It got curiouser and curiouser.
Glen was tired. He didn’t want
any more excitement. Now Carol wanted
him to torment Derek Merkeley while he dined her in the Pitstop. She sounded calm, rational. But she insisted that this guy would only
stop writing slanderous articles about her if she had sex with him. So she wanted to negotiate in a safe
environment. Glen was flattered that she
would consider him as conducive of a safe environment. While sitting at his desk he examined the
black wing feather. He hoped that it
wasn’t carrying any diseases. He felt depressed about Bryan, and was surprised
to learn that he really did care for him.
But Pierre was his truth. At
least a friend worth having. But clingy. Needy.
He didn’t think that he could sustain this level of need. From anyone.
Timothy had been enough. For two
years they’d fought and fucked. Usually
it was Glen suing for space, for privacy. For solitude. He’d never known such a needy suck. Until Pierre?
Did he have debts to pay off about Timothy, through Pierre? He didn’t intend to sleep with him. He had no energy for romantic
entanglements. He would see how things
went while they worked together.
He’d almost invited
Randall to stay with him, but caught himself just in time. His place was hardly big enough for one
person. Technically a one bedroom
apartment, it was actually more of a studio occupying half the top floor of an
old house on William Street just off of Commercial Drive. Five years he had lived here. Mostly alone.
He preferred living by himself, since people usually drained all his
energy. He was actually relieved that
they’d fired him from the Good Shepherd, since he hadn’t the guts to quit. Almost he phoned his sister to tell her he’d
changed his mind, he wasn’t coming in, he didn’t want to work at the
Pitstop. Did he? It would be an odd experience with his
sister, with Pierre and an assortment of gay staff and clientele. Especially since Glen no longer thought of himself
as being gay. He tried to not think of
himself, or others, in terms of labels or categories. But Pierre he liked. He wanted to spend time with him. He’d just spent two or three hours last night
with him and Stephen in their apartment.
They’d all been badly affected by the incident with Bryan and
Rochelle. Stephen had taken off his
dress and resumed wearing boy’s clothes.
He did this in front of Glen and Pierre, shamelessly flaunting his young
body, much as he did while staying with Glen, who found the whole thing in
equal measures amusing, disturbing and titillating. He looked at the time. Four o’clock.
If he walked he’d get there on time.
He badly wanted to walk. To
simply enjoy at a slow measured pace this day of High Spring.
He felt almost
ready to move now. This apartment had
served him well. The rent was still
reasonable, the other tenants quiet and respectful. He moved here from his mother’s, his first
experience of really living on his own.
He had done all right. He stayed
employed long enough at the same job.
Work he generally loved except for the constant emotional drain,
especially the violent act-outs from certain mental patients and
alcoholics. Twice he’d been physically
assaulted. Once he caught lice from a
client he was de-lousing. Then he got
into intensive palliative care which following the rudest of betrayals from a
wheelchair bound client, had almost undone him.
This was a particularly pathetic, vicious individual, the same age as
Glen. As a teenager on Vancouver Island
he had been severely disabled in a car accident. Because of his violent rages, they could only
maintain him in a facility belonging to the Good Shepherd, where the most
difficult to care for eventually turned up.
This man stank quite badly and he valiantly resisted Glen’s attempts to
bathe him, constantly screaming such epithets at him as “Faggot!” and
“Shit-packing homo!” Eventually he tried
to accuse Glen, falsely, of sexually abusing him. Glen was exonerated, but this incident had
knocked the wind out of him. He soon
became psychosomatically ill, then he was hit with major toothaches. He became depressed, listless and missed a
lot of work. Then he had more dying
patients in his care. Then Stephen moved
in on him. And now he was done with Good
Shepherd. Bryan had frequently
admonished that Glen didn’t possess the required toughness, the brutality, nor
the callousness needed to sustain himself in this kind of work. Eventually Christina Wilkens, the executive
director of Good Shepherd, suggested something similar to Glen as she
mellifluously announced that they would no longer be requiring his
services. She had expressed grave
concern about his emotional health, stating that even being a little bit fragile
could be a liability in this kind of work.
If they discerned weakness, smelled blood, they would descend and pounce
with all teeth and claws extended.
The apartment had
served him well as a place of refuge. He
didn’t think that he wanted to leave. He
was restless for change. He felt tense
and excited about the Pitstop. Working
for his sister. He didn’t know what to
expect. And with Randall? If he showed.
He probably would, though Glen didn’t particularly feel like seeing
him. Another needy male. Him and Pierre both. Why did he want these people in his
life? Why did he want anyone? They all wanted his energy and he was only
too happy to let them stick their plugs into him like a socket and drain him. He enjoyed this? Yes.
He enjoyed it. There was
something intensely pleasurable about being drained by others. It was like being a tit to suck on? And what did he get from these encounters,
besides the pleasure of giving? What
more could he ask? He only, at times,
wanted someone to look after him. But he had someone. God. Liking
it or not, Glen’s life had been irreversibly changed. He walked with God. Naturally others would need him. He supposed that he had not yet accepted
this. It never took people very long to
figure out upon meeting him that Glen was somehow “different”, or
“special”. He craved invisibility. He would never have it. He really wanted to stay home. He was too tired to work. Especially at the
Pitstop. He figured that he would know
when it was time for him to move.
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