My Barcelona
Kieron Devlin

Dean's leaning, knees up on the broken chair, his Tin-Tin quiff fluffed up, his red paisley shirt sleeves rolled, a glassless window behind him, talking about how Pedro and he tripped on acid, went to the Otto Zutz, the Outer Zone, the dirty beach, a vague memory of having fucked among the disease-carrying mosquitoes, how they leaned out of the car and shouted 'fools' at the workmen in blue overalls, and did U-turns at full speed along the Diagonal at 6.00 am, and had the first fresh croissants from the bakery. How I want to be there with them but don't know how to let the animal in me out; I prefer my cage with scraps of meat thrown on occasion, and Dean's head is framed like a fresco by an arch by the view of the Medieval quarter, of the tiles, the eaves, the dust-coated baskets on rooftops, by the heavy backside of the Santa Maria Del Mar which everyone admires but never visits; and the window is called 'goner', cause if you lean out, you're a goner, but it's good for providing a lighted stage for JJ who found the apartment, who struts in that space of an evening, flaunting his pale, naked, proud body, even if his cock is too small -- he complains -- to be seen, and the neighbors are all stolid Catalonian Catholics entrenched in sadism, and Dean says that the sight of his ass is only what they deserve, turns them on; and Dean's accent is pure Belfast, it lilts, it bounces, like a very brisk walk up the Falls Road, ducking and shifting from the odd flying bullet, but he's getting jittery, restless again, blowing smoke in shapes that vanish, wanting drugs and more drugs -- o sweet but head-crushed oblivion -- drowning in the cacophony of good times, a cascade of days without limits, not knowing or caring what it was all about, how he needs to score fast like a long repressed urge to go to the toilet, and I need to be more like him, as the evening settles and Pedro should be calling soon which is great because he has money and a car and a deep smoky voice, made to slither between sheets in bedrooms, grasp your throat, and all the trips zig-zag into a seamless patchwork full of Pedro, and how many tabs he's got tonight, and long tall glasses of viscous gin washed with lemon, ice, that smarts in the throat, he's got to get out, out, to see Pedro, who dotes on Dean but it's not love, although it seems to be, something he's found but likes to kick around a bit so that it doesn't turn in spite and devour him like a pill. But I won't leave my cage, my living the vicarious life, sapping Dean's spirit into mine, my windowless room, good for weeping if it weren't for lack of a door, and the strange people wandering in and out during the night. And Dean says to me: Hey, let's lean out of the window; at least we won't bleed. Fine, I say, let's do it.