In the aftermath of the events since Michael’s hospitalisation, I’d functioned on little sleep. And it was beginning to catch up with me.

I left Alexander’s apartment before Tish arrived, knowing that I’d see her and Desi later in the evening, at The Depot, as it was customary for them to drop by on a Thursday night to check out the drag shows and to partake in a few social lubricants. I knew we could discuss the contents of Michael’s letter to us at some point in the evening. What I needed at that moment, however, was a good old fashioned ‘nana nap’ prior to heading off to work.

I arrived home to find the flat deserted; Terry was at work. It was one of the pleasures of our living arrangements – our mutually long and curious hours were complimentary, permitting us to have the apartment to ourselves while the other was at work or at play. Although there were occasional instances where I found myself struggling to remember exactly what Terry looked like.

I slipped out of my clothes and pulled back the doona on my bed. It was too warm in the summer’s afternoon to require it; the single sheet and the presence of an oscillating fan on a stand at the foot of the bed were sufficient.

Crawling under the sheet, I reached over to the bedside table and picked up my mobile phone, setting the alarm for eight o’clock, thereby leaving enough time for me to get up, shower and dress and grab a bite to eat before meeting Nicky at The Depot by nine.

I’d no sooner put the phone back down than it beeped, signaling the arrival of a sms. I groaned slightly, but picked it up and read the message. It was from Zoë McClure: ’hi puck! Just letting u know we are back from byron. brilliant 2 weeks! heaps of fun & itz so beautiful there! hope youre well and we must catch up asap xxx’

Zoë and her boyfriend, Seamus, had gone up to Byron Bay, located on the New South Wales coast, to spend Christmas and New Years. I’d forgotten that they were due back that day, and it occurred to me that Zoë knew nothing about Michael’s condition. As a close friend, Zoë had a right to know and I didn’t want her hearing about it from someone else via the ‘Gay Grapevine’. I tapped out a quick response, indicating we should meet for brunch Friday morning at Bubble Butt, and suggested a time. Zoë replied promptly in an enthusiastic fashion, so it was set.

I settled down to sleep only to have my phone ring. I sat up and glanced at the screen. It was Drew. I grappled with the conflicting visions of answering it, as opposed to not answering it, and in the process of losing myself in the debate, the call subsequently went through to voicemail, thus rendering my intellectualizations moot. At that point I turned the phone off and tried to find sleep in an otherwise hot, steamy and disturbing day…

And I dreamed; chaotic images of Michael… only it wasn’t Michael on the bed in his room, it was me, and there was someone else, a figure, a form dark and frightening. Sometimes it seemed the figure was known to me – Drew, Tish, Desi, Alexander, Sevastian, Leo and Nicky, as well as others – but in the end it was my own self I saw pushing a pillow into the face of my other, seemingly slumbering self… I woke from the daytime nightmare soaked in sweat, the sheet twisted around my legs and my lungs aching from a raw scream that felt as though it had drawn blood.

I smoothed out the damp sheet, pulled it up to my chin and lay there for a long, long time, unsure if I ever wanted to sleep again.

A good looking guy with a solid build and a shock of brown, tightly curled hair, Jakob had worked at The Depot for about four years, starting at the bottom of the venue’s unspoken pecking order – as a bussy, picking up glasses, bottles and so forth, as well as cleaning ashtrays, blocked toilets and puke up off the floor – to the bar and then to the position of Assistant Manager. Known for his frequently dry wit which could spontaneously combust into puerile giggles, Jakob commanded the respect (and sometimes fear) of the venue’s staff. But to me he was just a great guy, very real and honest and he’d become a good friend, not only to myself, but to Michael as well, and so he had shown considerable interest in his well being and had even visited him in the hospital earlier that evening.

Eventually Nicky announced his arrival in the club by sidling up to me and running his tongue up the side of my face, just near my ear and greeting me with a tart: “Hey bitch.”

He ordered a drink from Jakob, a gin and tonic. “Good evening Mr. Slutzkin,” he cooed, enjoying the emphasis placed on Jakob’s rather unfortunate surname.

Jakob regarded Nicky stony faced. “It was a good evening until you showed up. How about I just throw you out now and save us all a lot of pain, embarrassment and hassle…?”

Nicky arched an eyebrow at him, appearing affronted. “Hmph! With that kinda’ attitude, it’s a wonder you get any customers in this place.”

“With that kind of face, it’s a wonder you get any trade,” Jakob countered and placed Nicky’s drink on the bar and took his money, while I quietly chuckled to myself.

“Oh stop it, Slutzkin!” Nicky cried with a wicked grin. “We both know you’re like so hot for me and want to fuck me stupid!”

Jakob’s eyes went all buggy and his lips curled up into an expression of incredulousness blended with a hefty helping of distaste. “The only word in that sentence that made any sense to me, so far as you’re concerned, was the last one… Now, excuse me ladies…” Jakob snapped round on his heels and strutted imperiously down to the bottom bar.

“He wants me,” Nicky said thoughtfully, still smiling.

“Sure he wants you… under a speeding truck,” I said in response.

“Ah but you know what they say, Puck,” Nicky said brightly. “Love and hate are two sides of the same coin…”

“Yeah, well, speaking of love, there’s something I have to tell you,” I said and he looked at me quizzically.

“Oh God, not you, too!” Nicky cried. “Oh the burden of being wanted by so many men!” He cried dramatically, causing me to snort vodka mixed with fizzy Red Bull from my nostrils.

“Sweet Jesus, no!” I bellowed, reaching for the nearby tray of napkins so as to wipe my nose as well as the top of the bar. “What are you? Insane? On crystal meth….?!” I cried, and he chuckled to himself, playfully examining his Bvlgari ring as he bopped up and down on his barstool.

Ignoring his juvenile antics, I proceeded to recount to him the letter Michael had left for Desi, Tish and I, and how Alexander had come by it. When that tale was told, I filled him in on the rest of the day’s events, and for the most part, Nicky sat and listened attentively with few interruptions.

Nicky shook his head as I reached the end of my story. “Fuck, Puck,” he said bluntly. “This is one seriously messed up situation… But if you want my opinion, then Alexander did it.” He uttered the remark so blithely it astounded me, and then he reached for his G&T and took a quick sip.

“How can you say something like that?” I asked him. “He’s a friend!”

“He ain’t my friend,” Nicky was quick to point out, his face expressing his disgust at the suggestion. I just gave him a steely look in reply. “Ok, ok, so it wasn’t Alexander! So it was Sevastian! We both hate him, right? So it’s all good…”

“Sometimes I wonder why I even bother…”

“That makes two of us,” Nicky offered in reply with a dramatic and weary sigh.

I remember the first time I served him at the bar. It was during a particularly hectic stretch of a long shift at The Depot. Sullivan and his companion, a whippet-like bottle blonde guy in his early 20’s, positioned themselves at my designated area of the bar. I approached the tall, dark haired and somewhat self-consciously handsome guy, who would later prove to be the bane of my working life, and asked him what he’d like.

A wide and wolfish smirk crept across his tanned face and he leant in closer to me, leaning his arms on the bar top. His dark eyes looked into mine as he tilted his head to one side in a playful gesture.

“That’s a nice opening you have there,” he began, the double entendre hot and dripping with heat. “How about a Quick Fuck?”

Without missing a beat, I replied: “Would that be the drink? Or merely wishful thinking?”

He uttered a low, dry chuckle, his eyes radiating amusement. “Hey, I’ll leave it in your capable hands, so long as you think you can manage it --?” He left the sentence incomplete, clearly fishing for my name.

“Puck,” I offered dutifully.

“Puck?” he echoed, sounding somewhat skeptical. “Just so happens to rhyme with my favourite word,” he informed me, his voice a low rumble.

“Duck,” I said flatly.

He laughed. “Um, no, I was thinking more like – “ In an exercise of stunningly exquisite timing, an the airborne ice cube struck him in the back of the head, having been launched a few feet away by a giggling, intoxicated fag who looked hardly old enough to drink.

The missile had been intended for another victim, an equally intoxicated and youthful looking fag hag, but poor aim combined with booze, drugs and an aversion to Physical Education during high school saw that the projectile found a different (but more deserving, in my opinion) target.

Sullivan rubbed the back of his head, looking round at the twittering perpetrator who, in a dyslexic form of limp-wristed sign language and exaggerated mouthing of the words ’Oops! Sorry!’ that were punctuated with shrill squeals of either delight and/or embarrassment, offered his profuse apologies.

“I told you to duck,” I said to him with all the wide-eyed innocence I could muster, and reminded myself that it was wrong to take pleasure in the suffering and humiliation of others; at least, it was wrong to be caught.

His composure had suffered a temporary setback, and so he turned back to me and quickly ordered drinks – two vodkas with lime and soda, in highballs. I set to work, first filling the glasses with ice, then tossing in a wedge of lime while reaching for the bottle of Absolut.

A shot of vodka went into each glass, and then the bottle was neatly returned to its niche at the workstation as my free hand snapped up the bottle of Schweppes Lime Cordial. A quick flick of the wrist (an action some of us are genetically disposed to, and thus excel at, making we fags fabulous bar staff) and I up ended the bottle over one of the glasses.

It is worth noting that up to this point, I was feeling pretty bloody good about myself; a smug sense of superiority over another human being can be quite the aphrodisiac. But as the old axiom warns: ’What goes up, must come down.’ And so it did.

I saw my inflated ego drown in a glass of ice, a lime wedge and an unexpected flash flood of lime cordial that gushed over the rim of the glass and onto the drip tray, faster than I could utter a sentence comprised almost entirely of two syllable expletives.

I guess either myself or the new bussy who had been assigned to my area, to stock the fridges, fill the ice tray and so forth, had neglected to fix the pourer into the cordial bottle securely. In fact, it was an undersized pourer, I subsequently observed, usually reserved for use with the high end, top-shelf liquors, a point that convinced me that the ‘newbie’ had been the one to err.

But regardless, the damage had been done. I stood there like an idiot, starinfg down at the glass full of sickly sweet cordial mixer and the lime wedge that bobbed amongst the ice like a citrus version of the Titanic.

I could feel his eyes on me and the infuriating amusement that lit them, so I did my best to avoid meeting his gaze as my face flushed slightly with humiliation.

“Er – so,” Sullivan began, and I glanced up to see him smiling at me. “Are you, like, a trainee…?” he inquired.

I fashioned a reasonable facsimile of a smile. “No. Are you?” I countered.

“Me?” He looked at me questioningly. “A trainee…?” he responded appearing bemused. “Hmmm, and what kind of trainee do you take me for?”

“Oh, I dunno’ – ‘Arsehole’ would be the obvious choice,” I replied, still smiling.

It is a simple fact of life that you can get away with anything – possibly even murder or wearing stockings with open toe shoes – so long as you’re smiling at the same time. I’m not sure that Sullivan’s mighty guffaw was a reaction to my audacity, the comment itself or some primeval utterance of bowel blowing shock.

Recovering himself while I set to cleaning up the mess, Sullivan advised: “Well, I do know a lot about arseholes,” he informed me in a helpful tone.

“Really?” I said, sounding insincerely fascinated as I finished off mixing the drinks and placed them on the bar in front of him. “So what are you? A proctologist? A parking inspector? A politician?”

Again he showed that wolfish grin, and his eyebrows undulated suggestively in what I can only assume was some type of gay man’s mating ritual dance that until that moment I’d not been privy to, and hoped never to see again.

“Hey, whatever’s your fantasy – “ Sullivan quipped.

I grimaced as I took the $20 note he’d offered in payment for the beverages.

“Right now my only fantasy involves sharp, pointy pieces of metal, a chainsaw and a really big vat of dog’s vomit.” I went to the cash register, rang up the sale, and promptly returned to him with the change. But Sullivan picked up the two drinks and shook his head at the money in my hand.

“Keep it, Puck,” he said.

“But it’s your change,” I pointed out.

“It’s a tip.”

“No, really, I don’t want your money,” I said as politely as possible.

He seemed mildly astounded. “But it’s a tip…” he reiterated.

Placing the coins on the bar, I tapped them lightly with my finger and smiled at him. “Here’s a tip – take the money, go home, log onto eBay and get yourself that personality you’ve always been hankering for.” And with that I sauntered off to the next customer like some devastating starlet, entirely pleased that I’d managed to reclaim some lost ground in the battle.

A short time later I was standing behind the bar, drying cocktail glasses while shooting the breeze with Aristotle. I happened to spy the Trainee Arsehole propped up at the far end of the bar, chatting with Peroxide Lad. I nudged Ari and motioned in their direction.

“Have you seen him around before?” I asked.

“Yup,” Ari answered, and I waited for him to continue.

When he didn’t, my impatience registered on my face. “So…? Who is he? Aside from the Trainee Arsehole from Hell.”

“Sullivan Dale,” Ari announced. “Detective Sullivan Dale. He’s a cop.”

I suddenly didn’t feel quite so clever or superior; in fact I was giddy with mortification and dread. I stared bug-eyed at Ari for a moment or two, before inquiring: “Um… so… do you know if you can be arrested for being ‘Cringingly Obnoxious and Stupid in a Public Place’?”

Ari chuckled, shaking his head. “I sure hope not,” he replied. “We’d be standing around here with nothing to do if this lot got carted off to jail…” Ari mused, with a cheeky grin on his handsome face.

He approached the bar with Peroxide Lad and some other guy, older and balding, close at his heels. Sullivan saw me and I noticed the corner of his lips turn up in a smug grin. We stood across from one another, the bar top between us.

“Hi Puck,” he began pleasantly. “How are you?”

“Just fine,” I said shortly. “And how are you this evening, officer?” I inquired. He smiled and indicated that he, too, was doing just fine. “You haven’t been in for awhile,” I noted.

“You missed me?” Sullivan asked, his expression one of mock surprise.

“Would it surprise you if I said ‘no’…?”

He chuckled. “Well, I’ve missed you, Puck, and that certain flair you have for customer service – always so hospitable,” he remarked with all due insincerity.

“Some people just have that effect on me,” I replied. “Kinda’ like a laxative, y’know?” I added thoughtfully.

“Hmm, once more you’re straying into an area that has long been of interest to me…” He said with a sigh.

“What? SCAT…?” I asked. “Well that sure explains a lot… Now, would you like your usual?” He nodded with a grin and so I set about making the drink. When our transaction was done, Ari, who was working behind the bar with me, took a moment to whisper in my ear.

“I see your favourite person is here tonight,” he said with a toothy smile, referring to Sullivan.

“Ugh, yeah I know… he’s like the Harbinger of Death, I swear,” I groaned. “Not to mention terminally obnoxious and conceited.” As the last syllable fell from my lips, I saw Sevastian Von Dahl, accompanied by Jason Naylor, take a seat at the end of the bar. Ari made a move to go serve them, but I grabbed his arm and asked that he let me attend to them.

Pushing my shoulders back and drawing my body up to its full height, I took care to glide towards them with seeming ease and a sense of complete coolness. Standing before them, I looked from one loathsome face to the other.

“Drinks, lads?” I asked pleasantly.

Sevastian eyed me with hard suspicion. “Bricardi and coke, tall glass, and a glass of champagne,” he said evenly.

With or without ground up glass…?” I wondered to myself. But I smiled at him instead and got to work. A couple of minutes later, I placed the drinks before them, took the money and rang up the sale before returning with the change which I carefully counted out as I handed it over to Sevastian. Their eyes followed me critically for the entire time.

I started to turn away, to the next customer, but faltered – on purpose – and then leant across the bar towards Sevastian. “Oh, by the way – you and I are going to have a little chat tonight,” I advised him.

“You think so, huh?” he replied.

“I know so,” I countered, keeping my tone polite but firm.

“Yeah, well, here’s the thing of it, Puck,” Sevastian went on, spitting my name out as if uttering a curse. “I’ve got nothing I want to say to the likes of you.”

“Well, we’ll just see about that, won’t we…?”

He laughed in my face. “And just what are you going to do, eh? How do you think you can force me into wasting my precious time with the likes of you? You got nothing on me, loser, and I sure as shit ain’t scared of you,” he added. “So far as I can see – there’s nothing you can do to make me do something I don’t wanna’ do,” he stated defiantly.

He had a point. But then again, I had just come up with a plan. But to Sevastian I just nodded. “Ok, so you’re not scared of me – fine,” I said and shrugged casually. “But everyone is afraid of something – even you, ‘Count’…” I chose that moment to end the conversation, and so turned away and went onto the next customer.

Sevastian was right: he had nothing to fear from me. Sure, I knew through my conversations with Goldie Knox and Lydia Ludvich that Michael had must have learned some deep dark secret of Sevastian’s during their telephone conversation via the Rainbow Line service. But I’d given my word to Lydia I would not break the ‘sanctity’ of the counseling service’s client confidentiality rules. This made it impossible to attempt to bluff or otherwise coerce Sevastian into revealing his involvement in Michael’s apparent suicide attempt.

But there was another means open to me; something - someone - who would scare the crap out of that smug little shit! And her name was Wanda Wonderpussy.

<< - >>

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