving you,' and she said, 'No you're not.' Just like that. She knew something had been going on. She's not stupid. We're ... Oh God, I don't even know where I am, I'm so tired."

  "We're what?" I said. "What were you going to say just then? 'We're...'"

  "We're going to have another go."

  This idiot makes a relationship sound like a children's spinning top. Oh, I'm just going to have another go! But I didn't say anything, and so he just went on and on talking about how he thought he was gay, perhaps, or at least bisexual, but now he wasn't sure. He said he thought he was probably bisexual but that really meant that he could stay with his girlfriend, and after all, they did have two kids and she was right when she said that he should think of them rather than just following his cock.

  Console!

  Console?

  Console?

  Shit. I've got to get out of here. I had no idea that this is Wolf's mind, although I suppose I could have read the fucking clues. Oh God. Oh God. I can't believe I'm intruding on his life like this. I shouldn't know any of this. I had no idea. Oh, Wolf ... I'm so sorry. Where's the waitress gone now? I can't look around, unfortunately: All I can see is what Wolf sees, and he's just looking at the table. No doors. No milky images.

  Console?

  But it doesn't come. I'm stuck.

  Now he's getting up to leave the café. But he's still not looking at anyone.

  And I recognize the way he feels. It would be what, seventeen years ago now.... Christ, that makes me feel old. I was in love, totally, innocently, in love, for the first and only time, with a guy who was doing a degree in town when I was doing my GCSES. He had dark shoulder-length hair and drove a little blue Mini. Just seeing it parked in the university car park would give me a little buzzing thrill, like touching the heart of the fake guy (or the guy-shaped hole) in that Operation game. Then he dumped me because I was too young, and I spent a year or so semi-stalking him (including once leaving an amusingly shaped cactus on his front doorstep) before I decided to just give up on love altogether.

  Wolf's not doing any stalking, though. Wolf's going to get drunk. We're going to get drunk....

  I'm going to get drunk.

  It has started to snow. The bacteria-people on the pavement crush the flakes into instant slurry; it's exactly the consistency of the lemon-ice drinks Heike's mother used to make for us when we came back in the afternoons in our Pioneer uniforms. But the stuff on the pavement is dirty and brown. And that's it: life expressed in one moment. You start with pure crushed-ice lemon drink and you end up with a shitty mess. This is what you become. And I know where I'm going now, so I walk through the brown sludge on autopilot, not crying. I'm not crying yet.

  But it will be OK. If you drink enough bourbon your humanity starts to melt away. By three o'clock this morning I won't care. Perhaps in an hour I'll be anesthetized enough to stop thinking about when I am going to cry. There's an icy wind along with the weak snow, but I can't be bothered to do up the buttons on my coat. I think I left my scarf behind at the café. Good. Maybe I'll freeze to death. Picture me frozen to death in the park, brokenhearted on a bench. Robert will read about it in the local paper and ... Here's a sadder picture. I die as before on a park bench, etc., and the fucker doesn't even read about me. I could die and no one would notice. My neighbor Ari
el might notice after a few days. Catherine won't care now, though. She didn't say anything after I ended our relationship. She didn't even cry. She didn't tell me I'd made a mistake. She didn't implore me to stop thinking about men. This almost makes me go straight to the park and undo all the buttons on my hateful red shirt, but, despite what I tell everyone, I'm no suicide.

  There's some business guy walking towards me, holding a newspaper over his head to stop the snowflakes touching his bald patch. Hey, idiot! Have you ever sucked someone's cock? I have.

  Then again, it's more common than people think. He's probably done it, too.

  (A door hovers over the man, but I hesitate; then Wolf looks away and it's gone.)

  I want something to hurt. I want physical pain, not this mental shit. This would be an excellent time to go to the dentist. Hello, Herr Doktor Do whatever you want....

  I could headbutt a lamppost. I could try to find some queerbashing football hooligan to kick me in the head while I lie on the ground in the recovery and/or fetal position. I'm walking towards the Westgate Tower, the tight arsehole at the center of this city. I used that description once and whoever I was talking to was shocked. "But have you never watched a bus try to squeeze through it?" I said. "They all look like they need lubricant." Ha. If I want to get in a fight I'm on the wrong side of town. I could go back towards home and then hang around near the kebab shop and wait for a gang of "youths." What would I do? All I'd have to do is stare at one of them. I wouldn't even need to call him a poof. You know who I really want to get beaten up by? I want to get fucked-up by faggots who'll fist you afterwards. I want something to hurt more than this hurts.

  Console?

  Console?

  Still nothing. And all Wolf's looking at is the pavement.

  We walk onwards, towards St. Dunstan's. Eventually we come to a door I've never noticed before. Well, I've simultaneously never noticed it and at the same time I realize I come here quite often. It leads downstairs to an underground wine bar. And I sit there until closing time, drinking Jack Daniel's, eyeing up every guy who walks past me. I think that one of them will react. One of them will want to fight me or fuck me, but I might as well be invisible. Maybe I am. Maybe I'm invisible. At last orders I go up to the bar for three more drinks.

  "Am I visible?" I say to the bartender. "Can you see me?"

  The wankers throw me out. And I'm not drunk enough yet. I go to the hotel.

  The manager tonight is this ex-bouncer called Wesley.

  "Hey—you're not on tonight," he says to me.

  "Drink," I say. "I only want a drink."

  My insides are volcano-hot. I need to do something about it. I think about explaining this to Wesley, but he simply says, "OK. Just a couple, though, mate."

  Melissa's playing the piano tonight. I sit in the booth right next to it and eyeball her enough to make her play three wrong notes in a bar. Well, I think they were wrong. The whole world seems the wrong way up now. Why am I here? Oh yes. That bastard Robert. Perhaps when I get home he'll be waiting there for me with a little suitcase, dabbing at his eyes with a balled-up handkerchief.

  In my dreams. Or, as Ariel says, in another universe—maybe the one in which I am also rich. That's the other thing: After tonight I will be so broke. I wonder if she'll lend me money? No. Didn't she say that she spent it all on that book? Could I steal the book? She said it was one of the rarest books in the world.... What would I do? Go in there for a drink before bed and leave the door on the catch as I leave. Then I could go back in and...

  You bastard, Wolfgang. You're her friend.

  The piano's so shiny it looks as if it might just walk out of here on its four legs. Am I going to throw up? Steady, steady. I'll go for a piss. That'll help.

  I'm on my own in the fluorescent toilets, pissing into the ceramic urinal, when this guy walks in. He'd probably look more attractive in a photo-fit than in real life. Maybe he is a photo-fit. His huge eyebrows don't seem to go with his tiny slug-pellet eyes. Or maybe it's the nose that seems slapped on, or as if someone just punched him. He comes and stands next to me and takes his cock out, but he doesn't start to piss. He glances at me; down at my cock, and then up to my eyes. I look at his cock. He looks at my cock again. Is this some sort of secret code? Before I know what's happening, we're in one of the cubicles. I'm down on my knees on the slimy, tiled floor as he fucks the inside of my mouth. All I can taste is cold piss.

  When it's over he calls me a bitch, and then leaves. I think of Donatello's David again and that's when I cry, after I've thrown up in the toilet behind me: Jack Daniel's laced with sperm and only the memory of coffee. Women are easier than this. I'll find a woman who will help me. I'll ... Oh God. I don't ever feel like having sex again in my life. But you can't get anything without sex, or the promise of sex (unless I've got that wrong and I actually mean violence, but I'm a little drunk). Maybe I'll try hanging myself, at least for some sympathy. Is it easy to get it wrong?

  The next few minutes are confusing. Wesley—I'm sure it is him—comes in just as I'm unbolting the cubicle. He drags me down the corridor into the kitchen, where I manage to put my elbow in an icecream tub full of prawn cocktail before he presses my face down onto the stainless steel counter.

  "Don't you ever do that in my fucking hotel again, you fucking faggot," Wesley says. I genuinely have no idea what he's talking about. I don't think he's firing me. I think this is the equivalent of the first formal warning. Something hurts: my arm behind my back. "Fight back, pussy," he says, jerking me backwards by the collar.

  I laugh, forgetting "pussy" in this context does not mean "cute cat."

  "Are you laughing at me?"

  I spin, see a fist, and then everything goes black.

  Console?

  Nothing.

  On the way home I try to get run over. I even walk through the Westgate Tower, on the road, muttering, Arsehole, arsehole, but the traffic just slows behind me, as though this is a funeral procession rather than just a drunk who needs a kicking. In the park I try abusing a couple of kids on a bench but they just look upset and run away. I think I might have forgotten where I live, but then I'm there, and there's my bicycle.

  I spit on the ground twice before walking in. Two guys in a black car give me dirty looks before driving off and parking around the corner. Maybe they're going to get out and come and beat me up. Do I still want that? But nothing happens: It just looks as if they've gone to sleep.

  Sleep. That's quite a good idea. Maybe I'll just go to sleep and not wake up. I wonder if Ariel has sleeping pills. Unlikely. Shall I go and see her now? Am I in a state? Objectively, would I seem "a state" if I were to knock on someone's door now? Actually, I don't think I've got the energy to even get up the stairs. It looks quite comfortable on the concrete. I think I'll just...

  "Oh. Um ... I'm sorry."

  Who said that? Oh ... Some guy is walking down the stairs. Wow! Check out the cheekbones. But—ouch. He's all bruised. Has Ariel been to bed with him? I'd go to bed with him if I were her. He looks like she would if she were a tall man with dark hair. It's a man-Ariel, a he-Ariel. Why is he here? Is he actually Ariel in disguise? Why would she be in disguise and putting on a different accent? He's sorry. He's sorry because I'm just settling down to sleep where he wants to put his feet. I don't understand what's going on. This is too complicated. I think I'll just go home to bed.

  "Excusez-moi," I say, in French, to fool him. I start to get up.

  "Do you need a hand?" he says.

  "Nein, danke."

  Yeah. I'm multilingual. Now that's funny.

  (My mind isn't in a much better state than Wolf's and it's as if the drink has affected me, too. But I'm still thinking Adam. What's Adam doing here?)

  "Are you Ariel's neighbor?"

  "Si," I say, laughing. "Ja."

  He runs a hand through his messy hair and sighs.

  "I have to find her."

  "She lives up ... In the clouds." I meant to say "upstairs." This is so fu
nny.

  "I know where she lives. She's not answering the door."

  "She's out ... With the bastards ... With the wank, work..."

  "With the what?"

  "Dinner. With people from the office. Or was that yesterday? I'm sorry ... I'm a little drunk. You see, something queer and most tragic occurred this evening and..."

  "Look, I'm sorry, mate. If you can't help me then don't. But don't waste my fucking time, OK? This is pretty serious. Her life is in danger, if that means anything to you."

  "Danger? From a cock?"

  "What? For fuck's sake, pull yourself together."

  "Danger. Danger! Ariel's in danger? We must help her. Where are the grenades?"

  "Oh, never mind."

  "I'm sorry I'm like this. Please, let me help. She's my friend, you know."

  The other man sighs. "There are two men, all right? One is wearing a black suit and one is wearing a gray suit. They both have fair hair, like yours, or a bit lighter. One of them has a little goatee beard." This guy's gesticulating at me as if he could conjure up these men by drawing them in the air. "I think they're driving a black saloon. Have you seen them?"

  "Who? Are they here? No. I don't know. There's a black car..."

  "Where?"

  "What?"

  "You said something about a black car."

  "Did I? I'm sorry. I can't remember."

  "Look, I think these men have guns. They're very dangerous. They've been to a bookshop and got information about Ariel. She bought a book that they want—that's as much as I've been able to work out."

  "Oh, that. Well, Ariel won't sell the book. Never."

  "What book is it?"

  Don't tell him, Wolf. Don't tell him.

  "It's a ... Oh. There's a voice in my head saying I can't tell you."