I missed Robbie. With him being on-set fourteen hours a day, we rarely spoke. The odd snatched phone call here and there was the sum of our communication. I often thought about him, wondering how he was getting on. I'd make a quip my workmates found funny, and wish Robbie had been there to hear it. Relating an amusing incident, when the other person wasn't there, diminished the effect.
Robbie contacted me on the 14th. "Hey, birthday boy," he shouted down the phone.
"Didn't think you'd remember."
"Hard to forget Valentine's day."
"Some irony that."
"What?"
"A perennially single guy having to commemorate the date of his birth on a day the world set aside to celebrate romance and love."
"Could be worse."
"Like how?"
"You could have been born on April Fool's day. Better to be unloved on a day for lovers, than a fool on a day for fools."
I laughed. "Don't apply for a position at Hallmark."
I was proud that his career was taking off. We never mentioned it. I sensed it was an aspect of his life he was not comfortable discussing. Though I longed to hear stories of life on a shoot, I guessed if I worked fourteen hours a day on set I wouldn't be keen on rehashing it on my downtime, either.
I read an interview Robbie had given to a national paper. He had made no mention of it. I stumbled across it by chance. Often my dad brings home newspapers that people leave in the offices he checks at night. I scan through them the following morning over breakfast. It helps me get through the fibre-laden cereals my mum gets. I can't stomach them, but my mother insists they are a healthy option. She is the one hauling trolley loads of groceries into the car every week, so who am I to argue. I was slogging through bran flakes and flipping pages in the paper when Robbie's features stared back at me from the entertainment section. The photo failed to capture his essence. His tight-lipped smile made him appear dour and aloof. Although the interviewer called him a charming and intelligent young man, the quotes were devoid of Robbie's usual irrepressible wit. Not surprising, given the writer referred to him as a black actor. Like his skin tone impacted his acting abilities. I suppose promotion work is like bran-cereal when somebody else is paying, you chomp down and force a smile.
Deep into March, a break in the shooting schedule afforded us the chance to meet in person. A phantom case of food poisoning bought me the night off work. My supervisor, assured the factory will not come to a standstill over a single absentee, never questioned my phoney illness. Teachers, familiar with every no-show excuse known to man, are an altogether more suspicious and distrusting bunch. In the absence of any grand scheme worthy of a Bond villain, I resorted to unplugging the house phone and simply not showing up for school.
Robbie and I stood appraising each other for a few moments. As you do when you haven't seen a person for a length of time like you expect them to have dramatically altered in their absence.
In an instant, we slipped into the old routine. No playing catch up, straight down to bullshitting about movies and the albums occupying our hearts and minds, the usual.
We hopped on a bus out of the city en route to the strawberry beds. A name I automatically associated with the Beatles song, Strawberry Fields Forever. We walked for about an hour, rambling along the secluded banks of the River Liffey. As tiredness kicked in, the sun deigned to poke her face out from behind the nebulous mass, and we crashed out among the thick grass.
With bare feet dangling in the cold water, we each rolled a joint from the paltry amount of weed Robbie had wrangled from an assistant on the shoot. Not saying much, we watched wisps of grey smoke float over the serene waters.
"You miss me while you were living the Hollywood life?"
"Like the polar caps miss the ozone layer," he joked, stretched out, staring up at the sun. "And you, with your work buddies?"
"There are friends, and there are friends."
He glanced over with a slight grin. "Explain."
I kicked my foot lazily in the water, watched the expanding ripples. "It's just hit me—I've never swum before."
"You told me you got knocked down on your way to swimming lessons."
"Oh, sure, in a pool. With artificial heating and chlorine. Never in a river."
"What's the difference?"
"That's it, I don't know."
He lay there, not saying anything.
I whipped my school sweater and loosened tie over my head and off. Unbuttoned my grey shirt.
Robbie sat up, dazed and a trifle alarmed. His mouth opened as my slacks gathered like a stagnant pool around my bare feet. "What're you doing, you maniac?"
I stepped out of my shorts and moved a few paces back. "I'm gonna find out."
I heard him say, "You're a mental case," as I ran full pelt toward the river's edge. Whatever he said next got lost in the wind rushing in my ears and the thunderous splash.
The unprecedented cold of the river shocked my system, edging close to my pain threshold. Engulfed in panic. Chest constricting in the freezing water, fighting to breathe. I shot to the surface, spitting, gulping down oxygen. Let out a primal roar, endorphins flooding my senses. Exhilarated. After some initial floundering, my inherent instinct kicked in and I swam freely. Arms arrowed through the wild water, propelling me forward, head swiping from side to side, breathing easy.
No rails to grab on to. No armbands to keep me afloat. The way nature intended. Body reacting to the situation. Blood pumping in my veins, providing heat to my extremities. Alive.
When I hit the middle of the river, I twisted my body around in the water.
Head above the surface, arms treading water. "C'mon in," I shouted confidently, "You'll love it."
Robbie stood upright, gazing out, his ubiquitous leather coat lying on the grass. His favourite Rage Against the Machine tee-shirt landed beside it, accompanied by his crumpled jeans.
He hesitated, glancing around in every direction, before hitching his thumbs inside the elastic waist of his boxers.
I swam further out, listening attentively for that loud splash.
We shared lingering glances and uninhibited smiles. The giddy frisson of breaking the rules. An intoxicating whiff of freedom. Our laughter carried in the open air. No concept of time. Atlantis boys emerge from the dark depths to kiss the sky.
We lay down on the grassy bank drying under the afternoon sun, disinclined to get dressed. I rolled onto my side. Propped up on my elbow, I watched the drops of water running in rivulets down Robbie's heaving chest.
He shifted his position to face me. Our eyes met. Unflinching gazes crackled with tension, sending silent signals—messages out mouths lacked the courage to convey. An invisible charge surged between us.
What happened next was instinctual, required no forethought or planning. Elementary. Our bodies drew together like magnetic poles. Impossible to prevent. Can you stop the forces of nature?
After we had acted on that irresistible impulse, we got hurriedly dressed in silence. Still shaky from the aftershock. Astounded by our actions. Unwilling to look at each other, lest our reflected fears confronted us.
The atmosphere turned cold. A thick white cloud swallowed the sun.
"Maybe we should go," Robbie said finally.
We walked at pace along the path, sifting through the debris in our heads, trying to make sense of everything that had occurred. The trees with their sprouting leaves were silent. The grass rustled but provided no answers. The sun peeked out before disappearing from view.
I had always assumed that taking the plunge would be the hard part. My imaginings never straying past the act. Never considered what came after. That is the problem with fantasies They end before reality begins.
I wished he would say something. Anything. Good or bad. I itched to talk. No notion of what to say. Adept at concealing emotions, I'd forgotten how to express them. Words floated out of reach, vanishing in the haze of powerful sentiments. Difficult to develop any rational thought. So conflicted, I couldn't think straight. How could something beautiful and sweet curdle into ugly sourness?
A cyclist pedalled languorously past. "Lovely day for it, isn't it, lads?"
I shuddered. Don't know what Robbie did. Didn't dare look.
The gloomy silence was killing me. "You watching the game tonight?" Lame.
"What?" Curt.
"The cup tie—it's on the telly." Weak.
"No." Blunt.
A silence that refused to budge.
I let him walk ahead as we made our way back to civilisation. Almost relieved to see the steady stream of traffic. Life goes on outside the internal drama.
Robbie checked the printed timetable. I kicked a loose stone into a rubbish-clogged, railed drain.
"Be here in ten minutes," Robbie said, taking a seat on the orange bench.
The poster in the bus shelter was for a cruise company. In it a preternaturally cheerful couple strolling hand in hand along a golden beach. The clear azure sky above their heads, the broad blue expanse of exotic bay stretched out behind them. Two perfectly formed, porcelain-skinned specimens flashed impeccable white toothy smiles. Live the dream, it read.
I wished this fucking bus would hurry up.
It obliged by arriving five minutes early.
"I'll ring you later, "Robbie said in a quiet voice, as we alighted.
"Fine," I said, already walking away.
I sat in the sitting room in front of the TV, fighting the urge to cry. Men don't cry. We learned that from an early age. Trained to bottle up. Why? Men don't desire men. Why not?
Anger overwhelmed me.
I am Pavlov's choleric canine.
Evening telly consisted of shows so bland I envied my dad heading out on a twelve-hour shift. Climbing countless flights of stairs in deserted buildings was more palatable than wading through the endless stream of dross that passed for entertainment.
As six o'clock beckoned, we got to savour twenty-two minutes of sunshine in Aussie soap Home and Away. A show about the Fletcher family and their five foster kids, featuring a plethora of golden-haired, golden tanned teens who dealt with their issues in the usual way—by hanging out on the beach. No gays in the sun-kissed reality of Summer bay. Or aboriginal people. Later on, we got treated to the five orphaned Salinger siblings in Party of Five, billed as a programme about teenagers for teenagers. Of course, we could all relate to the trials and tribulations of adolescents who inherit a large house and their deceased parent's restaurant business.
Sandwiched between those two puff pastries was the rice-cake—bland and tasteless—filling, Beverly Hills 90210. Normal teens—most of whom looked in their mid-to-late twenties—drove cars that cost what a doctor would earn in a year. Nothing gay happened at the Peach Pit. Which, having read Less Than Zero, came as a complete shock. I assumed privileged white L.A. rich kids were all coke-snorting, pill-popping bisexuals. Maybe Bret Easton Ellis had got it wrong.
Bret. It occurred to me he and William Burroughs were my only queer heroes/idols. Aside from Burroughs five-minute cameo in Drugstore Cowboy, black and white photos on the inside cover of books, all I had. Not teen idol material. No cup-winning goal heroics to celebrate. No sharp tuxedo red-carpet pose pre-Oscars or Emmys. No banging vids getting heavy rotation on MTV. Where was the hero I could identify with? (Jesus, stop me before I start belting out Bonnie Tyler.)
Before the game started, I had to sit through Married with Children. I watched it but didn't register a laugh. In my head, I reviewed what Robbie and I had done earlier, analysing our actions as a detective would a crime scene. It wasn't nasty or filthy like I had been led to believe, so why did I feel ashamed and dirty? I failed to fathom any of it.
A 'blowie' was something lads sniggered about in the schoolyard. They boasted about being recipients, as though it were an accolade, yet referred to girls who bestowed this honour upon them as sluts.
All those times I had listened to those stories being trotted out, faintly embarrassed, slightly curious, never once conceiving of a scenario where I would be the one giving one. Nor that the first one I got would be courtesy of my best friend. Hell, it had not even cropped up in my fantasies. Hardcore porn being hard to come by, my limited imaginings took their cue from erotic movies. (That VHS copy of Basic Instinct had the warble and picture roll in certain scenes from excessive viewings.) Hollywood doesn't do oral. On-screen, anyway. The casting couch and parties in the Hills were a different story altogether!
A few weeks ago, I watched The Terminator on TV. Big Arnold wiping out an entire precinct of police officers with an Uzi was not an issue for concerned citizens writing to the RTE complaints department. A tender love scene between Kyle Reese and the predestined mother of his child was deemed dirty and uncalled for. The distant shot of Michael Biehn's bare bum copped plenty of flak, too. Not one mention of the Pump-action shotguns shown in all their raw glory. Was it any wonder our attitude toward sex and violence is so screwed up?
The football game provided a cathartic release. Getting to spew a steady stream of invective at match officials and players on-screen allowed the fuming anger burning inside to funnel out.
After the final whistle had blown, the phone rang. I had plugged it back in earlier. I let it ring.
My mum stood in the doorway, the receiver in hand. "It's for you."
"Yeah?" I said sullenly to the mouthpiece.
"Good game," Robbie's voice answered.
"Bit flat. Soon as we scored, you knew how it would end."
"Could have ended different, football is a funny old game."
"Except it didn't though, did it?"
"We won."
"Did we?"
"We're through to the next round, aren't we? That bit closer to the cup."
"Depends who we draw next."
"I still fancy us. Reckon we've got a real good shot."
"Think so?"
"Deffo. You don't?"
"No, I do. I'm an optimist, remember."
"I'm a little pissed at Sharpe," Robbie said. "He's an amazing player, but so unpredictable. It's infuriating.."
"He scored, didn't he? Some strike an' all."
"Sublime goal then disappears in the second half."
"He wasn't the only one."
"How d'you mean?"
"I'm just saying, others switched off, too. I was doing my nut in. Though we'd thrown it away."
"You were?"
"You weren't?"
"For a while there, yeah, it crossed my mind."
"But like you said, we won."
"We did."
"It wasn't a bad game."
"It had its moments all right."
"Without a doubt."
"Good ol' United."
"Yeah...United."
There followed an empty silence.
"Uh, so, um, what are you doing later?" Robbie asked.
"Watch a movie. You?"
"Yeah, you know, the same."
I signed off by telling Robbie how great it'd been seeing him again. He said he was glad to be back, before promising to touch base tomorrow. A tacit understanding that our friendship remained intact. It wasn't a Hollywood ending, but it was sincere. And would suffice.
For now.
I stared up at the roof, searching for patterns in the stippled ceiling. You found them if you looked hard enough. Marvellous motifs waiting to reveal themselves to the patient eye. Sometimes it happened naturally, without effort. Other times, you strained your eyes until your vision blurred and your head hurt, and all you saw were random, mixed-up dots.