Sweet Tooth

by Tim Anderson

  After a while, Stephen excused himself to go to the men’s room. I asked him for a cigarette before he left, and he tossed one my way. Janet was nowhere to be found, so I just sat there looking around with my glazed eyes. A group of guys were on the other side of the room sitting around a table. The dance floor traffic was sparse. I put the cigarette in my mouth and realized I had no way to light it, so I stood up and strolled over to the table of guys, some of whom were smoking.

  “Hey, can I bum a light?” I asked. The guys looked at each other uncomfortably before one of them finally wordlessly pushed a lighter across the table. I scooped it up and lit my cigarette, then placed it back on the table. The guys looked at it, but no one touched it.

  “Thanks,” I said. They all looked away, apparently not interested in any further discussion.

  This is weird, I thought drunkenly. As I returned to my spot on the opposite side of the room I looked down to see if my junk was hanging out of my pants or something. No, it was not. I got to the bench and, before sitting back down, I looked at the flyer that was stuck to the wall above my head.

  WEDNESDAYS ARE STRAIGHT NIGHT AT PARADISE FACTORY!

  Ooooooooooh. OK. That over there was a pack of straight dudes who’d just had a front-row seat for Stephen’s and my furious face-meld that just went on forever and ever, and it made them feel weird. Looking around I suddenly realized that I was simply surrounded by straight people. Surrounded. They were everywhere. On the dance floor. Against the wall. At the bar. On the stairs. Swinging from the rafters, cackling. This was not how I’d planned to spend my Wednesday night, surrounded by…these types.

  Stephen came back from the men’s room, and I excitedly gave him the news.

  “Didjjjyoo know that it’sssssss ssssssstraight night tonight?”

  “Oh yeah, they alwayssssss have that on Wenssssdayssss.”

  “You knew?! Then why are you here?”

  “Janet’ssss idea.”

  “Oh. Where’ssss Janet?”

  “Buggered off somewhere…”

  “Dammit, Jannnet…”

  We decided to leave the breeder den before things got any weirder, and he generously invited me over to his flat just down the road. We stumbled over there, made out for a little while, and passed out in his bed.

  I snored myself awake the next morning, and there I was, in Stephen’s bed. And there was Stephen, still sleeping peacefully, which surprised me because, owing to my superhuman snoring ability, usually folks can’t sleep in the same room with me, much less on the same mattress. I realized for the first time that he was a redhead. His red lashes were long and languorously rested on his soft eyebed. I gracefully rolled off the mattress and onto the floor. I then picked myself up, stepped into the sitting room, sat on the floor next to his small entertainment center, and did what came naturally: started going through his record collection.

  Wow. It was a children’s treasury of collectibles from British indie pop’s last decade. There were items I’d only read about in the pricey British music magazines I’d torn through voraciously in high school but never had proof actually existed: a 45 by The Primitives that came with a little packet of bubble bath; The Sundays’ first single from 1989 containing a B-side I’d never heard; The Human League’s Dare on stunning pink marbled vinyl—WHAT? Sleeves from Stephen’s collection danced before my eyes: Siouxsie and the Banshees live in Japan, the Co-Stars’ single “Kiss and Make Up” in a gatefold sleeve; Public Image Ltd’s album Metal Box in an actual metal box!

  “See something you like, then?”

  I whipped my head over guiltily and saw that Stephen had emerged from the bedroom in his robe. “Oh, just all of it,” I said, lifting up an Echo and the Bunnymen 45 and gingerly widening the sleeve opening to see if the record inside was on scratch-n-sniff strawberry shortcake vinyl.

  “So you like the Bunnymen?”

  “Almost more than I like Wispa Gold bars.”

  Stephen tilted his head to take that last comment in, then pushed his lips into a pout and nodded to convey his acceptance of its rationality.

  “Oh, I forgot I had that,” he said, pointing to the Shop Assistants album I was holding. “That’s Ian’s.”

  “Oh, who’s Ian?”

  “Oh, you know, ex-boyfriend. Still a friend. He’s got more records than I do.” He smiled and looked down. I nodded and self-consciously started stacking the albums I’d scattered in a semicircle around me to clear a path for him to get to the sofa.

  “Anyway, cup of tea?” he said with a chipper grin.

  We spent all day drinking tea and going through his collection, then making out, then putting on a Joy Division record, then more tea and sucking face, then snacks, then some Altered Images, then getting naked, then staying naked, then some Bronski Beat. We were two kids in a candy store, satisfying our seemingly inexhaustible cravings for chocolate, caramel, nougat, and lap-diving. Also the first Chameleons album and that Sarah Records compilation.

  “You should feel free to pop by anytime and copy these,” Stephen told me. I took him up on his offer, and started going by once a week with blank cassettes, clean underwear, and a dream.

  The next few weeks were colored by an agitated bliss I’d never experienced before. I was nervous yet ecstatic hanging out with Stephen, going drinking, getting coffee and cake at the Cornerhouse Café, going out in the Gay Village—I felt like a real boy with a real boyfriend, like Pinocchio and that guy he dated. We hung out every weekend, and he could be relied upon to call every few days. Whenever I wasn’t with him I was thinking about him, obsessing over whether he was thinking about me, wondering if he was talking about his embarrassing American boyfriend to his friends, and waiting for the phone in the hallway of my flat to ring and someone to knock on the door and say, “Tim, phone for you,” at which point I could start breathing again.

  One weeknight we sat at a table on the second floor of a bar called Manto, where his friend was doing a drag show. Our hands were playfully entwined on the table, and whenever Stephen would pull his hand away to scratch an eyebrow or reach in his pocket or accompany him to the bathroom, I was breathless with longing as I counted down the seconds to when that hand would be back safely clasping mine and I could relax.

  Stephen’s friend Peter’s drag alter ego was Icelandic femme fatale Anyir Lidldógtu, and she was a mess. Her skin-tight evening dress, a bonanza of shimmering gold sequins, was embossed on the butt with the face of Björk, her ex-best friend and nemesis. Her black bob wig was placed on her head ever so lopsidedly, and her eyes were caked with dark brown eye shadow. She stumbled around in busted-up high heels wielding a clutch purse that, halfway into her show, I realized was plastered all over with condom wrappers.

  “Wow, she’s really hideous,” I said as I gawked.

  “Oh, you should tell her afterward,” Stephen said, leaning in to me. “She’s always afraid she looks too presentable.”

  Anyir Lidldógtu entertained us for the next half hour singing (badly) Björk songs like “Human Behaviour” and “Big Time Sensuality” and lamenting at length her own regrettable lack of dwarfishness, which was what she claimed made Björk a star. It was a compelling story of revenge and betrayal, even before Ms. L started cracking eggs on her face while wailing in her native tongue what I’m assuming is Icelandic for “That elf bitch stole my diamonds!”

  After the show and, I imagine, a thorough scrubdown, Peter sauntered up to our table after a brief visit to the bar. Stephen stood and embraced him, kissing him on both cheeks, then turned and introduced us. Peter was tall and thin, with a shaved head and an amazingly kind face for someone who’d just been cursing Björk to hell.

  “He’s American,” Stephen said with a wry grin, as if he and Peter had an inside joke about Americans that they were silently agreeing not to say in my presence. Peter then whispered something to Stephen, and Stephen shook his head.

  “Oh, you’re American, that’s so exciting!” Peter said, shaking my hand with his soft, d
elicate fingers. “So, how is life in the colonies?”

  I was starstruck and couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just squeaked, “It’s fun!” while smiling stupidly.

  “He actually lives here—he’s a bloody student,” Stephen said. Pronounced “shtyoodint.”

  “In Manchester?” He looked at me incredulously. “Was the University of Fucking Nowhere all filled up?”

  “Ha ha!” I laughed, still stupidly. “Yeah.”

  Peter lit a cigarette and continued. “Well, I think it’s just terrible. You should never go to school, Tim, it leads to nothing but misery. You should quit immediately and just pose for a living.” He tugged on his smoke, then looked at my face for an uncomfortably long time. “You have an enormous nose, might as well use it.”

  “Good advice,” I said. “Do you know anyone who would pay me for that?”

  “Oh, I know folks who will pay for all sorts of things, especially if you’re a Yank!” He winked and tipped his head at me, lightning fast. He and Stephen exchanged grins. “But seriously, why are you here?”

  “Uh,” I said, not sure how to answer. “Stephen brought me here.”

  “No, honey, I mean why are you in England? You come from the land of opportunity and Jesus, right? What do you need with us?”

  I pursed my lips to signify that I was thinking about it. “Hmm. I don’t know, really. Jaffa Cakes?”

  “Oh, Tim, you should never eat anything but lettuce and never drink anything but vodka. There’s no future in fat cells.”

  “Oh, I only eat them while I’m doing sit-ups.”

  Peter smiled at my lame attempt to compete with him for Best Witty Comeback.

  “Well, just keep it under control, this bar has a strict No Fatties policy. Stephen was once barred for a whole month after the Christmas holiday, weren’t you, Stephen?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Sure you were, we just didn’t tell you. Anyway, loves, gotta go. Turrah!”

  Peter got up to continue his post-show rounds, and Stephen and I sat there silently, as “Relight My Fire,” a particularly hideous song by local boy band Take That, burst from the speakers. All of a sudden I realized that Stephen and I weren’t holding hands anymore. He was pensively staring into space, one hand under his chin and the other drumming the table.

  “I really hate this song,” I said, then gave his hand a squeeze.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty stupid.” He looked out the large window behind us.

  I nodded and racked my brain for something else, anything else, I could say to keep the conversation going. Because it seemed like he was…

  “Drink up? It’s nearly half ten.” He was ready to go.

  After another few weeks, it was obvious that Stephen was disengaging. First, the phone calls started coming less frequently. Naturally, my calls to him got more frequent and desperate, and on the other end he sounded more distant. One week, the days crept by without a word from him. A boy obsessed, I couldn’t look at any object in my room without dwelling on its relevance to my relationship with Stephen, which in my head I’d ballooned into a love affair of the ages. The cassettes, the Capote books I’d picked up and thumbed through, the flyers and promotional postcards for Paradise Factory club nights and drag shows scattered across my floor, the can of Woodpecker Cider in my hand, the many empty Woodpecker cans on the floor. I started staying up all night listening to the music I’d recorded from his collection. Because listening to every Chameleons album back to back would surely provide me with a breakthrough.

  Soon I began to fixate over a particular Capote quote I’d come across:

  “Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.”

  Clever. And…relevant? Oh my God, I thought, not having slept for several days. We’re in our final act. We’ve had two acts of fun, and now one of us is going to die, because that’s how all gay movies end. In tears. Or with a violent beating. And though I might only die figuratively, dying figuratively was bad enough.

  I had to see him, to prove to myself that he was just a busy law student with lots of reading to do and his lack of communication was just a function of his being overwhelmed with work and not because he didn’t adore me body and soul from my head to my toe, from back to front, inside and out, from Tehran to Timbuktu. Right, Stephen? Right, Stephen?

  By Wednesday I was a wreck. After a super-indulgent few weeks of candy, I was now being denied it, and you do not deny a hungry hypoglycemic his candy. I ditched class and went into town to go record shopping. At Piccadilly Records I found a twelve-inch of The Thorn EP by Siouxsie and the Banshees, which offered me the perfect opportunity to drop by Stephen’s place with a blank tape. I’d arrive, he’d see the goods I’d brought, and then he’d ask me to marry him and all of his collectible gatefold sleeves.

  I knocked on the door, and it took a minute for him to answer. He opened the door a crack and stuck his head out.

  “Oh! Hi, Tim, you all right? How’s it going?”

  “Great! Look what I got!” I produced the album from the paper bag, and he nodded approvingly.

  “Oh, good find.”

  “So I was wondering if I could record it on your system. You know, ’cause I don’t have a record player.”

  “Uh,” he said, looking back into his apartment. “Sure, come on in.”

  I came on in and quickly realized I was crashing a party. A two-person party, the kind that starts on the couch and probably moves into the bedroom eventually.

  “Tim, this is Ian,” Stephen said as we walked into the sitting room. Ian the Ex-Boyfriend. Or rather, judging by his messed-up hair, the chub in his pants, and the fact that his shirt was pushed slightly above his waistline, Ian the Recently Rediscovered.

  “Hi,” I said, going to sit down on the floor near the turntable and fumbling to get the record out of its sleeve so I could hurry up and copy it and get the hell out of that flat so I could scream and then jump off a double-decker bus onto a black cab. As I recorded, Stephen sat down on the sofa next to Ian, and they proceeded to cuddle the way ex-boyfriends shouldn’t be cuddling. We engaged in small talk about travel and the weather.

  “If I ever go to America,” Stephen waxed, “I’m going to wear the classic English uniform: a bowler hat, a gray pinstripe suit, and I’ll be carrying a cane.” He and Ian had a good laugh over that image as I sat there forcing my eyes not to roll.

  “Careful with the excessive Englishness,” I cautioned. “They shoot folks for that in Texas.”

  “Duly noted,” Stephen nodded, looking lovingly over at Ian as if to say, “Honey, let’s not ever go to Texas, let’s just stay here and be English! Oh, I love you!” “I love you more!” “No, I love you more!”

  I silently thanked the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost that Siouxsie and her Banshees had only recorded four songs for this particular record, because I was done copying it in less than twenty minutes. As soon as I was done, I snatched the record from the turntable, slid it into its sleeve, and stood to go.

  “Well, it was nice to meet you, Ian,” I said. “Thanks for letting me record, Stephen.”

  “Oh, sure, you know, no problem.” He stood to give me a kiss on both cheeks. “Take care, yeah?”

  “Sure, you too. Bye.”

  I walked a deflated and despondent walk to the stairs and down to the grounds of the council estate he lived on, once the poetically dingy setting of my short-lived romance, now just an ugly, depressing building with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. So that was it: His boyfriend was back, and I was going to be shit out of luck, as The Angels might have put it. This little recording session was our good-bye.

  I went directly to the Cornerhouse Café, where I proceeded to drown my sorrows in chocolate cake with whipped cream and a giant hot chocolate with whipped cream, and also a side of extra whipped cream, because fuck it, I didn’t care, diabetes be damned. Afterward I walked to the drugstore to get some hair bleach, then hurried back to my flat at Whitworth Park, tossed
my record on the bed, visited the restroom, and threw up everything in my stomach. I heaved and heaved and heaved, my body convulsing with anger and hurt and sugar and chocolate and whipped cream and lovesickness. When I was finally done I lifted myself up off the floor of the stall, wiped my mouth, and calmly returned to my room.

  I spent the next few hours blasting a mixtape of songs copied from Stephen’s fantastic record collection while alternately scribbling nonsense in my journal, organizing my recordings, and bleaching my hair white because, hey, let’s have a music montage. After forty-five minutes, the purple goop I’d combed through my hair had rendered it, to my massive excitement, as white as a dove. Oh yes, my mane was Billy Idol white. Rent-boy white. I’m-here-I’m-queer-I-have-no-visible-roots white. I then showered, put on my River Phoenix T-shirt, laced up my blue Doc Martens, and headed back into town, down Oxford Road, past the Holy Name Church where a vicar in a tutu twirled on the front steps, past the student union building where Morrissey’s grandmother was probably scrubbing toilets while listening to Ziggy Stardust on her headphones, down to Whitworth Street where I hung a right and stomped all the way to the Paradise Factory, where my stupid love affair started, and where I planned on starting a brand-new one, by God.

  Plenty more fish in the sea, I told myself. Plenty more. You just need to let them know you’re here. And you are here, now, Tim. You are here. Here at the door of the Paradise Factory, where there are three floors of nothing but men. Some of whom might like you. Two of whom might love you. One of whom might give you crabs. It is Wednesday night and time to…Wait. Wednesday night?

  It was then that I saw the flyer on the door outside. Wednesday. Straight Night.

  Damn breeders.

  After smoking a cigarette and thinking it over, I left the club and headed farther into the Gay Village. There had to be a drag bingo going on somewhere.