Image: author (Steve)
I Never Desired To Kiss His Lips
The bedroom is open to a turquoise sky, clothes scattered, exotic flowers sitting on a table covered with a Sahara blue cloth, and outside everything is covered in a tangle of vines. The Bali evening is yet unspent, waiting for Steve to arrive with my passport. We agreed, long since, when in foreign parts, he should keep hold of my passport. The reasons for this are many, but in a sentence, I tend to leave said foreign parts without telling anyone.
Steve, you must understand, is not a miserable bastard most of the time, but hell, he can become decidedly wretched within a moment. That moment has just past. He had stridden up around six pm, just before dinner, leant against the balustrade, folded his arms, crossed one bare leg over the other and declared there might be a problem with the departure date. I was flying to San Francisco in the morning.
Well, all I can say is you better have my passport here by ten, this evening, regardless.
He glared at me. Uncrossed his legs and straightened.
You may have a problem. I don’t. Get my passport to me after dinner, I said.
Harry, I’m just warning you. Don’t get upset. I’m being told there’s a shortage of security officers at Denpasar. Airlines are having difficulties keeping their schedules. There are rumours flights might be delayed as long as two days.
All I can say is this, Steve, we are on the island of gods, so call on them. I’m out of here tomorrow, one way or another.
Anyway, the good news is I’m writing these notes on a Cathay Pacific flight to San Francisco, stopping over in Taiwan.
Steve isn’t saying much. He’s a weird friend. By using the weird terminology, I mean, look, he’s drinking milk with his meal. He’s a skinny guy, athletic, wears spectacles to read, and is a man who in our time together has used great intelligence to deal with bullies, not his fists. That can be frightfully frustrating. Whatever the nature of our relationship I trust him implicitly. It is a friendship that has afforded me great joy and fulfilment.
Some years back, we were in Texas. I bought a pair of plastic handcuffs. Once through airport security, less thorough back then, I took the handcuffs from my rucksack, slipped one of the cuffs over my wrist, and while Steve was reading the newspaper, I slipped the other over his wrist. Before he knew what had happened, I was standing up, clearly showing I was cuffed to my friend, and started yelling that I was innocent. It was hellish fun. Steve never travelled with me again for years. I’m thinking it time for yet another mischief.
The thing I love about Steve, and in using the term, love, I am not exaggerating my feelings for the man, is that he can be particularly and endlessly wearisome. That said, without his guidance in my life, I fear it may have been greatly shortened. I write passages like this simply because one day family members, friends, will read about him; I would want any reader to understand his truth. A hundred-point-man.
As seen by various detractors and admirers, I might be otherwise described a scoundrel or a saint, once called away from this world. When my whole life then viewed, little that is bad or vicious can be imputed to me. In Paris or London, Stockholm or Amsterdam, Geneva or New York, I lived according to conventional standards. Not so in Glasgow or Liverpool, Caracas or Cape Town, Baltimore or Kingston where immorality has been my worst crime since ’94. For a short time following, I sponged off my friends for a place to stay. If I was then in anyway depraved it was only because I wished to be so, but the attempt was half-hearted, clumsy and short lived. I have since come under the influence of the man sitting beside me.
Even with his guidance I have wandered over the face of the earth, which is not so very big afterall, hoping to find a place that would please me. I would not, could not accept ordinary human nature, or its weakness when acting out love, or the lack of love in one’s life. Steve is insurance that I won’t be without love, given or received. I’ve never examined my sexuality in any great way, it always seemed instinctive. Home was always between a woman’s thighs, but from Steve’s friendship I have received great human compassion and sympathy.
I have been enriched by his long friendship.
