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John combs his hair with scrutiny. With the comb and the gel he molds his hair stylistically and quickly as he glances at the mirror. There’s something imperfect about his reflection, he notices. Under his pronounced brow, his lashes are long curls, his lips a little too red for the day. But he sighs, letting it go as he winks into the mirror, glancing at the notebook on his dresser, full of words that could describe him. He grabs it, tosses it into the cupboard. He is not a poet, he tells himself, he’s not a musician. He’s a rocker. His hair is up in curls, his jeans are tight, and yes, he plays the guitar. He is not an “artist”.
A calloused hand rubs against his jaw and closes back into a fist as he walks out of his room. His room turns into the outside, a typical grey day with grey streets and people, blurred from the fact that he left behind his glasses. Behind him, a guitar case, proudly protruded so that people would know. John Lennon is in a fucking band. The grey smoke from his cigarette joins the sky, and soon there’s a house in front of him. A grey cigarette joins the ground as it is crushed under his foot, and without his glasses, it all becomes a blur, too.
He knocks a few times on the front door, but realizes that knock was too soft, too polite. Instead he bangs on the door, making himself clear. On the other side a disgruntled kid opens up-his inverted mirror.
“Can’t you wait a fucking second, Lennon?”
There’s a moment of thought before his retaliation. He’s not waiting for the perfect comeback to come to mind, but instead eyeing his friend, scanning him up and down. They’re wearing almost identical clothing, but there’s something different in the way they wear it. He looks back at his friends’ face, lashes curled and eyebrows up and curved. Does he look at the mirror as much as he does? Does he notice the red lips and long lashes like he does?
“m’Sorry, mate, I got people to see and places to be, y’know?”
His friend shakes his head and moves aside to let John into his home, and soon find their way to his room. Their rooms are the same concept- unkempt and full of records and crumpled lines of lyrics.
“So, Paul, what’s this song you’re dying to show me?”
As he ranted, John dropped himself onto Paul’s bed, looking at the crumbling ceiling of Paul’s bedroom. He heard Paul in the distance, grabbing his guitar, and tuning its worked strings. The two eyes on the ceiling crept over and watched as Paul fumbled with knobs. There was something different in the way Paul’s hair flopped back and forth, and the way it seemed that he was moving in a dream-like slow motion. Some people call it… grace, a compliment. He wouldn’t think of it as a compliment, when he tries so adamantly to do the opposite. Yet, here was Paul, self indulging in the innate flow of his fingers and flutter of his eyes.
“You ready?”
“Sit on the bed, Paul, so I can hear ya better.”
Paul took in a breath as John watched his eyes close, and then his mouth open.
In spite of all the danger
In spite of all that may be
I'll do anything for you
Anything you want me to
If you'll be true to m e
Paul finished with pride, looking over his shoulder to wait for John’s approval as the room waited in silence.
“Sounds like that Elvis song.”
“Well that’s the idea, right? We already look the part, don’t we?”
John sat up from his resting position and crawled to take a seat next to Paul. He took out a cigarette, making a grey cloud in the middle of Paul’s room.
“But those lyrics aren’t Elivs, eh? You wrote that yerself?”
“Well… that’s part of the gig, right?”
John took another drag, before running a hand through his hair, ruining the style. He took a moment to look back at Paul’s crumbling wall.
“How can you do that?” John asked as Paul put his Guitar against the wall and watched John’s profile.
“What’re you on about, mate?”
“Just...You’re so open about the whole thing, about being an artist and all that. Don’t you think with the way you look, people don’t already talk?”
For a moment, Paul was taken aback, and remained still in the room, looking at the ceiling with John, as he was otherwise, unoccupied. John sighed and unbuttoned the top collar of his shirt and laid back into the bed.
“You know what they’re sayin’, right? Not everyone sees you as the next fuckin’ Elvis, mate. You… you do good work, you do fucking fantastic work, but, it’s all a bit…. queer, y’know?”
“Just ‘cause I write songs, I’m a poof?”
“No, you write songs, and you look like a fuckin’ bird,” John folded his hands behind his head and crossed his legs nonchalantly. He didn’t want to seem like it bothered him, like he was talking to himself. But then he heard Paul laugh and crash on the bed next to him.
“You don’t think I know that, you fuckin’ twat? I don’t care about em’, John, I just do what I like.”
“You can’t say you don’t care. You do care, we all do,” John turned his body over to Paul, and a moment later, Paul turned as well. Soon the two boys were facing each other with small smiles and laughs.
“I mean, well… I don’t care enough.”
A loose curl fell onto Paul’s face, and just as quickly, John felt the urge to brush it away. He wondered how his friend did it, maintained his femininity and yet, still putting on a “macho” act. Everyday John struggled to keep the poet in him out of the light, but Paul embraced it. John knows he can write just as well as Paul, he was a born writer and Paul was a born musician. But there’s still something keeping him, the thought that… he might reveal too much. Poetry felt so naked.
“You make a pretty bird.”
His friend’s eyebrows furrowed and his hand aimed for his chest, hitting him firmly, but playfully. Paul rose from the bed and grabbed his guitar before sitting back down onto the bed. John watched as Paul toyed for the strings for just a second, and then, as the same face looked him in the eye again..
“Why don’t you help me write, then? You’re a good writer, John. I know you think it’s wankery, but it’s not bad, y’know. It’s unique.”
John sighed as he sat up to eye level with Paul, but still looking at nothing in particular.
“I’m not unique.”
A firm hand on his shoulder surprised him and forced him to look at Paul’s direction. A new pair of eyes met him, with a new expression.
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean-I don’t want to be, y’know,” John said, feeling like he’d been saying the same thing to himself for years, “I’m not one of those queers who sit around and write poems and wear all black and pretend like they know everything. I’m not soft or deep or whatever the hell else, I’m not anything!”
“John…”
“Nevermind, I’m just bein’ daft…”
“ John ,” Paul said a little firmer, and soon John felt a hand on his own. There was something about it that felt so fundamentally wrong, breaking the boundary you weren’t supposed to break. Hands are off limits, just like intimacy. John quickly retracted his hand and held it with his other, looking back at Paul’s subtly shocked expression.
He stood there for a moment, pondering… pondering what? An unnamed feeling, but one that was on his mind, nevertheless. There wasn’t a name for it, and he didn’t know if it was a question or an answer, if it was right or wrong. He just knew it was there, and that it was suddenly intensified when he locked eyes with Paul. Soon he realized, as he began to think about the color of Paul’s eyes, and how the curves of his face complimented him, that this was a familiar feeling. As the cheap gel began to wear off of Paul’s hair, another strand fell on his face, and John felt the same urge to brush it away. He took the same empty hand that Paul just held to wipe it, taking notice at the warmth underneath his fingers on Paul’s forehead.
His friend swallowed and his face turned a darker shade, and then they both knew.
That feeling came back, but now it had the word “wrong” attached to the end of it. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Stop, stop, stop. Another feeling washed over him and propelled him to run into Paul’s bathroom as he began to let out the contents of his stomach. His throat burned as punishment, and his head ached like a hit to the head. One part of him wasn’t an idiot-he knew what was going on, and that sometimes people felt the way he did, and that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. But the other was adamant in its disgust.
He threw his face under the sink, wetting his face, and, at first unintentionally, his hair. But the need to cleanse become more apparent and soon his upper body was soaking. He shook his head dry and suffocated himself briefly into a towel. As he removed the towel from his head, Paul was standing in front of him, with an unreadable expression.
“I’m sorry.”
John cleared his throat has he clutched the towel roughly in his hands and then spoke, “For what?”
“I… I guess I don’t really know.”
“Do you think you should be sorry?”
“I don’t…know.”
John hung up the towel and sat at the chair in Paul’s desk, wanting to stay and leave simultaneously. Paul leaned at the door of the bathroom, a few feet away.
“Maybe I’m just like ‘em, and I just don’t know it,” John said in a half mumble. He looked down at his hands.
“You’re not like anyone, John.”
“You’re wrong, son, I’m just like the rest of them. The one’s that hide, that’s the kind.”
The sound of footsteps in his direction prompted John to look up as Paul hovered over him.
“You mean the Lennon that cracks jokes that make me piss myself? Who always has something witty to say? The one who can be a fuckin’ wanker, but also writes some of the most clever stuff I know? Who's been through hell and back and still lives to talk about it? No, mate, you’re not like anyone else I know.”
“And you don’t think I think that about you?!”
John stood up abruptly, facing Paul again, breathing and sharing his air. He wasn’t angry, but he was full of something. There was a tension palpable in the air, and they were both breathing it in, staring and scanning each other for answers or questions or anything. John opened his mouth to say something, and then realized that he was parting his lips, Paul as his mirror. The world felt like it was rushing by, but really he was leaning, into Paul, into the feeling and the moment. Soon enough John’s air was Paul’s air, and he was trembling. A wave of nausea came, but for a different reason. His palms were filled with sweat, and his heart was about to run into the other room. There was too much happening, too much for him to understand. He placed a sweaty hand on Paul’s chest, for a second, grabbing onto the fabric of his shirt, almost like a test. But then he pushed Paul away, and the world stopped rushing, and his heart felt calmer, and he felt like he could breathe again.
Now the world was moving too slow, too quiet. He felt like running, hiding away like he always did. His legs rushed down Paul’s stairs and out Paul’s door, flinging his guitar behind his back and running back to the grey streets of Liverpool. He didn’t look back, he couldn’t even look at what was in front of him. It all felt stuck together, and torn apart. Everything was gone and warped and he was gone and warped and he felt like dying . He rushed through the grey cloud of the city, and crashed into his house and his bedroom, soon finding himself punching the wall of his room. He didn’t know what he was imagining to be hitting-there was no person, or idea, or even anger. It was a confusion, and twisting of his perception, trying to break free from a cage that he in part created.
Rock and roll and Elvis and records and leather jackets and tight clothes and birds and smoking and getting drunk until he forgets it all. He rushed to his cabinet, and pulled out his poetry book, running a hand over its scribblings. He locked it away, so no one would find it, he trivialized what it was, calling it silly poems and songs. This book wasn’t meant to be kept away, this book was a person .
He took his pen and scribbled.
Don't you know I can't take it
I don't know who can
I'm not goin' to mayayake it
I'm not that kind of man
Oh I can't sleep at night
But just the same
I never weep at night
I call your name
He felt the urge to cry but then a toxic retaliation. He didn’t cry, he couldn’t. Nothing in his world, or his mind would allow it. Instead he crumpled the incoherent mess on the page and threw it to the side. Seconds flew by as he put on his leather, walked out the front door and into the doors of a pub.
~*~
Moonlight poured into Paul’s open window, and so did the cold winds of the late night. It was difficult to clear his mind or even just to think. His mind was attacked by situations, questions, and possibilities, that he was unsure how to process it all, and sleep was long out of the question.
Of course, there were obvious constants in his mind. The visit from John today in particular was popular in his thoughts, and even more popular, the moments they shared in his room. At the same time of feeling so much, he felt so little, and found himself staring at the same cracking ceiling that John was so fascinated in before. It felt a little sickening to think about what had happened meant for him, who he was and what he was. But it didn’t feel like he should label himself into something or scrutinize the sudden leaning. He wasn’t content with the implications, but there wasn’t as much pressure as he imagined.
Perhaps it was because he was used to it, in a sense, being placed into a certain box because of his looks and interests. After years of it, he’s learned to accept it as something he couldn’t change. He used to spend his time in the mirror, fixing his hair just like his favorite singers, and imitating their hoarse voices. Of course he isn’t completely and utterly happy with the state of himself, he imagines that no one is completely happy about anything. But he’s reached a point where he only has to look at himself in the mirror every so often, and that’s not enough for it to define him.
Another unnamed thought whirled into Paul’s mind, but just as quickly, he heard a faint voice coming outside his door. There were few people that gave him midnight visits, and the thought of who it could be brought on a surprising sense of dread.
“Paul!” he heard, in a loud whisper, “Down ‘ere!”
Paul stood from his bed in compliance with the voice, and looked down to see, as he had guessed, John. Judging by the way he swayed and talked, he was drunk. Bringing a drunk Lennon into his house seemed… unreasonable, and so did walking outside to a drunk Lennon. He wasn’t sure what his next course of action would be. He wasn’t sure about a lot of things, frankly.
“Just a second, John! Wait there.”
Paul ran a hand threw his hair and quickly glanced at the mirror on his way out of the room, with a self aware smile on his face. His bare feet eventually touched the cold and colorless grass as he circled his house to the backyard. There he saw John, sitting on the ground and leaning against the end of Paul’s house.
“So… you came back, then?”
John swallowed and looked up at Paul. He noticed the beer in his hand as John lifted it to take another sip, probably one of many.
“I guess so,” John said, laying the beer onto the concrete floor. There was still, however, a space next to John that was empty, and Paul claimed it as he leaned onto the floor. Once where his air smelt like the clear outdoors, he smelt John-cigarettes, alcohol, and sex.
“Looks like you’ve had quite a night, eh?” Paul said, looking at John and grabbing his knees in his arms.
“Paul, I… there…” John attempted to mouth the words, “...was…”
He was cut off as he felt his lower lip tremble, realizing as he turned his head away that there was water flowing down from his cheeks. Paul didn’t know whether John wanted comfort, so he sat there, watching him, waiting for a signal.
“I went to a pub, like...usual,” John spoke away from Paul. “I sat there about twenty minutes, drinking… drinking a beer and looking around and drinking another beer.” Another sniffle came from John’s direction. John quieted himself by running his hand on his face and pinching his nose. “Then I… I saw this bloke, he was lookin’ at me, and I looked at him back. I know I shouldn’t… have,” another shaky breath, “I followed him to the bathroom, I pulled down his pants… and…”
“John, you can stop if you don’t want to go on…”
“And then I sucked him off, and I… and it was the worst… I felt fucking sick. ”
Paul reluctantly reached over to his friend, placing a simple hand on the shoulder. John turned back to Paul, face blue from the light, but eyes red and teary. He trembled from the cold, and from fear or embarrassment, Paul didn’t really know. He could only imagine.
“And all I could think-”
“John.”
“All I could think of was you!”
“ John.”
“About you and your fuckin’ laugh and your voice and your face and… and…how I was on my knees with some random fucker from a fuckin’ bar, and that I was sick, and you’re everything I’m not…”
“Stop it, John-”
“Strong.”
Paul didn’t want to hear anything anymore, about his friends pain or his appraisal. There were so many other things he’d rather be doing. Like taking the hand he had on John’s shoulder, and wrapping it behind his head, and he did just that. In another action of fulfilment, he pushed John’s head onto his, their lips crashing, but not quite connecting.
Paul opened his mouth to let John in, and waited for a response. Then, he felt a warmth on his face, and John opened his mouth. They took in each other, mouths dancing to a rhythm, their hearts, an unsteady beat--unfinished, unorganized and messy. It was all so messy and wild and unplanned and it felt so… good and freeing and liberating. Something was liberated, uncaged. Their mouths moved in harmony, each a reflection of the other in the mirror, and soon they broke apart, and looked at each other. It meant something different for the both of them, but so fundamentally similar--change.
The younger man let out a breath as he looked at his older friend, his cheeks stained with the memories of old tears, not expecting new ones to come. They both realized that they weren’t products of anything or copies of anything, and that they didn’t have to be. But they were free now, in the ways that they could be, to themselves.