From January 16, 2009
I ran into one of the guys who’s painting the air-shaft in our building today. I was coming downstairs, having just collected some of my laundry from the roof, And I looked an absolute mess. Every now and again I tend to take a day off from personal hygiene, not for any lofty reason like I’m saving water or protesting nuclear weapons or anything noble like that, but because I’m freaking lazy. If nobody is going to see me for 24 hours because I’m holed up in the flat recovering from a hangover, why bother? I’d hate to be the kind of guy who has to brush his teeth before he kisses his LTR in the morning, but I’m not filthy. I think there’s a balance somewhere. And I think maybe I’m somewhere (not too far, mind you) on the dirty side of that balance.
Anyway, I was scuttling down from the clotheslines on the roof. I like to do this around 14:00 (2 p.m.) because that’s siesta and I’m less likely to run into people then. And as I said earlier, I’m looking like Tom Cruise’s second to last appearance in Interview with the Vampire, when he’s been munching on rats and snakes and is terrified by helicopters. I’ve seriously paused by the roof door, taken my time re-locking it before walking downstairs so I don’t have to say hola to the woman across the way. Not that she’d even give a damn about me looking scroungy. But one does want to present one’s best face to such a prim and proper business woman. After all, she does own at least half of this building.
So I’ve taken my time locking the roof door so as to avoid her and begun my descent. When who should I meet on the stairs, but some strange man.
Let me take a moment to assure you, I’m not one of those queers who goes chasing after heterosexuals. The last thing I need in my life is to pine away after someone who could never be interested in me. And I’m married, or affianced anyway, so it’s not like I’m looking. But maybe five times since high school, before I had any knowledge of the mechanics of attraction, I’ve had this magic bizarre locking of the eyes moment with men. And with the exception of the night I met my partner, all of those moments have yielded exactly nada.
One would think that after thirty-three years a man would know what his tastes are. But not me. No, my tastes have to come from behind and knock me in the head. I guess it’s at least partly the fact that my tastes don’t fall into any normal category. I’m not into twinks (at all). Nor muscle Marys. I don’t necessarily like blonde guys over those with brown hair. Short hair is a plus but not an absolute. Bears and leathermen are often a safe bet, but not exclusively. Big but not chubs? I guess. Certainly I don’t prefer one nationality over another. I couldn’t possibly give a damn about skin color. Cut or uncut? Yes, please. So what is my taste? I can’t argue that this guy on the stairs is exactly my taste, but I did quite fancy him.
So there he is on the stairs. He has on thick black and yellow rubber boots and brown coveralls. His face is flushed like he’s just come in from the cold and climbed three flights of stairs, because he just did, and he has a slight peppering of facial stubble. His close-cropped hair is a little longer on top like maybe he goes to a barber. It looks wavy; if he let it grow out he’d probably look like one of the guys from the Brady Bunch. It’s hard to tell his body type under the layers of clothing, but the overall impression of his age and the softness in his face lends to the assumption that he’s got a little of the middle-age spread going on. Not fat or even unfit, and certainly not skinny. But he seems to have a working-man’s muscles and a married man’s layer of insulation.
And his eyes. Once upon a time I was always going on about blue eyes. And I still get caught by the starkness and depth in the blue eyes of a random Scandinavian in the bars. But I’m no longer so hung up on the color. There is another more important aspect in some men’s eyes that catches me. He had this characteristic. It’s an openness, a guilelessness. I won’t say innocence lest you homophobes out there start screaming pedophile. (I’d be more likely to fall in love with a collie than a teenage boy.) But even now, hours later when I conjure up a mental picture of his eyes, I feel the organs of my abdomen dissolving into ticklish jelly.
So there he is tromping up the stairs in his paint-spattered boots. And there I am, a cross between half-dead Lestat and a charwoman with my laundry and my slept-in clothes. His bone-dissolving eyes pin me to the wall. I’m a locust, a beetle awaiting his examination. I’m a nematode bisected by his not-blue-eyed glance.
He said hola.
I said hola.
I took my laundry inside, and the echo of his boots died in the stairwell. Maybe my taste is...completely unavailable.
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