Neal Pollack

Trés chic. If there’s anything better than a mohawk, it surely must be two. “You’re joking. He sounds like a walking hygiene issue.”

“You know, Stephen, this is exactly why we broke up. You are so judgmental. I mean, get an edge already. You are so limited in what you find interesting.”

“What are you now, the minister of high culture? I’'ve known Labrador Retrievers more discerning than you, Matthew.”

He pulled a pout, the one I used to find irresistible. The pout that used to signal make-up sex. Now used for effect, could it have been less effective? But I’m not even sure to what end.

“So when’s he coming in?”

“To the store?” Matt laughed out loud. “Eduardo would not be caught dead in here, He’'s totally anti—”

“Anti-what?”

“Exactly. Anti-everything that relates to consumerism. He makes his own clothes, with all these patches and stitching, you really can’t imagine.”

True statement: I really can’t. I once orchestrated a series of Italian silk suits with fishing line and mobile footlights that became a pilgrimage, a Via Dolorosa to couture devotees. Working at a clothier does not equate to being a fabric waiter; Dress Accordingly is the hottest clothier in Boystown. I’m twenty-eight and still going strong, ageless really, born on the tide of my talent for tailoring. I can take you from gruel to cool in less time than it takes to steam milk. Show me the derričre I can’t make smaller, the thighs I can’t camouflage, the legs I can’t lengthen. They don’t exist. I feel like Warhol.

“Stephen, I so want you to meet him,” Matt says. “I mean, come on, we’ve not been together for almost two months. We’re friends. Aren’t we?”

I sigh. One month, but who’s counting?

“You really should know him, he has something. It’s intangible.”

“How strange, considering you do such a good job describing it.”

The purpose of the pout was soon to be revealed. He couldn'’t actually think I would meet his Neanderthal lover. I don’t play children’s games, not even when I was a child. Matt Burton didn'’t know which way his dick was pointing until he met me. I made him in this community and here he is, a born-again fag sporting his red Italian tennis shoes and instructing me as to the finer points of his new lover. All that improvement and the best thing he could catch was a Mad Max wannabe with Portuguese subtitles? Where did I go wrong? After all, I had shown him a way out.

It was a door we all sought at one time or another. I remember finding my own. Mr. Gautreux, my high school French teacher. It might have been the easiest coming out in history. Born in French Guiana, he was a sleek panther moving about in a man’s body. Married with two children. For me, it was evolution, a shadow seeking skin. I had nothing to admit, merely to accept. We spoke a new language and parented a new race. Our own silent society, one eye watching for a signal and swollen lips needy to speak.

Matt’s voice is a buzz in my ear.

“Stephen, are you listening to me?”

Yes, back to now. Was he always this petulant?

“I’m sorry, what were you saying?”

“Scars are becoming art, Stephen. Eduardo is so beyond the tattoo. I mean, some of his friends were talking the other day. They say the most heinous righteous things. Anyway, one guy, Martin, He’'s from London and wicked smart, he says, ‘The gunshot wound is the new tattoo.’”

“Jesus, what kind of barbarians are you involved with?” I flubbed a fold and had to start over.

“Seriously, Stephen, I have not been able to get that idea off my mind.”

“Well, get it off, that is fucking insane. Not to mention illegal, dangerous, and plain stupid. There is no bliss in your apparent ignorance.”

“He’'s a Brit. They have a radical different perspective. Scars are art.”

“Even worse. Is there a culture more consumed with their own grandeur and absolutely no evidence to prove them correct?”

“Stephen, please, there’s a couple bands playing at the Underground. Eduardo sings lead in Johnny Come Lately? They are amazing. Will you come? You can meet him after.”

I see the pout give way to wide-eyed “please me.” I couldn'’t believe it. He actually wanted me to enter the lair of this bi-hawked creature. He wanted Mr. Macho to meet moi. He wanted his brute to set his oversized brow on me. Allowing his hip quotient to skyrocket by teasing his new lover with the old. Now I was a sexual resume? Touché and no thank you, cheri.

I didn'’t intend to take Matt up on meeting his nouvel amor. I completely forgot it for the entire week. Even that night, I don’t think I subconsciously ordered the parsley penne instead of the garlic pesto for social reasons—I wasn'’t planning on getting closer than arm’s length to anyone. Well. I went, but didn'’t wear my best. I had an image of sweaty young Goths pressing their black-clad bodies upon me by mistake or purpose; as arousing as that might be in some scenarios, it was turning my stomach and I had no desire to wear it home on my sleeves.

I stood at the stairs descending to the Underground Pub thinking, why do the rebellious always embrace filth?