We All Fall Down
Part Four
Hi there,
This is the fourth part of my novella We All Fall Down.
To read part three:
His eyes well with immediacy. Jack tilts his head forward, places it against Tristan’s shoulder. Tristan lifts his arms and embraces him, peaceful, calm. Setting himself upwards once more, Jack wipes the tear tracks from his face.
”He was my first boyfriend.”
Tristan, a look of surprise.
“How long were you together?” Tristan asked, inquisitively.
“9 months… I know, I know, not long at all. But he was my first, ya know””
The tears start up again and he takes his place back against Tristan’s shoulder, this time tighter to Tristan’s chest. Jack’s shoulders shudder up and down and he sobs, loudly.
“Hey” starts Tristan “Hey, it’s okay, sweetie”. Rubbing Jack’s back, Tristan takes a drag of his cigarette over shoulder.
“He was just…” a blubbering cough, shifting phlegm and teardrops from his throat, Jack continues “He was my first love. 26 was too old to fall in love, I think”
“There’s no right age to do it.”
“The first person to actually get me”
The two stand in the alleyway, embraced. Jack wipes the wet from his nose with the palm of his hand, gestures for a lighter and relights his cigarette, taking a large inhale. ”And after what happened when I came out? Him cheating really was the cherry on the icing on the cake”
“I’m surprised”
Jack looks at Tristan through billowing smoke.
“You speak as if your coming out was bad” Tristan continued.
Jack laughs, “Oh, it was. I’ve yet to meet someone who had the easiest, or the plainest. They’re typically all pretty bad, no?”
“That’s a shame. I was hoping that your lot would have an easier time of it. And the lot after you even easier”
A beat.
“We’re really not that much further along than we were, Tristan. But I think you’d have a better picture if you left your house once in a while, you know?”
Tristan looks at Jack, who immediately drops his head. ”Sorry. I’m naturally a bitch.”
“I can see” Tristan says, dramatically rolling his eyes to give up that he’s joking. “But you’re right, I think I just assume these things out of hope more than anything.”
“My father actually took it the best. He’s really nice to me, nicer than he was at least. He makes jokes about to his friends all the time - I’m the daughter he never had - all that nonsense.”
Jack takes a drag. The alley is silent, he feels he can keep talking.
“But if that’s the worst of it, I really, really don’t mind…” another drag of the cigarette. “I lost some friends though, but fuck ‘em, that’s there problem, not mine.”
A final drag before he drops the cigarette to the floor, immediately extinguishing it in a puddle.
“What about you, Tristan? What about your coming out?”
Tristan takes a drag, then a deep breath. He let’s the smoke sit inside him for a contemplative moment.
Exhaling, he started “My coming out was devastating.”
Tristan takes a seat on the front door step, Jack instinctively follows suit.
“My wife said she wouldn’t be back until the weekend, so a safe Tuesday. I met up with a friend from work, Mac. He was a soft man, with a soft voice and long wavy hair. He was something to look at, let’s say. We went to a pub, had a couple of pints, listening to the football lads and the commentators and the coke-boys and the half-pinters. And with each pint sunk, the closer our legs came, til his hand was on my knee under the table, til it was against my thigh, til I could bear nothing else but to speak, perhaps louder than I should’ve to save face from the questioning drunkards whose team had just lost that I wanted him to come home with me. We went back to mine and it was a whirlwind from there. And to gloss over some of the more spectacular details, my wife walked in on us, naked and inside each other. She didn’t make a sound, she stopped and stared for a moment, then she walked away. As I was panting to put my clothes back on, I heard the kettle switch on. I listened to the little symphony that happens when someone makes tea. The clinks of tea spoons against sugar bowls, the glugging pour of the water. The lid off a milk carton. That first, satisfying sip. Mac went out the side entrance, I thought that was for the best. And, I’m not sure where the confidence came from, but I walked into the front room and sat next to her and asked her how her day was. How the week had been away from home. Asked her why she was back early. She wanted to surprise me, that was why she was back. After I finished asking her questions she simply looked me up and down and said: ‘Tristan. I forgave you the first time. I cannot forgive you again. You are a faggot and I want a divorce’.”
Tristan’s eyes began to well. ”And it was the first time I realised it to be true. I had been with men before, but always in secret, always as a lie, something to hide. But for someone else to acknowledge me, that’s when it became real. She was right, and no matter how cruel and vicious she meant that word, I thank her for it, because it made it real.”
Tristan drops his head to his hands, exhaling. Was he about to cry, Jack wasn’t sure but thought it best to act as if he was, so he placed his hands on Tristan’s back and gently rubbed.
“You mentioned” Jack started “that you had kids? Where were they at the time?”
“She was 4 months pregnant at the time”
Jack stopped rubbing, leaving his hands planted flat against Tristan’s back. Realisation spreading across his face.
“So, yeah.” Tristan went on. “My coming out was pretty bleak. I honestly never meant to hurt anyone, but I also didn’t know how to balance being myself and who I actually was. Especially with when I was growing up.”
Jack takes his hands from Tristan’s back.
“How did your family take it?” Jack asked
“I wouldn’t know. My mother died shortly after we arrived in England and my Father is living somewhere up north, I think. Haven’t spoken to him in about 7 years.”
“Does he know he’s a grandfather?”
“I haven’t told him”
“This is a lot.”
“A lot of pain to give, is what it is.”
“Did you get together with Mac?”
“No. I never got together with anyone. After what happened, and after Lily was born, I pretty much shut up shop. I hated myself, well, I hate myself so much for what I did and even though I’m ‘Free’, I keep myself pretty much isolated.”
“Well, other than a Thursday night fuck, clearly”
“Sometimes. But that’s only recently something I’ve become accustomed to. My flat is my kingdom. My little tower of loneliness.”
“How long ago did it happen?”
“13 Years Ago”
“And you still hold that guilt?”
“Every single day.” Tristan takes out his pack of cigarettes, places two between his lips and lights them. He gently glides one to Jack’s lips, who gratefully accepts.
“But enough about me” Tristan said “I’d like to hear more about your coming out story”
“Well, mine is my own private agony. My mum couldn’t look me in the eye. That killed me. I moved to London to be around people, the right people, if you like, but it’s all starting to make me feel sick, I think. I’ve always been a little sickly, though. I got suck when I was younger. I had something going for my lungs, I can’t remember what it’s called, but apparently I was hardwired to all these breathing machines. But it obviously didn’t kill me, because here I am bitches! I think my family think that sickness lives on in me, that it just looks a little differently nowadays.”
Jack takes a toke, watches the smoke dribble into the dawn that’s breaking.
“Those first few weeks, living with them all, and how they could hardly stand to eat around me? I could’ve ended it just there and then. My younger brother, though, he really didn’t give a shit. He treated me just the same as ever. If anything, and I’m sure he was glad for it, I’d given him a new arsenal of jokes he could use against me. He was the only one I didn’t mind doing it. Like, with every jab he said jokingly, it made me just that little bit more okay. ‘Bit Zesty’ he’d describe the way I stood, normally with my hand on my hip”
“Do you see him much?” ”Not enough”
Tristan offers a smile.
“I’m lonely, I’m sad, I’m cold all of the time. I’ve lost the last thing keeping me together. I fuck just to feel something, truth be told. Honestly, I think I’m one bad day away from throwing myself in front of a train.”
Tristan laughs as he lifts his head to the sky. He drops it immediately to see that Jack wasn’t joking.
“Jack, don’t talk so crassly! It get’s better, it does. I know that exact pain. Though it was me that caused the damage. I know exactly that you’re speaking of”
“You don’t. You’re the one that pulled something apart needlessly, you’re the one that forced a woman to be a single mother because you didn’t know how to stop the train. I know exactly how your wife feels, you don’t know I feel.” Tristan, clearly uncomfortable, says not a word. He’s intently focusing, listening to every word.
”When my ex cheated on me” Jack went on “I thought I had actually died. That my world was over. It hurt me, physically. He was the first one to love me for me and he tore that all away and I don’t know why” Jack’s voice rising to a crescendo. ”Like, as a gay person, he was the first person to love me. That first love of peace and tranquility and everything is upended and I don’t know what to do.”
“Please know that he regrets it all” offered Tristan.
“I know for a fact that he doesn’t”
“Is he your inspiration for the hedonism?”
“Oh, absolutely. Like I say, fuck to feel something.”
Tristan offers Jack a smile, but he’s too caught up in his mind to realise it’s meant for him.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you enjoyed it, or want to know what happens next, hit subscribe.
Until next time,
RC Stacey