MattMelloWeek Day 1: Forgotten Dreams
Mello had started a LinkedIn, like the twat he was aiming to become.
“Aiming to”—because Matt still remembered well when he used to cut his hair with scissors. His black nail polish, his lipstick phase. He was a faggot in a 800-pound suit. Matt knew the core of him. He wasn’t letting go of that, not easily.
Matt lay on his back on his bed in his flat, picking memories sweatily off his damp fingertips. “Investment banking”. “I-Banking”, for those in the know. Sounded like Eye Banking. A safe full of sclera. Matt had been “eye banking” the boys down in Hulme Park in the backwash swill of 0200 Saturdays, pocketful of lorazepam to take the edge off. On about 3 to 3 and a half milligrams of lorazepam he started to really feel good about cruising, he’d catch a rhythm and a glide, prowling the bushes and benches like a sickass panther, a sickass shark, deep sailing over the continental rift.
Mello had an advanced degree; Matt had an appointment at the free clinic on Nell Lane. Mello got a promotion and Matt got chlamydia. Matt got a prescription. Matt got antibiotics for his burning stream.
He would stand in the bathrooms in the mornings, holding himself with three fingers and pissing painfully, and picture all of Mello’s accomplishments at the bottom of the toilet bowl. His straight As, twisted teeth, his delicate six-pack, the whole effortful torso. But he lost his footing when he got to his beautiful face, framed in metal, like stained glass. His hand shook and he splashed a little on the rim. No, he couldn’t do it, he could never sustain any kind of rage—anarchy, remotely-detonated devices, and the guillotine, fine, the blade plucked loose from the razor fine—but against Mello, never. Already his fingers ached to pick him out of the effluvia where Matt had cast him, to wash him in the tender bath of Matt’s tongue and mouth: Hello, darling, it’s been so long.
