It's just after 7 PM on Wednesday. I'm sitting outside Cafe Nero on Old Compton Street. I left work early today and worked out at the gym near my office. After my workout I caught the number 25 bus at St. Paul's to Tottenham Court Road. From there I walked to the corner of Frith and Old Compton and took up residence in one of the patio chairs chained together along the Southeastern face of the cafe. I have done this nearly every Wednesday since I moved to London. The weather is starting to turn now, and I'm no longer able to sit outside without a jacket. Soon I won't be able to sit outside at all.
I tell myself that I have set this time aside to collect myself, to pause mid-week and breathe. I tell myself it's "Me Time", that I go to to relax and to get away from an increasingly uncomfortable living situation. I go to be among people, to read, to practice my Italian, to sit and watch people go by, or at the very least to be among others instead of sitting in the pale yellow room above Paddington listening to Pxx go from his room to the kitchen to smoke cigarettes out the window and back again before retiring by 9:30, leaving me to rattle silently around the apartment so as not to disturb his sleep. I have been presented a list of noises which will wake him and those that won't; the man is infuriatingly fussy even when unconscious.
I am telling myself half-truths. I could have all of this at any cafe in all of London. I could have this on a bench in the public garden in the council estate across the road. But I sit at the intersection of Old Compton Street and Frith Street. The nexus of gay London.
I go to Cafe Nero and wait to be rescued.
I take inventory of the other men sitting by themselves. I am usually the youngest by at least five years. I consider briefly that we at least have each other as partners in solitude and dismiss this thought immediately. We are not partners. We are stages in the same evolutionary chain. I am a shadow of who they were years ago, younger men in their prime waiting for a stranger to sit down and change their life. They are my future, hair grayed and muscles deflated by the passage of time, bodies wasted from starvation for affection. Marooned. Waiting.
Taking the chair on the corner gives me a view of the comings and goings on both streets and saves me having to sit between two strangers. There are three empty chairs to my right. In the fourth is seated a man in his early 40's. He is half reading tonight's Metro, half watching the passing rush of the evening with searching glances directed at no one in particular. I retrieve my book from my bag and begin reading, never making it more than a few paragraphs before allowing my eyes to drift up the page, over the top of the book and across the scene around me, watching the horizon for a rescue boat.
Two men approach from across the street. I recognize one of them. He's Spanish, with black eyes and a beautiful suit of muscles draped on a frame which barely clears my nose and almost comically large calves for a man of his small stature. Calves is much darker than when I last saw him, but his tan has that orange tint that betrays any story he might proffer about a trip to Spain or Greece. I suspect the farthest Calves has traveled recently is to the sunbed on Greek Street.
I see Calves here quite a bit. But Calves is always with people. Calves has a boyfriend, I think. These tables to him are a place to set his cup, not a transmitting station for a silent, desperate SOS. Calves is not waiting to be rescued; Calves is just here to have coffee.
His companion and I lock eyes as they approach. Calves is cuter, but Friend isn't bad looking either. He's short and latin; most days I need little else to develop at least a passing interest. Friend asks if the three seats between me and my future are free. I indicate that they are. I pretend to read as I eavesdrop on their conversation, which is in Spanish, understanding about one in every ten or so words. Friend turns and asks me if he can set his cup on the table in front of me. I nod and gesture for him to do so. A few minutes later I catch him looking at me. I smile and continue reading. He returns to their conversation until a third friend, observably British, sits on the other side of Calves and engages him in English. Friend reaches for the coffee he set down in front of me. I steal a sideways glance, which he sees because he is looking directly at me.
"Are you waiting for a friend?"
[I'm waiting for anyone.]
"Pardon?"
"Are you waiting for a friend?"
[I was waiting for you to talk to me.]
"No. I'm just reading." I focus on my book. I don't even look at him.
"Oh." He gives up and pulls his phone out of his pocket so he has something to do other than wait for me to respond like a normal human being.
I can't talk to boys anymore. I don't know that I ever could. I want to talk to Friend more than anything. This moment is why I come here week on week. He's throwing me a rope and I strain to take it. I want to turn and introduce myself and take him to dinner or buy him a coffee or at the very least learn his name so that I can say hello if I ever see him again. I want him to save me from having the freedom to set aside Wednesday nights for myself. I want something to happen other than that which has so many times in the past, that I will be incapable of responding and this man who had the courage to speak to me despite my air of detachment will walk away and out of my life, likely thinking me rude. I'm not rude. I'm terrified of the very contact I so desperately seek. I have a perverse attachment to my current state. I've developed reflexive Stockholm Syndrome.
I stare at the page and pick a sentence to read at random. To my right on Old Compton Street a real live man is trying to talk to me. In the Brooklyn that exists only in the pages I'm holding, Julian Donahue is realizing that his dead son's half birthday would be next week. I can't talk to Friend. I attempt to form a word, to make some inane statement about the weather or the book I'm reading or the crazy man that just walked past shouting about Michael Jackson, but every syllable I attempt to form is yoked with the fears and expectations I've already built up in my head about anything and everything that could come of simply conversing with an attractive man who has exhibited an interest in me. So I say nothing.
I will him to try to speak to me again. I will myself the courage to answer if he does. Friend turns back to Calves. I am as relieved as I am disappointed.
Eventually Calves and the third stand up and announce their departure. Friend explains that he received a text indicating that Jorge will arrive in ten minutes, and he intends to stay here and wait. I tense up knowing that Friend and I will now have ten minutes alone. I want him to try again. I want to meet a potential friend or lover. I want one less stranger in my world.
As Friend rises to say goodbye another tanned Spaniard approaches from my left and puts his hand on Friend's shoulder. Jorge has arrived early. I watch the four of them head around the corner and toward Soho Square. Friend does not turn back for one last look.
I finish the chapter I'm reading and stand up. I walk past my future, who has abandoned the pretense of his newspaper and is watching me pass, waiting for me to return his gaze. I consciously look straight ahead. Wednesday means coffee and reading at Cafe Nero followed by dinner at Tuk Tuk. I hope there's a seat in the window so I can watch the people go by. I hope the man I've seen there four out of the last six weeks will be there again tonight. He's tall and handsome and possibly Greek or Middle Eastern. He's there alone on Wednesday, too. You might say we're there together. We've exchanged glances multiple times, directly and in the mirrors that line the walls. Last week the waiter seated us next to each other. Neither one of us said a word.
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