Glitter

(Rated M - contains sexual references, graphic mental images, adult content and explicit language)

By Lauren Brooking.

You fling off your shimmering clothes faster than an eager whore and inspect your hands again, turning another light on and bringing them closer to get another look. You roll your hand over and over in the light to see if any sparkle can be seen. There's an entire patch still in between your fourth and fifth fingers! You start the tap raining down upon your hand again, hoping it'll be like a chemical shower after acid rain.
You're conscious that you're overreacting and you're not entirely sure why. The little shiny squares are starting to make your skin crawl! Just a fall, just a handshake! How could it have affected you so?
You're flagrantly aware that your son's embarrassed eyes are watching you from a safe distance down the hall.

Your son had been at his easel this morning when you'd come home for your weekly Monday afternoon tennis match with him. You looked over his shoulder at his newest work,a ferocious tiger. You'd done a good job of imparting what it meant to be a man. You'd thought to yourself that a tiger personified many of the qualities that you and he shared - tenacity, ferocity, competitiveness, fearsomeness. You were proud your son had inherited these qualities, to be able to pass them on. He would go far.
You and your son had battled on the tennis court as you imagined creatures with such veracity might have in the wild. He'd won - just - 6-7. You clapped him on the shoulder in a good-natured congratulatory way, admitting defeat. Tennis, like tigers, preys on the weaknesses of others. 'That's my boy' you'd thought, reconciling the loss to yourself.
"Guess I better go and get dinner." You embrace the tradition of loser buys.
"Yeah, lets crank up the barbie, dad! Can you grab some of those lamb and mint sausages?' Your son replies with a smug grin tickling the corners of his mouth.
"Sure, did you want to invite some of your mates over? May as well have a few beers and make a night of it."
"Dad, it's only Monday!" Although he's already pulled out his phone to take you up on the offer. You drop him home on orders to prepare everything for a feast while you go into town, fill up the gas bottle and pick up supplies from the butcher and the supermarket.

"Hey Dave!" Greeting the childhood friend who doubles as a service station attendant "Fill her up mate" hoisting the gas bottle onto the stand.
"Pete, mate, how ya doing?" Dave grinned "I hear that son of yours is doing an art course this year."
"Yeah, not really sure how he got to be so good at that - must be from his mother. He tells me it's just a gap year until he decides what to do with himself."
"Does that mean he gets to do paintings of naked chicks like all those old dudes?" Then Dave mused, "I guess I never see Jamie with any girls, you ever get a bit concerned about that, Pete?"
"I think he's just a bit shy, you know, just a bit of a late bloomer. He has beautiful paintings of women all over his room though, so not really losing sleep over it, eh mate."
Dave places the gas bottle back in the muddy four wheel drive.
"He can still whip my butt on the tennis court and I think the hunter in him is starting to come out - there was a massive canvas with a tiger painted on it in his room this morning! You can see the prey reflected in the tiger's eyes."
"So when he cuts your hair, you're okay with that?"
"If we can have a female prime minister, female CEOs and female managers, I'm sure my son cutting my hair is not that big a deal," you say, nonchalantly returning the back-hander. You shake your head at Dave's ignorance and small-mindedness. Getting a sociology lecturer to bite on a personal note seemed to make Dave's day. You crank up AC/DC as you rev your engine and head for home, leaving behind all jeers and sly insinuations.

The house is devoid of the hum of hungry activity you were expecting. Unloading the BBQ meat pack, lamb and mint sausages and the beer into the fridge, you see if Jamie has done the prep. He looks to have dug up the other gas bottle that you couldn't find in your flurry before. O well, at least there'd be more for later. The BBQ appears to be going - unmanned - and there's onions frying away. You turn it off and muse that this is very out of character - your son wouldn't normally be so absent-minded. Where is Jamie anyway?

Something catches your eye. There's a trail of glitter leading inside from the back doorstep. It dazzles in the sunlight with its autumnal tones, a fusion of pumpkin orange, gold-medal yellow and Moulin-rouge red. You follow it, curiosity climbing as you do, up the glitter-coated stairs to Jamie's loft, past the en suite and to your son's room.

Knocking briefly, you swing open the door. Your eyes are affronted by your naked son and another naked someone in what you can only hope is a wrestling move. Frozen in the doorway, you unwillingly watch as your son's buttocks flex and hips thrust rhythmically with the blasting Metallica. Both Jamie and the someone are adding to the shrill screams filling the room. Jamie's someone has long shaggy blonde hair covering their face, and a very masculine back. You hope against hope that this is some sort of training that is going to improve Jamie's tennis game, not ready to believe the reality your gut is trying to enforce. After the seconds it's taken for reality to sink in, a scream emits from deep in your belly. Their faces turn to meet yours - you see the blonde's stubble. Their obvious horror mirrors yours.
Sense melts the snap-frozen effect of shock, allowing you to slam the door. You race back downstairs, but in your haste you trip, and tumble down the shimmering boards. You try to break your fall by commando rolling and you land in a glittering heap at the bottom of the stairs. "Fuck, Dave was right?"
You fetch the meat from the fridge, re-ignite the BBQ, open a beer.
As the sausages are browning and the porterhouse steaks are getting to their medium-rare best, Jamie appears hand in hand with someone who he introduces to you as Taylor. They look like they've had a similar journey down the stairs, as they're both covered in the fiery colours of glitter which you've been brushing off yourself for the last twenty minutes.
You unconsciously eye Taylor up and down. He looks like a respectable enough character, well-presented, though your memory will be forever tattooed with the vision of his naked body interlocked with your son.
Jamie smiles hopefully, and Taylor presents his hand. His calloused hand has more shine than a mardi gras. Manners dictate that you shake it, and you do so, though unsure what is currently driving your movements. You return their smiles half-heartedly and go on a mental orienteering course to recover your wits.
It feels like a chemistry lab has exploded on your insides.
Just breathe.
It's fine.
This is totally fine.
Really!
My son is gay.
My son is gay?
My son is gay?
I'm a sociology lecturer. I take lectures about being and becoming homosexual and homosexual sub-culture. I have umpired the Out Games tennis matches. I have been to the gay rights march in my younger days with my uncle who's flagrantly gay. Homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle choice. There are plenty of people out there of every kind of orientation that lead happy, successful lives and contribute positively to society.
But this is how he tells me? Really?
Aced.

Has it really never occurred to you that Jamie could be batting for the other team? Why does it matter? He's still your son. Except now you feel Jamie has put a glittering ten foot baton between you.
The steaks are done. Robotically, you bring them in and set them on the table. Jamie and Taylor follow bringing plates, cutlery, and condiments. As you settle yourself at the head of the table, you see the trail of glitter has progressed into the living room. Following it, your eye lands on the tiger painting, nestled majestically on the easel. Every facet of the tiger's burly countenance is covered in glitter, striking sparkling contrasts between orange, black, white, red and yellow.
Jamie follows your eye.
"Sorry Dad, I brought the painting down here to dry. The air flow is better and the canvas dries more thoroughly when it's out in the open."
You hope there's nothing else that your son is planning to bring out into the open today. When you look more closely, the prey reflected in the tiger's eyes seems to almost take on the image of a man.
"You okay, Dad?"
"Yeah son, I'm fine, fine," smiling weakly at Taylor, "Did Jamie tell you about our tennis game?"
As Taylor replies, you reach for a steak. You look down at your hands, aghast! They're resplendent, glitter everywhere, shimmering in the sunlight coming in through the window behind your chair.

Goodbye Tarzan

Who thought of putting the word 'fun' in funeral? you think as you mull over the programme. And how do you condense someone onto a double-sided A4 page? He was 'just' a friend, but he'd been your best friend. You scan the page for your opportunity.
One of the first to arrive, you take a pew, three rows back, to the right, seeking the shelter of the wall. You notice two knots in the wood just above your right shoulder; they're like your eyes, watching, but not seeing.
You gaze as the church seems to elasticize to accommodate the burgeoning crowd. A steady trickle of people flow in down the aisle, tears streaming down their face. The rain on the nearby window, explosive as a firecracker, is how you would like to cry.
You are unfamiliar with the church setting but follow the cues of those who've come to comfort and cry, though they've invaded your pew.
You join in the sombre hush that settles over the building as the oak coffin is carried in.

You were part of the woodwork of his life, present as the rings formed. You saw him grow tall and seemingly strong,
Why? Why didn't I see this coming? But you didn't. You didn't see how the invisible insidious rot consumed his vitality. The roots of your lives had been so intertwined that when he fell, it was impossible for you not to be uprooted too.

Open mic. Each step to the lecturn is the longest of your life; Ent-like lumbering. You present a bottle of Lift Plus and a Smashbrothers Gamecube game ­- homage to the countless hours that were spent in friendly rivalry; paintballs or pixels. You begin speaking and a landslide of stories cascade out - building ponga-branch forts, stick fighting on precarious ledges, rebuilding speakers and LAN parties, gaming for whole weekends! You smile as you mention the oak in Bertram's Reserve that was home to the tree swing, turning little boys into Tarzans.
"I wish you'd called me, man, I wish you'd called me."
You touch the head of the coffin where Peter lies, lingering for a moment. You leave the bottle and the game nestled in the bouquet of lilies, retreating back to the shelter of the wall.

As the funeral comes to a close, five people emerge to carry Peter out. Five people surround the coffin. Five. There's a gap. It needs to be filled. But you weren't asked.
What if the sixth person's just in the loo?
The family in the front row look around in anxious anticipation, obviously waiting for another person to fill the void. It is out of character for the family not to have organised this earlier; but what about today is normal?
You unintentionally catch his mother's eye and she silently pleads with you.
You can't do it, getting up once was hard enough. You try to quell the nagging voice in your head, Steven will do it, surely!
But you see Steven visibly shaking with sobs. They were brothers; but they were so much more than 'just' brothers.
His mother's eyes still have you pinned like an arrow to a target - bright blue flashes that ask, what would Peter have done for you?
The answer is not as amicable as she thinks, but it hits a bullseye. You unconsciously replace it with the now all-too-familiar question: what could I have done for him sooner?
You grasp the handle and shoulder Peter's girth.
The tender oak returns to the forest.
No more Tarzan.

RIP Peter Brooking 15.3.1989-3.6-2010

Feel the Freedom of Feeling

In a world of cold hard steel,
Machines and squares,
People are expected
To conform, to be
Boxed in, with laws and rules
Emotions are shunned
Passion is put down
And almost punished
Heaving, heartfelt yearning
Is criticized for burning
Suppressed, bottled up,
People who are defined
By how they feel
Are confined in a world
Where others can’t deal
With them
With their fervour
Their flavour
The spice of their life
Irrational, illogical, impulsive
Belittled, undermined, deterred
By legalistic regulations
And bureaucratic cogs
In a maze of strangling clockwork
Routine extinguishing impulse
The mundane killing excitement
Everything litigated
Anticipated, eventually hated
With happiness compromised
For efficiency
It’s like living
Without being alive.
Cold as ice
Hard as rocks
Tough as nails
Bullet proof
Smile proof
The filter stops
Good and bad
Happy and sad
Let the guard down
Take the good
With the bad.
Remove that carrot from
Its current position
Let your hair down
Do something daft,
Don’t fear the label crazy
(Creatively Releasing All Zaney Yearnings!!)
Before it’s replaced by insane
Don’t bury emotions
Hold them in check,
Relinquish them at your discretion
Jump for joy,
Cry, weep, grieve,
Muscles are there
For smiling and frowning
Validate yourself
Express emotion
Purvey passion
Be the person
You were created to be!
Feel the freedom of feeling.