Page 1 of Ship of Fools

Andreas

There are big showy snowflakes falling from the sky, which makes this evening even more bizarre than I ever could have expected. It hardly ever snows in England. Well, almost never, despite what the Hollywood films try to sell. Winter in England is usually wet, dark and miserable, but instead, tonight the town of Chistleworth is covered in a thick layer of magical, sparkling-white fluff. It looks almost like a postcard as I shiver in my thin shirt, and stamp my cigarette out on the ground. I shouldn’t smoke, and never usually do, but on a night out like this, I tend to lose all my sense and sanity, and do stupid things—especially if I am out with Charlie, who offered me the cigarette in the first place. I don’t even like the guy, and I still jump up and down with fake excitement, at any suggestion of wild nights out at the dump of a gay bar we tend to frequent. The Eden bar touts overpriced drinks, loud music and desperate men—everything Charlie adores, and everything I have come to despise.

Yes. You heard me right. I can’t bear this whole foolish charade of grown-up fun. Yet, I go out, almost every weekend and get drunk and disorderly, then go home with some ridiculous man that I end up spending the rest of my life avoiding. It’s stupid and exhausting, yet I have no idea why I don’t put an end to it. Perhaps, because it’s almost Christmas and I’m single, and my parents are spending the holidays in their holiday home on the Canaries, and my sister has gone off to some yoga retreat in India for the winter. Me? I’m stuck in my godforsaken dump of a flat, with only Charlie for company.

Friends. I wish I had better ones, but I moved here a year ago, for a glittering promotion and promises of large bonuses. I’ve still to see a bonus that I would describe as large, but I like the job, I like dealing with customers, and I like that my wage is decent enough to help with paying off my student loans. Yet, I still have no idea how to live like an adult, and make good use of the rest of the money in my account, because I mostly work, and when I don’t work? I sleep and go out with Charlie. Charlie. Fucking Charlie.

I head back inside the Eden Club, my mouth tasting of tar and misery, into the too-loud music, and the sea of bodies on the dance floor. People are hopping around like idiots, apparently pretending to dance to the ridiculous beat blasting out of the loudspeakers. I used to love all this—the noise, the bodies, the feeling of total freedom—just letting myself be swept away in a haze of mind-numbing alcohol and the anticipation of... sex. Not with Charlie though. He’s strangely cute, but no. Not for me. Although, here he comes again, his hair sprinkled with confetti, and a glazed-over look in his eyes.

“Your stalker is here.” Charlie shouts in my ear, the sweat dripping from his hair as he swirls past, only briefly stopping to tug at my shirt and wriggle his hips in front of me. Charlie, he’s a mate. He’s not my friend, not my bestie, or anything like that. We hardly even text during the week, but he’s become someone I hang out with when I go out at the weekends, almost like a safety blanket or a weird kind of... bodyguard? Perhaps.

Charlie and I are similar in many ways. We both go out to get laid, we’re both into dancing and cocktails, but to be honest, there are no other reasons why we hang out. We both want to find people to hook up with, and we both like to let someone know where we are, and who we are going off with. It’s common sense. Being safety aware and all that, when meeting up with strangers in clubs, like we both do. Then once we are all done, we check in with each other to make sure we are home and safe. I blush even thinking the words in my head, as I clumsily shake my hips, pretending that I am having a good time. I’m not... in case you are wondering. The bizarre thing is that I had been looking forward to tonight, all buzzing with excitement. Now? It’s like someone has pulled the plug on the party guy inside me, and instead, has left me with a gaping hole of fear and longing for something I don’t quite understand. I’ve done this a million times, got drunk and gone home with some stranger, and lived to tell the tale. I look good, I’m dancing and I’m safe, and not too drunk yet. I should be having a good time.

Safe. I am rarely safe. And I am certainly not having a good time. Not anymore. I am bored. Miserable. Lonely. Single and hating it. Not that I have ever had a relationship worth remembering. A few good men who I let use me, and sometimes even abuse me, until I got myself sorted out and moved on. Then I moved here and decided to stick to hookups and one-night stands. Looking back at the past year? I don’t have anything to show, apart from memories of unmemorable encounters, and endless weeks of work. Hardly something to put on Facebook. What a year. Not!

Chistleworth, my current home, is a small quaint town on the outskirts of the glorious city of Manchester. I was born there, and now I have become part of its posh commuter belt that Chistleworth prides itself on being called. It’s full of middle-class families and newly built gated communities. A few footballers and high earners adding to the celebrity status that the town tries to sell itself as. In reality? It’s a bit of a dump, with a high street riddled with boarded-up shops, overpriced coffee shops, and hairdressers claiming to be some kind of celebrity haunts.

I’ve met a few of those local celebs, because from Monday to Friday, I am a respectable car salesman, flogging cars to customers with more money than sense. That’s where the respectable comes from, since I flog high-end cars, often with hefty price tags, and even heftier customisation bills. People with money want it to show, and if I whisper that there are things we can add, to make their new car stand out in a crowd? People salivate with need and greed, and hand me their money. Yet at the weekends? I become just as bad as the customers I ridicule behind their backs. I become a different person—someone I don’t think I like very much anymore. Charlie would slap me if he heard me talk like that. He’s all about sexual liberation and treating life as a smorgasbord of partners. He always thinks he’s foundthe one, every single weekend. Then he gets dumped by Wednesday, and on Thursday he’s planning our next night out. The fool.

I like a nice satisfying hookup as much as anyone. I like making out and feeling admired. Adored. It’s all fake, I know that. I tend to bat my eyelashes, wriggle my hips and offer guys the blow job of the century, and with that little charade over and done with, the blokes are up against the wall with their jeans around their ankles before I can even get on my knees. If I feel good about it all? Then I ask for more, and if the bloke agrees? It all ends in an embarrassing walk of shame in the early hours of the morning, where I sneak home with a hangover and a weird sense of doom in my stomach.

So what? I’m young, free and single, and pretty. At least, that is what I try to tell myself. Young-ish, perhaps. I do realise that in a few years I will start to look my age, and I probably won’t be carded every time I try to buy a drink. I’m twenty-eight, but I look... well, young. I’m slim and pretty and I look after my skin. I wax and prune and trim in all the right places, and the bleached-blond streaks in my now-floppy fringe are usually gelled to perfection during office hours, accompanied by a sleek suit and tie. I look good in a suit. I look even better in a ripped shirt, skinny jeans and boots. Charlie calls it myFuck-me outfit.I call it showing off my assets, and a good pair of jeans is usually a sure thing to guarantee a happy ending to any night out.

You see, not only am I good at my job, but I kind of pride myself on being good at reading people too. I know if a potential hookup will be too rough with me, and I’m not an idiot. I run a mile from those kinds of guys. I also know if someone will want more, or if someone seems weird. I’m a strait-laced guy, I like my sex, but I’m not into all the strange kinks people have these days. There are Daddy guys who want me to be their little boy, and that stuff is frankly creepy. I’m not into bears either, or older guys, or guys who want to get married and all that. Not for me. No thanks. I just want someone to have sex with, and who, for a few hours, will make me feel good. On my terms. It’s not too much to ask, is it?

Except... it’s December, and everyone is out for their Christmas parties, and the club Charlie and I are in is... well... the crowd is always the same. Chistleworth is a small town, and the Eden is the only club catering to the LGBTQ+ community. It’s also nearing midnight, and so far I have not had a single potential hookup on my radar, whilst Charlie has made out with a redhead that he shagged a few weeks back, and is now eyeing up a guy with dreadlocks who has obviously had too much to drink. He’s getting desperate, and so am I.

“Where?” I shout back, knowing full well where the guy Charlie is talking about is sat. He’s by the bar, on a stool at the end, where he always sits. And yeah, there he is. Right where I expected him to be. Built like a brick house, full of muscles and veins, and his short-cropped brown hair, slick with gel. He obviously works out, and doesn’t drink, which is again part of the theory Charlie and I have, that the guy only comes here to stare at me and drink water. Because that is what he does, every freaking weekend. Turns up around eleven, obviously straight from his work-out, wearing a vest top and joggers. The club has a strict dress code, but obviously this guy gets away with wearing whatever he fancies with no trouble from the burly bouncers on the door. Instead, he sits at the stool at the end of thebar and chats to whomever is working, drinks several glasses of water, and is always staring at me whenever I look over towards where he is sitting.

That part is creepier than that kinky Daddy hookup from a few weeks back, the onethat I would rather forget. And I can tell you now, I have had quite a few of those, because that’s apparently the kind of guy I attract. Someone who will look after me and pamper me and treat me right and fuck me to kingdom come. Then after a while, the kinky stuff comes creeping out, and I end up grabbing my pants and running for the door.

I sometimes make mistakes. I sometimes pick creeps. Then Charlie has to drag me away before I shout something rude and insensitive to them and start a fight. Because I’m usually a little bit drunk, a little bit emotional, and very much stupid when I go out. Hence, I go out with Charlie, to make sure I get through the night in one piece and hook up with someone who won’t beat me up, nor want me to pretend to be something I am not. Charlie doesn’t attract people like that, not with his checked shirts and floppy red hair, and freckles. He’s stupidly cute, with curves in the right places and his head screwed on right—well, most of the time.

Charlie is the eternal student, who can’t seem to settle on a job, or a career, so he just floats around and then starts to study something else. I have no idea where he gets his money from, but he was quoting Plato earlier, something about the two of us being part of a crew of fools. All dancing to the same beat, but nobody actually doing something to further themselves in life. Ship of fools, I think he said. The whole crew trying to steer the boat, but nobody having the slightest idea of what they are doing. To be honest, Charlie and I are somewhat like that. Charlie spouts a load of rubbish that I don’t understand, then he just laughs at me and keeps dancing. Me? I go along with it, because I have no idea what else I can do on a Friday night. So, we carry on drinking, as he hands me another shot of something green and sticky. We clink our glasses, and he laughs, before turning around and sticking his tongue down some guy’s throat. Someone I have never seen before, but hey, I’m going to get drunk. I’m out dancing. And this?

I’m atotalfool, I know that.

That is why, an hour or so later, I find myself swaying across the dance floor and throwing myself, not elegantly, I can admit that, onto the stalker guy’s lap. Because it’s getting late. Because I’m drunk. And because he is there, staring at me again across the dance floor and I’ve figured?

“Wanna fuck?” I shout into his ear, over the thumping music.

I half expect the stalker guy to drag me off into a corner, and fuck me there and then, the way his breath hitches and his nostrils flare.

“No thanks.” He says it again, lifting me off his lap, and putting me back down on the floor, like I weigh nothing. “No. No. No thanks, mate.”

“Blow job?” I pout, trying to look cute and disappointed. Somewhere on the inside, I feel a pang of shame. I shouldn’t do anything with this guy. He’s not my type, and the kind of guy who fits the mould of exactly what I should avoid in situations like this. He’s big. Burly. Scary and sober.

He doesn’t say anything back. Instead, he just looks at me with a face full of pity, and perhaps a pinch of disgust, maybe sadness, what do I know?

It’s probably for the best anyway, I think to myself, as I order another drink and let myself fade into a stupor.

Luca

I should have worn a suit, I curse under my breath as I enter the offices of Lambert & Gloss, the exclusive vintage and luxury car dealership up on the hill north of town. I’ve never actually been inside their offices before, despite having done several freelance jobs for them over the last year. They are good guys, with highly skilled mechanics, and have contacts a guy like me could only ever dream of, but then, they haven’t got the skills I have, and I have somehow built myself a reputation for being theirgo-to guy for obscure electronics and high-end speakers, which again, suits me just fine. I have always worked for the family business, always loved cars, and I have always, thanks to my dad, had a great workshop to hone my skills. My dad runs a performance garage, and details for a racing team, so yeah, I owe everything I know about cars to my dad, everything I know about electronics to college, and however much it hurts me to admit it, the family business has opened doors in the past, so it feels good that now, finally, my name is bringing in the jobs.

The Lambert & Gloss showroom looks almost out of place, set back from the main road, surrounded by mature trees, and with views over the picturesque postcard town that I have lived in my entire life. It’s a small town with big ambitions. Well, at least that is what the town-hall motto screams from the billboards outside. It’s supposedly no longer just a countryside town, but we are part of the Greater Manchester area, with high speed trains and fancy retail parks on our doorstep. It might sound all posh, but the majority of the population here work hard, live hard, and struggle like everyone else. My family are hardly rich or affluent. Mum and Dad own a small bungalow, and I rent a one-bed flat a few blocks from the house where I grew up. I’ve done well for myself, and most of the time, I’m happy and content with my life.

I’m meeting the head sales guy today, about a neglected vintage monstrosity that’s had me sighing with despair all week, yet with the money they are offering? I would be mad to turn down. It’s a restoration job, with handmade exclusive custom parts, and with some careful cleaning and a few repairs it will emerge as a beautiful, sleek car that will stand out a mile. It will also attract boy racers and thieves, with the proposed gold-plated alloys and custom reflective paint, but hey, the buyer has the cash, and I have the knowledge. Lambert & Gloss, know their customers, and if they are offering me the job, I’m not going to let them down.

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