Shuffle the deck, or just give us all aces...please
I am just home from Gouger Street Freak Circus, and it nears six in the morning. Now strangely strikes me as a good time to write about two individuals of my acquaintance. I choose not to name them but they did not accompany me to a gay sauna, which lately seems to be a fashionable reason not to name people who feature in journal entries, if my Friends page is anything to judge by. (I did go to a gay sauna once, but chose to undertake the experiment alone. As has been noted it is an impersonal experience, and one that highlights the potential for sexual desire to be raw and cold. My wish for conversation was regarded as unusual, even unnerving. Never again.)
Tonight I saw a girl sweeping the floor of the Freak Circus and I noticed that there was a large empty bottle among the cigarette butts and other small flotsam. I asked her if she had ever swept up a person while performing this task. She said that no, she had never swept up a person, but she had once swept up a bag of hash. My immediate response was to wonder whether there was much difference, given the clientele.
This may make my view of the arena in which I choose to socialise (variously called ‘the scene’) appear to be a jaded one. Perhaps it is, but I hold out more hope than do the two about whom I write. The First lies asleep on the floor next to me now and I know him well. The Second, I know not so well. He is older than I. Not by much but by enough to be wiser and, sadly, to have seen stuff he finds distasteful. He speaks with dismay at the character of the majority of people he has met on the scene. I try to console him by relating my experience of having turned up here four months ago knowing no-one, but having since selected some special people to have as friends, from the throng of losers. He doesn’t know why he comes to the Freak Circus - he doesn’t like it - but while emerging from a now defunct five year relationship, doesn’t know what else to do.
The First has got up to sleep on the couch now. I knew when I set myself up in this city I knew that I may also be setting myself up to become attached to new friends who I would have to leave behind all too soon. He is one of those friends. Blessed in having undeniably divine looks, he checks on their upkeep regularly. Not out of vanity but out of the knowledge that they are, in these circles, his primary asset and must be capitalised upon. Few know that he is smart, generous and sensitive. Or that he stands by his best friends through hell. It frustrates him that the proclivities of those he meets dictate that the depth of his personality is veiled by his desirable appearance. But he knows that his more essential qualities are unmarketable.
He stirs as the rising sun lights the room and I throw my spare doona over him as a shield from Adelaide’s winter. If only one could so easily protect those they care for from the vicissitudes of life.
_____________________________________________
What strikes me when I read the above is that it doesn’t really convey my thoughts properly. So I go to bed now and shall let a tear hit my pillow: it shall be for the sake of the hands that life deals out to us, for the tragedies caused by the knaves in the pack, and for my inability to articulate my feelings as richly as I might wish.
Tonight I saw a girl sweeping the floor of the Freak Circus and I noticed that there was a large empty bottle among the cigarette butts and other small flotsam. I asked her if she had ever swept up a person while performing this task. She said that no, she had never swept up a person, but she had once swept up a bag of hash. My immediate response was to wonder whether there was much difference, given the clientele.
This may make my view of the arena in which I choose to socialise (variously called ‘the scene’) appear to be a jaded one. Perhaps it is, but I hold out more hope than do the two about whom I write. The First lies asleep on the floor next to me now and I know him well. The Second, I know not so well. He is older than I. Not by much but by enough to be wiser and, sadly, to have seen stuff he finds distasteful. He speaks with dismay at the character of the majority of people he has met on the scene. I try to console him by relating my experience of having turned up here four months ago knowing no-one, but having since selected some special people to have as friends, from the throng of losers. He doesn’t know why he comes to the Freak Circus - he doesn’t like it - but while emerging from a now defunct five year relationship, doesn’t know what else to do.
The First has got up to sleep on the couch now. I knew when I set myself up in this city I knew that I may also be setting myself up to become attached to new friends who I would have to leave behind all too soon. He is one of those friends. Blessed in having undeniably divine looks, he checks on their upkeep regularly. Not out of vanity but out of the knowledge that they are, in these circles, his primary asset and must be capitalised upon. Few know that he is smart, generous and sensitive. Or that he stands by his best friends through hell. It frustrates him that the proclivities of those he meets dictate that the depth of his personality is veiled by his desirable appearance. But he knows that his more essential qualities are unmarketable.
He stirs as the rising sun lights the room and I throw my spare doona over him as a shield from Adelaide’s winter. If only one could so easily protect those they care for from the vicissitudes of life.
_____________________________________________
What strikes me when I read the above is that it doesn’t really convey my thoughts properly. So I go to bed now and shall let a tear hit my pillow: it shall be for the sake of the hands that life deals out to us, for the tragedies caused by the knaves in the pack, and for my inability to articulate my feelings as richly as I might wish.