©1997-2012 by: Jon Mychal
Once again, it’s midsummer, when sticky July days give way to comfortable nights; when warm breezes carry the smells of the city up the nine stories to my open balcony door. The wind, moving over clay chimes that are fastened to a hook which bleeds rust down the outside bricks, lingers long enough to stroke them gently. I hear them from the study–always singing the same song in no particular key; calling out and announcing their loneliness. A burnt red sun is casting off the last of its anger for this day; the heat crinkled air slowly smoothing itself out as the sun relents and begins a slow descent past the row of high-rise buildings three blocks west of here.
Looking out and bearing witness to the end of this day, I’m reminded of an evening much like this one – an evening which may have been a lifetime ago now – when an inconsiderate associate named Fred Welter aided in the most bizarre and inexplicable chain of events I’ve ever been exposed to.
I received the call shortly after dinner; the sounds of Vangelis drifting into the kitchen and merging with water rushing into the sink; the rhythmical clunking of dishes as I dropped them into the soapy unknown momentarily made discordant by the warbling of my living room telephone.
They were in the area, Fred had told me, in a voice sounding too loud; too assumed. I had always deeply resented calls from cellular phones — the disembodied voices of countless thousands responsible for a palpable layer of white noise which I found impossible not to hear. I held the handset six inches away from my ear and lied, saying that I had an engagement later on that night and couldn’t entertain, but agreed to have him and his friend up for one drink. As I hung up, I reached for the cigarettes left on the same end-table that the phone was resting on, and drew one from the package. Smoking would kill me, it stated in bold print, in no uncertain terms.
The elevator doors closed noisily down the hall, and I could clearly hear Fred Welter’s booming voice over the music in my living room; the baritone frequencies bouncing off of the walls and neighbouring apartment doors until they reached in and penetrated the aged, cracked silicone sealant surrounding my door frame. The mail slot and quarter-inch gap between the corridor and the bottom of my door allowed them to enter uninvited in the same manner that unpleasant odours do. As they neared, I couldn’t help feeling a little embarrassed that this overbearing man was to be my guest; that I was responsible for his being in the building at all.
I was to experience this sensation intermittently over the next few hours.
They seemed an unlikely pair, Fred and his associate — one look at the two of them standing side by side was all it took. Welter was a heavy-set man in his late thirties, the type who was perpetually out of breath when he spoke. I had brought this to his attention at a lunch several years before, suggesting that if he didn’t feel the need to be heard by everyone within ten city blocks, he wouldn’t have to project so much, and if he managed to curtail this endeavour, he would have that much more air left for the important things in life such as breathing. Evidently, he hadn’t taken my advice back then, and as he stood in my hallway, his fleshy face scarlet from the heat of the day, streams of perspiration running from his thinning hairline down over his temples and cheekbones and pooling in the meaty creases of jowls, I stifled a laugh.
“Hello Fred.” I spoke through a feeble smile, taking in this oddity which stood before me as I opened the door. There was what– in my estimation– a transvestite would look like in the early stages of dress, standing very close to him: the androgyny of this young man was simply not consistent with Fred Welter’s homophobic banter that I had been inundated with over the years. This person could not have been more than twenty-two. No trace of whisker growth on his face. Blue eyes saucer-like in their innocence, twinkling with moisture as though tears were at hand; his spiky, plum-coloured hair the prerequisite for excessive ornamentation driven through both ears. He wore what some would refer to as a ‘poet’s shirt’, the front open wide, revealing the smooth chest of a child and some rather obtrusive charms and talismans dangling from a gaudy chain roped around his neck. His pants were inappropriately leather, clinging in high July to broomstick legs. Evidently hand polished to bring out the grain and supple texture of the hide, they dipped low at the front, cooperating with the blouse which had been tied in a knot at the bottom, revealing a navel pierced by convention in the form of a faux renaissance wedding ring.
My first reaction was that Welter had snapped. After chasing every female he interacted with — fruitlessly for so many years — he had finally thrown the towel in. He had found himself a young playmate; someone who would listen to his tired stories, gladly accepting his feigned generosity at every turn; willing to agree with or acknowledge his short-sighted perspectives. This was feasible, I thought. After all, it happens every day to many people that I don’t know personally — why should Fred Welter be an exception?
Pondering my latest speculation, I invited the two of them in. I asked Fred if I could take his sport coat and find a place for it in the closet, but he refused with an open hand raised up, gold rings forced over pork shank knuckles, opting to wear the coat despite the closeness of the apartment that afternoon.
I motioned towards the living room, inviting them to find a place and be seated.
As the two men brushed past me, I thought it rather odd that Fred hadn’t even acknowledged his company, much less offer an introduction of any sort.
I’m fairly accountable when it comes to sizing a person up, and I examined this young man fastidiously from the first moment I saw him standing at my open door. I remembered the past, and with it the associates who had indelibly etched themselves on to my memory’s slates, and suddenly became aware of the tension creeping into my shoulders and neck.
His weak chin raised defiantly, a funny pair of thin lips pursed suggestively; bony shoulders rolling as if to work stiffness out of the lanky muscles on his diminutive frame, he followed Fred in, eyes setting on everything in view, darting back and forth as though he was formulating a strategy for attack or looking for a quick escape route.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I offered, moving my eyes from one to the other rapidly as if to indicate specification without really looking at either man. Welter eased himself back on the couch, shifting his weight around. The leather groaned loudly under him, protesting the burden placed on it. “Well, I’m certainly not going to say no to a cold beer right about now.” he said smugly, looking at his associate first, and then at me. “And I think we’re gonna need another ashtray out here, too.” he finished.
“Fine — and can I get you something?” I asked the young man, feeling too aware of myself, as though I was detached from my body and simply observing this strange situation from across the room.
For a moment, he said nothing, and I could hear the sound of air as it passed my ears. He sat in a high backed chair, right leg crossed over left in a display of sophistication, his left hand gingerly resting on his right knee as if to imitate the preferred pose struck in portraits of historical British aristocracy. His right hand rose to his face and found his jaw line, deciding then to spread itself and begin the constant, repetitive motion of drawing the thumb and first finger together at the chin in a constant stroking manner.
He then spoke for the first time: “Do you stock gin and vermouth? Vodka?” he queried, in a tone ever so slightly reminiscent of the bourgeoisie depicted in films from the 30’s and 40’s; subtly condescending, with a deliberate over-pronunciation so as to hide any trace of dialect. “Yes…”, I returned, beginning to put the last of the pieces together where this character was concerned — and a character being all he was.
It had gone to great lengths to cut and paste the properties of film, literature and pop culture together, arriving at a modern day Frankenstein’s monster of sorts; a being comprised of many dead things; of things old and tired and anachronistic, yet serving a host who was bent on seeing the resurrection of this motley collective thrive at any cost. He was both frightening and hilarious, and finally I was able to place him. Gone was the tension across my shoulders, quickly replaced by a deep sense of exasperation. It was bad enough encountering this sort at functions, but I had sworn long ago that I’d never again permit one to cross the line of my front door. Fred would hear about this, I thought. “If it’s not an imposition, perhaps a dry martini then–shaken and stirred.” he finished, the poor attempt at humour being acknowledged by Welter, who turned sideways so as to face his young friend, beaming with idiot pride.
“Shaken and stirred it is, then.” I replied, overly emphasizing the word ‘and’ in an effort to play into their silly game, quite unimpressed by the two of them, and growing more so by the minute. I moved into the kitchen, where the air felt different — better — and I could take a few deep breaths without having to worry about the medicinal after-taste of Fred Welter’s cologne clinging to the back of my throat. At that moment, my greatest sources of disappointment lay in the fact that the gin I stocked was not of the ‘bath tub’ variety, and that the vodka was imported.
