Chapter 5: Party II

"Oh, for fuck's sake..." O'Malley muttered, rolling his eyes toward heaven as if to accuse God himself of devising the current ridiculous sequence of events just to torment him.

Valentin was currently marching toward him from the left, like some ghost of photographs past, while Sherman came trotting in-two glasses of liquor in hand-from the right. Both stopped short when they saw that O'Malley wasn't quite alone. And both wore weirdly matching, comically pissed off expressions. The two men started speaking together at once:

"You didn't have to storm off like some rude jackass!"

"Hey, O, can we go somewhere and talk?"

"Listen, you! I was talking first!"

"No you weren't. And who the hell are you?"

"Who the hell are you?"

O'Malley turned his face into the blond boy's shoulder and uttered miserably, "Someone please get these 'ho's off of me..." The boy laughed musically at the whispered comment, his face reflecting wry amusement at the situation. The sound drew sharp looks from the other two men. And once again, they both started speaking at the same time:

"So who's this? The current flavor of the week?"

"Why don't you take off, dude. You are obviously not wanted here."

"I'm not wanted here? Ha! I've got news for you pal: he's never gonna bang your fat ass. Never. I don't care how many glasses of booze you pour into him-"

"-what the fuck?"

"You heard me, dude. Shove off."

"Fuck you!"

"Fuck you!"

O'Malley raised his hand. "Don't I get a say in who I'm fucking?"

"SHUT UP!"

O'Malley dropped his hand. The nameless blond boy remained silent-his beautiful, angular face staring up at him with an expression which bordered on pity. O'Malley found himself staring back. And, as he gazed into those pale, azure eyes, he found himself forgetting all about Valentin and Sherman and everyone else who seemed-by some bizarre manifestation of bad magnetism-to want a piece of him that evening. No, the moment wasn't completely lost yet. Just somewhat derailed. And maybe-just maybe-he could get it back. That is, if he could get rid of his impromptu fan club...

"Fuck this. I'm leaving," said Sherman finally, with more than just a little bit of hurt coloring his words. He then set the two glasses down on the concrete barrier and turned and stormed off.

"And well you should," called Valentin snidely. O'Malley watched the rocker as he turned and scooped up one of the glasses, downing its contents all in a single go. He then turned to stare directly at O'Malley, and the photographer could see the hazy film of booze-and god only knew what else-clouding the other man's vision. Valentin was well and truly fucked up.

"You could have called, you know. Said something." Valentin's tone was weirdly imploring.

O'Malley rasped out a sharp, bitter bark of laughter. "Are you fucking kidding me? We are not having this conversation six months after the fact."

"Yes, we are!"

"No, we're not."

"You passive-aggressive, alcoholic asshole! I can't believe I'm even talking to you right now-"

"-just why are you talking to me?"

"Because..." Valentin sputtered helplessly. He then glared at the blond, and said through gritted teeth, "Can you tell your cock du jour to take a hike for a moment?"

"No, I can't. And he's not my 'cock du jour,' as you so eloquently put it."

"Maybe he isn't..." proclaimed Valentin darkly, "...yet." He then leaned in toward the blond boy, and said, in a confidential tone of voice, "You should stay away from him. He's a complete alcoholic and an asshole and a user-"

"I'll take that into due consideration," said the boy in a faux serious tone, leaning away from the other man.

"That's enough, Val," interrupted O'Malley, and he grabbed the second drink from the wall before Valentin could snatch it. "Don't you have a set to get ready for?"

"I'm fine," insisted Valentin. And then-as if to prove the exact opposite-he lurched against O'Malley and said, in a drunken slur, "Meet me afterwards?"

O'Malley watched the blond boy roll his eyes over the top of Valentin's head; the rocker was currently shamelessly drooling all over his Led Zeppelin T-shirt. O'Malley gently pushed the other off of him and said, "I don't think so."

Valentin's expression immediately turned dark. "Why not? And don't say that it wasn't any good-the two of us." Then: "I still like you."

"You don't even fucking know me," spat O'Malley, his temper suddenly rising.

"But I know what you like."

"You don't know shit."

"You don't care then? That I still want you?"

"But you don't want me," said O'Malley, and he could feel some sort of speech coming on, the words unstoppable, like verbal diarrhea. He found himself saying things-true things, honest things-he didn't mean to say: "You liked the version you saw of yourself through my eyes, that's all. All wonderful and perfect and ideal and completely, totally unreal. It was never about me. Hell, I don't even figure into this equation, not really. It's all about you, you, you. Or do you not realize that? I might be an alcoholic bastard, but at least I'm self aware enough to know that I was never the true object of your desire. It was all about self love. I just allowed myself to play your mirror for a bit, that's all. It's all I ever fucking do."

Valentin blinked stupidly, obviously trying to absorb the words. "I don't get what you're saying."

O'Malley shook his head regretfully and said, "No. And I don't expect you to." Then: "Go away, Val."

Valentin took two unsteady steps backward. "Fine, I'm going. I don't need this psychological mumbo-jumbo of yours anyway. Why should I?" His eyes then flicked to the boy beside him. "I hope you two are very happy together, considering all the bullshit that comes out of his mouth." He then turned and staggered awkwardly away.

O'Malley and the blond stood together in a heavy, almost impenetrable silence. A hard wind whipped around them, rattling the string of hanging lanterns on the lower deck, splashing the courtyard in a black and gold shadow-play. O'Malley shivered, and he grabbed up his peacoat and tugged it back on, the movements jerky, almost angry. After a while he said:

"I'm sorry about that."

"No, I'm sorry."

O'Malley looked at the boy sharply. "Why are you sorry? I'm the one-"

"-that speech you just made was really...well, sad."

O'Malley felt his face begin to turn red. Actual red. And that never happened. His thoughts were sloshing, clashing together like sheets of rain in a violent squall. His interior monologue was a veritable maelstrom of self immolation: Why did I say that shit? I am such a fucking idiot. Someone should really sew my mouth shut. He's never going to want to leave with me after that bullshit display. I came off like a drunken groupie. Hell, I am a drunken groupie. I need to stop fucking stupid guys in bands. Yey, I say that now, but wait until next week. I have the willpower of a smack addict on a bender. Hell, If I had stayed with Valentin, I would probably be a smack addict on a bender. That man makes my addictions look like candy. I can't believe all the shit that has happened this evening. God obviously hates me-

"Hello? Anyone at home in there?" the blond was suddenly waving a leather-gloved hand in front of his face.

O'Malley snapped out of his internal diatribe. "I'm sorry...I was completely off in space." He looked down, and remembering the glass of rum and coke that he still held in his hand, he lifted it up to his lips and took a long, hard swig.

"So that was the singer from Angels of Anarchy?" the boy asked him in a flat, emotionless tone.

"Unfortunately, yes."

"He was...it was..." and here the boy hesitated, "Well...it was a beautiful album cover you did for him. 'Orpheus Descending' wasn't it?"

"Yep. The same name as the Tennessee Williams play."

"Tell me, was the lyre on his back inked on?"

O'Malley smiled a somewhat bitter smile at that question, as he remembered the actual execution of the photo. "No. I drew it on myself." Then: "Keats had it all wrong, you know. Beauty isn't truth and truth isn't beauty. Sometimes truth is a fucking ugly bitch."

The boy said nothing to that, and O'Malley upended his drink. The pleasant buzz he'd had going before was completely gone, obliterated by the stress of far too many unwanted interruptions, too many unwanted interactions. He needed more booze to get it back. And then the boy said:

"That friend of yours has a serious crush on you, you know."

"What? You mean Sherman? No way."

"Yes, way. He was giving me the glaring look of doom that night you were chatting me up at the bar."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Funny. He always said he was straight."

"I'd say he was about as straight as one of those twisty straws."

O'Malley merely shrugged at this newly acquired information. Well, he wasn't going to be the one to lead Sherman out of the closet and into the light. Uh-uh, not him. He was obviously not the man for such grand revelations of self-realization, if tonight was anything to go by. Drunken parties and existential truths obviously did not mix. And then another thought suddenly struck him, and he said:

"Wait-you looked at my album cover?"

O'Malley watched as the blond actually dropped his eyes in a demure, secretive smile-a strange contrast against all the hardware and leather. "At the risk of sounding like some kind of stalker, I must admit that I've looked at quite a bit of your work here lately."

O'Malley felt his heart begin to boom rapidly in his chest. If he hadn't known better, he would have said he was standing back in front of Jaded Sadie's amps.

"And?"

"And I liked it. A lot. You speak through visual symbols, like a puzzle, and I found it...challenging to decipher what it was you were actually trying to say."

"Well, maybe you're reading too much into them-"

"-No, I don't think so. You're smart and you hide a lot of stuff right out in the open. It's all right there for people to see if they are bright enough to look. It's like communicating in a secret language. And it's-well, I think I would need a few drinks myself, in order for me to say anything more..."

Now it was O'Malley's turn to drop his eyes to the ground. For the second time that night, he felt himself go red. Deep red. He had never before had such a gorgeous creature speak to him this way about his own work. In a way that really mattered. It all seemed unreal. And now he was unsure as to which one of them was doing the actual wooing here...

"You're being too kind," O'Malley said at last.

"Oh, I'm not usually kind," the boy responded cryptically. "My life, as of late, hasn't afforded me the opportunity to be empathetic or kind or amiable or any of that stuff. And sometimes it gets rather...tiring."

"What's tiring?"

"Being made of stone. All the time."

O'Malley just looked at the boy then. Really looked. And what he saw there, in the tight, weary slump of the boy's shoulders, in the far-off, desolate stare of his eyes, was an individual who was straining under the weight of some heavy, unnamed burden. O'Malley's eyes then dropped lower, to the flashing light of the silver cross he wore around his neck, and he found himself remembering-

-it was dark, and raining. And a rosary was lying, twisted and broken, in pieces on the ground. Red beads were scattered everywhere. Red, like the drops of blood that were also on the ground. Everywhere, all around-

"O'Malley!"

Jarred out of the memory, O'Malley turned at the sound of his name being called for the umpteenth time that evening. He could see Danny, along with Jaded Sadie's lead singer, Mutters-his actual name was Jack or Josh or Joe, but O'Malley could never remember which, so he arbitrarily assigned him the name 'Mutters,' which was what he did off stage-heading towards him from the upper patio deck. O'Malley swore under his breath. He then turned to the boy and said:

"Hey-you wanna get out of here?"

End Chapter 5.

Note: I just decided on a whim to skip town again next week (during the days I was, er, going to write the next chapter-in I which will switch POVs) so no update for me. So to the 7 of you who are reading this, I apologize. But, there is more than one form of escapism, after all...