drinking, late at night, in the basement of Brian's flat. This time,
Johnno had pinched whiskey from his father. The stench of garbage had
been rank as they sat with a candle between them, passing the bottle
back and forth. On the dented portable record player, Roy Orbison had
been soaring with "Only the Lonely." Johnno's confession had come out
with drunken weeping and wild threats of suicide.
"I'm nothing, and I'll never be nothing else. Living like a bleeding
pig." He'd guzzled whiskey. "My old man stinking up the room and Mum
whining and nagging and never doing nothing to make it change. My
sister's working the streets and my little brother's been arrested twice
this month."
"It's up to us to get out of it," Brian said with boozy philosophy. With
his eyes half closed he listened to Orbison. He wanted to sing like
that, with that otherworldly melancholy. "We've got to make a
difference for ourselves, Johnno. And we will."
"Difference. I can't make it any different. Not unless I kill myself.
Maybe I will. Maybe I'll just do it and be done with it."
"What the bloody hell are you talking about?" Brian searched in their
crumpled pack of Pall Malls and found one.
"I'm queer." Johnno dropped his head on his folded arms and wept.
"Queer?" Brian paused with the match an inch from the tip of the
cigarette. "Come on, Johnno. Don't be daft."
"I said I'm queer." His voice rose as he lifted his tear-stained,
desperate face to Brian. "I like boys. I'm a freaking, flaming fag."
Though he was shaken, the drink was enough of a cushion to make him
open-minded. "You sure?"
"Why the bloody hell would I say it if I wasn't sure? The only reason I
could make it with Alice Ridgeway was because I was thinking of her
brother."
Now that was disgusting, Brian thought, but kept his feelings to
himself. They'd been friends for more than six years, had stood up for
each other, lied for each other, had shared dreams and secrets. Brian
struck another match, lit the cigarette and pondered.
"Well, I suppose if you're made that way, then you're made that way.
Nothing to slit your wrists over."
"You're not queer."
"No." He fervently hoped not-and vowed to spend the next few weeks
proving it to himself with every girl he could charm into spreading her
legs. No, he wasn't queer, he assured himself The sexual acrobatics
he'd experienced with Jane Palmer should have been a good indication of
his preferences. Thinking of her, he hardened and shifted his legs. It
wasn't the time to get horny, but to think of Johnno's problem.
"Lots of people are queer," he said. "Like literary people and artists
and such. We're musicians, so you could think of it as part of your
creative soul."
"That's shit," Johnno mumbled, but wiped his dripping nose.
"Maybe, but it's better than slitting your wrists. I'd have to find a
new partner."
With a ghost of a smile, Johnno picked up the bottle again. "Are we
still partners, then?"