Chapter 1 Stanza Buia #2
At first, it was everything we dreamed of.
We stayed in a grungy, dirt-cheap hostel in Northbridge called Francis Street Backpackers, living off a couple of grand Charlie would much rather not have inherited.
It was like we were overseas on a backpacking holiday.
We slept in a six-bed dorm: me on the bottom bunk and Charlie on the top.
The carpets were sticky and the whole building reeked of morning-after puke and mi goreng noodles.
Charlie and I befriended people from all over the world: Brazilians, Germans, South Koreans, Americans.
They’d buy us grog from the bottle-o on Lake Street and we’d hang out in the hostel beer garden getting wasted on Foster’s (they thought it was an Aussie beer) and kicking hacky sacks and throwing frisbees.
We smoked cigarettes and weed. We hooked up with other backpackers, and strangers, and did everything we’d ever craved to do now we had the horny freedom of the city.
The Francis Street era was golden: the best fun I’ve ever had.
The real Zeke emerged from his cocoon. I’d always played Good Catholic Boy, but in that hostel, I was unapologetically myself: a red-blooded man who wanted nothing but pleasure.
I felt like the Beat poets of the 1960s.
I was Jack Kerouac waking up every day in a hedonistic haze I was too young for, but never overwhelmed by: my best mate was right beside me.
It lasted three months.
My parents had been trying to get me back home: the outrage I did to their authority by running away was thermonuclear.
My mother even reported me as a missing person.
The Gero cops called me, and I had to convince them I was safe and escaping my homophobic parents which, weirdly, the grizzled Gero sergeant seemed to understand.
The old me would have been worried about not graduating, but in that hostel, the old me was a dead me.
I dismembered myself to come to Perth – a mouse ripping off its own feet to escape a trap.
But burnout life was only fun until the money ran out, and the reality of living as emancipated minors hit us like a frisbee to the face.
A fog lifted. Hostel life was expensive, long term: we’d need jobs, a share house.
The dream lost its lustre: trawling Seek for entry-level jobs was depressing, especially with our nearly blank resumes.
I don’t think Jack Kerouac had to lower himself to that level.
And then, the kicker: my dad got cancer.
That was it. No matter how much I hated my dad, I didn’t want him to die. I told Charlie I had to go home to see him. The Gays in the Big Smoke Dream was dead.
Charlie and I had the worst fight of our lives.
A screaming match. A total shitfight. We both went for the jugular.
Charlie called me a traitor. I called him hypocritical for not realising how important it was for me to see my dad since he’d lost his own dad, years earlier, and his boyfriend, only months back.
I told Charlie I’d come back once I saw my dad but he called me a liar and said I was abandoning him. He said if I went back to my family I wouldn’t come back to him.
The worst part was he was right.
There’s ambient music playing in the sauna’s lounge area, much softer than the cruising-area doof-doof.
Two grey-haired daddy types are having a quiet beer, but otherwise the place is deserted.
Muscle Boy Johnny is behind the bar. The collar of his black polo shirt is popped – he’s a Pommie boy from Essex and either popped collars are still cool there, or he’s just a wanker – and his shirt sleeves are rolled up, tattooed biceps straining against them.
If I hadn’t run into him in the sauna’s mirror room one night, I’d think he was a rough dom top, but he’s a hungry bottom.
‘What’ll it be, lads?’ Muscle Boy Johnny asks. He doesn’t look me in the eye. He hasn’t since I had his torso on my hand like a puppet. I’m not sure if he’s embarrassed or if he wants me to do it again. I would.
‘Heineken, mate,’ Charlie says.
‘Could I get a vodka soda with lime, please?’ I ask.
Charlie snorts. ‘The most classically homosexual drink,’ he says. ‘White spirit and soda water, so you don’t drink too many calories before Pride.’
I gesture at my chubby, hairy chest. ‘And as you can see, it’s working great.’
Charlie laughs. ‘You look good,’ he says. ‘You look like you grew up.’
‘Well, we’re not kids anymore,’ I remind him.
‘Youth is in the mind,’ Charlie says, tapping his skull. His knuckles are tattooed, spelling the words PUNK ROCK. Apart from his piercings and ink, but, he doesn’t look that different: same build, same sneer, same concave chest. I grew up, but I’m not sure he did.
Muscle Boy Johnny brings our drinks and takes our money. We head out onto the open-air terrace. It’s pleasant – Perth winters can be irrepressibly sunny, even in July – and the high walls of the surrounding buildings protect us from the wind.
‘Heineken? You got into classy beers?’ I say.
Charlie picks a table with an ashtray. ‘Heineken’s hardly fancy. You got a light, yeah?’
I flinch. ‘Oh, I never smoke anymore. Not since the old hostel days.’
Charlie peers at my hand. ‘Coulda sworn you were holding a lighter.’
I unfurl my clenched fist sheepishly to reveal the bottle of Jungle Juice Gold that’s been sweatily pressed into my palm since the dark room. ‘Not quite.’
Charlie guffaws. ‘Wow! Little Zekey is into poppers, ay? Ya dirty little monkey.’
‘I’m not into poppers,’ I say. ‘Just use ’em if I come here …’
It’s one of the more extravagant lies I’ve ever told. I am a massive poppers fiend and I’m pretty sure it’ll be what kills me.
Charlie smirks and says, ‘Sure, sure,’ while lighting his cigarette with his green Bic. That’s always irritated me about smokers – why ask for a light if you have one?
He takes a puff and holds up his Heineken to my vodka. ‘To old mates,’ he says. ‘Burying the hatchet.’
‘To old mates,’ I confirm, clinking his glass.
I think I’ve buried the hatchet, too. Once, thinking about Charlie made me furious and bitter. But if time doesn’t heal, it softens. The past few years, I just felt sad when I thought of him. We should have been best mates and we lost it all in one stupid fight.
‘So, come on, spit it out,’ Charlie barks, waving his cigarette so vigorously ash flutters to the table. ‘Seven years, dude, and not a word. I know we blocked each other and shit, but still, seven years! What you been up to? All I know is you’re still a massive homo.’
I tip an imaginary hat at him. ‘Guilty as charged, squire. Had a phase where I thought I might be bi, but it didn’t take.
And since you saw me last … what, 2018, wasn’t it?
Well, I went back to Gero. Passed year eleven.
Dad’s chemo worked and he went into remission.
Year twelve was smoother. I studied hard, nailed the exams. I was runner-up dux. ’
‘Classic you, ya big nerd. Who got dux if not you?’
‘Sabrina Sefton.’
Charlie nods. ‘Yeah, that tracks. Always thought she had a crush on you, to be honest.’
I grimace unintentionally. ‘Well, uh, you were right,’ I say. ‘I took Sabrina to the ball in year twelve. We hooked up and were … sorta together, for a while.’
‘Look at you go,’ Charlie says, smirking. ‘Bisexual king over here.’
‘I’m not bi,’ I insist. ‘We never had sex. Third base, that’s it. I eventually came out and we agreed to be friends.’
Charlie’s smirk broadens. ‘Oh yeah, that always pans out well. Lemme guess: you never saw each other again.’
My momentary guilt must show up on my face, because Charlie clocks it. ‘Or … you did?’
‘Uh. Well. Me and Sabrina live together now.’
Charlie nearly chokes on his Heineken. He can’t swallow fast enough before blurting out, ‘You what?! Yikes, dude.’
I’ve always suspected people see mine and Sabrina’s living arrangement as odd, but most people never say anything.
Charlie Roth was never most people.
‘Is that weird?’ I ask, hating that I’m giving him the floor to pass judgement, but also really wanting to hear it.
‘Uh, little bit,’ Charlie says, straight-up. ‘Gotta cramp your style … you can’t bring guys home, right?’
‘It’s fine – I just hook up with guys who can host, or I come here,’ I say. I’ve long accepted this as part of my life.
Charlie’s already moved on. ‘How’d it happen, but? You moved down from Gero together and shacked up?’
‘No, no, we went our own ways for a bit,’ I insist, like that makes it better. ‘Sabrina moved straight to Perth for uni after high school, but I took a gap year and worked in a supermarket. But that ended up being a messed-up year … 2020 …’
‘Urgh, don’t even go there,’ Charlie says.
‘So, I moved to Perth in 2021,’ I say. ‘Did a double degree, Arts and Business.’
‘Got a foot in both camps in case one doesn’t work out?’
‘Well, that’s the point of a double degree, so you have two pathways to choose,’ I say. The foot in both camps comment bugs me: he’s detected a deficiency in my identity, and he’s dead right. ‘And I’m finished. Graduating this weekend.’
Charlie’s smile is tepid, like he wants to say more than the gentle, even-keeled ‘Congrats’ that comes out of his mouth.
‘Anyway, Sabrina and I stayed friends. Then a few years ago her housemate Victoria just happened to move out while I was househunting – so I moved in,’ I finish. ‘It just happened organically. Just made sense for us both.’
Nobody has ever said the word ‘just’ more times in one breath.
‘Hey, fair enough, dude,’ Charlie says bracingly, his voice rising in inflection like he’s realised how defensive he’s made me. ‘As long as you’re happy, right?’
And it’s not until my old friend assumes I’m happy that I realise, inescapably, I’m not.
Why did I want Charlie’s approval so much? Was I hoping he’d save me again?