Scott Capurro
For GT Magazine
May, 2007
T-Cell Stew
While on a date recently, I went for a piss during cake. My urine burned, and since I hadn’t eaten razors for dinner, I squeezed the tip and oops! Big Scott got sick. A bit of white came up, and that’s when I knew, my drip and I were going home alone.
The next day, at the STD clinic in Whitechapel, I use the Guardian as camouflage whilst cruising black guys. They’re everywhere. Other than the stubby shaved-head Caucasian with big hands, and the oblivious Asian twins with their feet up by the men’s toilet, the room is filled with sinewy, baggy-jeaned brothers, some on their own, some obviously supporting each other. The three men near the nurses’ station, their backs to the wall unfortunately, are eyeing up the competition. They seem particularly interested in the HOT, ebony/ivory young lovers – or at least, I’ve identified them as such – who’ve just wandered in, powdered out of their minds, giggling and sipping coke from big plastic bottles. The white half is lisping into his cell, while his darker partner closes his eyes, lounging in his hard plastic seat. The three wise men look on, shaking their heads; oddly, the lightest skin and prettiest of the group – clearly the bitch, I tell myself – runs his hand up his shirt, lifting it enough to reveal his latte-colored, hairless belly as he pinches his own left nipple.
Suddenly, a mate’s hand drops onto the lighter black guy’s knee, and as the three laugh, I muse, hopefully, that the triptych might be having closeted sex together, or “Doing it on the downlow”, to quote a recent episode of CSI:Miami. One winks at me, and I admire how STDs level the playing field.
I waddle into the men’s, wondering if I loiter there long enough, the nipple pincher will saunter in. But he might have a disease, so blowing him here, now, though a good use of time, would be healthily reckless. We could just finger each other. Would that be wrong? Have I showered? Has he? Would it kill the staff to play some ABBA? Gosh, penile infections, especially in this romantic atmosphere, make me capricious.
I hear my name called, and when I’m brought into an examination room, the sweet, slightly chubby doctor takes my recent sexual history. He has such clean nails, and his jacket is so white. I swoon.
How many partners in the last six months?
I unswoon. “Around seventy.”
Jees, I think, that sounds like a lot. Am I bragging?
I recount, aloud. “Three a week, on average, including saunas. Yep, that’s around seventy.” I was right, but it sounds exhausting.
Doc asks, “Always using a condom?”
“Uh, I dunno.” Well I do know. “Almost always.”
When I say that, I sound like such a fucking bimbo. What would my dog do if I died? She’d be so judge-y.
The questions rattle on and on, and I realize, as I answer most of them with a wince, I’m trying to joke my way out of being stressed. As I spread my rectum, inadvertently I flirt, telling the Doc to finger around for a dozen roses. His eye rolling is deafening.
He dismisses me with a wry smile and I wait, in an even smaller room that’s really a hallway, facing the sweet, speeding couple, and a suited business guy on his computer. He’s barking into his hands-free, and we’re all tense, averting one another’s eyes.
It’s not that I’m ashamed. I’m embarrassed. Not because I have an infection, but because I’m the oldest guy here. I cross my legs and blush at the thought that I’m trying to feel young by hangin’ with the dudes, nodding like I’m one of them, when really I’m more of a twitching chaperone. They stare back, not because I’m sexy or even available, but because I shouldn’t be here. They’ve made their most recent mistake because they’re young. Little do they know that lugubriousness and callous failure follow you to your grave.
Eventually, a nurse jabs a swizzle stick into my Jap’s Eye, then gives me a pill and sends me on my way. And I hope, while passing a drunken, toothless straight couple battering one another in the ambulance parking lot, the memory of that sting will save my life, or at least save me from having to spend another ENTIRE afternoon tapping my loafer on scuffed linoleum in East London.
At least Doctor Chubby gave me, along with a few condoms, his card, in case I have any questions. I might have to call with some, just so the day wasn’t a total waste.