In the bathroom, Lou was teary and he started to plead. Told Manco about the new man, about being a hausfrau, about a new start. Hills hoist and gardens. Pot plants. Orange-colored cookware. Maybe a French bulldog as a pet.
Manco just pawed at Lou’s pecs. “Interest... interest... you boys gotta pay the interest,” he kept repeating.
Lou was at his end. He threatened an anonymous tip to the cops. They were always looking for the next bust. A big fag dealer with off-the-books cash and lots of drugs. Bye-bye loft apartment. Hello concrete cell. Manco fell still. Asked Lou to fix himself before he exited the bathroom, told Lou that he didn’t want to use tears as a lubricant again.
When he went back into the living room he saw Hendo sitting on the black leather sofa. All the men were standing around him. They had their shirts open and weren’t wearing any pants. The pale-blue office shirts contrasted against their pink skin. Hendo was putting a syringe into a little baggie of speed and water. The men all looked down on Hendo, licking their lips.
One of the men took the syringe off Hendo and shepherded him to a room with a swing. That was the last time Lou saw Hendo.
Lou was crying when he told me. We knew that Hendo was gone. Hendo wasn’t a poem that I wrote and lost. He was just a rich-kid fuck-up. Lou wrote himself into me. On him I saw the same dark Mediterranean skin. In him I saw the potential for a good life; at least one of us could be saved.
6
Sometimes I take the long way home. Suburban streets lead to the highways and they lead to the city like a river does to an estuary. I drive down Oxford Street. The road is wet, streetlights expose its emptiness. Under a rainbow flag I make out two emaciated figures that sway. They wear mesh singlets and huddle in each other’s arms. Those cold lost boys could be a memory of me and Lou.
Lou and I kept hitting clublandia. We had a strong three-horse race with Hendo. When he was gone, we became crutches for each other’s mourning. On dance floors, the baby gays scoffed at our dated looks and melancholic energy. A generic twink put his pink fingers on the collar of my jacket and looked for a label. He gasped when he saw it was from Kmart. Lou kept spilling drinks on his pants so the exits looked appealing. We wandered out into the street and huddled under a rainbow flag, almost falling on the wet concrete.
There were headlines when Hendo died. “SENATOR’S SON DEAD, GAY SEX SANDWICH.” I learned more about Hendo from that headline than he’d ever told me in life. Explained how his rent was always paid and he never worked. Made me reflect on that moment in the park with the cops, how Hendo spoke to them with a string of pearls in his voice. I reflected on his anthropological analysis of Lou’s suburban home. The headline made me realize that people like me and Lou were just subplots between the first and final acts of Hendo’s life.
The only reasonable response was to boycott Hendo’s funeral. Said to ourselves, Nah, just nah. Too many jerk-off journalists. Too many judging eyes. We kept on seeing the newspapers lining pavements with sordid tales of the senator’s son. So we avoided going out. Avoided cafés, train carriages, anywhere we might find a paper.
Lou’s house was in the outskirts of Bankstown. There was a sea of grass in the front yard. Roses not in bloom. Rusty old hills hoist. Paint flaking off Corinthian columns. As evening set in we lay on banana lounges in the front yard next to a kiddie pool. I put the whole of my hand in the kiddie pool, mosquito larvae swam between my fingers.
Eventually tatted Turk came home. Around a laminate table, Lou served us lasagna. Dutiful wife he was. I was hush-hush, watched Lou as he fussed pouring wine and filling side plates with salads. Easy conversation. Tatted Turk was a security guard, a late-in-life gay but a kid from a rough home, desiring a simple life. Part of me just called him ride-a-motorbike-and-drink-protein-shake dumb. Part of me called him solid, unpretentious.
The tatted Turk husband went to bed early that night. We were in the kitchen when Lou received an SMS from Manco.
Lou’s eyes were open fully. “If Manco tells tatted Turk about my old life, he’ll leave me. I’ll have nothing. I wish someone would do something,” he said, and his eyes were like big wet frying pans. Rock-hard tears next to Tupperware and laminate tables. His body folded and he took long breaths; I came from behind and hugged him.
I put my palm on Lou’s back and started rubbing it while he sobbed. That night I told him it would be alright and for the first time in my life I felt like a father. I realized that this is what a father should do. Protect. Help. Solve. Have dominion over a son and not in that gay-daddy kind of way. Eventually I lifted Lou up, pulled his arm around my shoulder, and put him to bed next to his boyfriend.
The next morning before anyone got up, I drove to my dad’s. I waited for him to leave the house. In his Stalinist-cell bedroom and behind the door there was a case with a weapon. I pulled out the sawed-off double-barrel. It was heavier than I’d expected and the glint from where it was sawed gave it a sense of menace.
Took the bullets out of the breech and put them back in the case. Wrapped the gun in a towel and slipped it in a gym bag.
I had no money and Lou needed a problem resolved. Manco had a stash of cash and drugs. Problem crushed.
7
The apartment hallway had the sterile nothing of a medical center. My knuckles hit the laminate door three times. Manco opened the door. He was in his sixties, bald, wearing jeans and a faded black T-shirt. His round wire-rimmed glasses were a hint of intellectual and creative pretension. I was carrying the gym bag and I held it low to the ground. Told him that Lou had sent me, that I was going to be the payment today. He put his hand up on the doorframe, blocking the entrance. His gaze started at my feet, scanned up, and when he reached my neck, he muttered an, “Oh you’ll do,” and waved me in with his hand.
I followed him into the apartment. Went past a marble kitchen with stainless-steel appliances. I took deep slow breaths that filled the pit of my stomach. The rubber soles of my shoes squeaked against the polished concrete floor. The living room had a TV against a wall of glass that looked out over the city.
“Nice view,” I said. He asked me if I needed to use the bathroom to freshen up. I held my gym bag low, tried to make it a discreet thing that I was carrying.
In the bathroom, I opened my gym bag and unwrapped the double-barrel from the towel. There was a weight to it that seemed new. I looked at myself holding the gun in the mirror. Angled my head low and put the butt in between my arm and torso. Creased my forehead and eyebrows, practicing a look of menace. I entered the living space holding the gun. Manco was sitting on the sofa with his dick out. He stood up and put the pink thing back in his pants. He raised his hands up in the air, his palms facing me. His lips pressed together like two cars in an accident. I took one step toward him and pushed out the gun in front of me.
“We need to talk about Lou,” I said. My voice was lower than a sewer. Told him that Lou’s debt was fully paid, otherwise he would see me again. He gulped and nodded, knew exactly what I was saying.
I asked him where his stash of cash was and where all the dope was. A single drop of sweat ran down his face. He directed me to a kitchen cabinet. I walked over to the marble kitchen; my shoes made a squeaking sound that echoed throughout the apartment. I bent my knees and squatted. Opened a cupboard. Kept the gun straight as I pulled out a container full of chems. I snapped open the lid. There were caps of MDMA, blue LVs, and doves. All the pills were in sandwich bags, neatly arranged.