Three Ex Presidents and James Franco (2 page)

7.
While I was distracted by my philosophical conundrum, distracted by checking out the jocks, we had been joined by Zach. He'd sold me the pills a few days before. Middle height, thin, friendly, and with the vocal and physical lethargy of an obvious stoner, I'd marked him as a good guy to know as soon as I got off the plane. He invited us outside to have a joint.

             
"Not that we couldn't smoke inside, you'll understand, but because I don't have enough to go around." Dom declined. So I felt a little guilty when I said yes.

Outside Zach was talking about how he'd been to Europe and just how psyched he'd been by it. I knew when he said Europe he meant Amsterdam. The spiritual nirvana of American college students. Though it was the spiritual nirvana of European students too.

His voice had the neutral, distracted air of smokers the world over. I was directing most of my attention at the topless guy clearly visible through the window, the drinking game in full swing.

"Who is that guy?"

"You mean Eric?"

"The topless guy."

"Yeah, Eric. The top comes off on any occasion."

"He seems so..."

"Unreal?"

Did he know what I was thinking? I said: "Stock in trade. The type of guy you see in movies but don't believe actually exist."

"They say he's quite clever. Well, he does well in class if that means anything."

"So he's not dim?" I said it eagerly. I said it as though I'd just been given a major clue in a great mystery.

"Disappointed? You like them dim?" Zach could have been saying this as a joke. Or, as a prying question masquerading as a joke. His tone was that maddeningly flat and neutral stoner's tone. Impossible to read.

I fought fire with fire: "Oh, you bet, I like them big, muscly and dim." It worked. He didn't know if I was joking or not. Neither did I.

"Yee-ha," he said, smiling merrily and offering me the joint. "Goes out with Fiona. And she's as sharp as they come."

Fiona?

"How did the mdma work out for you? Is it all gone?"

"I've one left, I just took one at the door." I offered the last one to Zach but he refused, thankfully. "We call them yokes, ya know."

"What's a yoke?"

"A yoke is anything. It's a word for anything. Mothers tell chewing babies to stop putting that yoke in their mouth. Women say you're not putting that yoke inside me." I laughed at that. "Words are funny. I think I bored Dom. Or scared him."

"You were looking a little spaced out when I saw you man. But looking a bit more alive now."

"I'd hate to think I bored him. Or he thought I wasn't paying attention to him."

"He's well used to it, he's a religious type, Muslim. Or Nation of Islam once, which isn't the same thing, I don't think. Either way, he never has a drink. So he has to be well used to being clear headed when other people aren't. You'd like to think he is anyway. Cool with everyone else I mean."

"I can forgive those who bore me, but not those whom I bore."

"Is that from the Koran?" Zach was laughing now.

"No, it's Oscar Wilde."

"It's a good line."

"It's how I live my life. No point wasting your time going to parties boring people. But I didn't want to bore Dom."

"Well I don't think you actively bored him. You weren't saying anything when I arrived anyway. It was crime by omission."

"Exactly, and that's what bugs me."

"Shhh, shhh. Sit down here." He motioned for me to sit on the ground between his legs and then started massaging my temples. I could still see the drinking game inside, could still see my jock.

"Yes that's Eric who goes out with Fiona. Its her brother’s party this," he continued. "A bit religious. Her, not him. Not either of the others, her brother or her boyfriend. But she's a devout Christian. From a political family. A vaguely Irish political family actually."

"Yes, her name is Gaelic."

"Still, this is proper American aristocracy you've arrived upon here. Her father was a congressman, he's a movie producer now. And a party grandee, a mover and shaker. They left your country, the old country a long, long time ago. That boy in the window is the son of a megabucks millionaire, he's as close to a prince as us Americans have. Destined to marry his princess."

"I would like to be a prince." I would, that's why I said it. "Just for a day. A day of being like him. Though I'd like to be a movie producer too. Is that being greedy? I would make movies about princes. And surround myself with other princes."

Zach laughed and took the joint from my hand. "Come back to me."

"I'm not used to people being described by their religion." I came back to him.

"Don't worry. You won't be. You're just the Irish guy. We don't hang people over that stuff. Though Eric has tried to."

"Eric? Him?" I pointed in towards the topless prince.

"I don't mean actually hang people. Eric tips his toe into student politics. He tried to have Muslims banned from College positions."

"Terrorism?" I don't know how I looked. But I should have looked startled.

"No. Salman Rushdie. Said we shouldn't let people who work here be members of a religion that wants to kill people.”

I made a mental note to think that through again when I had a clearer head. In response I just said "Whoaa". I said it in a very stunned, theatrical way. Which is probably why the man approaching us from the darkness put his hands in the air and said, "Don't worry man." He was tall, muscular in the overdone American style, almost absurd.

"It’s about time." Zach said. "I'm exiled out here because all the stuff is nearly gone. You have some?" The colossus nodded. "Great. We'll head upstairs. This is James, by the way." Zach said this over his shoulder to me as James and I followed him back into the house. I took a moment to take in the sheer scale of this new guy James and said "Whoaa" again without thinking, without hearing.

8.
I should have just come right out and told Zach what he assumed was true. I was gay. And I loved looking at that guy Eric. His mates too. And Zach wasn't half bad looking himself. I should have said these things, but I didn't.

It’s true to say that if you tell someone you're gay you tell them more about yourself than you know about them. With it comes all sorts of information that is necessarily a part of it. Wittgenstein says that we can't just have an idea of a cat, or a cow, or a person. To have the idea means we necessarily need to know other things about the idea. To imagine a cat means we imagine legs, a tail, eyes, whiskers, claws.

Wittgenstein didn't have much to say about me enjoying the sight of the topless guy through the window. But if he was still alive, living in that beautiful bay in the west of Ireland, you could go and ask him. And he'd probably agree with me that I was right not to reveal that I'm gay. Because what I'd really be saying is that I've come out. Maybe it was easy, maybe it was difficult, but it was a major event in my life. And that’s a lot of knowledge to hand over to a relative stranger. It’s a bit like saying to someone you barely know that you graduated top of your class, or you're a recovering alcoholic. It’s too shrill.

Anyway, the reactions become a bore. Sometimes the person you tell will immediately tell you of the other gay people they know, and about how you should definitely get together. The matchmaking plans start creaking into action, chugging forward towards inevitable failure. Sometimes they will react with inquiries as to how this has made you feel. As though you've brought up an awkward issue like a sibling dying, and they feel obliged to be caring. Then othertimes they let it pass, with no comment. The reaction of the liberals who see it as no big deal, worthy of no remark.

This third reaction, strangely, is the worst. It devalues something inside me.

9.
Zach led us back through the kitchen. We were on our way to the bedroom upstairs. The drugs room. The room at any party, where the chosen few sat. I'm always invited to the drugs room. I look like someone who doesn't smoke much, however that looks. When I'm there taking up space there's more to go around for everyone else.

"You're not American?" James asked. He didn't open his mouth much when he spoke. A side effect of steroids, I thought.

"No, no. Europe. I'm just here for a year." I wasn't being chatty. I was too awed by the size of the man.

"I lived there once. Germany. With the army. You're Irish?"

"Born and bred."

"Cool. Went to Dublin once. People kept talking about how big I looked.”

"Irish?" Someone shouted. The voice came from behind, it wasn't James. We were still making our way through the kitchen, me following in James's slipstream. It was Eric, the topless guy. I turned to look at him. He looked more sober than I'd expect someone who'd been shouting noisily for an hour should be.

"Yes." I replied, "I am." He smiled at me. He hadn't asked if I was Irish. He was calling me Irish.

"You're not going to let your people down are you Irish? These guys here are turning lightweight on me." He gestured at his surrounding friends, who did look the worse for wear. He handed me a can of cooling beer. "One go. Show them how it’s done."

I smiled, took the drink, awful American diluted water, and downed it one. By the end of the can the headache I knew it would give me had already begun. "Cheers," I said, stifling a wretch. I crumpled the can in my hand and threw it, surprising myself when it actually went over Hillary's head and landed in the bin. "I always need a couple of drinks before I start drinking."

We proceeded on our way towards the stairs. I wasn't sure if Eric had intended to be polite or rude. I never can tell with people. Most times they don't know themselves. He shouted after me, grinning: "You gotta get your ass back here man, we need proper drinkers."

Me, also smiling: "Will do man. Just need to check on something first." Heading up the stairs I made a mental note, for when I returned, that I wasn't supposed to know his name.

10.
There is no training manual for how a man should conduct himself when meeting another man he finds attractive. Women have been practicing these things for thousands of years. They have many manuals, thousands of magazines on the topic.

The gay man has no rules on how to deal with the beautiful. In fact, men don't. All men. We get driven to distraction by it, driven to poetry and other madness. It can be our ruin.

And because we, us gay men, are accustomed to interacting with men, and being honest with other men, we often feel the urge to say it out loud. To tell the guy that he's beautiful. Because, like all men, we are stupid about these things. We invariably and consistently, with all the unstoppable momentum of evolution behind us, make fools of ourselves.

I say this because I was feeling very chuffed with myself as I was walking up the stairs towards the drug room. I had handled myself surprisingly well with Eric. Perhaps drugs do work.

I had had the urge to stay with him, but feared I'd ruin the good impression.

11.
The room we entered was large, all the rooms in the house were. Everything in this country seemed to be. There was great excitement on the arrival of James. The drought had ended. Soon the smell of grass and the cloud of smoke formed into a solid wall above the head of the dozen students lolling around.

Two seemed deep in conversation. Seemed to be talking about the music playing in the background. A guy and a girl. Every now and then the guy would hold up his index finger for silence. He'd stretch his head back and then give a half dance in his sitting position. This thrilled the girl who joined in. Like two paraplegics at their high school prom.

I could try to describe the music to you, you've probably heard it. If I did try to hum it, it would go a bit like: Dop-dop-dop-dop. Dum-dop-dop-dop. Whumma-whumma.Whumma-dop-whumma-dop-whumma-dop. And so on until a new beat rises (this is the part where the guy raised his index finger): Wicka-wicka. Wicka-wicka-wicka. So the tune ends up sounding like: Dum-dop-whumma-whumma-dop-wicka-wicka. Dum-dop-whumma-whumma-dop-wicka-wicka.

There were no lyrics. Just a beat, an electronic beat. And there was a peculiar urgency to it, as though it was counting down time to some important event. There is no real vocabulary for sounds, but you do know the music I'm talking about. You probably even know its name.

              Zach and James were talking to the host who was sitting on his bed, busily rolling a joint. His face looked quite ashen, while his eyes were white, yet he was still showing remarkable, if slow, dexterity with his fingers. Over his shoulder, thumb tacked to the wall, was a massive poster of the movie star James Franco.

Franco was all healthy glow, charming smile, white teeth, perfect skin. As the lights of the candles in the room flickered on his face I couldn't help but think he was wearing a disapproving countenance. Disapproving more of the fact that he was adorning a boy's bedroom wall rather than any contempt for the smoke, I could not say. But he was trapped, and like any star he was putting his best face on it.