Gays and Glees

The above title is actually a novel I started writing years back, when I was still a naive young woman with big, ambitious, sometimes ridiculous dreams. I still am the latter actually.


So, I re-read it again today. Heck, let's just cut and paste one of the pages. I have about 30 pages done, but most of it, when re-read, sounded really corny, silly and shallow. I don't know.



Anyway, here's page 12, bleah..


"-----Gays and Glees-- page 12


Then, I had nowhere to go. I thought of Jack. I hadn’t seen him for two years. I wondered how he was doing, if he was still single, if he would still think about me sometimes.

Then I thought of my crazy affair with Abdul, and felt great shame though I didn’t quite understand why.
I silently wished Jack wanted me back. I took out my photo albums and spent awfully long hours looking and staring at the yellowing, dog eared photoes, then crying and wailing over them. We were so great together, his parents loved me. I hated his brother but that didn’t seem too relevant.

I wondered what went wrong. Then I remembered. I ditched him. I ditched him for freedom, time and opportunities. I ditched him for a whale of time with Abdul.
I deserve to be punished. And the it struck me, I ditched him for a mirage.
A freaking mirage!
I couldn’t find his number in my phone book or hand phone. What have I done? Eradicating him off my life completely? Was I dumb or what?
I pushed Jack Wang out of my life, now I want him back and Holy Goddesses, I want him back bad. We all know that affairs of the heart is inexplicable. We shall let wind take us to flight and lead us. But when there was not much wind, like then, I had to find ways of taking off on my own.

I started packing skimpy tops, bikinis, hot pants and my tanning lotion spray.
I took out five hundred quids and boarded the indirect train to London.
The train ride seemed to be testing my patience, not only was it taking so unbearably long, stopping at numerus stations no one has eves heard of, but it was so congested to the brim too.
I couldn’t prop my tired long, nicely waxed legs onto the seats opposite me. And the people next to me were this achingly kind old lady who kept going on and on about the vegetable plantation she left behind for a week, and this thirty-something year old fat ass whose butt was taking half my seat and whose snore was drowning the old lady’s sincere stories.

All I wanted was some peace, sometime on my own, to think, to wonder, to ponder, to want, to want the right things. I thought of home then, I should be heading towards Hull, and not Southward to London. My forgotten family, my always-there family. My loving mother, my loving father. The mother I have let down and the father I have wronged. The brothers I have almost forgotten. New members I wouldn't have a clue about. I was a disgrace to my family. I haven’t been home for god knows how long and I haven’t done them proud at all. I dated my childhood love and left him for a fit bloke, I dated the fit bloke then drove him to homosexuality. Sorry, I still couldn’t over that freaking bizarre fact.
I took out my cell phone and dialed home. It took me six tries in fifteen minutes to finally reach the right number.

My mom picked up and she sounded somehow so familiar I almost cried there and then.

“Casey, you’re still alive!” Expected.

“Yes Ma. How’re things back home”

“You know things back home is always good, only you are not. You are never here. You don’t know the damnedest thing”.

“I am coming home soon, Ma. Will call you again soon, ok?”

“Your next 'soon' will be when I board the old folk’s home dear. Let me call you. What’s your number again?”

“ No, I promise I will call soon. Like in a week. You will still be at home.”

“If your one week is my one week, then yes! Tell you what, don’t bother calling, just get home.” She paused then continued, “Okay you may call me to ask for the address I suppose”.

I chuckled lightly, shamelessly.

“Yeah, I will do that mom. Love you”

“Sure. Bye bye now” then she hang up.

I couldn’t believe she hung up on me. I looked outside the train windows. The sky was gloomy, showing signs of rain. I started crying. I cried helplessly and chokingly.
I made the fat ass wake up and the old lady stop telling her story. I cried until I reached Paddington station a zillion hours later.

London had a different air. So different. I felt alienated. It has been at least a year since I was last here and it already looked like a place I have never been to before.
I walked around the block and boarded a Bed &Breakfast lodging lamely called “The House of Roses”. After arguing with the receptionist for half an hour, he agreed on 20 quids per night with no breakfast.

“Just Bed?” The Pakistani man snorted.

“Yes, no breakfast”

“This is Bed and breakfast, my love”.

“Don’t call me your love and I don’t want no breakfast!”

“ We give breakfast free”

“No, you don’t, it costs about a fiver and you’re gonna give me a 5 pounds worth of discount coz I don’t eat breakfast for the love of god”, Casey was well animated, complete with the five fingers display mid-air, to ensue he knows its 5 freaking quids.

“You don’t talk god to me. You don’t know god. Look at ya!”

“Just give me the room for 20 quids, will you?”

He looked at me with disagreement but he relented in the end. I strode up the dinghy staircases and fumbled with the bulky room key. It said 325.

I had no idea where to start. Where could Jack be? If he is still at King’s College then there would be the hay where I would find my needle. Else, there’s no hay. And I would have to head to Hull and call my mom. After resting for awhile on the hard, musty-smelling bed, I took the underground to King’s College and loitered around the institution for a bit. No signs of Jack Wang at all. To my dismay, everyone seemed to be English or Eurasians or Indians.
I sat down at their terraces and had a fag break. I have never felt so lonely in my entire life. Surrounded by so many people and I felt like the only person alive in the whole God forsaken universe. I took a deep puff and stood up. I looked around the premises one last time and left for Leicester square.
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The Chinatown had not changed. Always crowded, always commercialized always full of people, this time most of them Chinks. I went inside the amusement centre “play2Win” and thought how wrongly named the place was. Sitting on one of the high stools, bending over a jackpot machine as if looking for secret codes on the glass screen was Jack Wang, unmistakably Jack Wang was hitting the tiger machines. His hair looked disheveled, as if uncut and uncombed for months. He was wearing a familiar looking sweatshirt and a very loose baggy cargo pants. So loose, I could see his cheap “Made in China” looking boxers as he bent over.
I was thinking of a first sentence. What do you say to someone you used to love and haven’t spoken to for a long time?
I stood next to him and watched him play. I didn’t realize he wasn’t alone until a girl in flashy “PRADA” top stood up and propped her arms around him.

“Jack, you’re still losing big money? When are we going for dinner? I am so hungry I can eat you up” The girl whined in Cantonese.

“Why not let the girl eat huh? She looks like she hasn’t eaten for a few good years!” I half yelled, in English.
I didn’t realize I was so full of angst. But I did tell the truth about her looking like a chopstick in famine.
Jack turned around and gave me a familiar shocked, flabbergasted face. Like the ones he gave when he found out I lied to him, or when I told him jokes he couldn’t laugh at. He was still gaping for air when I started our first conversation in two years.

“Can’t believe you become trashy like this after I left you, Jack!”, I almost resented the arrogance in my voice.

“Casey? What the fuck are you doing here man?” I thought that was sweet, just sweet. What the fuck was I doing there? I didn’t fucking know.

“I sailed seven seas to search for you Jack” That wasn’t really me saying, I was mentally slapping myself right after even thinking of vomitting those words out.

“I missed you, Jack. I wanted to see you. Is that so wrong?” I finally began.

“Well, you are a damn fat ass now Caz, what do you want me to do with you?” He looked me up and down, rudely. His eyes red and twitchy. I suspected he was not sober. “You wanna do dinner? Haven’t had dinner with you for a long time.”

“What about me?” The chopstick girl spoke up, whose existence was temporarily forgotten.

“You go home girl. Go get dinner from Hugh or something”, Jack said patiently. She snorted, turned her heels, made a few steps and maneuvered to return to the same spot.

“You are so annoying!” She screamed in Cantonese. “I should have dumped you a long long time ago! You bloody bastard! I hate you!” With the last phrase, she swung her expensive Louis Vuitton hard leather bag across Jack’s head. With that, she strode out with her head held up high.

“Oh! You go gurlll!” I smirked as she left, complete with the wriggling index finger in the air and the ghetto slang.

“Let me get at least a tenner out alright? I haven’t got a quid to buy duck rice”

Jack said, with his eyes still glued onto the money-eating machine. Looked like the hit in the head hasn’t affected him at all, a common incident I presumed.

“Why not let me pay for dinner and give you cab money to get home?” I suggested.

He looked up and smiled. He actually smiled. He stood up and started groping into his pockets.

“Five bloody one pound coins. Okay let’s go!”

We went to Mr. Aw’s 4 pounds per person buffet, cheapest bet for semi free-loaders like us. I couldn’t help but keep staring at this bloke in front of me. Who is this lad in front of me? Who is this Jack Wang?

The conversation was polite and decent initially. But then, we both got into our crappy moods and we were bitching and talking completely nonsensically.
He was telling me how he was almost expelled from King’s and how he was then struggling to get back on track, how his brother almost killed a guy during a fight and how that had almost blew him over. He talked, then I commented, then I talked, then he talked, then I snorted, then he laughed then he talked again. It was never ending. There seemed to be a million things to say, to utter, to express, to ooze out, to reveal, to admit, to deny, to counter, to comment, to add on, and to get them over and done with. I told him how I moved on, how I had Abdul and lost the bugger to a gay albino. I told him about all the mishaps, the joys and the miseries of being far from him. He reciprocated politely, vigorously attempting to formulate his answers into a structured manner, as if writing his thesis. So far, everything that’s been said was easy-listening and superficial. It seemed that we were telling each other stories that had no motive or meaning behind them. I was getting impatient and annoyed at the way the conversation was going.
Jack was in the midst of telling me about his sexual escapades and the skirt chasing and the overwhelming responses to them when I blurted out the most inappropriate phrase of the day, especially over oily wantons and fried noodle.

“I want you back Jack” There I went, out in the clear.

Jack took a big bite off his chicken wing and started to chew vigorously. He looked outside the window, into the pavements and at the Londoners rushing by.
He took another bite then started to speak, with his full mouth.

“Yew came ol’ tha way ‘ere do dell me veez?”

At least that was how it sounded. I nodded anyway.
He took another big bite then left the table for the umpteenth round of food.
He stuffed his plate with what looked like six or seven chicken wings and plopped down like he had excess baggage.

“You know you are way too fat now Caz”, he was indirectly pointing at my arms and stomach. “But, you look healthy alright, have you been eating well? Okay, that’s one stupid question.” He started to eat again. One big chunk of pork rib into his gigantic mouth. “Yew shear yew know wade ya doing mate? Coming ol tha way ‘ere end toad me that?”

We had an abrupt silence after that. I looked at my half eaten beef briskets and felt nauseous. I took out a cigarette and started to puff profusely.
I am fat. Now he thinks I am too fat. I am one fat ex girlfriend who is crazy and stupid and silly enough to travel all the way down South to ask him back. Where is my brain when I need it? I should have just gone to Hull and at least acknowledged my existence to my dear family.


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buahahahahhaa...

So how.. last time, I was an aspiring writer or not?

Maybe can at least write children's books , no?
Maybe not, My mind is quite in the gutter sometimes.





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Constructive Comments would be appreciated. But grammar corrections not really. =)


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