Chapter 8 #3
‘I try not to,’ I admit. ‘But I do. Like, with the bar, would Matt have loved it, or would the tradie mural scare him off? And when I’ve had boyfriends, Matt is like, this yardstick I measure them against. Except it’s been so long, I don’t know if I’m even measuring properly.
I might be using the idea of Matt, rather than who Matt really was. Sorry, that’s a bit emo.’
‘No, I get it, man,’ Zeke replies. ‘He was the first guy you loved.’
‘The only guy I’ve loved,’ I say, unexpectedly defensive.
‘Every other boyfriend was just a dating situation that clung on for weeks instead of days. Nowadays all I have are dumb crushes on guys who can’t reciprocate.
Like this bear cub I met the other night.
He ghosted me and left the bar. It’s like I’m too much and I scare people off. ’
‘I don’t think you scare them off,’ Zeke says, his voice rising.
‘But you do think I’m too much?’
‘No, you just … I guess you come across a bit …’
‘What? I come across as what? Tell me.’
‘Shit. Nothing. Far out.’
‘No, go on, say it,’ I demand, louder than I mean to. ‘Nobody has the balls to say stuff to my face. You’re my oldest friend. Say it.’
Zeke props himself up on his elbow. ‘Okay, this conversation is a good example,’ he says. ‘You kinda barrel at people, like a bulldog. You’re intense and passionate. Sometimes that’s fun, but it doesn’t leave much room for anyone else to say how they feel, you know?’
‘Ouch,’ I say, kicking the rug off my legs and immediately feeling too cold.
‘You said you wanted honesty.’
‘Yeah, I love it,’ I mutter. I know I’m being a sook, but why can’t honesty ever result in me being told something nice?
‘Don’t change, Charlie,’ Zeke says, curving over the bed to retrieve the rug. He drapes it back over us. ‘The right guy will like you for you. But if you want to find the right guy, maybe try listening more than speaking? Be there for him, listen to him, see if that changes anything.’
‘Easy,’ I say quickly. ‘I can totally do that.’
Friday night’s grand opening is a massive success.
The Tool Shed reaches capacity two hours after opening, the bouncers we hired having to form a line for entry. For a smaller venue, the bar is insanely busy.
It’s all hands on deck: the full team of six. Curtis, Ahmed, me, Zeke and our two new staff: Vince, a skinny hipster dude with sailor tattoos and a quiff, and Noah, a surfy, mulleted nineteen-year-old bogan we put on glassy duties.
We’re all run off our feet. Curtis and Ahmed get their photo taken by the local press.
Local DJ Beefcake Bruno spins beats ranging from current hits right back to Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’, which gets the crowd more animated than any other song all night.
The punters don’t skew as old as Curtis anticipated.
He thought we’d only attract Gen X and Boomers, but there are tons of guys in their twenties and thirties here, even twinks.
We lose track of how many guys say they’ve craved a bar like this in Perth.
It’s hard not to feel proud of that. There’s not a whiff of straighties anywhere, and it brings everyone to life: like we’re in this secret club, a movement of our own.
Every power point in the cruising lounge is occupied by guys surfing Grindr; the TV screens in the back display porn movies, while the screens visible from the street show a live AFL game.
The dance floor reeks like an orgy: muscly guys peeling off shirts; brown bottles passed between strangers, capped by thumbs, sniffed; more sniffing of men’s armpits right there on the dance floor as Bronski Beat’s ‘Smalltown Boy’ plays.
When I go to the dunnies, I stumble on a twink coaxing a leather bear into a cubicle before shutting the door. If I wasn’t working, it feels like they would’ve let me join them.
Seeing the gay men of Perth dance, drink, laugh, sniff, kiss and suck fills me with a pride I’ve never known. I always thought getting famous was my blaze of glory, but building a bar this liberated feels more punk than any music I’ve ever made.
Brayden rocks up with his mate, Firetruck, aka Mason, but I only manage to make eye contact from a distance. Vince serves them, and I’m too busy to stop.
And surprise, surprise: our influencer Xander Sullivan does make an appearance. He breezes into the bar, has his photo taken with Curtis and Ahmed in front of the tradie mural, then makes a beeline for me at the bar.
‘Pomeranian Charlie!’ Xander booms, pretending to reach across the bar to kiss my cheeks, which are two feet away from his face. ‘Can you make me a vodka fire engine, doll?’
I make his drink while Brayden comes over and chats to him.
I loathe that Xander’s calling me a pet name after his dead dog, but I love that he remembered my name at all.
‘It’s on the house!’ I insist, sliding Xander’s drink across the bar.
‘You’re too good to me!’ Xander beams, then he adds, ‘Except you never tagged me in our selfie the other night!’
I feel so sprung. Once I came to my senses about that selfie with Xander, I was disgusted with myself and never posted it. Shouldn’t he be too famous and aloof to notice who’s posted a selfie of him or not? Or are successful fame whores just as insecure as those of us who are unsuccessful?
Still, if I was as famous as Xander, I’d pretend to have forgotten all about it. Imagine letting everyone know how needy you are.
I’m saved from finding a polite response by Brayden, who bounds onto the metal footrest under the bar, inserting himself between me and Xander, and yelling, ‘Well, I’ll post this one and I’ll tag you both, bitches!’
All three of us grin for the selfie.
The bar is so hectic none of us can afford take our scheduled breaks for a while. But when things finally become more manageable, Ahmed orders me to take fifteen minutes. Craving nicotine, I head out into the back alley behind the bar for a smoke.
To my surprise, when I get there, there’s a figure leaning against the brick wall, his face in shadow, the glowing ember of a cigarette where the smile usually goes.
‘Uh-oh,’ Xander says sheepishly. ‘Sprung!’
It’s a moment of cognitive dissonance to see the shiny influencer guy being a dirty durrier. ‘Didn’t know you smoked,’ I say.
Xander breathes out a plume of fumes that quickly dissipate into the dark of the alley.
‘I keep it quiet,’ he admits. ‘People fucking hate smokers these days – it’s incredibly bad for branding when you do what I do.
Gotta keep the image clean. So, keep it on the down-low for me, won’t you? Just wanted one for the road.’
I hold up my own pack of smokes. ‘Your secret is safe with me, dude: I came out here to do the same thing,’ I admit.
Xander’s next exhale comes with this little smile of relief, like he was genuinely stressed about me knowing he smoked.
‘Ah, a fellow rebel,’ he says quietly, which is absurd, because the guy has never done anything vaguely rebellious I’m aware of.
He holds up a classic metal Zippo lighter – much fancier than my disposable Bic – which is engraved with words and a date I can’t make out. ‘You want a light?’
I take it, and suddenly I am smoking with Xander bloody Sullivan.
‘Must be hard to keep the smoking secret when you get the paparazzi spotting you at airports and stuff,’ I observe.
‘Oh, that journo was a real piece of work,’ Xander snarls.
‘And homophobic, to boot.’ He ashes his dart.
‘Keeping the smoking quiet is the least of my worries. People come after everything when they decide you’re famous enough to write about in the tabloids.
They’ve hounded every boyfriend I’ve ever had, which is why I can never fucking keep one.
At least that’s my excuse, ha! And I’ve had friends leak stuff to the press.
Hard for me to trust anyone anymore. I trust Brayden because we’ve known each other since before I got famous and he’s always had my back.
But some people just see me as something they can use, you know? ’
I form a face of faux-concern to mask that I am one of those people. To Xander, we’re two gays smoking in an alley. To me, this is my chance to build rapport with a famous guy.
‘People even show up at my work sometimes – it’s perverse,’ Xander rants.
‘I didn’t even know you had a job,’ I admit, then realise how rude that sounded. ‘Uh, I just mean – I figured being an influencer was like … full time.’
‘Oh, everyone does,’ Xander rolls his eyes, tapping on his phone. ‘Everyone thinks I shit gold nuggets. My family’s got money, and I do okay from being a Famous Gay, but it’s not like people think. Fame is such an illusion. It’s never how it looks from the outside.’
He flicks his cigarette butt to the ground and stomps on it until the glow is extinguished.
‘What do you do for work?’ I ask. I’m struggling to visualise this loud, rhinestone-covered guy rocking up in an office cubicle.
Xander shakes his head. ‘I’d rather not say, actually.’
‘Oh. Shit. Sorry.’
‘It’s not that you’re not nice,’ he says bracingly. ‘But there’s lots of crazy homophobes out there. I’ve learned to shut everything down in public, for my own safety.’
His cigarette is finished; I am back to being the public.
I nod slowly. ‘Fair enough. I guess you being famous gets people worked up.’
‘It’s not because I’m famous, it’s because I’m gay,’ Xander says matter-of-factly.
‘Yeah, but like, I’m gay and the paparazzi doesn’t follow me anywhere cos I’m a nobody,’ I joke. ‘You cop it because of the fame.’
Xander looks me sternly in the eyes. ‘No, it’s because I’m gay,’ he says sharply. ‘Our whole society is homophobic and that’s all it is.’
I flinch. I’m sure his fame is more of a factor in his harassment than his sexuality, and I’m also sure our whole society isn’t homophobic or he wouldn’t have thousands of fans who adore him.
But I can tell saying so will torch any rapport between us.
‘World’s fucked, dude,’ I offer.
‘Terminally,’ Xander states. He taps his phone screen again. ‘My Uber’s here. Nice seeing you, Pomeranian Charlie.’
Xander leans towards me and I think I’m about to get the same air-kiss Brayden copped at the Court, but instead he touches my arm for a second, the skin of his palm warm on my forearm, then he disappears down the alley towards the headlights of his Uber.
As I finish a second cigarette, my Instagram pings with a notification.
Xander’s come through. He’s posted a gushing story to his Insta – the pic of him with Curtis and Ahmed – praising them as ‘local legends’ and saying @thetoolshed is the best new queer hangout in Perth!
We got the result. Hell yeah.
Brayden’s tagged me in our group selfie at the bar, too. My face is weird and hyper in the shot – I look like a chipmunk who overdosed on dexies – but I share it to my own stories, with a caption about how good it was to see Brayden and Xander again. As if we’re all mates.
Xander love-reacts the story immediately.
And then I get the notification: Xander Sullivan followed you back.
I should be rolling my eyes, screenshotting this to Reyna and joking that I’m mates with a Perthonality now. Reyna would sneer back that I’m a tragic wannabe starfucker.
But I’m not my usual self about Xander. At this point, if I thought for a second Xander was a top, I think I might be bending over for him. Him following me back gives me this rush of warmth, like I matter. My first glimmer of hope since ‘Roof’ flopped. Maybe Xander and I really could become mates.
What harm could it do?