Read Online On Chasing Brad Through Purgatory by Stephen Benatar - Free Book Online

staring out a bit unappreciatively, even blindly, at the charms of Kilburn High Road—I was en route from my bedsit near Cricklewood Broadway—I had no high hopes that the couple of hours ahead were going in any way to lighten my depression; and I very seriously considered dismounting at the next stop and getting drunk at a pub much closer to home. In short it was only my inherent meanness, the fact that I’d already paid my fare, which all too probably prevented me; I was at that time stacking shelves in a supermarket and needing to be careful with my cash, despite a determinedly forgiving and not ungenerous set of parents. So I stayed on the bus and thought bloody hell what a life and what a total mess I’d made of it and sodding bloody Jonathan could just bloody well sod off and take a running jump. But I was close to crying by this stage so I did try to concentrate at least a little on the life that was being lived in Kilburn.
    And in Maida Vale. And along the rest of the Edgware Road. About which not even remotely had it crossed my mind, in primary school in the Midlands, on my first hearing of this noble thoroughfare—and being induced to draw a Roman regiment marching up it stick-limbed to the north—that it would one day provide me with a bus route (southwards) to The City of Quebec. I suppose I couldn’t claim to be a prescient child. But now I wondered bleakly if the percentage of gays in Roman times would have been roughly the same as it was today and vaguely envied them their massed ranks; although on the other hand it had never once occurred to me, and surely never would, to sign on in any of Her Majesty’s armed forces.
    We eventually got to Marble Arch after stopping it seemed at every possible traffic light and every possible request stop. It had begun to rain and of course I hadn’t thought to bring my umbrella—I very seldom did, unless it were actually raining when I left home. Therefore I ran and may have reached the pub in something like a minute when normally it would have taken three. As I went in a man was coming out. Our eyes met and held and I was aware of the quickening of my pulse independent of the fact that I’d been running. “Oh hell,” smiled the man. “It’s raining anyhow. There’s just got to be time for another drink. My name’s Brad by the way.”
    As it turned out, there was time for another two drinks (each I mean) and there would certainly have been time for several more—Brad phoned the people he was supposed to be meeting for dinner and asked if they’d forgive him just this once if he cried off. Before that however we had already started to get acquainted.
    â€œI’m assuming Danny,” he had said lightly after we had shaken hands, “that you’re here on pleasure and not business?”
    He was asking more tactfully than others had sometimes asked me in gay bars or clubs whether I was rent; and in fact before my meeting with Jonathan I had occasionally considered such an option—it would have boosted my income no end. But at least sodding bloody Jonathan had saved me from that (he was in many ways a decent bloke; possibly his worst crime lay in being a lot too young for me—he was barely twenty-nine) and for this I must eternally be thankful. I could now hardly believe my wavering self-respect had ever sunk so low.
    â€œJust came in for a drink,” I replied, “and to be with other people.” Which was the complete truth, apart perhaps from my inaccurate use of the singular. For I hadn’t even gone there looking for a pick-up. One-night-stands had never been of much interest. This wasn’t to say I sometimes hadn’t had them; but only when there’d seemed a good chance of their leading on to something more.
    â€œWhat will you have?” he asked.
    He bought us double Scotches—and not merely Grant’s or Bell’s but Glenfiddich; it transpired