MAN TO MAN
When you discover that “special connection” comes from a ball of smoke,
“I WISH I was able to say no,” he muttered as he offered his pipe to me. I said I wasn’t in the mood to get high. I only wanted to meet him in person to see if the connection we’d made virtually worked in the real world. We’d been talking on and off for days and appeared to have things in common.
He looked at me with a sadness I couldn’t define and lit up again. We were in my living room, sitting on the sofa. I stared at the pipe, held in mid-air just a metre away. There I was, not for the first time, taking an alchemy class.
He was using the crème brùlèe’ torch from my kitchen to heat the rock crystal. As the f lame hit the glass the smoke began to swirl; oily, white, a fog for the senses, circling and speeding inside the glass ball, offering the promise of oblivion so close I could taste it.
Years ago, I would’ve given in. A few days off to recover, coupled with ‘that’ feeling of loneliness that I associate with winter and the idea of cosy nights in with someone special – someone who always seemed to desert me. Once, the offer would’ve been too much to resist. These are powerful ingredients but that perfect storm is followed by days of stillness and misery.
Thankfully, I’ve acquired the ability to break down the whole, tempting picture into single frames and see them for what they are: a cover for self-loathing, a justification for failure, a denial of my weakness and needs as a human being. I want company therefore I compromise everything to get it. Or at least I used to. Now, I simply breathe in, deeply, allowing the oxygen to clear my head as the moment passes: detachment is a powerful instrument.
Marcelo stood up and faced me, still offering his loaded pipe but with increased urgency, aware that the drug would soon escape the pipe and evaporate. “No thanks. I’m good,” I said. He inhaled deeply and cleared the pipe himself. As his high kicked in and his inhibitions left the room he offered me some GHB, just in case I only had a problem with smoking crystal.
“I don’t think this is going to work; the sex or whatever we were both hoping for,” I said. “We can talk for a little, if you like, but then I’ll need you to go. I’d rather have dinner and an early night. You probably aren’t hungry, which is a shame. I can cook.”
Outside the night closed in. I wondered if my Latino dream, now morphing into a sad nightmare, was going to waste his high on me. We spoke a little. As it turned out, he’d spent the night before with a mate, which in ‘gay-land high’ means he hooked up with someone he’d never met before, whose name he couldn’t remember and who he’ll probably not see again. He had moved from place to place for the last three days until he finally landed in my living room where he was hoping to self-medicate some more with me. The longer he sat in close proximity, the more I could smell his chemical sweat. He was beautiful and lost in an indefensible way.
“I was able to control things, now not so much. I’m always late for work,” he told me as he stood up and reached for his coat. As I led him to the door, I suggested he could seek help, if he was ready.
“Go to 56 Dean Street in Soho. They won’t judge you, they won’t turn you away, and they won’t report you, regardless of your immigration status.” “Perhaps I will,” he said, and walked out. He disappeared down the stairs at top speed. By the time he’d made it out into the street he was back on Grindr.
I could smell his chemical sweat. He was beautiful and lost in an indefensible way.