Three Ex Presidents and James Franco (4 page)

 
             It is possible that here in America it flourished. Egged on by the need to survive in a foreign land. Complemented by the addition of some Spanish and German chromosomes.

 
             To me it was a dead impulse. Violence was something for movies and news clips. Weapons were alien things.

 
             So I was genuinely shocked about an hour later when Dom reappeared, interrupting the moves I was making on Jake, and excitedly blurted out: “Eric has been shot. James has gone and fucking shot him."

The Second Part - Jake, James and Me

18.
Two months later I was lying naked on the bed looking at the picture of James Franco. I fancied his countenance was more relaxed today. As though he had resigned himself to his role of overseeing the comings and goings in Jake’s bed.

Jake was barely older than me, there was no barrier to us being intimate, but there was no love. He was treating our relationship as a training exercise.

At the time I was sure I didn't love him and that the feeling was mutual. It could have been otherwise, had my education not included cruising and anonymous sex. I’m sure I was begging to fall in love with someone, probably any someone. But he didn’t want to teach me about that.

Jake was lying beside me, naked also, stroking my leg with one hand. In the other he held the remote control with which he constantly flicked between two channels. The news and wrestling. The only things he ever watched.

"Want to fuck?" I asked. Using the word 'fuck' was a new pleasure. I’d had cause to use it in conversation before alright. I had used it as a noun, an adjective, a pronoun. Sometimes all in the same sentence: "Who the fuck does that fuck think he's fooling for fuck sake?'

Now I was using it just for the pleasure of finally giving the word its proper use.

"Sure." His reply had the quick response of a daily routine. As though I'd asked if he wanted breakfast.

I rolled over on the bed, as he fussed with a condom and finally entered me. While we fucked he kept the TV on the wrestling. He spent most of the time with his eyes on the screen, fantasising about one or both of the muscular masses grappling for our viewing pleasure.

For my part I was looking at James Franco. I apologised silently to him for what he had to witness. Nothing in his whiskey swilling, girl chasing, California dreaming past prepared him for what he had to endure in his new life on Jake's wall.

19.
Strangely, Jake had read the Bible. My only friend who had. Christianity wasn't the only enemy activity he kept abreast of. He had books on Scientology. Internet printouts on Scientology. Biographies of famous Scientologists. Also, the Holocaust had a rich and underused bounty to offer on the oppression of gays. He had shelves full of books on the war. The only pages which were read were those pertaining to the Pink Star.

There were books everywhere in his house. It was one of those collections that it would have been physically impossible for one man, reading constantly, to conquer in a lifetime. There were many on psychoanalysis, socio-biology, and copious amounts on genetics. Jake didn’t strike me as a great reader, but such was the vastness of his library, it was obvious he was a compulsive collector.

The gay theme was maintained in his fiction collection, with one major difference. While all the other books were gleaming and relatively new, all the fiction was second-hand. Some were well used to the point pages were falling out and the spines were sellotaped together.

My initial assumption was they were all so old because he wanted them to look read. And had no intention of reading them.

I tested this idea when I picked up a copy of Armistead Maupin. One of his chronicles of life in San Francisco. "After reading this," I said "Every time someone tells me I'm going to hell I tell them I can't wait. It’s one big San Francisco down there." He laughed, which was generous. But I was intending to be inquisitorial, not funny. "How do you think Tolliver ends up?"

"He's still single after book 7."

That could have been true. I hadn't read that far. I was no fan of the series. "It seems very beat up. How many times have you read it?"

"Only once. There are too many books in the world to read any of them more than once."

I agreed with that. "So why are all the books so beat up? Do you get them second-hand to protect the environment? You know, less trees knocked down and all that."

"That’s an added benefit I suppose." He laughed again.

I decided to get straight to the point. "There was a famous writer back home in Ireland, who wanted to set up a company that would go through your book collection. They'd fold the books, tear them, spill things on them to yellow them. All of this just to make the collection look well read..."

"I get your vibe," he interrupted me. Not insulted, still smiling. He picked a book from the shelf, an Alan Hollinghurst, and handed it to me. It was in an ill state of repair. Pages were no longer attached and just rested in their place inside. "Just look inside the cover. How many times has it been bought and sold?"

The markings on the barely attached cover indicated the answer was four times.

"Precisely. That book about an English teacher's obsession with his student has been sold four times. Four different owners have read it. Maybe people they know have read it too. God knows how many people have read it.

"When I hold it in my hands I'm holding something that's effected all those people's lives. And why did they sell it on? Husbands with wives, who vicariously ravage the beautiful boy, then sell it on to get it out of the house. Get it out of the house before the wife wonders at the book that has kept their husband's attention. Students may have read it and wondered to themselves if that will be them someday, that teacher. Then they sold it on to escape the thought. Old men, perhaps with grandchildren, read it and bemoaned the lost opportunities of their youth. Maybe they sold it on to keep it in circulation, so younger generations won't make the same mistake.

"So when I read the books, I feel...I feel like I'm involved in a much bigger event. I hold in my hands words that have shook people's lives."

20.
Jake was obsessed with muscle. Not because he had little himself, but because he was a virile gay man. It needs no further explanation. This is why he watched wrestling. And this obsession lead to my curiosity about James. The on-edge, impossibly muscular ex-soldier.

The James Franco poster on the bedroom wall was the key. Jake was hopelessly compulsive. And at one stage he was fixated on the movie star. He'd had every picture he could buy on eBay. He'd seen his movies countless times. In a rare admission of immaturity he revealed he'd even sent him letters and emails.

He got no response. So he scoured the internet for anything else he could find. When one day, on some site, somewhere, someone posted what promised to be James Franco x-rated pictures, Jake’s heart skipped a beat. Maybe there was a God, he'd thought.

Alas, it wasn't to be. There was neither to be the desired pictures of the movie star, nor likely a God. But there was a site for a body-builder and sometime porn star. By the name of James Frank.

The energy which Jake had built up needed an outlet. His sexual feelings had been sparked. The engine of his being was venting sexual steam. It had been directed at one person, but was no longer dependent on the source. It wasn't long until the full force of his attraction was directed at this new interloper. If he saw the process in someone else Jake would have called it displacement. But he rarely analysed himself.

Jake soon discovered that attracting the attention of an internet celebrity is much easier done than attracting the real thing. After sending emails and gifts of money, he was on a plane to LA to meet James Frank. Something he'd dreamt of doing for quite some time, albeit with a different James F.

On arriving he made another discovery. Porn stars aren't prostitutes. They're actors. James was delighted to meet a fan. But he wasn't open for business. Afterall, he said, he was straight.

Not easily discouraged, Jake took the well travelled course of turning James into a kept man without his knowledge or acquiescence. By keeping his purse strings loose and the gifts flowing it wasn't long before James did the polite thing. They were in bed together within two weeks.

Jake had assumed he’d get bored with his LA adventure after a while, then simply return home. In the end he did return, but kept very much in contact with his new celebrity friend. James had intrigued him.

Due to some mix-up involving a director's wife, James had soon found himself unemployed. On Jake's insistence he had left LA to go join him. Jake set him up in a small place, and threw some cash his way. Otherwise James made his money through various operations which Jake claimed to know nothing about.

Despite being a drain, Jake had not lost his interest in James. The fascination didn't arise from sex. It came from the post-coital discussions, when Jake gleaned his back-story. A story that goes some of the way to explaining the attack on Eric.

21.
James was discharged from the army when he was caught getting a blowjob from another soldier. The ‘Don't ask, don't tell’ policy was in existence at the time. But it was very difficult to construe this as a misunderstanding. At the time he had a wife. Unable to face her, he immediately went traveling around Europe with what little money he had. By the time he got back he was almost glad to discover his wife had left him. It meant there was no discussion.

It’s impossible to say if the discharge led him to be so tightly wound, or if he was always like that. Being tense would explain why he joined the army in the first place. And why he enjoyed exercising to the point of getting physically sick. Whichever was the case he didn't talk to Jake much about his military experience. Jake inquired but was usually rebuffed. The insight that the whole experience could have traumatised him could only be garnered from the occasional losses of self control. Like when he shot Eric.

I believe Jake didn't want to probe too much around James anyway, so he was happy with his silence. To Jake's mind James was some kind of refugee. He had been persecuted by the institution and country he loved, merely for being different. And once he'd arrived at that opinion he didn't want it challenged.

How James ended up doing gay internet porn is anyone's guess. Maybe he was just the right type. The type of guy who'll let another guy give him head even though he has a wife. Maybe he was the type of guy whose body obsession didn't just express itself in his superhuman physique. Maybe this body obsession extended to being able to use it to whatever ends he liked. The process of fucking random guys could have been a greater expression of his self control than the amount he could bench press.

22.
His military training meant James only shot Eric in the leg. When Fiona had heard he was shot she asked if he was ok. This question seemed absurd to me. To my mind saying someone was shot was the same as saying they were dead.

But he was alive. A shot intended merely to wound. And wound it had, probably ending Eric's football for the rest of the year.

After leaving the party two months ago, Eric had gone to meet his friends in the Station, a student bar. The friends were supposed to be there scoring some drugs but instead spent most of their time being actively distracted by booze. Finally, a few drinks later, someone had taken control of the situation and phoned a guy who had come through for them in the past.

When James got the call he headed straight to the Station. The job done, he was leaving as Eric arrived. Eric had been in a great state of agitation on leaving the party. He hadn't calmed down any and, despite having already been humiliated, he immediately and instinctively went for James. It would have ended with Eric just receiving another couple of bruises, had his friends not intervened. Surrounded, James had drawn a gun.

Is it possible that being encircled by these fit, screaming, young men had reawakened memories in James? Perhaps of being beaten back in the army? Were they the same age as the former friends who had perhaps kicked and thumped him into a hospital bed? Had more happened back then than he let on?

Either way, yes or no, for a second time that evening a look of pure rage overcame James's face. He didn't fire the gun in the air as a warning shot. What little self control he had was directed at not shooting Eric in the head. Instead he shot him in the leg and made good his escape in the ensuing confusion and panic.

About twenty minutes later he was chased down by the police. He still had the gun, but luckily for him he had parted with the last of his drugs back at the Station.

23.
Sitting having coffee with Dom the events of the party were the first things to discuss. Conversation first dealt with Eric. His injury and recovery. He was still on crutches, but would probably be off them in a couple of weeks.