Stardust Diaries

by Swan, Tarn

  Some Lu and Twinks history: Twinkles was just seventeen when he met Lulu via an ad in the gay personals of a contact magazine. He, Twinks I mean, was lonely. Despite his tender years he was living independently and he didn't have a wide group of friends. The few he had knew nothing of his cross-dressing proclivities, so when he read the ad from a gay teenager who listed his interests as drag, drama, dance and dating, he made contact. The dating part never worked out between them. They did end up naked between the sheets at one point, but nothing happened, because both agreed it felt wrong, like sleeping with your sister. So they applied facemasks and gave each other a manicure instead and thus a friendship was born.

  They provided each other with the courage and support needed to explore their sexuality and gender issues in more detail and also to seek out like-minded people, finding their heaven in the Pink Parrot nightclub, which played host to a rich and diverse transgender community.

  Lulu's mother insisted that Freddy's new friend join them for Sunday lunch and tea every week where she would fuss over him, appalled that such a young boy was fending for himself. Twinks said he could almost live for a week on the food she gave him to take home. Lulu’s parents are aware of their son’s feminine aspect, but they don’t talk about it. Twinks once accidentally called Lulu, Lulu, in front of his parents. There had been a silence and his mother had blushed and asked if that was his 'other' name. Lulu had nodded and she said, 'it's very pretty' and hurried off to the kitchen to make tea while his dad just kept the Sunday newspaper firmly in front of his face. They didn't understand, but they still loved their darling Freddy. He was still their son. It was very different to Twinkles’ own experiences of family.

  Twinkles and Lulu compete, bicker and fight and they can be absolutely vile to each other, but they are the closest of friends. I know Twinkles will be grief stricken if Emily dies, not just because he's fond of her, but because she's the mother of his best friend and he knows how much her loss will devastate him and forever change the landscape of his life.

  The latest news is that Emily has regained consciousness, but is still in intensive care. As yet it’s uncertain how much damage has been done by the stroke, or how permanent it will be. She's paralysed down her right side and has no speech and she also has difficulty swallowing. Because she has a history of heart trouble there's an increased risk of her suffering a second stroke over the next few days. It's all a waiting game and Lulu and his father are naturally spending as much time by her bedside as they can.

  25th January 2006: Rainbows and Runes

  Today marks the first anniversary of our friend Steven’s death. He died from AIDS. Brian, Stevie’s widower, is very depressed at the moment. He’s drinking too much and has all but closed himself off from the world since the beginning of the year. I believe all his emotions have been building towards this peculiarly difficult anniversary. I think mourning has layers and stages and often the most painful phase comes quite some time after the actual death of a loved one. It slowly dawns on you that you will never see them or touch them or hold and kiss them again in this life. I think the first anniversary is frequently the point you realise this awful truth, or at least admit it. They are not in the next room, they're in a place you can't go to yet and you begin to question whether you ever will and it makes your longing for them even more intense.

  I had a strange experience coming home from work this afternoon. I left the office early because we had a water pipe burst on us and it isn't easy to work with water lapping around your ankles. I sent the office staff home and left the problem with the maintenance people. As I drove homewards I suddenly noticed the most perfect shimmering rainbow arching across the sky. It was beautiful and I pulled over and got out of the car to view it properly. Its ages since I noticed a rainbow and you could see every colour in this one. I don't know why and I know it's sentimental and silly perhaps, but I had a strong sense of Steven.

  Steven was one of those people who loved taking photographs. He was forever using his mobile phone to snap pictures of this and that: a beer stain on a table, an oddly shaped cloud, friends, family and so on. The rainbow would have found its way onto his phone camera without a doubt. I used my own phone to take a picture in honour of his quirk and then on impulse I called Brian. I got his answer phone, just as I'd been getting it all week. I knew he was there. I begged him to humour me and look out of the window, to look at the sky. There were a few minutes of silence, and then the receiver was picked up. He could barely speak he was so choked with emotion. He managed to say what I hoped he would say, that it was a message from Steven. A way of telling him that they would meet again…in the words of an old cliché, somewhere over the rainbow.

  Of course everyone knows that rainbows are simply a rational aspect of nature and that it appearing today was coincidence. Still, some more primitive part of Brian needed to imbue it with power beyond the rational and make it personally meaningful, and perhaps I did too. We have to find hope and comfort where we can and I felt the rainbow had given me the chance to offer that to Brian.

  Instead of going straight home I called at Brian's house. He'd clearly been drinking for most of the day. He looked terrible, dishevelled and unshaven, so unlike his usual immaculate self. We stood by the window until the light faded taking the rainbow with it and I held him as he wept. Afterwards I insisted he came home with me rather than sit alone grieving. He's sound asleep in the guestroom at the moment, utterly worn out with sadness.

  Twinkles was put out because he didn't see the rainbow and has chosen to view my not phoning HIM about it as a sign I'm still cross with him because of events last week. I'd better go. The runes look very bad. He's just tottered past me on his way to bed, even though I told him that on account of having a guest he didn't have to go up straight after dinner this evening. He's clutching a big bar of Dairy Milk and a large box of tissues and wearing a tragic expression, which clearly indicates he’s planning on sobbing his way through them because I don't love him anymore. Of course he knows I love him very much, but he obviously feels in need of some fussing, so fuss I will. I'll feed him chocolate while telling him what lovely eyes he has, how I adore his smile and what gorgeous legs and a sexy bottom he has and how I love to...well, I'll leave that bit private.

  26th January 2006: Close Encounters Of A Combine Kind

  I’m feeling lethargic and stressed out. January is such a dull month, all to do with paying bills and counting the cost of December as well as contending with cold grey days, it's enough to sap anyone’s energy. Work has been really busy and I'm worried about my mother. After holding up brilliantly well after her diagnosis and operation, she's been hit with a wave of depression. Poor Priscilla is at a loss as to what to do for the best. He told me she cries all the time and she's convinced the cancer will re-emerge in some other part of her body and since the op she no longer feels like a complete woman. He tried to reassure her by saying her no longer having a womb didn't make her any less of a woman. She tartly retorted that wearing a frock from time to time didn’t make him an authority on wombs and their loss.

  Twinkles, who has decided to be jealous because mum tells Priscilla more than she tells him these days, had a go at him and called him an insensitive clod and how would he like it if someone hacked off his testicles and told him he was still every bit a man.

  I told Prissy to persuade mum to see her doctor and also to contact the counselling service the hospital had given her the details for. Apparently it isn't unusual for someone with a cancer diagnosis to fall into depression, even when the cancer has been successfully treated, and for any woman hysterectomy, even without the added and frightening complication of cancer, is not something to be regarded lightly. It has many psychological as well as physical repercussions. I’ve been reading up about it and I have to say it's made me appreciate being born a man. Worries about penis size, ball dropping and voice breaking are imminently preferable to the complications that arise from having ovaries instead of gonads.

>   I called my sister and begged her to try and find time to pay a visit home, as I knew it would cheer mum up. In fact it would cheer us all up. We haven't seen her in months and though we keep in touch via the wonders of modern technology, it isn't the same as actually seeing her in the flesh. Maryann said she'd try, but work was hectic and they were the middle of changing locations. I dutifully asked after Callum and she casually said she wasn't dating him anymore. They'd split up between Christmas and New Year and she was seeing someone else. It was news to me. I was gobsmacked to be honest and asked why she hadn't said anything before now? She said it had just never come up in conversation and anyway she thought I'd be pleased seeing as I'd never liked Callum. Twinks all put wrenched the phone away from me and demanded she divvy up details of the new boyfriend.

  At least having a gossip with Maryann put a smile on his face. He was in a Britney Spears mood (toxic) for most of last week. I thought I knew the reason why, but I didn't actually, not until last Sunday. I was not pleased with Twinkles that day I can tell you and he ended up being disciplined on several counts. The details leading up to Sunday are a bit complex, so bear with me as I journal them.

  We both took last Thursday off work because we each had appointments at the hospital, me to see the dermatologist for a three-month check-up and he to visit the fracture clinic to have his arm assessed. Unfortunately our appointment times crossed, so I couldn't stay with him. The dermatologist checked me over and said everything looked fine and the site of the cancerous mole had healed very well. He asked if I were checking myself regularly for unusual marks and skin alterations and I confirmed I had a diligent partner who went over me with a fine toothcomb at least twice a week. He laughed and said he was delighted to hear it.

  Curiosity then got the better of him and he asked what on earth had happened to my face, as I looked like I'd had a close encounter with a combine harvester. I claimed a bad case of shaving rash. It was the truth of sorts. Twinkles had ruined my shaver the night before. He decimated it by using it to shave his legs, pubic thatch and underarms. The blades were buggered, though I didn’t find out until I tried to use it. My poor chin looked and felt like a ploughed field by the time it had finished tearing chunks out of it. It was a new one too. I only bought it before Christmas so I knew its deterioration wasn't due to wear and tear suffered by contact with my face. It had to be down to him in frocks. He doesn't own an electric shaver, as he prefers to wet shave his face and use lotions on his other bits.

  He admitted the crime, blaming his one hand status, saying it was easier for him to use my shaver to quickly tidy up his bigger areas instead of messing on with creams, gels or wax. I told him he could have had the common courtesy to ask first. How would he feel if I suddenly started borrowing his frocks without asking? He said he'd think his prayers had been answered and why did I always have to make a fuss about everything. My face only had a few nicks on it. It wasn't as if I'd been decapitated. His selfish lack of consideration and respect for my possessions and sensibilities annoyed me and I let him know about it in word and deed, briskly tinting his bottom the shade of a harvest moon. He was sour faced before we even got to the hospital.

  After my consultation I made my way to the fracture clinic to meet up with Twinkles and was surprised to find him still sitting in the waiting room wearing the black arm cast. I surmised his clinic had been even busier than mine and he hadn't yet been seen. I surmised wrong. He had been seen and X-rayed through the cast. The attending doctor had decided it would be best if his arm stayed as it was for another week. Twinkles was not pleased. He had a face on him like an oncoming storm. He'd been looking forward to getting a smaller below the elbow cast, which would give him a much greater range of movement. I sympathised.

  He didn't want my sympathy he just wanted to get out of the poxy dump of a hospital. I patiently asked if the doctor had cited a particular reason for the cast staying on and Twinks growled that he was just a twat of a medic who enjoyed torturing gay people. I suggested he might be guilty of a touch of hyperbole there, to which he rudely replied, hyperbollocks.

  He was bad tempered all afternoon. I couldn't look at him without being snarled at. To try and cheer him up I made his favourite comfort food for dinner that evening, shepherd’s pie. It didn't comfort him. He was a moody little article before dinner and he was still one afterwards. I'd put too much salt in the potato. The gravy wasn't dark or thick enough, there was too much onion and did we have to have so many boring vegetables with every meal? My obsession with five portions a day was getting on his tits. I paid far too much heed to the bloody government and their medical advice. It was all rubbish and it was about time I started thinking for myself instead of letting the State think for me.

  Matters deteriorated still further after dinner when during the process of making a pot of tea, he screeched at the kettle and threatened to chuck it through the kitchen window because it wasn't boiling fast enough to suit him. I was accused of being too tight fisted to buy decent electrical appliances. At that point my indigestion made the leap into heartburn and my patience waved the white flag and surrendered completely. Taking his hand I powered him into the living room and forcibly parked his bad tempered little arse on the couch, telling him to keep it seated, in silence, until further notice or there would be tears before bedtime and they wouldn't be mine. I appreciated his disappointment about still being lumbered with the awkward arm cast, but I wasn't putting up with being used as a wall for him to slam his ill humour against.

  He wasn't much better on Friday. He stormed around generally emphasising the ‘cross’ in cross dresser. I thought he was getting things out of proportion and told him another week wasn't the end of the world and would soon pass. He accused me of being insensitive and uncaring and said I wouldn't be so blasé if I were the one trapped in a cast. I told him to stop carrying on as if he were the man in the iron mask.

  Friday night saw us paying our usual visit to the PP, but it was an altogether strained evening. Twinks was still in grump mode. Lulu wasn't out. He's currently staying over at his dad's place offering moral support. Emily is slowly improving. She’s swallowing better and making progress with speech. Poor Lulu is finding it all very stressful. At one point he got so upset by his mother's condition that he broke down and said he almost wished she'd died rather than have her suffer so horribly. At the time he'd been helping her take a drink and she'd swallowed it the wrong way, making her choke. It’s a common side effect of a stroke and a potentially dangerous one.

  I offered the observation that her will to live had brought her this far and would take her further. I don't know if it was helpful, are platitudes ever helpful? Sometimes they're the best you can give by way of comfort to someone in emotional distress.

  Cherie Pie was also absent from the PP that night. She had the flu along with several of her backing girls. Rick was in a stinking mood because his boyfriend had dumped him. Twinkles curtly cut short his tale of woe to tell him that no good could ever come of dating middle-aged married men who wanted a bit of homo fluff on the side, as well as the traditional wife, kids and respectability. He then informed Rick he had commitment problems why else did he always go for the unattainable and he needed to concentrate on getting himself an honest full time homosexual instead of a closet part timer. Rick wasn't in the market for truth. He told Twinks to fuck off and looked set to punch him so I dragged him away from the bar and forbade him to go near it again.

  Natalie was unnaturally quiet and Twinks couldn't raise so much as a bitchy comment from her, not even when he remarked that her outfit (a pink lycra jumpsuit trimmed at the cuffs with faux fur and topped off with a huge blonde wig and a pair of yeti boots) made her look like an over clipped French poodle.

  Empress Gloria and another queen called Pell-Mell did a drunken and terrible lip-synching routine to Gladys Knight &The Pips singing Midnight Train To Georgia. It mercifully ended when Mell got travel sick and vomited into Gloria's voluptuous cleavage. Gloria took the la
dylike approach and tried to suffocate Mell between her sick soaked bosoms. Mell did not take kindly to this and stamped a hefty platform boot down onto Gloria's foot. A baying crowd, including one of the club bouncers, gathered around the stage to watch what was turning out to be the most exciting part of the evening. I decided I’d had enough and told Twinks we were going home. Standing on the table to get a better view as the warrior queens tore into each other he argued that he wasn't leaving until one or both of them were dead. We left. He fumed all the way home. I was a miserable spoilsport making him leave just as bets were being taken about who would win the battle royal.

  I'll finish this account another time. I’ve lost track and am suddenly tired. I must be getting old or something. An early night might do me good.

  1st February 2006: Window Shopping Marathon

  So, what did cause Twinkles toxic mood all those years ago, or at least the week before last? Let me take up the story from Sunday, not the one just gone, but the one previous to that. He was still in a shitty mood. I fondly thought it originated with him having to wear a full arm cast longer than he would have liked and in a way it did.

  We'd just finished having a late breakfast, as is our wont on the Sabbath and I reminded him that Dad, Gill and the baby were coming over for tea that afternoon. He's still only seen Janet once…when we dropped off presents at Christmas and he barely even glanced at her then. I felt awful for Gill when she asked him if he'd like to hold her. He said no thanks with a look on his face suggestive of having being requested to plaster himself in her excrement. I had a bit of a quibble about it afterwards and told him he could have made more of an effort to be nice to Gill.