Track 13: Blue Boy by Orange Juice

The Gloucester is an island.

The boy must have been eighteen, nineteen at most, face sharp, jawbone like a scythe. Barry sets a pint down on the table.

“I’ve bought you a drink. You new here?”

The boy nods, shrugging deeper into his coat, lights and music bouncing around the near-empty weeknight pub. “Coupla weeks.”

He looks terrified, Barry thinks, remembering arriving in London himself; the older men grouping around him, some friendly, some not.

He pushes the thought aside.

“You’ll soon get to know everyone. You see him over there? Had more cocks than the Oxford boat race.”

The boy laughs. Barry thinks of his sister’s kids, smiling bravely after grazed knees. When the boy walks, head down, sagging jeans, thick sweatshirt, Barry remembers the cruel queens laughing at him before he learned to dress.

In the toilet, the boy pisses, heart racing.

“I’m just here for a wee,” Barry says, joining him at the urinals.

When Barry gives him a bar work application form, the boy hugs him tight. Kissing his cheek, Barry wills him to turn his head.

Looking over Barry’s shoulder at himself in the mirror, the boy smiles.

Stupid bald old queen, he thinks, elated.