'What I Learned Dating Older Men.'

This piece was originally published in full on Your Friends House. Reposted here to my personal blog.

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I’d like to preface this by saying that I am a recently unemployed early-twenty-something living la vida loca in the big city. This means that not only do I not know how to adult, but I also don’t really know how to date. My idea of a hot date is a cheap Chinese dinner, a seedy bar, and a lot of “I think I really like you, but I also kind of want to throw up from the seven-dollar bottle of wine I drank before we got here”.

That being said, I’ve definitely tried. I’ve dated around the block. I’ve had my fair share of good times, bad times, and times I’ve had to fast-forward into one-night-stands because I’m pretty sure I never want to see them again. However, in all of my relationship exploits (and sexploits), none have quite matched up to the curiosity of dating an older man.

By older, I don’t mean “Billy’s finally got his license so he can go buy some vodkas for the girls” – I mean older. I mean aged. I mean well-versed in things like how to tell the difference between Hendrick’s and Gordon’s gin, and somehow proficient in budgeting and cleanliness. Things you and I young folk wouldn’t understand.

I mean old enough to be your dad. Or maybe even a little bit older than that.

As it turns out, if there’s one thing I do understand – chalk it up to an analytical mind – it’s the experience of dating an older man. I think my wealth of knowledge comes from the fact that I am a skinny gay boy, and that means older men are somehow drawn to me like flies to feces – or, as the slightly gross hint-hint-incest gay community expression often goes; like dads to sons. Yuck.

After reviewing some of these points with some straight female friends, we’ve agreed collectively that they all stand strong and true. In no way am I trying to suggest that younger guys are worse than older guys. These are just the experiences of one dangerously thin homosexual man, one oft mistaken for a sixteen-year-old girl.

So without further ado, here are some of the things I’ve learned dating older men.

They’re incredibly careful with you.

To them, you are practically a newborn. You are a proverbial clean slate, a starry-eyed youth preparing to take on the world, one cheap pot of beer at a time. If you text them while intoxicated after three or four pints, they will assume you’ve been smoking meth with criminals. They will plead with you to catch a cab to their house, where they will feed you water and bread, until you feel inclined to fellate them as a thank-you. Older men like to think you’re incapable of doing anything by yourself. Which is perfectly fine by me, so long as you keep booking those Ubers’ on your card and footing the bill at breakfast.

They’re constantly surprised that you might have a brain.

Maybe I don’t look like the sharpest tool in the shed, but I find it amazing just how many times I’ve had older men say to me, “Wow, you’re so mature for someone your age!” – Those words, in that exact order. It’s like they think that just because I’m in my early twenties, by default I spend my days doing nangs in a sharehouse, and giggling mindlessly over episodes of The Big Bang Theory while my mate packs a cone. Is Generation Y really doomed to have to prove themselves to old blokes time and time again? If you can hold a sentence together without so much as drooling down the side of your cheek, or looking like you’ve short-circuited, you’ve basically won their heart.

They want to recapture their youth vicariously through you.

Older men seem to have a crippling desire to return to their youth. Let’s face it – ageing happens, and when you hit a certain age, you start losing tautness and tone in places you were sure would never feel the effects of gravity. If it’s not the way they gaze lovingly upon me, as though I were the Taylor Swift to their succubi-Madonna – it’s the sheer number of beauty and anti-age products I’ve seen lining their bathroom cabinets and the tops of their shower stalls at any given time. When age starts to weary thee, the reality is, you want to know you’ve still ‘got it’ – and what better a way to achieve that than by doing a young person who is totally down? After all, you’re only as old as how you feel or who you’re feeling.

They’re collectively better in bed.

There, I said it. It’s the point you’ve all been waiting for. Young people might have more stamina and willingness to go at it than older people do, but older men just straight up know what they’re doing. And what’s better, they actually want to please you, and will not stop until you’re done. They want to know what you like, and they want to take it slow. They’re tactile, sensuous, appreciative and cautious at the best of times. Once you’ve been with a man who was probably married at some point in his long life, younger guys seem like selfish, mindless thrusting machines when it’s all said and done. Older men are just better in bed. And why wouldn’t they be? They’ve had years of practice.

Ultimately: I’m a kidult. A child masquerading as an adult. I am confused, askew and oftentimes dwindling in the wind, waiting for my next pot of Melbourne Bitter on tap to help me fail to understand the complexities of my existence. And sometimes, it’s nice to know that there’s someone out there who has at least figured half of it out. Who has trekked through life into a state of reasonable understanding, and has their own well-reasoned answers to my million tragic questions.

Maybe that’s the appeal of The Older Man – that they’ve perhaps got their shit together. Just as they might vicariously re-enjoy their youth through me; I might vicariously attempt to feel some sense of success through them.

If you’re curious about the ways and wiles of the mature older gentleman, or you’re up to feeling a tad objectified, or maybe you just want to know a bit more about how to save up super: Date an older man. Because even though they might not be exactly where it’s at – they’re where we’re all headed.

Be exactly who you are.

Recently I participated in an evening show on one of Australia's most popular community radio stations. The reason I was a guest was because I am oftentimes given the label of a gay community stereotype, one I do not personally identify with.

I am labelled a twink.

A twink is a feminine, flamboyant young homosexual man, whom dainties about and throws caution to the wind as he chugs his vodka cruisers, smokes like a chimney and parties to Beyonce like no other. He is thin, hairless and prone to high-pitched squealing, and he can often be found at loud nightclubs, dancing it up with other members of his subculture.

I am given this label because I am, to many, a slender party boy. This is not something I asked to be called, and it is not something I identify with. Primarily because oftentimes the reaction by many when accosted by a twink, is amusement and distaste, though that is based primarily on my own personal experience.

People oftentimes choose to identify with a label - indeed, in a recent study published by the Australian Research Centre for Sexual Health and Society, it was found that, of 1,000 gay men between the ages of 18 and 39, asked whether they identify with a label, 20% identified with 'twink', compared to 9% who identified as a 'cub' - because it provides them a greater sense of community. They feel at home with those among them, and whether or not they actively seek twink counterparts - which I don't personally feel is the case - it helps to know that there is a group that they fit in with.

It is interesting to note that while 20% of the participants identified as twinks, and only 9% identified as cubs, that cubs were more likely to be organised as a group through meetings. That they were more likely to congregate and form friendships. And you know that it's the norm. There are no 'twink bars' that I know of, but bear and cub haunts aplenty. Entire bars filled with a certain determined 'type' of homosexual man, catering to their subculture. So, from that, you could assume that although twinks may potentially occupy a larger spectrum of the gay 'community', they lack that sense of community itself. That sense of belonging.

It runs right back through to high school notions of cliques and wanting to feel like you belong. There's quintessential sociology and psychology at work. Knowing this, and knowing it's a perfectly normal characteristic of human beings - why don't I fit in with the facet of the community I am perceived to belong to? Why don't I try to fit in?

Maybe it's because I don't appreciate being pigeonholed. I don't want people to make assumptions about my personality. I have gone on dates with men who, within the span of our meeting, have come to the actual conclusion that I am vacuous and airheaded, purely because of my body type, because of the subculture I appear to belong to. I quote, "You're such an airhead twink". I've been told this within minutes, to my very face. Like I'm meant to agree, and falter into a giggling fit. Oh god, you're right! I'm so silly.

Which is why, when put on the panel for the radio show, I was bizarrely confronted when I realised that my detest towards this label might, in fact, be part of a problem. A problem that I have.

I might hate labels, but I'm sure as hell ready to label others.

Nobody wants to be seen as anything other than the convoluted, unique individual that they are. Yet, in the spirit of attempting to belong, we assign ourselves labels - some less so than others, as 56% of the participants in the above study did not self-identify with a label - and we succumb to the merciless stereotyping committed by others, others in our own community.

"I don't want to be that person, because that person is seen as gross. That person is vacuous and childlike and reckless and embarrassing to be around. I don't want to be that person, and I don't want you to view me as that person, because that person is a flicker of a human being, a mould of someone who was once flesh and bone. Don't make me into a type."

Yet, in the same breath that we utter these words, we create an image. And when we look around at the people surrounding us, we start to see that same image. We notice the same trends viewed of us by others. When I go out to a gay nightclub, I see the slender arms and the flouncing stride, the characteristics of a stereotype, and suddenly, I'm perturbed, I'm embarrassed, I'm revolted.

Maybe not revolted, but you get my gist.

Look at that little twink. What a laugh. What a joke. I'm nothing like him.

I should point out at this point that I think it's perfectly acceptable for friends to bandy about terms and assign each other stereotypes amongst themselves - in the spirit of a joke, of playful camaraderie and jest. Because you know the person you're talking to. You recognise their intricacies and their uniqueness and the complexity of their mind. You see them; who they are. Not a stereotype.

One of the hosts on the radio show asked me a question based upon a finding from the study; that many gay men who did not self-identify with a label were found to feel less positive about being gay. That many of them were found to have less self-worth. He asked me, in a tone so casual that it could have been the drunken banter sprawled out across a bar along with a bottle of vino - and I'm paraphrasing here - do you feel like you hate yourself because of your sexuality?

What a question.

Is the reason why I choose not to self-identify because, on some level I hate myself, and am ashamed of being gay? Is it because I don't want to fit in with the cliques and the stereotypes, said cliques and stereotypes I dole out unto others as though those others are not walking, talking, three-dimensional, convoluted and too-often-misunderstood human beings? The same complicated meat sacks of firing synapses and original thoughts who suffer the same derogatory dalliances with other people presuming their personalities that I do? Was I once alienated, and in turn began to alienate others?

I didn't think much of it at the time - we were all laughter and jokes and intelligent discussion, and it certainly wasn't a question posed in any negative spirit at all - but later, as I wandered the city streets on my way home from the station, I started to really think on what I'd been asked.

And then I remembered when I nearly went under the knife to change the way my face looks. To get my nose hacked off and my jaw realigned. Because when I looked at strangers in the dark of a nightclub, who looked something close to the picture perfect homosexual man, it made me angry, and sad, and yearning. Because I thought about how they might not want to ever know me, just because of the way I looked. Because I wanted too badly to "fit in" - to be seen as attractive to strangers who don't even know my name yet, let alone my story.

And I remembered when I changed my mind entirely. When I cancelled my surgery, one I'd been planning for years, the week before it was due. Because I didn't want to be the person who tried to assimilate into a culture which pulls in and isolates and estranges one another based on their physical characteristics. Because I wanted to be the person who values every single person for their unique characteristics - for the parts that make them interesting. Fascinating. Wonderful. On the surface, and within.

How strange, then: the very concept of sitting in a radio station, speaking into a microphone on Australia's most popular community radio show, considering all of my past experiences, passively deriding homosexual men for prejudging me over my looks, while at the same time going to every effort to distance myself from the very stereotype I've tried so hard to insist does not befit me, casting that stereotype upon faceless characters in the dark of a nightclub.

I guess this kind of thing takes time.

Jimmy at the bar is studying law. He's got his whole life ahead of him, just like his mother always told him, and he knows where he wants to end up. He likes video games, playing with his dog, hanging with his friends, and the smell that wafted in from the trees outside his childhood bedroom window after a storm. When he was sixteen, he came out to his parents. His mother was fine with it - you know it's a dangerous life, Jimmy, it's a dangerous life, but I love you, and I'll protect you - but his Dad gave him one hard look in the eye, then walked out the door. When he came home, he took all of Jimmy's video games, and threw them out his bedroom window. With the trees and the scent of rain on the air.

Later that week, Jimmy moved out, with some friends in a sharehouse. He's a little too young, but he's trying, and because if there's one thing he knows, it's that he's got his whole life ahead of him. Just like his mother always told him. I'm sorry, Dad, I'm sorry you never got the football-playing ladies' man that you always wanted. I'm sorry we couldn't work out together. I'm sorry we couldn't kick the pig skin, or whatever. I'm sorry I'll never have a wife. I'm sorry I never got the chance to develop a taste for beer with you, because you could never accept me for who I am. I'm sorry I've got bigger dreams than whatever broken ones you've flayed out on the floor, that you keep trodding on, trodding, trodding, trodding, trodding, trodding...

Jimmy at the bar is studying law. And you're rolling your eyes and clenching your teeth because he's skinny, because he's small, because he's feminine. Because he's not what you want to be. Because he's not what you think a gay man should be. Because you think you know him. Because you think he's not worth knowing.

And that's a tragedy. Not for them - for you.




I won't be self-identifying as a twink any time soon. I'll call out any motherfucker who wants to typecast me as an airhead, all because I'm thin, and I'll refuse to allow anyone to view me as anything other than clever, brilliant and three-dimensional, irregardless of my size.

But the next time I'm out at a nightclub, and I see before me, a slender and dishevelled, flouncing dancing queen: I'm going to take another look. Refrain from clenching my teeth.

We have been conditioned towards treasuring masculinity and demonising femininity in gay men. It's something many of us have tried hard to avoid, but inevitably collapses out of our rears at the unlikeliest of times, just when we think we've unlearned it. We have been also conditioned into stereotyping others, and placing them in categories. This is both a blessing and a curse - and unfortunately for some, has a habit of somehow determining their perceived worth.

But you can't ever be held to someone else's standard of beauty. You are better than a body or a type, and you are worth so much more. After all, are we not an incredibly diverse community, awash with colourful characters and whimsical personalities and beautiful stories and shared struggles? I'd like to think so.

Be exactly who you are. Because you are beautiful. Everything that makes you, you. I won't judge you.

This was for every person who has ever felt like they weren't good enough, or fit enough, or lean enough, or muscular enough, or attractive enough, to fit into this community. This was for every person who has ever felt like they were not worth knowing because of the way that they look.

This was for you.

On alcohol and not knowing how to drink it properly.

So basically I’m not partying for a good 28 days.

It’s one of those things with a degree of leniency - I mean, sure, maybe I’ll go out for a drink or two with a friend one week. Maybe once a week. Maybe a beer to go with dinner after work. But at the end of the day, it’s not about the alcohol.

It’s about getting wasted. I’ve never known how to drink any other way.

Like my old creative writing tutor wrote in his piece, uncomfortably about his struggles with alcoholism; “One sniff of the barmaid’s apron, and I need to drink myself into a stupor”.

When I was a teenager, we all drank to get drunk. We hadn’t developed the taste for liquors and cocktail niceties - it was cask wine out of the silver bag for us. Because we didn’t care - we wanted the feeling, and we were just that uncomfortable shade of pubescent rebellious. Or maybe you were a preppy little twat sipping cruisers like children for the colour it put in your mouth, or maybe you were some rocker with jack and coke. We were the kind of kids who would take off down to the park in the middle of the day with the goon sack we got some bogan to buy for us. We were the runts hiding fucked under fringes at Flinders Street Station. 

Either way, it was never about the social lubrication. It was about drinking to get fucking drunk.

Fast forward to my adult years, and I spent time working in nightclubs drinking vodka lemonades off of hastily-thrown-together drink cards to try and quell the nervousness that came from having to take photos of other drunk people that night. Because I was new and excited by the prospect of being a nightclub photographer, but also way too anxious a person in a variety of social situations to fathom doing it off anything less than three or four standard drinks. So I'd get a little bit drunk - all head spinning and brimming with confidence - until approaching people for a snap became nothing short of a sinch. This would eventually continue, for years and years and years, until the only way I knew how to take party photos was to succumb to party girl status myself.

No-one taught me how to drink alcohol. No-one taught me how to drink in moderation. The only time anyone ever taught me how to look after myself, was at a friends sixteenth birthday, when mother insisted on confiscating two of my four Smirnoff Double Blacks, because she didn’t want me overdoing it. That was my lesson - deprivation over education. It didn’t stop me from drinking everyone else’s booze, though. No, at some point, some kid pulled out an entire bottle of Ouzo from underneath a bed, and we shotted that shit like it was anything less than liquid death down our throats. Until we were screaming into digital cameras, drunkenly snapping out selfies as though we were the coolest kids on the block.

Not because we had any idea what we were doing. But because we just wanted to get drunk. You didn't drink in moderation, because that didn't make you cool. That wasn't 'fun'. We were dumb kids, and that was just the way we did it. Braincells be damned. 

Flash forward to me at twenty-two years of age, drinking in moderation seems to come with its own sense of personal accomplishment. Like the fact that you didn’t manage to write yourself off on a Thursday night is somehow worthy of its own reward, kiss-the-mirror type shit. If I go home tipsy, and not staggering down the street, it’s like I don’t know who I am anymore. And I’m laughing, and I'm reflecting on how bullshit that sounds - but realistically speaking, it is, and it shouldn’t be the case. We should all be well-accustomed to two or three beers over the ‘Just another glass, just another bottle— and fucking whoops, there it is’. Cue the stagger and the groaning whisper of another future hangover.

If I can go out for a couple of cheeky wines after work, and make it out of there without so much more than a skip in my step, that’s a magical experience. That’s, like, adulthood. Or so it feels.

But really, getting wasted, and not knowing how to drink any other way, is only half of the problem. It’s the shit you do when you’re wasted that makes all of the melodrama.

I shouldn’t have to explain it, because we all know what it looks like. When you’re wasted, that dude you’ve been drunk-dating with the potato-head and no personality suddenly looks like a gem - he might even look interesting - leading to a slew of hungover confusions and regrets. You don't even really know that person, but you know how much wine you had to drink that night, and boy, it sure stopped you from running screaming into the street over his boring bullshit. When you’re wasted, you can fall out of control in three seconds, and getting between two brawling dudes in a bar seems like a real bright idea, because Drunk You can definitely diffuse the situation. When you're obliterated in the city on a Sunday morning, that proposition for a one-night-stand with a dude (or two, or three) seems like a fucking great idea, and you're all about the sensual frisson, the decadent escape into a strangers' bedroom in the middle of the night.

Until you wake up, no clue where you are, head pounding, eyes bloodied and red, retrieving your far-flung underwear and sneaking out the door, while the bridge troll you accosted lies sleeping in his bed.

"In moderation", they say. "Drinking in moderation". Like anyone has any clue what on earth that means.

When I’m wasted, I do dumb shit. If I’m not fucking with my own head, I’m fucking with my own body. So I’m putting a stop to it for a while. I'm giving moderation a try. Or maybe I’ll go for coffee instead.

Coffee is love. Coffee is life.

End diatribe.

Need, by Brandon James Cook.

This piece is called Need. It was submitted as my final project for Creative Nonfiction class in my third year at University.

This piece was very much inspired by Baker's 'City Lights'. It's about what it means to need. About being needed. About needing others. About how, in a city of millions, we cling to one another in intimate ways that we oftentimes cannot properly fathom.

I'm excited to present this. I hope you like it.

***

A kiss. Their lips lock together. Warm and tender. She pulls them apart, feels stuck lip tug, and it falls away.

“So that’s the kicker.”

He raises a brow, and catches himself as he pulls away from her, his brown coat contrasted against the blue of her jacket. He stands aside her, and cannot for the life of him remember when she became so beautiful. “Huh?” - His arms around her waist. He squeezes.

“The kiss. That’s how we pull each other in.”

“What do you mean?”

“People wait for the kiss at the end of a date. They absolutely wait for it.”

A chuckle. He rubs her back with his sleeved arms – a caress. “You’re weird, Leah.”

Leah smiles. “But they do.” She wipes water from her forehead with her free arm – the other is down in his coat pocket, keeping warm. “It’s our way of saying, ‘You did good’.”

They part for a moment, connected by her hand in his pocket, and look out from under their gazebo. The city lights sparkle all around from beyond the boundaries of the park. Besieged by water in an electric mist. Somewhere nearby, a train clatters along.

He turns to her, and half-grins a crease into his cheek. He cannot fathom her, but he does not care to in the first place. He does not wish to understand her, because she fascinates. And that, for Bryan, is enough. So long as she is there.

“You did good, kid.”

Leah closes her eyes, exhales misty breath. She does not look at him after he has spoken, but steps forward into the rain.

“You want a lift?”

A beat, then she replies.

“No thanks. I’ll take the train. See you next time.”

She starts to walk away. Stops. A slight turn.

“And Bryan?”

“Yeah?”

Not a smile with her lips, but her eyes. “You did pretty good yourself.”

Under his tree, the rain does not concern Billy, nor is he bothered by Leah’s presence, inadvertently walking right by his bushy homestead. A wall of gentle spittle falls against him, and all he can do is fiddle with the laces on his shoes. Were they not frazzled and askew, he may have had an easier time with them. Alas, aside the frays and holes in his shoes, he is a soggy mess.

            Billy is only halfway homeless. At least, that is what he considers himself. He does not see himself as a bum, but a drifter. And so he drifts. From house to house, couch to couch, friend to welcoming friend. But occasionally, said friends grow tired of his constant presence at their doorsteps. They grow weary of his neediness, his hair dreaded not by hand, but by filth, and the dirt he tracks through their homes. So they abandon him. At least, that is how they make him feel.

            Alas, there he finds himself, biding time beneath the planted trees and the shrubberies, in the park at the centre of the city. In the rain.

            Billy gets up from the ground, brushes the dirt from his pants, giving up on his laces, and sets off into the night. The soil squelches beneath his shoes – shoes that have seen so many wet eves in the city – and when he reaches the street, he makes an effort to scrape them clean on the concrete.

            Hungry. He is hungry. The city lights awaken his senses. He pulls his wallet out of his pocket, one of the only things he has yet to lose, and rifles through. Nothing. Not a cent.

            He sighs. Pulls the hat from his head. Raises nose to the sky, and laps at the drizzle as it falls onto his face.

            Near to him, crowds of children wander past, giggling and squabbling amongst themselves, as their elders gather them up in a formation, beckoning them here and there along the sidewalk. He glances down at one of them as they pass him by. The child looks up at him, and stops. He is all freckled nose and wide brown eyes, the look on his face one of innocent concern.

            “Are you having a shower?” The boy asks.

            Billy tilts his head to look at the child. He thinks about saying something scary – something cruel. But before he can utter a word, an adult sweeps in to pull the child away, putting him back into formation. Billy waves goodbye. The boy waves back as he is rustled away, then disappears down the sidewalk.

            Billy is alone again.

            It is a bad night.

“What did I tell you about talking to strangers, Damien? What did I tell you?”

            The plump woman points her finger at Damien’s face, in that way that adults often do. Tsk tsk, the finger scolds. Do better!

            Damien looks up at his mother. The expression on her face reads concern, frustration. And she is not coming down to his level. She is supposed to come down to his level.

            “He was very dirty, that one,” Damien replies, “Is he going to be okay?”

            His mother sighs. She grabs his hand, and squeezes tight as they walk together, filed behind the other children. “He’ll be fine, Damien.”

            In front, the children have stopped. They are standing at a crossing. Another woman calls back.

            “Marissa!” She beckons. Marissa pipes up, releases Damien’s hand and moves forward in front of the crowd of youths.

            “Alright, kids! We’re going to cross the street. Now, I want you to hold each other’s hands.”

            “Her hand is all wet!” One of the kids cries out. Yuck! They feign disgust.

            Each of the children link arms, all the way down the line. Two by two, they link. The other adults – two more, and Marissa – link hands too, to show them how it is done. It is cold, so some of the kids put their arms around each other.

            Damien watches the other kids link hands and arms, sees their fingers and limbs intertwine in a coupling. He turns to his left, and reaches out his hand to grasp another’s.

But there is nobody there.

His face drops. He hears their giggling.

Marissa looks over the children, two by two as they walk past her, across the street. Then she sees him – Damien, alone, standing at the start of the crossing. The others have already marched forward. She rushes back to him, and seizes his hand in hers.

Damien’s eyes flicker up to hers. His eyes are sad and confused.

“I didn’t have anyone.”

“You have me.” Marissa smiles, and when she smiles the warmth of her body courses through her, into his. She squeezes his tiny hand tight. “You have me.”

They walk forward across the street.

Yammering in her ears. The sound of a pompous fool gibbering on and on.

            “But you know, she’s not a biological woman. What the hell was he supposed to say!? Oh, don’t worry, sir, I’m not freaked out. Now go ahead and stick me!”

            What a fucking joke. Leah wonders how she can listen to this shit all day. There’s nothing worse, she decides. Nothing worse than having to review a talkback radio podcast.

            That was her job. To review. She was a journalist of all kinds. Wrote about plays, she covered films, she reviewed albums – and sometimes, although very rarely, she would be asked to listen to some shitty half-an-hour segment of a transphobic moron trying to be funny on the radio. She couldn’t believe people aired that crap – or that some considered it comedy.

            Leah hears a sound in the background – a chime. The train approaches.

            “Dickhead.” Leah pulls the headphones out of her ears. She decides then and there that she would destroy this asshole. That was one good thing about her job – it was sometimes satisfying. As soon as she got home, she would brand him a transphobic asshat with no clue, who should stick to doing blow at clubs over nighttime broadcasts. He wouldn’t be sucking half as hard up his nose as he does in his shows.

            That was good, her internal monologue went off. You should write that down.

            Before she had the chance to pull out her notepad, she was surprised, as down from the undercover platform came a stream of youths. They bustle past her in two lines, all holding hands and clamoring amongst themselves, inadvertently surrounding Leah, accompanied by frazzled adults – possibly parents, definitely guardians. Leah fears that if she moves, she might accidentally squash one of them.

            “Kids, kids, calm down!” One of their adults cries out. The woman is met with a heckling. Kids of that age – five, six, seven, eight – cannot be controlled. Leah chuckles to herself.

            The train pulls into the platform with a screech. Doors fly open. The children all rush onto the awaiting carriage, running for the four-seaters, fighting each other for the window seats. Leah moves onto the train and sits down in a solo two-seat by the window, a comfortable distance away from the gaggle of youths.

            She sighs. It seems to be a night of those.

            Pulling out her notepad, she sets to work writing down all of the quips and one-liners she had come up with during her excruciating listen to the podcast on her music player. The words don’t roll off her tongue quite as well later as they do in the moment, but that’s okay. She can play with her words. Make something happen.

            Playing with her words seemed to be something she did a lot. You did pretty good yourself. God, she cringes and it blazes across her face. What a half-hearted cliché.

            Was it half-hearted? She could not decide. Date three, and he was looking a little tired. Still cute, yes, but all of his jokes had lost their novelty. That’s what he had brought to the table – wit and banter. And sex appeal, but Leah knew better than to go on three dates based on pure aesthetics. That’s the kicker. Looks or charm?

            But more importantly – can he deal with her?

            Leah is so lost in her own head that she doesn’t realize she is being spoken to. She tilts her head up in a mild fright – but it is one of the adults, herding the kids.

            “Hi, I’m sorry, but,” She stammers slightly, “You’re Leah Gemini, right? From The Platform?” A smile on her face like if her husband bought her diamonds.

            Leah smiles. Fright falters to calm. “Yeah, that’s me.”

            The woman perks up. “Oh! I’m such a huge fan. You’re hilarious, you really are. Do you, umm…” She turns and beckons the other adults over – who were half-controlling the kids, half-staring at Leah with that same shy awe. “Do you mind if we get a photo?”

            “Sure.”

            Leah stands up, and all of the women bustle over. They gather around her. One doesn’t quite make it in time for the row of middle-aged ladies, and is made to take the photo. A semi-sad expression, she clicks. A flash goes off in their faces.

            “Do you want one too?” Leah asks the woman – who smiles.

            “Oh, I’m fine.” She replies, “You’re wonderful, though.”

            Leah returns her smile. “Thank you.”

            She turns back around to resume her seat – and is surprised to see a small boy perched there instead. The boy looks up, mimicking Leah’s confused expression.

            He twitches his nose. “You’re the lady from the TV.”

            All brown eyes and freckles. Leah was just the same.

            “I am,” She replies.

            “Damien…” The woman from earlier – the one who didn’t get a photo – murmurs to him. A forceful gal, by the looks of her, but on her best behavior with Leah Gemini around.

            As Leah responds, she sees the doors open from beside them. The smell hit first, then the rest shoulders through the open door. The man had a bag over his shoulder, and judging from his clothes, nowhere to put it. He slumps himself quietly into a nearby chair. Leah becomes wary. Is this going to be one of those nights?

            “It’s okay,” Leah looks over at the woman. Their eyes meet, and there is a mutual understanding. A discomfort. “He can sit with me.” She joins Damien in the two-seater.

            Some of the children in their four-seaters had been giggling in Leah’s general direction. They point and whisper.

            “They don’t like me very much,” Damien whispers to Leah. “They think I’m weird.”

            “Is that so?” Leah replies. Rain falls against the glass of the train door as it shuts, sending a slight chill in their direction with the movement. She leans down to him, huddling closer. “Do you want to know a secret?”

            “Yes?” Damien’s eyes grow wider then. Pools of burnt sienna.

            “The best people usually are.”

            The train leaves the station.

“… And there was a dinosaur, up on two feet! I thought they only walked on four, but maybe that’s only puppies.”

            “Lots of animals walk on two feet. Some of them can even hop.”

            “Really?”

            “Oh yes! I’m sure of it.”

            Billy overhears the conversation. He is exhausted.

            The boy had been to an exhibition in the city. There were dinosaurs and other animals, too. Maybe the Museum, but Billy couldn’t tell. Billy remembers the Museum as being a fantasyland of history and living art. Of things he had never seen, but were right in front of his eyes, ready to implant into his imagination, and take his mind for a journey. Back in an easier time of simpler things, when Billy did not need the wash of rainfall to cleanse his skin. For he had had a mother do it for him.

            The train pulls to a halt in the station on the city loop. The woman in the seat near him, talking to the child, gets up with a start. She waves goodbye to the post-Museum boy, and takes off out the open train door. The childs’ mother – judging from the way she shot up with a start to reclaim her youth – ushers the child away into the four-seater she shared with her fellow adults. All the while staring Billy down. A fierce lioness protecting her cub.

            Protecting her cub from what? Did Billy look like a homeless person? Well, she was a little clueless, then, wasn’t she? Billy wasn’t homeless. Billy was halfway homeless. A nomad. A drifter. Won’t people just get it right?

            Real homeless people are the angry ones you see on the street. The kind without hopes – not necessarily without jobs, as Billy knew far too many people without jobs who still had homes – and the kind with serious issues. The kind who shout things at strangers in the street. Those are the real homeless. Billy was just doing Billy – caught in the middle between one place and another. Living la vida loca. Like the song.

            He decides that the next stop is his. Gets up, collects his things. Throws the bag that he carries over his shoulder. He sees that the woman is still watching him out of the corner of his eye, ever monitoring despite the raucous clamor of her nearby friends and their accompanying children. He wonders if he could make her squeal for a moment - really shit on this woman’s night, the one trying to make him feel worse than he already does. He is interrupted, as he feels a tap on his back.

Billy flips around – and sees the same child from earlier. The one from the two-seater, and the one from the street – Are you having a shower?

            “It’s you.” The boy says. “You okay?”

            Billy looks down at the kid. He doesn’t quite know what to say in reply. But he looks up at the woman once more. Is that his… mother? He thinks. Ah, I get it. She’s looking out for her kids. I’m that guy. I see how it is.

            “I’m fine,” Billy replies. “Did you have a nice day at the Museum?”

            “Yes,” The boy answers excitedly, “There were dinosaurs and lions and cave men!”

            “Really? Did your friends like it too?” Billy gestures towards the other children in their seats, chattering away excitedly.”

            The boy turns, and then glances back. His expression fades to grey.

            “They’re not my friends. We just go out together.”

            “Why not?”

            “I’m weird.”

            Damien raises his hand – and points a finger at his head. Weird.

Billy makes a noise. More of a chuckle than a grunt. He raises his own hand – and points at his own head, too. “So am I.”

            “Really?” The boys’ eyes light up for a split second, as though Billy were one of the cave men.

            “Sure. Weird as they come.”

            Suddenly, the mother appears and claims her child.

            “Sorry about that!” She laughs, before pulling her child away – though her cold, calculating face expressed a sincere lack of amusement.

            “Bye.” The boy says, being pulled back to his seat.

            “Bye-bye.” Billy replies, waving gently with his gloved hand.

            “I’m Damien.” The boy murmurs, making sure that Billy can read his lips.

            Billy returns the exaggerated whispering mouth-movements.

            “Billy.”

            Damien smiles, and is put in his seat. He doesn’t remove his gaze from Billy. Not even when Billy is pushing open the door of the train as it reaches his destination. Not even when Billy takes off into the night.

“Was he good?”

“Yes, he was perfect.”

Leah traverses up the stairs. An elderly woman trails behind her.

“Margaret, if it’s ever a problem, you know… you just say the word.”

“It’s no problem at all, Miss Gemini. He’s a blessing, he truly is.”

The hallway is dark, but a faint glow stems from a door ajar slightly up ahead. Leah wanders over to it, and pulls the door slightly open.

Inside, illuminated by the faint glow of a night-light, one shaped like the jutting pyres of a bustling city, lays a young boy. Brown head of hair, freckled face. Snoring contentedly. Asleep. His nose twitches slightly. Leah smiles.

“Ryan is very lucky,” Margaret whispers from behind Leah, “He’s got a wonderful mother.”

Leah is silent. The loving expression on her face seems to falter.

“Yes, well, I wish I was around more.”

Margaret sighs; rubs Leah’s arm affectionately. “I’m sure he understands.”

There is a brief pause. Leah looks once more into Ryan’s bedroom – at her boy, sleeping contentedly, his face lit by the gentle glow of the cityscape nightlight. Then closes the door slowly, until it clicks shut in front of her.

There is a silence. A nearby clock ticks away. Tick tock, into oblivion.

“I’m just wondering, Margaret…” Leah starts, “… How long can I keep this up for?”

A hand falls to rest upon her shoulder. Leah turns to face her.

“That’s the kicker, isn’t it?” Margaret says. Her old eyes gaze lovingly into Leah’s. Her aged cheeks dimple and lines crease as her face contorts into a smile. “He needs you.”

You are needed.

Trudging along, the man comes to a stop. His shoes are covered in dirt from the ground he trod upon. The city bustle has dulled ever so slightly. Billy can hear the sounds of cars passing. Sees lights in the distance. But he focuses his eyes to what is in front of him. Blocks out the city sounds.

            “Well…” Billy whispers. “I’m here.”

            There’s a faint murmur on the wind – trees planted years ago as they bristle together, creating a chorus of noise, like a waterfall crashing into the flow of a river. The sigh of a breeze blows through Billy’s hair.

            “Did you miss me?”

            Billy stands before a patch of soil. He throws down his rucksack onto the ground. Rips it open. The faint glow of nearby buildings helps illuminate its contents. He pulls something out – a wreath of flowers, battered from his days’ toils. He holds them in his hand, waits a moment – and then throws them forward. They land in a ring upon the patch.

            In front of the plot of soil, is a stone. A stone with engravings. A name. A date of birth.

            A date of death.

            “I miss you, Mama.” Billy whispers once more. “I don’t know where you are, but…”

            The kicked up wind comes to a slow halt. His voice starts to break as he whispers to the quiet. The air is still. Silence.

            “I think I need you real bad right now.”

            I need you.

            Their train rustles along.

            It slowly grinds to a halt, into the station. Six or seven bodies get up, and make their way to the door. The cityscape glitters in the vastness out the train windows, nestled bright against the blackness of the night.

            “Alright, everyone. Say bye to Marissa and Damien,” One of the women instructs her children.

            A boy grunts. “Do I have to?”

            Snappy and sharp. “Yes, you do. Go on, then.”

            The child from earlier twists his face into a scowl, but as he turns to face Damien, still sitting in his seat, the scowl becomes a smile.

            “Bye-bye, Damien,” The boy waves his gloved hands. The other children follow suit, one by one, bidding Damien a softened adieu.

            “Bye, everyone,” Marissa replies gently, waving her hand – and Damien’s too - and the group pull open the doors and depart off onto the platform, in their little formation, away into the night.           

            The train lets off a whirr, a clanging and ratchet of sound, and proceeds back on its rickety journey. The landscape outside of the window gradually begins to change, from an urbane jungle to suburban Sahara. Damien and Marissa are alone, then.

            “I like the city a lot.” Damien says suddenly.

            “What do you like about it?”

            “The people everywhere. Lots of different and interesting people.”

            “Oh, really? Me too.”

            A silence passes between them, punctuated only by the clanging and banging of the train against the tracks. The air is damp with the residue of a day and night of rainfall, of bodies in and out from the mist to the carriage. Ever fading away, the city stands still in the distance.

            “Mum…” Damien whispers, so quietly it was almost inaudible. He peers off out the window in his little window seat, watching raindrops fall against the glass.

            Marissa looks down at him, seated by his side. “What is it, Damien?”

            “They don’t like me very much, do they?”

            Marissa is momentarily shocked. “What makes you say that, Damien?”

            Damien sighs. “They aren’t very nice to me. They think I’m weird.”

            “Oh.”

            Marissa begins to panic. This is not a conversation she appreciated. It is something difficult for her to face – her child. Reality. The black void where she kept her fear.

            “I’m sure that’s not the case…”

            “No. It is. I know that it is.”

            Marissa sighs. A loud, hearty sigh. As though she were trying to filter the panic she felt from her heart to her lungs, and then out into the world. As though if she breathed hard enough, she could cleanse her soul.

            “I’m sorry, Mum. I know I’m a lot to take care of.”

            It was a bullet to the windscreen of her entire existence. Yet, strangely, she could do nothing but look down at him. And she saw, too, that he had turned away from the glass window, with its fascinating raindrops cascading down it, and was looking up at her. She smiles.

            “You’re just fine, Damien.”

            In the sterile cold of the rickety train, and the droplets leaving marks on the windows, they share a moment. Warmth and a special tenderness. A mother looks down at her son, and holds him closer, as he turns back his head to gaze longingly into the night.

            “I know that I need you a lot…”

            “I need you quite a lot, too.”

            The train carries on. The city lights the way back.

            He needs you.

           

           

           

           

'Two Recently-Resurrected French Authors Walk Into A Bar...' - by Brandon James Cook.

When Roland first rose from the dank depths of his grave, he did not do so with a flurry or a great burst forth from the Stygian abyss, but with a gentle flourish as though he were falling upwards into the skies above, parting the dirt like fingertips trailed through sand on a beach, coming to a gentle rest aside his tombstone.

            Michel, on the other hand, could have awoken all the dead in his vicinity, if it weren’t for his choking back dirt and turf drowning out agonised screams of wide-eyed terror, as he rustled and fought his way to the surface.

            The two found themselves in the darkness of a night that eluded them; no memory of how they came to be or who they truly were. Rain fell down hard upon their heads, and they felt the grime and muck of their cemetery slumber fall away from their skin – skin so firm and youthful it was as though they were new men. Brushing off the dirt and strange bile from their suits until they were relatively clean, they wandered the graveyard aisles in a dazed confusion, bleary-eyed and as dead to the world as their forever-ceased heartbeats.

Not once did Roland or Michel encounter one another in their ailed wanderings, and soon they found themselves out of the yard and winding down the streets of a strange city, one that seemed faintly familiar in the haze but far too bright for their tired eyes, as they squinted to dodge moving forms, lugging their weakened muscles that crumpled beneath their clothes with every bump from what they had to guess with great uncertainty were passing strangers.

            Roland eventually came upon what looked to be a dim-lit building on a street corner. He came to a stand at the door to the place, and was met by a beefy man guarding the way.

            “Big night, buddy? It’s almost morning. You coming in?” The man asked. His voice had a soft but discernible lilt.

            Try as he might, Roland could not will words to leave his lips.

            The man chuckled. “I’ll bet. Just go in.”

            He was promptly ushered into the strange building.

            Inside, the place was dark enough for his newly risen eyes to make out. Music played from large speakers on the walls, and people wandered about, in and out through an induced smoke haze.

            Roland physically shook the dust off the crevasses in his head and it kindled his mind like burning wood. He started to realise where he was, as though he were coming out of a drunken haze. The first thing he saw when his mind awoke was the sight of a man, naked but for a jockstrap, grinding upon another man in the corner.

            Staggering through the crowds, he followed the smell of fresh air – seemingly laced with a more noxious fume, but cool air nonetheless. He came upon a large courtyard area, with sheltering from the rain, full of people smoking cigarettes.

            His eyes came to rest upon a familiar face, belonging to a man leaning against a wall - and that’s when the cogs of his long-dead brain truly began to turn.

            “Roland Barthes”, the strangers’ voice croaked.

            Roland Barthes stepped into the courtyard, eyes narrowed and locked to the figure before him.

            “Michel Foucault”, Roland replied, and dust churned from his mouth as he spoke.

            Michel stepped forward away from the wall. “So this is an interesting turn of events.” He said, far too casually given the circumstances.

            “You’re one to talk.”

            “What do you—“

            “The way you grilled me in your piece. Despicable, really.”

            Michel laughed, partially from bewilderment, but mainly as the neurons in his brain had begun reanimating further, causing him to experience a range of erratic emotions. “What do you mean?”

            “’What is an author?’ – Truly, a remarkable work from one such as yourself. If you think I did not note that your words were so firmly directed at my own work, you must think me a fool.”

            “Ooh, girl is throwing some shade!” – Came a voice from an effeminate man nearby. Roland was shouting now, and they had gathered a crowd. The man stepped forward. “Honey, tell him how it is. Tell him how he hurt you.”

            “Barthes… but you should know… it wasn’t my intention to question your name. My words are separate from my name. The author was not always so firmly attached to his work.”

            “Spare me your drivel on author-function. The fact you could not let my words speak for themselves, and let others read into them what they would, is proof enough of your hypersensitive arrogance.”

            “My arrogance?”

            “Your arrogance. You simply could not go on without reading me and denouncing me, over and over again.”

            “-Shade!” – This time the effeminate man snapped his fingers with delight.

            Barthes coughed once more, and a clump of dirt fell from his mouth into his hand, an event no one witnessed.

            The effeminate man stepped towards Michel, twirling a cigarette between his thin fingers.

            “Look, babe. It’s pretty clear you’ve hurt him, and I think this guy raises a good point. Why you gotta read? We’re all ladies here. Just tell him how you feel.”

Michel looked upon the man with confusion.

“I’m just saying. My boy and I - we talk about it. So talk. Fix your problems. Then go home and fuck.”

            Barthes and Foucault looked upon the gay man with confusion. The man’s expression went from kindly to a look of embarrassment.

            “I’ll leave you to it.” – And he stepped back to his place on the sidelines.

            Barthes and Foucault stood staring at one another, seemingly lost for words. Barthes felt an itch in his leg. He reached down to scratch it – and the entire appendage fell off, to a mere stub, the bone and flesh concealed by scraps of fabric, his black pants that had partially fallen off with it. His leg rolled along the floor until Michel stopped it with his foot.

            The two of them looked around in horror, awaiting the inevitable furore and clamour that would arise when the crowd realised that they were in the presence of two walking corpses.

            The gay man piped up once more with a squeal, and waved his arms at Michel.

            “He’s a war veteran, too! You’re seriously going to treat him this way? Disgusting! Sort out your problems.”

            Roland and Michel looked at one another. Michel bent over to pick up the severed leg, and Roland was the first to speak.

            “I’m ready to go back into the ground.”