Delilah's

by John Maley

  It revealed something about Cary’s character, thought John. This whole ambience trip. He wanted to control his environment. To mould it to his liking. He was a hedonist. He was also into E in a big way. Cary wanted pleasure from his environment and the people in it. But man cannot live by pleasure alone, thought John, morosely. He shifted in his seat just so he could feel the rustling paper of Cary’s rejection slip slide dangerously close to his heart. Truly, the pen is mightier than the sword, mused John.

  The lighting in Delilah’s was diabolical. It was rumoured to have been designed by the Gestapo. A furious big drag queen had once smashed some of the lights with the heel of his stiletto and was frog-marched out shouting for sunglasses. But they had created a darker place here at the booths where John sat. In candlelight, the gentlest light of all.

  He started to play with a cardboard beer mat on the table. He began to unpick it at a corner, peeling back the top layer of cardboard. He tore the thinner piece of cardboard into strips, imagining it was the letter. Then he started picking at the label on his bottle of beer. He dampened the paper with some beer that had been spilled on the table and he scraped off most of the label. He looked at the scraps of paper and cardboard on the table and felt self-conscious at the mess he’d made. He gathered the litter into a bundle and sat it neatly on the ashtray. He needed the toilet.

  John stood outside the two cubicles. There was a guy peeing at the urinal. At least he was peeing at first. But when he had finished peeing he just kept standing there, glancing over at John. He eventually jolted his head back as if to summon John over. Just as he did this one of the cubicle doors opened and two sheepish looking young guys came out. John hurried in past them and snibbed the door. He was relieved that the only thing the cubicle smelled of was some fancy aftershave the boys were wearing. He took off his jacket and placed it carefully on the dirty floor. He pulled off some of the toilet roll, wiped the black plastic toilet seat with it, dropped the paper into the pan, then unfastened his trousers and let them drop. He hitched up his shirt and sat and shat. The cubicle didn’t smell so nice now. John gave a heavy sigh as he crouched on the pan. He could see the letter sticking out of his jacket pocket. He was tempted to wipe his arse with it and flush it down the pan. He wiped himself with the toilet paper and pulled the plug.

  When he came back out of the cubicle the guy who was kidding on he was doing the pee was still there. There were a few other guys in the toilet, one of whom hurried past John into the cubicle he’d just vacated. John went to a washhand basin and washed his hands. In the mirror he could see the urinal man looking over his shoulder. He thought for a moment he should pick him up to take his mind off the letter but dismissed that as a bad idea.

  Back at the seat nothing had changed. His neat pile of litter was still carefully balanced on the small pink ashtray. He started picking the label off his new bottle of beer then he stopped himself. The candle was ready to burn out when a barmaid appeared. She replaced the candle, emptied the ashtray and took away the empty bottles. John looked around at the growing clientele. He wondered if their partners had dumped any of them that day. Or perhaps some of them would meet a new partner tonight. But not John. He wasn’t even thinking about that. He couldn’t have slept with anybody or been near anybody tonight. He sat there and tried to evaluate his relationship with Cary. It had been mainly a sexual connection. He had never truly felt close to Cary, who was too busy swallowing E and surrounding himself with ambience to convey any genuine feelings. John felt that maybe Cary was his E. He was a pretty dope who gave him a high. But it couldn’t last. It couldn’t endure. Highs never do.

  What would he do with the letter? He had a few ideas. Instead of destroying it, he could treasure it. He could get it framed and build a shrine around it. He could get it laminated and stick it up on the wall like a certificate of rejection. He even thought of writing something on it and posting it back to Cary. But there was something too banal, too final, about Cary’s letter that any response would be futile. He’d had the last word.

  John felt in his pocket for the letter. He took it out and opened it up delicately. He began, once more, to read it.

  German Shepherd

  A man wearing a leather jacket was holding court at a booth in Delilah’s with some friends. He was telling them about the time that he furthered international relations by sleeping with a German chemist. It had all started in Chapps bar in Edinburgh.

  ‘Wasn’t that some kinda creepy leather bar?’

  A friend was already beginning to disapprove.

  ‘Chapps was great,’ said another, ‘I used to go there. They had a dance floor upstairs. Had some wild nights in there.’

  ‘That’s right,’ continued the man telling the story. ‘They had the main bar area downstairs and a wee dance area upstairs. I was only ever in the place twice.’

  ‘Were you alone?’

  The narrator shook his head.

  ‘I was with forty lesbians.’

  ‘Forty?’

  ‘Slight exaggeration. I was with this Australian woman I knew. She was straight. A couple of her friends were lesbians. We hit the town one night and ended up in Chapps.’

  Another pal returned from the bar with his round.

  ‘That’s closed noo, Chapps.’

  ‘Didn’t they just do it up and call it somethin’ else?’

  ‘Fuck knows. I never go to Edinburgh.’

  ‘Anyway, back to the story. As I’ve only ever been in Chapps once I didn’t know how to get upstairs. It was quite dark.’

  ‘It wis dark in there. Sexy.’

  ‘So I asked this guy. He pointed and told me where the stairway was. He looked at me with his big pussycat eyes – ’

  ‘Pussycat eyes?’

  ‘Meeoow.’

  ‘Okay. Okay. I’m just tellin’ you. He shows me the stairway and he says somethin’ about maybe seein’ me up there later. What gets me is his accent. It’s a foreign accent. It sounds like he’s Swedish or Dutch or somethin’. I don’t know. But he’s obviously game for it.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Well just listen and you’ll find out. I go upstairs and get more drink in and dance like fuck with the rest of the crew. I mean it was great music. It was housey stuff. This is before techno. It was house music. Fuckin’ brilliant.’

  ‘Loved house. Of course queens invented it.’

  ‘It was house stuff all night. Then this guy appears. It turns out his name’s Gunter and he’s German.’

  ‘Hold it right there. He’s a German? The unsexiest race on Earth, the Germans.’

  ‘Just listen.’

  ‘The French and Italians – sexy Europeans. The Germans? Good at stealin’ deck chairs. Bad at sex.’

  ‘Let me tell the fuckin’ story.’

  ‘Let him tell the story.’

  ‘He’s German and his name’s Gunter. He works as a chemist. He’s about forty. I was only in my early twenties at the time. He’s game for it. He starts touching me up while he’s talkin’ to me.’

  ‘Feelin’ yer balls?’

  ‘Aye. He asks me if I want to come back wi’ him. To his flat. In Edinburgh. So I says I’ll need to ask my pals. I thought I’d introduce him to Annie, the Aussie woman.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘I introduce them and he says hello. Annie says go for it. She thinks he’s got a nice face. So then me and Gunter down our drinks and march back to his place.’

  ‘So he lives in Edinburgh?’

  ‘He was stayin’ at a pal’s. Rentin’ a room. It was durin’ the Edinburgh Festival.’

  ‘Was it fancy?’

  ‘It was a bit scabby. No’ dirty. Just a mess.’

  He took a drink of his pint and sighed with satisfaction.

  ‘Okay. So was he a good shag?’

  ‘Let me tell you what happened. We get intae bed and start the usual stuff …’

  ‘It’s called sex.’

  ‘... then he gets out of the bed and starts fumb
lin’ about in a bag. I was just lyin’ there thinkin, what the fuck’s he doin’.’

  ‘What was in the bag?’

  ‘I thought it would be somethin’ scary. A knife. Or a gun. Or a giant dildo – ‘

  ‘You wish.’

  ‘But it was this stuff, massage oil. It smelled like, I don’t know, roses or somethin’. He climbs back intae the bed and starts massagin’ me wi’ this oil.’

  One of the guys tapped the table.

  ‘Who says the Germans wurnae sexy?’

  ‘He gave me this amazin’ massage. It was really fuckin’ sensual. But I couldnae relax cause I had freaked when he went intae the bag.’

  ‘A German gave you a massage? Is that it?’

  ‘We were on the subject. Of foreign parts. That’s my wee story.’

  ‘You never saw him again?’

  ‘Naw. He gave me his card. Next time I’m in the Ruhr valley I might look him up.’

  ‘Sounds pretty romantic for a one night stand.’

  ‘It makes ye think though. I went back wi’ this guy, a strange man, in a city that was strange to me, in that pokey wee room. He could’ve done me in. Buried me out in the back.’

  ‘It’s the risk ye take innit?’

  ‘I mean I hadn’t been wi’ that many guys then. I was twenty-two. I wisnae that long out the closet. Here I was wi’ a big fuckin’ German on top of me. But I trusted him.’

  ‘Think of it, how often that happens – ’

  One of the guys was in a philosophical mood.

  ‘ – You go tae a pub or a club and you meet some man you’ve never met before – ’

  ‘Never fuckin’ seen before – ’

  ‘You meet some guy and you go back wi’ him. You’re maybe steamin’, stoned or whatever – he could’ve anythin’ – the clap, halifuckintosis, the big A – he could be anybody – a serial killer, a Tory for fuck’s sake – and you take off all yer clothes and climb intae bed wi’ him. And when are ye at yer most vulnerable? Naked.’

  ‘Naked as the day God laid ye.’

  ‘Stark fuckin’ naked wi’ the Man With No Name fumblin’ under the mattress for his flick-knife.’

  ‘Or massage oil.’

  ‘That smells like roses.’

  ‘But that’s part of the buzz innit?’

  ‘What I’m sayin’ is, like your story about the German poof – ’

  ‘Gunter.’

  ‘Gunter. You placed your life in his hands. He could’ve raped you, beat you up, strangled you. What does he do? The most tender thing you can think of. He massages you. He massages you and you smell like a fuckin’ rose. Thanks for that story. It’s a lovely fuckin’ story, man.’

  There was a reverential pause. The storyteller drank from his pint and placed the glass carefully in the middle of the table.

  ‘It just goes to prove. There is a God. And he’s a poof.’

  That night he lay in bed and thought of Gunter’s hands rubbing his back, and smiled. He could even smell roses. But that was just the potpourri on his dressingtable.

  Joanie and the Dutch Master

  ‘If that tram driver doesn’t improve his diction I’m getting the next plane home,’ snarled Joanie, as the Amsterdam tramcar rattled along the lines. He was annoyed that his old pal Mickey hadn’t met him at Central station. He had Mickey’s address written on a folded-up envelope in the pocket of his jeans but Joanie didn’t know Amsterdam and found the tram driver incoherent. It sounded like he was shouting out the names of the stops but Joanie, guidebook and street map in hand, couldn’t fathom him out.

  ‘Could you repeat that with yer teeth in?’ he pleaded as the tram shuddered by another indecipherable stop.

  Looking through the window, Joanie watched the different faces, different races, blur by. He saw an Ethiopian restaurant, a falafel bar, and a sex shop. He heard the bells of the trams and bikes. Looking down at his map he managed to locate Crijnsenstratt. He saw that he was nearly there and alighted at the next stop, swinging his big blue holdall before him as he descended the steps off the tram. According to the map he had to take two lefts, then a right. He nearly got a bike up his arse when he tried to cross the first left.

  Finally he got to Crijnsenstratt. There was a wooden door with no bell and no name on it. Then he noticed the silver box at the side of the door, with the names Dunn, Both and Velde beside a square plastic buzzer. Joanie pressed the buzzer. There was no response. He pressed the buzzer again with an angry forefinger. He heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Then the door opened and there stood Mickey, wearing a dressinggown and a towel wrapped round his hair.

  ‘Joanie!’ he yelled and threw his arms around his visitor.

  Joanie followed Mickey up the narrow, steep, staircase.

  ‘Oxygen, oxygen,’ Joanie gasped as they reached the top landing.

  They went through a white painted door into Mickey’s apartment. Mickey shared the flat with two Dutchmen, Herman Both and Karel Velde. Mickey worked beside Herman at a call centre operated by a big hotel chain. Karel had several jobs, including working in a theatre and a bar. The flat seemed pretty small to Joanie but according to Mickey it was vast by Amsterdam standards. Space was something that was at a premium in the city. They all had their own rooms and there was a lounge with an openplan kitchen and a small dining-room.

  ‘This is where you’ll sleep,’ said Mickey.

  ‘On the table?’ replied Joanie.

  Mickey said it was a gate-leg table and they could fold it down and put it in a corner. Joanie could sleep on the cushions off the sofa, inside a sleeping bag on the floor. Joanie was beginning to wish he’d booked a hotel room.

  The old friends sat on the sofa drinking tea and crunching biscuits. Mickey asked Joanie all about Delilah’s and the Glasgow scene, and Joanie dished the dirt on some of their mutual acquaintances. Mickey had worked in a dozen or so bars, gay and straight, but he was enjoying his new line of work – he took reservations for hotels all over Europe. When he’d left Glasgow two years before he’d tried to persuade Joanie to move to Amsterdam, but Joanie wasn’t keen. He liked Glasgow. It was a dirty, grey, miserable, homophobic dump, but it was also a beautiful city, full of great, warm people. It was home, which was the only place any self-respecting friend of Dorothy really wanted to be.

  Joanie was in Mickey’s room unpacking his bag. He had tried to travel light. He hadn’t brought anything draggy apart from an aqua-green trouser suit he’d bought in an Oxfam shop. It was really poofy and ridiculous on him, which was why he liked it so much. As he struggled to find wardrobe space for it he became aware of a presence at the door. Joanie turned to see Herman. He was a big guy, the wrong side of forty, with a walrus moustache. He wore a white vest and faded blue jeans. Bulging beneath the jeans, stretching across his right thigh, Joanie could see what appeared to be the biggest cock in captivity.

  ‘Hi,’ said Joanie.

  ‘Hi, I’m Herman,’ said the Dutchman with the daunting dick.

  Then he disappeared down the hall.

  They were in April’s and men were springing up all over the place.

  ‘It’s getting busy,’ observed Joanie.

  ‘It’s ’cause you’re here,’ said Mickey, with a wink. They had gone past the main bar through to the wee circular revolving bar at the back. Joanie liked the concept and wondered if a revolving bar could work in Delilah’s. Mickey said he didn’t like it; he’d rather move in a bar of his own free will. After awhile Mickey said he wanted to go home. He’d been out late the previous night and had been ill that morning, which was why he hadn’t made it to the station to meet Joanie. As Joanie had four more nights to spend in Amsterdam he didn’t mind having an early night.

  The four guys watched some TV in the lounge before hitting the sack. Karel was tall and thin, with a dry, wispy brush of blond hair capping his long face. He was talkative compared to Herman. Mickey took control of the TV and flicked between channels, to the increasing irritation of Joanie. Later, Joanie said h
e was hungry and Karel went over to a corner shop and brought back patat and satay sauce. It would be Joanie’s staple diet for the rest of the holiday.

  Although Joanie slept like a log, snug in the sleeping bag and draped across the couch cushions, he didn’t tell Mickey that. He was annoyed that Mickey hadn’t volunteered his bed.

  ‘I didn’t sleep a wink,’ moaned Joanie. ‘I think I’ve dislocated my hip.’

  Mickey just smiled and said, ‘It’s your age, dear.’

  He sat in an armchair and watched Joanie roll up the sleepingbag, fix the cushions back on the couch and then manoeuvre the table back into the centre of the dining-room. Herman and Karel were at work but Mickey had taken time off to see Joanie.

  The guys spent a nice day walking around Amsterdam in the warm sunshine. They walked alongside the canals, the Princesgracht, the Herengracht, Singel, stopping to take snaps of each other. They clocked the hookers in the red light district, and went for lunch at De Jaren, a big, modern, airy café. Because it was such a bright day the garden and balcony areas were packed. Mickey seemed miffed but Joanie was happy to sit in the cool spacious interior. They rounded the afternoon off with a few beers in April’s.

  That night Mickey and Herman had invited a few people over from work. Joanie got rat-arsed and mixed up his drinks and people’s names. Magalit, a lovely Dutch girl, became Magaluf. A Brazilian guy, Umberto, was forced to go by the name of Sombrero. Shuki, an Israeli pal of Herman’s, was hailed as Sushi. Joanie’s last party trick was to bogart a joint and take a whitey. Finally, having been given the evil eye by Mickey, Joanie crawled up the stairs and fell asleep on top of Mickey’s bed. When he woke in the morning, Mickey lay under the covers beside him. They lay half-awake, looking at each other.

  ‘You look like shit,’ said Mickey.

  ‘So do you,’ replied Joanie.

  Saturday was Queen’s Day and Amsterdam was crowded. Mickey and Joanie made their way through the cosmopolitan chaos, sometimes inch by inch. Everywhere they turned there was music: a groovy Rastafarian DJ playing Bill Withers’ Lovely Day, a young Dutch girl skipping around a stage singing I Will Survive, and DJs in the gay area pumping out rave anthems to the crazy revellers. The quieter streets, away from the centre, were littered with street hawkers selling crockery, old clothes, books, dolls, and food. Joanie bought a four-pack of Heineken from a vendor, and he and Mickey sipped from the cans and soaked up the atmosphere.