To Make Love With Your Eyes Closed Read online

  “I must look into a radiator for this igloo…” I complain to myself, adding it to the list of things to do someday right next to my alarm tune and the leaking kitchen tap. I start work in two hours but I need coffee right now. I throw down a couple of slices of toast, wholemeal, of course, so that in some way I feel like I treat my body right, ignoring the alcohol and cigarettes. I flick on the television. My television is small and cuts out if you turn up the volume too high, odd I know, but one day when I figure out what I want to do with my life and get a proper job I’ll end up with a nice big flatscreen where I can kick back and watch F.r.i.e.n.d.s re-runs to my hearts content. After breakfast I make my way down to the bus for my usual run-of-the-mill shuttle to O’Byrne’s.

  I’m the first bartender in this morning. Toni greets me with a ‘ good morning’ without batting an eyelid. She continues through the bar staring intensively into her documents. Must be important. I could never be a manager. Sure the pay would be better and the power would be fantastic, but theres just so much responsibility and I am surviving quite alright as it is.

  I set up the bar with everything I’ll need. Toni likes me to come in at nine so that I have a full hour to set up. Realistically I only need half an hour but I’m not in a position to question her. Part of me believes she thinks I’m just completely incapable of doing my job properly and so gives me extra time to set up. That could be ridiculously untrue but she doesn’t exactly give me gold stars on a daily basis for being her favourite employee of the month. That role usually goes to Tripp. Sure he can be distracted a lot but he gets the job done without even making it look like he tries.

  At ten on the dot the bar opens and immediately three men walk in.

  I can never understand to this day why middle aged men want to drink Guinness before midday, on top of that, I can never understand who in their right mind would pay seven euros to do exactly that. I flaunt them a warm smile and pour them the drink that they request either way.

  The first two men I have never met before but the third I come around to serving is Byron. Byron has been coming into this bar for as long as I can remember. He’s quite an older chap, as are most of my customers. His hair is white and thin and you can see the ginger freckles on his balding head where a lot of his hair used to be. He is always smiling. Byron walks really slow and with a bit of a hunch. Everyone is nice to Byron because they feel sort of sympathetic towards him, that’s what I think anyway. Without going out my way Byron and I have become quite good friends over the years. We have shared a lot of our stories and bonded in our pains and triumphs.

  “Byron!” I call out with a smile. It always makes my day seeing him.

  “Hello, Gerry,” he says slowly in a faint whisper, “how are you?”

  “I’m good thanks, and yourself?”

  “Yeah, good.”

  “Did you manage to get some sleep last night?”

  “Sleep?” he says with almost a look of confusion on his face. “Oh, yes, sleep, I slept for a bit, it was good. I’m not so tired today.”

  “You look a lot better than when I saw you the other day anyway.”

  “Yeah, yesterday, was, not so good.”

  “Why’s that?” I ask. I really do care when I ask him.

  “Just tension,”

  “I’m sorry, but know that you’re going to get better okay,”

  “Thanks Gerry.” His face lights up with a smile. I make him up his usual. A pint of Guinness. He can’t usually get through a full thing. “You have a good day,” he tells me with a stutter.

  “You too!” I call out with glee.

  I can tell that just by smiling and asking Byron about his day that I make everything a lot better for him. I like that feeling of helping people. I wonder if that’s part of what I’m supposed to do one day.

  Toni comes up to me when the bar starts to quieten down.

  “So you have you heard the exciting news?”

  I take a look at her trying to register what she could be referring to.

  “Maybe?”

  “I know this may come as a bit of a shock to you but after tomorrow I’m going to be leaving for a little while.”

  “Oh really?” I say acting surprised.

  “Yes, I’m going on maternity leave.” She says that happily and with a smile.

  “That’s really great! I’m so happy for you, that’s so exciting.”

  “Thank you, it really is.”

  “How far along are you if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “I’m about two months in now.”

  I give her a confused look, I can’t understand why she’s going on maternity leave already.

  “I know,” she says shaking her head, “it’s maybe a little soon to be leaving to have a baby but I’m ready to focus on something new.”

  “But you’ll be back right?” Something in her explanation didn’t add up to me.

  “No actually, my leave is going to be permanent.”

  “What! Wow, that’s really sad.”

  “Thank you Gerry,” she says. “I will miss you lot, and this place.”

  “We’ll miss you too.”

  I think of that stupid fluffy card that we need to buy and sign for her, and maybe a stupid bouquet of flowers. This is a little bit of a shock. I have a feeling really deep down that our whole infrastructure here at work is about to change.

  Sometimes I feel like I’m a little bit of a chameleon. I can always be softened up and persuaded to like someone I am totally against. In the midst of a conversation, even if someone is being fake towards me, I can start to change my colours to suit them if they butter me up the right way. I begin to almost feel bad that she’s leaving, but after a few hours I go back to my normal stance on her. After the shift I find it a lot easier than I expected to say goodbye to her. Almost like a weight is coming off of my shoulders. I feel like a bit of a dick in saying that but it’s the truth. I cross my fingers, I expect that our next manager is going to be a troll, but I hope that he or she isn’t.

  The next day my expectations are wiped away. Our new boss is not what I expect at all. I expected someone who was older and looked a lot tougher. Someone with anger and flare who could come in here and dominate the bar. Instead I am greeted by a twenty something year old skinny… boy -for lack of a better word.

  “Hi,” he says prancing over towards me and shaking my hand with glee, “I’m Aaron.”

  I shake his hand confidently and introduce myself.

  “Gerry Davis,” I say almost flinching.

  This is probably the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard but I am a gay man who has a distaste for other gay men. I’m homophobic, but I’m a homosexual. I flinch at the sight of drag and cannot stand the sound of Madonna’s awful, recycled music. But it’s also weird, because I can be at a party with 28 other young guys just like me and not like any of them. I hate the way that people stereotype me as a gay men yet at the same time, I can see why they do. I have a weird ambivalence going on inside. Make’s it hard for me to feel like I fit in anywhere.

  I know a lot of people are going to shoot me for saying this out loud but I know that I don’t have a problem with people for being different. Honestly, I believe that every single human being on this planet has the right to live and to love however the hell they want as long as they don’t impose in anyone else's lives. That’s a belief I hold dearly. But there’s a difference between tolerating difference and committing to something you’re ‘supposed to be’. Just because I am gay, doesn’t mean I have to be ‘gay’, if that makes sense.

  I’m scared Aaron will talk to me a lot about stereotypical gay things. It will make me feel uncomfortable. It shouldn’t, I know, but it will. I’m weird, whatever.

  On the bright side I am ridiculously relieved that our new store manager is going to be a soft heart and not a total monster.

  Aaron returns to the back of the bar. I follow him. He stares at the whiteboard, trying to work out what all of the paragraphs of informat
ion are about. I feel a little embarrassed looking at the love hearts and stick drawings on the corners of the board. They are king of unprofessional. I hope he sees the lighter side in our humour.

  “So, you’ve just come from another management position?” I ask, to stumble into conversation.

  “Yes, from the other side of town, myself and Thomas actually.”

  “Thomas?”

  “Yes, I kinda studied the dynamics of this workplace before I came over.”

  I raise my eyebrow. That was the first suggestion of intimidation induced by our new manager. Maybe he was going to be trouble in paradise.

  “I was going to give things a go around here before I muddled with the rosters but then I just thought, nah, fuck it.”

  “Is Thomas going to be another manager?”

  “No, not a manager, he’s just going to come in for the morning shifts to help out the AM bartender on the bar.”

  “I’m usually on the bar and I’ve never really felt like we have a problem.”

  Aaron shrugged.

  “We’ll just see how we go, if it’s too much I can fiddle with the rosters a little bit more, but we are going into peak season, so it will be good to be prepared.”

  I smile. “Yeah.”

  “Come, show me around the pub.” He waves me over, immediately expressing his authority. “Show me what you would be doing around this time.”

  I guide him around the bar, basically just pointing out all of the obvious things I’m sure he’s aware of. I do it with exaggerated enthusiasm just in case he’s testing me for the way I talk to customers or something. I can’t help but notice the stack of paperwork behind the open office door.

  After a quick spin around the shop he returns to his office. The door shuts and I don’t see him again for the rest of the day. He puts me a little on edge. I know he’s going to be my boss but I’ve been here for a really long time and I’d rather not feel intimidated by someone who’s only been on the clock for a few hours.

  It may seem odd to you that I haven’t introduced you into the story yet, but I want to show you just how normal me and my life were in the days before I met you.

  Life is so unpredictable. I didn’t get a sign post invitation to prepare for the day that would rock my life forever. If I had, today would have been the perfect day to receive that letter in the mail warning me of an earthquake in my life, or the perfect day to see Jesus in my toast, predicting an incoming emotional disaster. But today felt just like any other. The closest thing I had to a warning about you crashing into my life was the sound of your name - Thomas. The simplest, and perhaps most common name in history, but the way you changed my life was definitely something that felt far from common.

  One day here I am, minding my own business, whistling and content, and the next, I’m drowning, wondering how it was that I could ever have lived without you.

  4

  “So the referendum is right around the corner huh?” Says Aaron to me, knocking me right out of my wandering daydream.

  I’ve been wiping this same patch on the front counter for three maybe even four minutes straight. It’s taken the sound of his voice to wake me up.

  “The referendum?” I whisper to myself. Slowly coming to and trying to realise what he’s on about.

  “How do you think the vote will turn?”

  “I don’t feel so confident about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t feel like Ireland is ready for a change, like, in the name of marriage yet, it’s still too soon, with our religious foundation, and stuff.”

  “You think it’s too soon?”

  “No, well, yes, but not for me. Of course I’m going to vote yes, it’s my dream to be married one day. Whether it’s legal in this country or not I am going to have a wedding. I just don’t feel like the country is ready to make that size of a drastic change to their makeup, if you understand?”

  Aaron smiles at me, I can tell that he doesn’t really think that I’m very intelligent.

  “You’re not from here are you?”

  And that line right there sums it up perfectly.

  “Well, no, I’m originally from London, but I do consider myself Irish and I do care about the future of this country.”

  “London? Whereabouts?”

  “Camden”

  “Oh yeah, I knew I detected a bit of an accent. You’ll like Thomas then, he’s from the south of London.”

  “Oh cool, is Thomas your…” I honestly don’t even know why I started to ask that question.

  It only just clicks with me that Aaron has assumed that I’m gay. He brought up the whole referendum argument. That wouldn’t be a generic conversation starter with your average straight man. I’m a little irritated. I don’t know why. A lot of my pride lies in being a mystery to people as to where my true sexuality clicks into place. I also kind of hope that Aaron hasn’t locked his aim on me too. He is not my type at all. There’s a difference between flirting and being friendly though. Just because he’s being nice doesn’t mean he’s-

  Aaron laughs. “This is my boyfriend here,” Aaron whips out his iPhone and clicks it onto the lock screen. The wallpaper is a tall blonde man with a trimmed beard with his arms around Aaron. I’m a little jealous because the other man is pretty hot, and also a little embarrassed because I jumped straight to the idea of him making a move on me.

  I don’t feel like I have a huge ego. I don’t think I’m God’s gift to Earth, hell most days I know exactly why I’ve been single for the last six months. I have a face rounder than a soccer ball, I’m short and have that weird body composition where I am chubby but skinny at the same time. Despite all of this though I am good at assuming that everyone loves me.

  “Cute,” I say softly, “what’s his name?”

  “Jake.”

  “And how long have you two been together?”

  “Officially, about six months, but I am pretty confident that this is it for both of us.”

  I really hate people saying that about their relationships, most likely because I say that about a lot of my relationships and they never last, so I’m kind of at the stage where I expect them all to fail sooner or later.

  I force myself to ask why he is so confident that they are meant to be.

  “Well, we both kind of always knew, but for the first two years of us knowing each other we were both dating other people. But, as the story goes we were meant to be and we ended up together.”

  I don’t really want to know any more details to the story in case there’s home wrecking and other drama’s involved so I just smile to myself, secretly a little jealous that I still have never felt an honest desire to want to spend all of my time with one man.

  “What’s Thomas like? Is he…?”

  “Oh no, no… unfortunately haha!”

  “Unfortunately?”

  “Thomas is incredible, he is so sexy!”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, just wait, you’ll see.” Aaron slips his phone away and starts to look around the inside of the pub decisively. “Can you do me a favour, can you please wipe down the front door window and then check the bathroom toilets, I think the men’s is out of toilet paper, and then when you’re done come to the office I think there’s a bit of paperwork from last week I just need you to sign.”

  “Sure,” I say, ignoring the swift change in conversation.

  After racing around, completing my work chores I notice the hands on the clock click into the place I’ve been begging them to be all afternoon. I chap on the office door and salute a goodbye to Aaron. As I skip over to the clock in-clock out machine the door opens slowly and a wild draft spins through the café, and in you come.

  You are not my type all. You’re short, almost as short as I am. You’re rugged looking, with an unkept beard. Your hair is a dark taint of ginger and your beard is all curly looking like it needs a good trim. You have a dorky look on your face which really does not act in favour of whatever mild intelligence
you may contain. You’re eyes are a gorgeous baby blue colour which gives them the impression of being much larger than they truly are. You are very skinny. A trait that I am jealous of yet despise in potential partners. Not the bad type of skinny though, the sort of skinny that is toned, like the body of a swimmer or a football player. The way your eyebrows crease give you a look of permanent disinterest in life.

  You open your mouth to greet me hello and your southern accent makes me want to leave the room. But underneath all of that I can sense a true gentleness, a feeling which makes me smile from somewhere deep inside of me.

  I introduce myself with confidence. You’re not ugly but you’re definitely not my idea of sexy at all. You have a strange look in your eye, in the way you stare, like you’re trying to cast some kind of odd spell on me. I can tell what you’re trying to do, but it isn’t going to work on me. The stare you have has a Tom Hardy vibe to it, which is ironic considering that that’s your first name too.

  “Hey how are you? Thomas,” you say, “Thomas Russell, but you can call me Tommy.” Extending a hand to shake.

  “Gerry.” I say with a smile and solid handshake.

  “Nice to meet you,” you say even though you know nothing about who I am. How can you know it’s nice to meet me when you have no idea who I am?

  “I’m really excited to start out.” You stare around the perimeter of the room as if you have stepped into some kind of alien new world.

  “Where are you from?”

  You laugh and brush your tiny hands through your bushy hair. It looks really dry and could probably do with a little product of some sort.

  “I’ve actually moved here, very recently, from London.”

  “London?”

  “Yeah, me girlfriend is from Dublin, we’ve moved back here to be closer with her family.”

  Something inside of me clicks in a really awkward way. Like two mechanical belts that have slipped apart.

  “Oh wow. How are you finding Ireland?”

  You laugh. It’s annoying. Like, really irritating. A little voice inside of my head says, “Jesus Christ, really?” I ask myself how someone can have such an irritating laugh.