Fragments of Sean - 1. We Only Fuck Each Other

'Jonni I think I've been dumped fml'

That was what all that was in the text message I had just received. 'Not more drama in Sean's life?' was my immediate thought.

I had dropped Sean off in Galway the previous evening outside the hotel where he had arranged to meet some guy that he had been chatting to online for the previous week or so. Over breakfast the next morning I'd found a video he had sent to my phone overnight, and assumed from the content that his date had gone well. I deleted it, and just hoped that he hadn't stupidly sent it to one of his family members as well. He'd been known to do things like that by mistake in the past, and I didn't think they'd really appreciate receiving a five second video of him masturbating whilst lying naked on a bed. I'd assumed Dave, the guy he was meeting, had taken the video with Sean's phone.

But the text message I had just received left me wondering if my planned bank holiday Monday afternoon of tidying up my garden and planting out the new flower seedlings I had grown in the poly tunnel might be about to be interrupted.

Hoping things weren't as bad as they sounded, and smiling at the fact that he always insists on misspelling my name, I rang his number.

"Shorry, Johnny," he answered. "I'm shorry I messaged you. Think I fucked up again. I'm really shorry."

He was slurring his words and sounded extremely drunk, even though it was not yet one o'clock in the afternoon.

"You've nothing to be sorry about, Sean. Nothing at all."

"Yesh, but I'm always ringing you. Every time I fuck up, I ring you. I'm really shorry, Johnny."

"Stop apologising. It was me who rang you. You only texted me. Are you okay? Are you home yet?" I thought his dad may have already picked him up. I was also worried, considering the drunken state he was obviously in, that my asking too many questions at once might be difficult for him to take in.

"I'm fine," he slurred. "Still in Galway. Can you collect me? I'm shorry to keep being a nuisance."

"Of course I can. But what do you mean about being dumped?"

"He left me at the hotel. He asked me to go to the swimming pool with him."

"I'm confused. What do you mean? Why didn't you just go to the pool with him?"

"I had no swimming trunks. He said he'd walk home and get me a spare pair of his. Said he only lives a ten minute walk away."

"You should have gone with him."

"I suggested that. He said for me to wait for him at the hotel."

I wondered if Dave might actually be married and that's why he didn't want him to go with him to his house. But, whatever the reason, it was beginning to sound like Sean really had been dumped.

"How long ago was this?"

"Just after breakfast."

"And he hasn't come back?"

"I don't know. I'm not at the hotel anymore. I had to be out of the room by eleven. I'm a fucking mess, aren't I, Johnny? Shorry to be such a nuisance."

"Have you tried texting or ringing him?"

"Yesh. I keep getting his voicemail. I think he turned his phone off. He isn't replying. I think the fucker dumped me."

I was finding it difficult to understand what Sean was actually saying - partly because he was drunk and slurring his words, and partly because he was sobbing down the phone. I decided that I would have to find out exactly where he was, drive into Galway to collect him, and just hope that he didn't forget about ringing me and head off somewhere else before I got there.

"Sean, exactly where are you now?"

"The King's Head."

At least I knew where that pub was. It's in the Latin Quarter, on High Street. It's also in a pedestrianised area, but I knew I would be able to find a parking spot reasonably close by.

"Okay. Stay there and I'll pick you up in thirty minutes or so."

"Aw, thanks Johnny! You're a star."

" Sean."

"Yea?"

"Don't move! Stay at that pub! Okay?"

"Okay, Johnny. I'm sat at one of the tables outside. I won't go anywhere."

I was hoping I'd got through to him. Several times in the past he'd not been where he'd said he would be when I had supposed to have been collecting him.

"And, Sean..."

"Yesh?"

"How's the battery in your phone?"

I was concerned that he may have forgotten to charge it overnight and it might die on him. That had also happened more than once in the past, leaving me unable to contact him when he hadn't been where he had said he would be.

There was a pause as he was obviously looking at the screen.

"Eighty six percent."

"Great! Keep the phone turned on. Whatever you do, don't switch it off. I'll be as quick as I can. I'll ring you if I get stuck in traffic or something."

"Johnny, I fucking love you. You do know that, don't you?" He sounded close to tears.

"Yea, I know. Just don't go anywhere. And keep your phone turned on. I'll see you soon." He was still mumbling apologies as I ended the call.

Gathering up my gardening tools and putting them away in the shed in case it rained, I went into the house to collect my wallet and car keys before heading off towards the city. As I was driving I couldn't help thinking about the strange relationship that had developed between myself and Sean over the past couple of years.

I had first met him as a result of Francis, a gay acquaintance of mine, ringing me one Friday afternoon asking if I could give a lift into Galway that evening to some lad he'd met the previous weekend. I live out in the sticks twenty miles or so from the city and apparently this new sex interest of Francis lived in the same general area as me. I agreed and Francis had given me the lad's the telephone number, telling me his name was Sean. A few texts had gone back and forth between Sean and myself over the next few hours, the upshot of which was that had I agreed to pick him up in the car park outside the local parish church, which was on a crossroads about three miles from where I was living. Apparently Sean lived about a mile away on the other side of it.

I had been surprised, and more than just a little bit worried, at just how young he looked when I met him at the agreed meeting point later that evening. Francis was well known on the local scene as being something of a chicken-hawk, but this lad who was leaning his head through my front passenger window looked to be only about fifteen or sixteen years old. Worried about bringing a possibly underage lad into the city to meet up with a guy in his early forties I had immediately, and quite bluntly, demanded to know exactly how old he was. He had claimed he was twenty. When I told him I found that hard to believe he confirmed it by showing me his passport. He told me he always carried it with him when he was going out for a night, as he was constantly being refused drink or entry to bars or clubs without it. Relenting, I released the lock on the car door, and he slid into the passenger seat.

On the drive to Galway he told me he liked the older man, as he put it, and had been in a relationship with a guy in his late forties in Brighton, in England, for the previous two years. That had apparently broken down when his partner had brought another young lad home one evening and expected Sean to join in a threesome. Sean was looking for love and commitment, not mere fun. So he had ended the relationship and moved to Ireland to stay with his parents who had retired back home here the year previously.

Francis had obviously impressed Sean the previous weekend, so I kept my mouth shut and decided to let him find out for himself what the real Francis was like. And that didn't take very long at all. I acted as a taxi service for the two of them for a few weeks but, sure enough, once Sean used the word 'relationship' with Francis, he was dropped like a pile of hot bricks. Francis is a player not a stayer. I doubt that the word 'commitment' even exists in his lexicon.

Sean and myself have stayed friends. As he has no transport of his own I'll often give him lifts here and there, and I've met his parents and some of his siblings on occasions when I pick him up at his gate. They seem to be a nice family and his mother has suggested a few times that I should join them for Sunday dinner sometime, an offer I have still yet to take up. He's an intelligent lad, very easy on the eye, and pleasant enough to get on with most of the time. But he's really just too young for me to consider as anything more than a friend. Sometimes late at night, or even in the early hours of the morning, more often than not extremely drunk, he will ring me to ask if I can pick him up and drop him home from wherever he's ended up after one of his many ill thought out escapades.

He does have his problems, though. He has a definite problem with drink, suffers from depression, has a deep seated self image problem, and often displays symptoms of internalised homophobia. He's also admitted to me that he cuts himself at times, always after consuming too much drink. He really should cut back on his drinking, if not try to quit altogether. Alcohol and depression are never good bedfellows. But at least he's not actually suicidal. He desperately needs professional help. I know that. I'm sure his parents know it as well. But, until he finally admits that fact to himself, there's not really a lot that any of us can do. Except to try to be there for him when he needs us.

Finding a parking spot as close to High Street as possible, I put these thoughts aside as I walked the few hundred yards to the pub. It was a bright and sunny afternoon and, being a bank holiday, the streets were thronged with people. But at least I was in luck this time, as Sean was where he said he would be. Crossing the street to approach the pub, I could see him sitting at one of the tables in a cordoned off area of the street in front of it. He seemed to be deep in conversation with some other guy, and was waving his hands about as though he was trying to get some point across. The person he was talking to looked unwashed and definitely in need of a shave and a haircut, and probably a new wardrobe. Truth be told, he looked like one of the city's homeless population. And that basically dashed any lingering hope I may have had that it was Dave he was sitting with, and that he hadn't really been dumped after breakfast.

As I approached, I called out his name and he started to rise from his chair to greet me. Due to his inebriated state he banged against the table almost knocking it over. There were two nearly full pint glasses of beer on it which were in serious danger of toppling off the edge. The dozen or so people sitting at nearby tables momentarily stopped their conversations and watched with obvious amusement as Sean desperately struggled, and only just managed, to save the drinks from spilling. I grabbed a vacant stool from one of the other tables, carried it over to Sean's table and sat down.

"Johnny! Great! You got here. Are you having a drink?"

"I can't, Sean. You know I have to drive. Finish yours and I'll get you home."

"I don't want to go home yet. I'm talking with my new friend."

This was just what I was worried might happen. All I wanted was for him to follow me back to the car so I could go home. I almost felt like shaking him to try to make him see sense. But I knew whatever I said wasn't going to be of any immediate help. I realised the utter futility of thinking that anyone could make a drunk see sense. It would probably only result in a public scene. And I knew from previous experiences what Sean could be like when he has been drinking.

I settled back in my chair and looked from one to the other.

"So, Sean, are you going to introduce me to your new friend?"

"Oh yea. Stupid me! Shorry. Johnny, this is..." he paused for a moment, and then looked at his companion.

"Shorry..." he started, looking at him confused. "Who exactly are you?"

"Just call me Jim."

"Nice to meet you, Jim!" Sean exclaimed, very nearly knocking over his beer as he reached across the table to shake his hand.

"Thish is my bestest of best friends in the world, Johnny," he continued, as a way of introducing me.

Jim, if that really was his name, nodded across at me, which I returned with a nod of my own. The three of us just sat there looking at each other for a few moments.

"So," I asked, in an attempt at breaking the awkward silence, "what do you do for a living, Jim."

"Between jobs at the moment," was all he replied.

"Yea. Been there myself once or twice," I said in a noncommittal tone.

Sean leaned across the table towards me, hiding the side of his mouth with one hand, to try to whisper to me so that Jim wouldn't hear what he was saying.

"He's homeless, you know."

His attempt at a stage whisper turned out to be so loud that it could have probably even been heard by the people sat at the next table.

"Aw, I'm sorry to hear that, Jim. That can't be easy for you."

"I survive. Manage to get into one of the emergency hostels most nights."

"I told him there's a spare bedroom at my house he can use if he wants," said Sean.

It was beginning to look like I might be giving a lift to two people out of the city. I sat there saying nothing for a while. Sean found it difficult enough to look after himself properly most of the time, so I wondered how he thought he would be able to look after someone else as well. I also suspected, considering his present state of drunkenness, that he hadn't even properly considered the implications of his offer. But, when I thought about it, he was really only displaying one of the qualities that helps to endear him to me - his own precious way of trying to care for the less fortunate in the world, even when life doesn't seem to deal the best of cards to himself a lot of the time.

I looked between the two of them, and decided to try to suss out Jim's motivation.

"Sean lives about twenty five miles out of the city, Jim. In the country, miles from anywhere. Do you think that would suit you?" I asked, half thinking he'd say it wouldn't. I suspected most of his time was spent panhandling and begging, and he'd think he would have more success at that in a largish city than a thinly populated rural area.

"I don't mind. One place is as good as another. He seems a nice guy. He's already given me a pair of shoes."

I glanced under the table and saw that Jim was wearing the pair of dress shoes that Sean had been wearing when I had given him the lift in the previous evening. And when I looked at Sean's feet I saw a pair of dirty and battered trainers with hole in the toes. Obviously Jim's old shoes.

"Haven't you got a spare pair of shoes in your rucksack, Sean?"

"No. I only brought the pair I was wearing with me."

"Okay. Well finish those drinks and let's get heading. I've things to do when I get home."

Sean downed about half of the beer that was left in his glass and turned to speak to Jim.

"It's only a shingle bed in the spare bedroom. I'll ring dad when we get home and ask him to bring a sheet and duvet. I've a spare pillow in my room."

"You have a double bed in your own room?" asked Jim.

"Yesh, but there's only a shingle one in the spare room."

"Well I might as well sleep with you. Saves you having to ask your dad for spare bedding."

Sean suddenly sat up straight. He seemed to momentarily sober up as it dawned on him what Jim was suggesting. His eyes widened and he looked back and forth between the two of us.

"No, no, no! That'sh not what I meant," he spluttered.

He sat there for a moment shaking his head, looking as though he was trying to get his brain working properly. Suddenly he grabbed hold of my arm and pulled me closer to himself.

"Jim, this is Johnny. Johnny is my boyfriend," he said in a very loud voice.

I noticed that the customers sitting at the nearby tables had stopped to listen. Some of the people walking past the street also seemed to pause to see what the shouting was about.

"Johnny is my boyfriend, and I am Johnny's boyfriend!"

His voice continued to get louder.

"I only fuck Johnny! Johnny only fucks me! We don't let other people fuck either of us!" He banged his fist on the table top to emphasise his point. The drinks almost spilled again.

Absolute silence reigned around us. It seemed as though time was standing still, and that everyone within a thirty foot radius had heard what he'd said. I almost wished the ground would open up and swallow me out of everyone's sight. I glanced around and everyone seemed to be looking at us. There was a deafening silence, as though everyone was waiting to see just what happen next.

"Sean," I said in a calm voice, but deliberately loud enough for the people around us to hear, "you're embarrassing me."

"Well I'm only telling the truth."

Actually he was telling anything but the truth. But at least he was no longer shouting. And thankfully, probably because he had now stopped shouting, time seemed to start moving forward again. The conversations at the other tables recommenced. The people on the street started walking again. I guessed that they probably hadn't really understand what was being said, and all they had actually been aware of was that some drunk was shouting his head off about something.

"I jush wanna go home, Johnny. Jush take me home. I don't want the rest of this drink. Jim can have it if he wants," he said, grabbing his bag and stumbling to his feet.

"Sorry about that, Jim," I said quietly, as I was rising to follow Sean. "He can be a bit unpredictable when he has drink on him."

He just looked at me, nodded, and lifted Sean's unfinished drink to his lips. I felt sorry for the guy, I really did. But there was little I could personally do to help him at this moment in time. Sean had passed his verdict on him, and Sean was now my priority.

Turning to see him staggering clumsily down the street in the wrong direction I waved a hand at Jim and hurried after Sean.

"Slow down, Sean. You're going the wrong way. The car's parked in the other direction."

Stopping, he turned around and swayed from side to side.

"How am I shupposed to know where you parked the fucking car, Johnny? You should have fucking told me."

'No, you should have fucking asked me before just rushing off,' was what I very nearly said.

"Sorry. This way. Come on," was what I actually said.

It took a while, and more than once I had to grab his arm to stop him staggering into other pedestrians, or straight off the pavement and under passing traffic when we left the pedestrianised area, but I eventually managed to get him safely buckled into the front passenger seat of my car.

With luck Sean would sleep on the journey and be a bit more clear headed when I got him home. But there was always another possibility; that he would stay awake, try to analyse what had happened over the previous eighteen hours or so, and slip into one of the deep depressions that he was so prone to after too much alcohol. If that happened the drive home would not be an easy one. And I may have to stay with him until he finally did go to sleep, to make sure he didn't physically harm himself.

As I drove out of the city I just hoped that he would go to sleep...