Scott Capurro

Scott Capurro
Gay Times
July 2007

Before a show in Covent Garden, a note came hand delivered. The young man smiled, said some kind words, and then shyly, slowly walked back to his seat.
The paper was embossed with a Buddha head. I do yoga. I considered this a good sign. Once opened, in black pen it read: “I don’t do this very often, but I think you’re very funny and I’d like to meet up with you…” There was a phone number, and an encouraging “I really hope we meet!” scribbled in the lower left side of the missive.
After my set, Tom (let’s just call him that) reappeared, with another young guy I assumed was his boyfriend. My heart, what’s left of it, sank, but when we went for drinks, tiny Tom made it clear he was single. That weekend, from his Jewish father’s house in Wales he sent me a text that ended with an on-screen bear emitting red hearts from its chest. I was aroused.
All went downhill from there. At lunch he showed me phone photos of he and James, then he and Jasper. Men he’d befriended. Older men, who’d assumed things. He’d disappointed them both by remaining platonic. I accused him of being a prick tease, and he just smiled. I found his coyness exhilarating.
I brushed my hand on his belly button whilst kissing him lightly on the lips. Later, he texted me, punishing me with the ol’ “I hope friendship is enough.” Of course it’s not. It never is. That’s why it’s always offered as a compromise, like the Gaza Strip.
I felt feeble and ugly. Not as pathetic as Tom’s previous conquests, although to be fair James and Jasper are much richer and much more famous than little graying me. But then my teeth aren’t fake. Sorry Jasper.
I deleted Tom’s number from my phonebook; then a young French clerk from Tate Modern asked if we could go out. And I never heard from him again. I texted, I called, and now I suppose he thinks I’m needy.
Youths have always been my muse. I like their confidence, and I find the ease with which young gays deal with their sexuality inspiring. I’d twice misinterpreted their flirtations, but so what? People flirt all the time.
Yet my ego was so shattered that, just last week, to stop myself from crying in front of Tom’s work, I had to literally freeze and count in my head the things about me that might appeal romantically to another man. But everything I could come up with seemed to counter itself.
I’m honest. Well, actually, I’ve no choice. I’m a bad liar.
I’m a walker. And I’m fast, even when wearing a costume, like today. I’m camouflaged, and moving faster than any real postal worker would ever move. I wonder what I’m running away from?
I’m, uh…a non-smoker. Yet I’m still asthmatic, and my wheezing increases when I’m anxious.
So it’s come to this: I’m so grizzled that my only positive characteristics are those that might appeal to my parole officer.
I stifle a cough as I adjust my sunglasses, watching my reflection in Tom’s office window. He’s a temp, with good hair and grand plans, and I still have rain gutters, those little hipbones so alluring on someone under 30, but rather alarming on a 44 year old. No one my age should be so thin. Svelte maybe, but skinny is sinister, like knowing the lyrics to a Sinatra song at the tender age of 10. My father thought there was something wrong with any kid who spent so much time alone, just the way he wonders why I’m alone now.
I heard pity in his voice when we spoke on the weekend. We’re not close, but he worries about me. So do I. I thought I’d spend my forties walking my boyfriend’s dogs. I’d cook and have time to myself, while someone I loved was off earning money.
“I don’t want much,” I find myself saying out loud, as I sort through fake mail, “just financial security and a good fuck now and then.”
A parked cabi watches me. Or does he? I’ve become so self-conscious, so defensive and so road weary of young men that I’m suspicious of everyone, even of myself.
I’m a weird looking fucker, but I’m attentive and insightful. At least, in person. I stroll into Tom’s work, ready to state my case. And deliver his post. But he’s at lunch, so I leave a note.
“It’s me, Scott, the funny guy. Call me. Maybe friendship is enough.”
Terrible liar, remember?

Scott Capurro
Gay Times
June, 2007

Scabies? What is this, Victorian England? If so, where’s the local sulfur baths? Why bother, when those mites clearly have a crush, this being my second infestation in eleven months. Maybe I taste good. My flesh is soft and sweet and easy to burrow under. When thought of in that way, being borrowed by bugs seems almost charitable, like I’m helping out some tiny, shy homeless mates.

But like the aftermath of a frat party, it’s the feces left behind that makes my skin both scab up and crawl. How filthy is that sauna in Shoreditch? Or those towels in Brussels? Or those twins in Prague? The glamour never stops when you’re a c-list celebrity traveling 3rd class. But I don’t recall Leonardo DiCaprio having scabies on the Titanic. Of course he’s very thin-skinned. I did wish, whilst sleepily watching him chase that matronly mistress, that he was being boiled alive. And so the story goes.

I have to boil everything. Scabies hide, in bedding and behind one’s knees, so all my cloth has to be heated up, and, consequently, burnt dry. Sadly, at home I have a tiny dryer which only barely, begrudgingly warms, so it’s off to the local Laundromat on Bethnal Green Road I waddle, rubber gloved and ready to murder some mites.

But nothing, not even murder, is easy in London. There’s always someone standing between you and your happiness. Dr. Who takes many, many forms. In this case, it is the two women who run the laundry. They don’t own the place. They merely work there, but like Ms. Tennant, when on sight, they take over.

Fresh (ish) out of central casting, Sandra and Carol wash other peoples’ dirty laundry three days a week. “We’re here on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.” It’s Tuesday. My timing is, as usual, both impeccable and personally damming. “On Thursdays we have our nails done.” Their nails are clean and very pointed and probably used for self-defense.

Orange-faced and bleached blond, and shrouded in nicotine, they individually own villas in Spain. That part of Spain, I imagine, where the yards are cement and the sand is shipped in. Fortunately, they like helping men, but I’m wearing a pink Izod and my ears are in proportion, so I’m out of luck.

Every dryer I try to shove my soggy duvet into is broken. Or so the hand-written black scrawl on several torn sheets of yellow paper warn. Only one dryer works, and like firemen moving buckets of water, the ladies quick change fabrics in and out of it so quickly my head spins faster then the drum.

I go for green tea, and when I return, I find the ‘broken’ signs have been removed from two machines, and the ladies have, like Israeli settlers, moved in. They’re actually sitting in front of those two dryers, which to me says those metal monstrosities are the best. I’m American, so I support Israel, but I intend to disarm, affectionately.

“Ladies.” I’m all smiles and soft vowels. “Might I take advantage of one of those dryers?” They stare stone-faced, like experienced wardens. Perhaps my yellow gloves are worrisome. They might think I’m here to cancel a debt. Perhaps one of them fucked a Krays brother. The gay one. Well, gayer. Suddenly I realize this all looks like a flash back on CSI: E2. “I won’t be long.”

A young man of Middle Eastern origin rushes in, cradling soiled shirts, like they’re his first-born. I back off, predicting a battle. He nervously shoves darks and whites into a washing machine, which I find both reassuring, the idea that those colors could work together; and shocking, because straight men are so domestically clueless.

Israel, amazingly, rushes to Palestine’s defense. The ladies surround him, separating his shades and manipulating his coinage. The right buttons are pushed, and everyone walks away smiling, practically post-coital.

However, my fingertips are wrinkling from having held my wet bedding for so long. Finally Carol takes pity. She is the smallest and so the most sensible. She can see the determination in my eyes, and after six children and twenty-three years hawking fabric softener, she’s learnt to choose her battles.

“Leave it.” She doesn’t make eye contact. She’s perusing ‘Hello’ mag, looking, I suppose, for role models. Or suspects. “Come back in two hours.”

When I return, my duvet is wrapped in brown paper. The ladies are gone, but heir scent remains, like a victor’s flag. Later, in bed and swathed in their pine aroma, I itch, and wonder how many chips they’ve eaten for dinner, and where their red phone box will next land.