Hello Good-bye in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

I hadn’t been out in a very long time. I’d finally gotten the all-clear from the doctor, but I was still recovering from the surgery. The biopsy had come back negative so the month of existential dread disappeared quickly but I still wasn’t completely physically healed.

I wasn’t quite ready to get back out there but I hadn’t seen Bane in almost 3 months and he was returning to Brisbane soon. I didn’t quite know where I was going but Bane had truly found his tribe here. Ironically, I had introduced them to him and he totally bonded with them. Here I was amongst the international rave crowd and it seemed everyone was going their own ways.

Maria had returned to Russia, Zack had surprisingly become successful as a DJ and was getting ready to move to London. Now Bane was going back home until he moves to Berlin later in the year.

The place we were at was on the other side of the river next to where the S&M clubs and fetish wear were located. Those were the only places I was familiar with on this side of the city, but I was now looking at this darkened store front. I knew I was in the right place because I could hear the music thumping inside.

One of Bane’s friends saw me and told me that he was inside. He was taking pictures but he wasn’t having luck working his camera at the moment because he was a little too elevated.

The place was wild. It was hollow, graffiti all over the walls, black lights and incredibly creepy skeleton videos all over the walls. It looked like that gang scene from Batman Forever.

Due to my physical recovery, I couldn’t drink and I hadn’t had a cigarette in 2 weeks, so I bummed a smoke off Bane and sat outside. The cops had just raided the place but a quick pay-off from someone behind the bar meant that everything was fine for now.

When I sat out front, however, I ended up chatting with this guy. It was my first time being social in nearly 6 months and it was kind of amusing. He was cute, spoke English flawlessly and told me that was because, although he was Malaysian, he’d spent a lot of time in St. Paul. He said he spotted my accent quickly and wondered which part of California I was from.

We chatted about America, the craziness of the moment and about being impulsive when you’re young.

It turned out he was 18 and wondering if his crazy for spontaneously moving to Bangkok. His girlfriend popped up, and she was British. I asked how they had met and they both lived in Marseille and had met there. Suddenly we were all sitting there speaking French and laughing about all these random things. Bane walked by once or twice and I could see he was a little confused by the scene.

At one point, his girlfriend wandered off and he started asking me about how I felt about the gay scene here. He said that he liked hanging out at the gay bars because they always buy him booze and give him free drugs.

Long story short, before long he was sitting on my lap in a dark corner making out with him. I was surprised my body reacted the way it did because I still felt rather weak, but I think feeling his excitement got to me, too.

On the way home, I laughed to myself. Back in America, for years it had always been a joke that I always hooked up with younger guys or straight guys and here I was at 40 with not much having changed. I made out with an 18-year-old straight guy.

Thank God I didn’t have any vodka.