Having succesfully relocated to the city, I’m now trying to meet people around here. It’d be nice to actually know people that don’t require a train trip to visit.
The only people I really know around here are Rick the Pimp, who lives a few blocks away and our miscreant neighbour upstairs. I only encounter this Jamaican man when he’s going upstairs to his apartment, or downstairs to go out. When he’s descending, he always seems either upset or as if he’s just injected heroin (and considering he was screaming ‘Heroin! Heroin!’ from his balcony when we moved in, this is possible).
However, when he’s on his way up to his apartment, without fail he’s bounding up the stairs three at a time like a big dog on heat. That’s actually quite an accurate analogy, now I think about it; considering the bimbo girlfriend I see hovering around his balcony. She’s set up a hammock on their balcony too – whenever I exit the building, I can always see her lying idly in it. I think it’s quite small, however; as the edge of the hammock quite neatly splices her butt-cleavage when she leans to the side.
Besides Rick the Pimp and the Jamaican man, the only other person I kinda know who lives around here is Burga, and he barely counts because I’ve never actually met him – we’ve only sent each other a few messages.
Of course I do have friends in Sydney, but they’re all back in the Western suburbs or are a train trip away. It’s with this in mind that I’ve been trying to meet some more local people around here.
Over a period of approximately a week, I’ve been conversing with a particular guy initially via chatroom, but then by email. The fellow – Mark – seemed quite nice and even appreciated the finer, more complex moments of the Deftones and agreed that they’re beyond the regular low brain cell count of most new metal bands – a quality I admire in anyone, yet rarely found. (Okay, so ignore the songs the Deftones sing about girls. They don’t count. And that terrible song about women getting periods and having PMT. I guess lines like ‘when you’re ripe, you’ll bleed out of control’ aren’t necessarily artistic brilliance).
I’m not one to let physical appearance overshadow my judgement of someone (it’d be fairly hypocritical of me if I did – we’re talking about a guy with questionable facial hair and two different colour eyes – one of them slightly wonky). However, despite having already made up my mind that Mark was an alright bloke, when he emailed me his picture I wasn’t exactly making use of the delete function of my email client.
To make sure the friendship status was clear, I told Mark that I was definitely taken. Mark replied that this was no problem, because he had a boyfriend anyway. They’d been firmly in love for nearly two years now. Apparently he met said boyfriend when he joined a band – a gay rap group (!).
Intrigued, I asked Mark if he had any samples of the group’s work. He sent me an MP3 which was… interesting, to say the least. I can’t say they were breaking any more musical ground than the Bomfunk MC’s are, but their singer (Mark’s boyfriend) sounded and had the attitude of some sort of gay Eminem (obviously for want of a better comparison). The music was pretty shite, but the singer had talent.
Young Mark seemed to have a fairly interesting life. After conversing quite frequently for a few more days, Mark sent a missive requesting we meet up for a few beers with his man. Sounded like a good proposal, as my social calendar for the day was otherwise choc-a-block with appointments with Channel 10 shows on TV. Mark lived a little distance away from where I live, but it was only a short bus ride.
After walking down the road and catching a bus, I paid my fare and endured a journey which included a breastfeeding mother jutting her elbow into me for no extra charge. Normally, I’d get up and offer the whole seat to such a passenger; however she was on the other side of the aisle and rather obese to boot.
Slightly relieved to escape the lactating limb lancer, I emerged from the bus in an unfamiliar neighbourhood. A habit of mine when travelling to unknown districts is to beforehand glance briefly at a street directory, then take blind confidence in my subsequent mental atlas. The metaphysical atlas in question may as well have a metaphysical match taken to it, taking my track record into consideration.
After being reduced to engaging in one of my great fears – approaching strangers – I managed to obtain a decidedly abstract set of directions (‘You turn left at that school, that school full of the arsehole teachers, they tell off-a my child, eh!’). I strained to hear any audio snippets of the world’s first anti-hetero rap group above the general suburban white noise (I’m presuming no other musical groups have claimed ‘Straight Bait’ as a song title), but failed to locate any audio clues to where Mark lived.
After fifteen minutes more of random wandering, I accidentally ended up out the front of Mark’s block of flats. Mid-knock, the front door was flung open and before me was a rather excited Mark.
‘Woohoo, you’re here!’ he cried, a little too dramatically for my likings. ‘Come inside, we’ll go down to the pub in a sec,’ he said, offering me a glass of water.
‘Thanks,’ I replied as I accepted the beverage. ‘Where’s your boyfriend?’ I wondered out loud, as Mark headed down the hall. No reply was received.
I looked around. Mark had a pretty neat collection of CD’s, and even had some hard-to-find industrial stuff that I owned, like Ultraspank and early Pitchshifter.
A few minutes passed, and still I heard no sound from Mark’s room. I began to calculate how long it usually took me to change my clothes, and concluded that Mark had well exceeded the allowable clothes-change time.
Still, I reasoned, we’re dealing with a gay person. My mate Rick the Pimp is known to take well over 45 minutes with some simple bathroom procedures, and I seriously believe it’s the gay factor kicking in.
After taking this into consideration, I waited five more minutes, but still Mark wasn’t ready. I began wondering if it would be acceptable to walk to his room to check on him.
Perhaps I’d misheard him? Was there something I hadn’t picked up? I began wondering if I should call out to him, and ran through my head how this would sound. I couldn’t imagine it coming across as anything but rude.
I sipped at my water and thought long and hard. What if I went to his room and he was in a state of undress? That’s hardly the way to start a friendship. I decided to wait for Mark, and slowly continued to drink the glass of water.
Just as I’d decided not to approach Mark’s room, he finally emerged from it.
Wearing only a leather harness and a smirk on his face.
My immediate reaction was to choke on my water and make an unusually loud choking sound. Not only was this completely unexpected, it was also a little revolting – those leather harnesses are one of the biggest turn-offs I can think of.
Mark leaned against the wall, arms folded. He had a good body, but this was no way to go about things. For one, he had a boyfriend; and secondly he’d given me the complete wrong idea about what was happening.
I noted with grim amusement that he wasn’t even erect, then scolded myself for even thinking in such a fashion.
Mark shifted his balance from against the wall and began walking towards me. I began to fear what he was going to try on me. Was he into S&M? I sure wasn’t up for that. I’m nobody’s bitch! This was supposed to be a beer outing!
Managing to recover from my choking just before the scarily-clad musclehead in front of me began a steady approach towards where I was sitting, I thought it would be wise to speak or suffer an unspeakable consequence.
‘Mark, uh… this isn’t my thing,’ I stuttered. ‘I thought we were, uh, going to the pub.’
Mark raised an eyebrow, smirked again, and continued his walk towards me. Quickly, I leaped out of my seat and approached his front door, praying under my breath it wasn’t deadlocked. God was with me on this one.
I flung upon the front door and accidentally exposed Mark to an old lady walking her dog on the footpath, who made a little ‘ooh’ sound that was equal disgust and fascination.
‘Sorry, Mark,’ I said, a little more confident now, although I was thinking that perhaps he should be the one apologising to me. He simply shrugged and turned away, walking back to his room. I closed the door and quickly began making my way back to the bus stop.
Which was when it hit me: perhaps he HAD wanted to go to the pub.