TOpoet

City of Valleys – 22

September

Yves

Yves rapped on the window and got Luke’s attention. A waiter let him in.

“Looks like I’m the first to arrive.”

“No prob. Invite?”

Luke came over. “Even if he didn’t have one, we’d let him in. Drink? A beer for our first arrival, Brad.”

Luke led him past the buffet to a table in the bar section. The tinted green glass partition that separated the bar from the rest of the restaurant cast a cooling underwater light over the table.

“Glad you could join us.” Luke referred to Lubba’s as if it were his home.

“Buffet looks tempting.” 

“Thanks. This is the first time I’ve sat down since getting here. The staff will thank you for taking me out of their hair.”

“My pleasure.” Yves sipped the beer Brad had brought. “Haven’t seen much of Steven.”

“Between his day shift here and the play at night, I haven’t seen much of him myself.”

“That’ll be over tonight.”

“Till the next one. The actor’s lover’s life for me.”

“You know Steven pretty well?”

“You know something I don’t?”

“No. Not about Steven. You remember Jake?”

“Jake the Snake. Of course. Why?”

“Turns out his real name was Mitchell Winter Robson. This man I’ve been known for years has changed into someone I never met.”

“Why would Jake hide his name? It’s a good one.”

“The queer son disowned and disgraced. Just a guess, though.”

“Sad. Not to have a history.”

“Not to trust someone with that history is sadder.”

There was a tap at the window. Luke stood, nodded to Brad to let in whoever it was.

“Lisa! Join us for a quiet drink before the swarm arrives.” Luke called across the room. “She’s Tim McGuinn’s wife.”

Before he had finished, Lisa was at their table. 

Black hair, the right touch of red lipstick, gold earrings, gold beads around her neck, black dress under a light fall coat. Intense. Tim had good taste in women.

“We have to talk, in private, Luke,” she pleaded. “We are always the last to find out.”

“Oh… okay. Let’s go down to my office.” Luke took her to the stairs that led to the washrooms and his office. As they descended he glanced at Yves with puzzled exasperation.

Kevin

At each blackout, Kevin tensed to dash to the lobby. Actors came on stage and talked, some shouted, some argued, some died, some told their version of the truth. There was a dance around the gurneys, one with the gurneys, corpses appeared and disappeared, abrupt light changes, gun shots, fear. He saw no story, couldn’t recall who had said what.

After a long hour he settled down enough to watch and not wait for things to end. The two characters who had been at odds with each other were alone on stage.

They kissed. Kevin didn’t believe his eyes. Men kissed on stage, in front of him, in front of everyone as if no one were there. Kissed and undressed each other. As the lights dimmed, he  leaned to see. To his amazement all was revealed. 

Not that he hadn’t seen cock before, but it never felt right to stare. With porn, it was possible to look and the guy wouldn’t glare back, get mad or anything. But these were real live bodies, and he could stare.

“Fuck, he is packing a piece!” Paul whispered.

The lights went to black. The audience applauded in the dark then the house lights came on. 

“Intermission,” Paul told him.

“At last.” Kevin darted out to a table piled with newspapers and flyers. He pushed these aside and there he was. It was a shot of him at Big E’s. Under him the banner proclaimed: “Big E’s Rocks.”

Inside there was another photo of him, followed by a brief article.

‘Robert Ing has the perfect antidote for those suffering from overdoses of liquid eyeliner, in the form of Kevin McLeod. Kevin hails from the East Coast and brings with him not only a fresh sound but is a performer easy on the eye. 

Over the past several weeks, this east coaster has enlivened Sunday afternoons at Big E’s with his manly take on 60’s pop, as well as some of his original numbers. From the Supremes to Megadeath, Kevin sings with ease and confidence. If his following picks up, we hope he’ll drop the canned music and get a live band.

It’s time for Miss Ing to spend less on his Thing and more on Kevin’s.’

“A puff piece.” Paul read over his shoulder. “Says nothing but promos Big E’s.”

“Says nothing? It says I have a fresh sound.”

“Waki is so fond of a ‘fresh’ sound.”

“What are you saying?”

“Kevin, I’ve been around. His models usually give a little to get a lot. To get a cover you certainly must have been easier on more than more his eye.”

“So what if I was.” Kevin wanted to deny Paul’s insinuation but couldn’t. “He didn’t fuck me if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Bet you can’t wait to send it to the folks?”

Kevin was brought to a cold reality. As one side of his life got bigger, the other side got tighter.

“Send it to them and get it over with.” 

“Not till I have something more than a photo to back me up.”

“You know how I ended up here. I took a leap when I was fifteen. Right out of the nest and into this life. I was scared like you, but I did it.”

“I’m not ready. I don’t want to lose my folks, Shep and all. Coming out will slam that door shut.”

“If it does, it does. You can survive that. If they love you, they’ll accept you.”

“Like your folks did?”

“Kevin, I was a fuck-up. What they can’t forgive is how I screwed them around. The fact that I’m a queer is coincidental.”

The lobby lights flicked on and off.

“Show’s going to start again.”

“I know, Paul. Stop treating me like a child.”

On their way to their seats, David stopped Kevin.

“Enjoying the show?”

“Great stuff.”

“I see you’ve made the cover of Queer Plus.”

“Yes.” Kevin blushed.

“Sign it for me?”

“Autograph it? For you?” 

“Get used to it.”

“What should I write?” Kevin fumbled with a pen.

“David …. Thanks for being my first …. love Kevin McLeod.”

“Cute,” Evan remarked. “Though I doubt if you are his first.”

Kevin scribbled what David had suggested. The theater went to black as he sat down. When the stage lights came up, it was as if they shone on him.

Yves

Yves swirled the foam in his glass. It had been about half an hour since Luke had disappeared into his office with Lisa McGuinn. There was another hour or more before the after-show crowd arrived. He wasn’t sure what to do with himself. 

“Time for another?” Brad poured him another beer. “Mind if I join you?” He sat opposite Yves.

Brad had a face that needed an extra couple of hours sleep. His almost blond hair wanted a quick comb.

“You live next door to those two don’t you?”

“You work with those two don’t you?”

“Steve has been weird since …”

“The bashing?”

“You see much of them?”

“Enough. What you are pumping me for?”

“Sorry. Just making conversation.”

Yves met Brad’s gaze. This was a come-on. 

“It’s all right.” Brad wasn’t his type. Not that Yves knew what that type was, but this wasn’t it. He’d heard of Brad’s drugs and booze from Luke, and wasn’t interested.

“You write for TV don’t you?”

“Not for a couple of years, but yes.”

“I want to write ‘The Waiter Confessor.’”

“Good working title.”

“Anything you’d like to confess to me.”

“I should have a book out for Christmas.”

“Oh! What?” Brad asked with genuine interest.

“A book about cock?”

“Cock?”

“Yes, men talking about how they feel about their cocks, size, shape, that sort of thing. Our Cocks Our Selves.”

“Great title.”

“Actually it’s going out as ‘The Cock Book.’ I wanted ‘Dick All’ but the publisher through that was misleading. Very few men think of their privates as jokes.”

“I’ve laughed at a few in my time.”

“I’m sure you have.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a size queen. It ain’t the meat, it’s the motion.”

“You hate size queens but you love their boyfriends.”

“Let me tell you,” Brad dropped his voice, “a certain restaurateur has a nice piece for his private consumption. Though since this play, that’s no secret.”

“It takes more than that to keep people together.”

“I suppose, but it helps. Though what Steve sees in Luke I couldn’t tell you.”

“Anything stuck together with come falls apart in the wash.”

Brad couldn’t control his laughter. “That’s a good one. True. So true. I love it.”

“What do you do when you are out of uniform?”

“Get buzzed with my friends mostly and sleep when I can.”

“You aren’t a waiter slash anything. Actor, model, writer?”

“Please. There are enough of those around. I do all the acting, modelling and writing I want here. Acting like the special is extra special, posing at the side of your table with the pepper grinder, and writing my name on the back of your bill.”

“Much of a future in that?”

“Who needs a future when you’ve got the now? How many of the people in an airplane that drops into the ocean had a future? Where did their big plans get them? The here and now is enough for me.”

Yves had met many in his survey like Brad. The here and now, the quick pleasure with no real sense of the future.

“Look at the time. Nice talking to you Yves. Sometime we might do more than talk?”

David

“You! A chicken hawk?” Evan tittered as David watched Kevin return to his seat.

“Evan, you’re jealous.”

“Of what?”

“Of youth.”

“Bitch.”

The theatre darkened. David’s eyes wandered to Kevin’s head. He relished any movement of that head as it followed the action on stage.

That Evan noticed his interest in Kevin didn’t bother David. Not that he wanted to end things with Evan, but there was no reason to deepen their relationship either. There was an intellectual bond between them, and David appreciated what Evan could teach him about the stage. But David felt no excitement around Evan. It was if he and Evan had been a couple for years and not months. Too comfortable! Is that grounds for separation?

He glanced at Evan, at the action on stage, and at Kevin. What it was it about Kevin? His youth? His whiteness? His ability to tongue-tie David whenever they were together? His talent?

When David went to hear Kevin at Big E’s, he longed to lure him away, but fear had kept him silent. His confidence as a designer waned too. After all, if he couldn’t tell some kid he wanted him, how could he do anything? How could he design anything?

Evan’s show had been a relief in its simplicity. Safe little lab smocks, a couple of simple, drab dresses, nothing that stretched his imagination. Since his design for Tisu Trauma had won the Best Outfit on Pride Day, Robert Ing hadn’t been in touch with him, so his skills there weren’t taxed.

He’d avoided other design opportunities with the claim the show needed all his time. Until he blasted this block with Kevin, he couldn’t think of anything else. With that boy by his side, a rapid flutter of new garments would fly out of his sewing machine.