One of my best friends from school, Andrew, has tried to contact me for the second time.
The first time was initiated by me, a couple of years back, as Andrew is now the president of the old boy’s association and I wanted to know what happened to my school boyfriend, Alex, who died unexpectedly some years back. (I have written about him before) But, I’d never known what happened to Alex and I’d always wondered.
So, Andrew’s email address was on one of the old boy’s newsletters, so I sent him an email asking him what happened to Alex.
Well, Andrew said he was so pleased I’d emailed, and that he’d always felt sorry about the two of us not keeping in contact and that he wanted to speak to me, and he wasn’t going to tell me what happened to Alex unless I called him and spoke to him in person.
I have to say that there was a part of me that was touched by that sentiment. But, there was another part of me too that thought if you’d always felt sorry about not keeping in contact why didn’t you do something about it. But, you know, whatever, that is what happens for whatever reason. It still made me smile.
But… it had been so many years; did I really want to catch up all those years? What were we going to do all these years later, have a dinner party, catch up our whole lives over an evening? Play couples?
Really?
He’s an accountant, I’m an accountant, seriously, it makes me cringe. I know he isn’t responsible for my (beige) life choices, but it has never been something to which I have ever wanted to admit. I did things when I was young because I didn’t know shit. Oh, fucken universe, how I wish I’d made other choices. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I was ashamed, but I ran away from it for years, being a barman, living in London, then running cinemas, then working Mark’s family business, which turned out to be a bigger mistake. Do you know what the politics is in a family run business, and how powerless your truly are when you are only “the inlaw.” Then I studied creative writing at uni at night, which is when it became crystal clear how I’d fucked up my life, and what I should have been studying when I first left school. That, and learning the piano, that’s what I should have done with my life, and ever since I have lived under a somewhat murky veil of regret. It wasn’t until just before I started this blog that I came back to acc, ou… choke… account, choke… antcy, choke… for the first time, how many years after uni? Well, Mark and I split up and I had to get a mortgage and buy his half of the house… and I thought I’d work and I’d write… but somehow life just gets in the way and suddenly you are just working and pissing the rest of your life away.
Anyway…
Andrew and I had gone the good part of our lives never seeking each other out. Doesn’t they say something in itself?
So, I decided no. It was too late for all of that. I had my life, he had his, for whatever reasons we had decided the course of our friendship years ago. So, I didn’t call.
He sent me a couple more emails. I answered saying how remiss I was about not calling, promising that I would, but I didn’t.
Eventually, Andrew said that since I hadn’t called he’d tell me what happened to Alex, and he told me that Alex had a heart attack and dropped dead on the eighteenth hole of a charity golf match that was raising money for heart disease. Everybody was shocked as Alex was still only 30 years old.
That was a couple of years ago, Andrew and my last communication.
He sent me another email this morning. How was I? Was I coping through this covid19 pandemic?
I wrote him back a very funny email about snorting Hydroxychloroquine of hooker’s stomachs at Mar-A-Largo. Actually, I changed hooker’s stomachs to gogo boys, (slight hint) and wrote I’d been doing dexamethasone down Bethesda way, confirming hooker’s piss really does turn one’s skin orange, blah, blah, blah,
And…?
As much as I’d wished we’d stayed mates all our lives, we didn’t.
I dumped all my school mates after I left school because I wasn’t like all the other boys, if the truth be known. One of the (self-imposed, maybe) discriminations of growing up gay. You lose your mates… I lost my mates.
Alex went on to have three sons which he sent to our alma mater and he became a popular member of the old boy’s association turning up to all the functions and events.
I have a pretty good idea why he dropped dead of heart disease at 30 years of age, that kind of denial will probably do that to you. He sort me out in year 11, his gaydar was keen, as I wasn’t a particularly gay boy. He and I did everything to each other over the following 2 years of school. He was as gay as me. He and I had sex multiple times per week at school and at each other’s houses.
So, you know, there is a part of me that wants to tell Andrew that I am gay, and there is the other part of me that in equal parts doesn’t really want to go through another coming out event. There is part of me who wants to enlighten him, and see the look on his face, as well as here (I kind of like this spelling mistake, so I left it, here, it is like placing it) his reaction, and there is another part of me who seriously doesn’t want to go through that again. Part of me is exhilarated, another part is bored with it already.
However, rightly, or wrongly, all of me wants to out Alex. I’m not exactly sure of the reasons for this, but I know I want to. I wonder if it is the fact that I have never been able to tell anyone about he and I. I never have told anyone.
What about his sons, I hear you say? Yeah, sure, maybe that wouldn’t be kind when Alex isn’t here to defend himself? But, they are grown up now, they are not children. You know, apart from the tickets it sounds like I have on myself, like anything I might say would have that much of a life to get back to them. I’d sure like to see them though, 3 twenty something Alex’s, what’s not to like.
Andrew replied saying I still made him laugh exactly the same way I used to back in school. He told me a bit about himself. His kids, three early twenties have moved back home due to the Covid19 virus.
He asked a question, which I could answer in a reply email, but I’m not going to.
Shrug.
I’m not saying this doesn’t make some part of me feel sad. As I write this, the day outside is wild and windy and dim and there is no sunshine, the day is sad with me.
It’s all gone so fast. When they say you only get one chance at life, they are seriously not wrong.
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