Born Different Read online

  They both had a few more slugs of the vodka as they waited for the rain to stop, which it didn’t. Gabe couldn’t think of anything to say and it was taking all of his strength just trying to get used to the fact that he was sitting so close next to Grace. He could smell her, he could breathe her.

  The storm passed over but the rain remained and with the realisation that they might be here for a while, Grace began to make small talk and it didn’t take long before they started finding some common ground. Gabe listened mostly and he found Grace captivating. There was always the worry that if he ever got to talk to her that she would be just awful. But she wasn’t, she was just an older, wiser, more intelligent and more beautiful version of the little girl he had liked so much. It actually broke his heart a bit that she was actually really nice, really quite funny and quick humoured and she laughed a lot at what Gabe did manage to say. And she was shy, not confident like Gabe had always presumed, she twirled her hair a lot around her finger and she had a slight stutter that Gabe didn’t remember her having from when they were kids. If anything, Grace put herself down quite a bit. And she was tactile, always gesturing with her hands and touching him to express a point or share a laugh. Gabe kept sipping from the vodka bottle like it was a prop, something to do to detract from the fact that he was nervous as hell. But Gabe had to ask something, ask something before he started falling deeper in love with her.

  “And Alastair? He’s your boyfriend, right?” Gabe spoke the words out loud that he needed to say although he didn’t really want to hear the answer.

  “Alistair?” Grace almost choked on her drink. “You are joking aren’t you? You’re not. Oh dear Gabe, what are you like. Do you and your friends actually not talk to each other?”

  So she does know, thought Gabe, she bloody knows!

  The look on Gabe’s face prompted Grace to elaborate.

  “Alistair is actually seeing someone you know but not me. Definitely not me! I thought that you would know.”

  “I don’t know anyone that Alistair knows Grace, far from it.” Gabe was taken aback and would have stood up if it had been a choice.

  “Really? Well perhaps it is a secret and I shouldn’t really say anything. Can you keep a secret Gabe?” and Grace looked him in the eye to see if he could.

  Gabe laughed, as he had to be the best person at keeping secrets that there ever was.

  “Alistair is seeing Frank! Your friend Frank!”

  And Gabe was hit with it like a slap in the face. This was what Frank had wanted to tell him. Lots of things, lots of little things that had happened, that had seemed a bit strange to Gabe at the time did, as the penny dropped, suddenly now make perfect sense.

  “Ah…I see. No, I didn’t know…not about Alistair. I...I...I‘ve been a bit busy recently.”

  “Doing what?”

  So this was the trap, the bait had been laid and now he was supposed to confide about the crime and lead them to Johnny, to the stash! And really, would it be so bad if he did? If anyone needed a kick up the arse, as Johnny himself had put it, it was Johnny.

  “Oh you know, The Exhibition and…my dad. I’ve never met him but I got a local address yesterday. I’ve been thinking about finding him.”

  Grace offered to help find his dad and she sounded genuine but was this all a trap? Get done to the father, he’d never met, the same as what had just happened to Johnny’s dad? What was in that box? It had to be something valuable and precious to warrant such a reaction. Or maybe Alastair was just evil but then if Alistair was evil, then weren’t his friends as bad if not worse? And if his friends were, then what did that make Gabe?

  They had finished the vodka and the rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. Gabe and Grace made their way out into the wet air from their dry lair and it was like they had come out from the centre of the earth to a different land. The rain had cleared the static and everything though wet, was now fresh and clean.

  They walked back along the river in the moon light. The wind was bitter cold and Gabe was too scared to touch Grace or say anything else. He gave her his new jacket to wear, to keep her warm. He figured it was dark enough for her not to see he wasn’t bandaged up that great and it would have just been too awful to hear and see her chatter and shake with chill and not offer up his warm jacket. As they walked, Gabe really wanted to reach out and hold her hand, he wanted to reach out and take her hand like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. But he couldn’t, he just couldn’t.

  They walked the long way back even though they knew they would be soaked through by the time they got home as the wet ground soaked up the legs of their jeans. They walked further up the river, stopping to admire the nightscape of the city in the reflection of the water. They walked across the now deserted nice park by the river which was where The Middles and their dog could usually be found in the day and the reason why no one much went down to the park where Gabe usually hung out.

  This park was totally different to The Outcasts park where The Damned spent their days. In this park the lawns were manicured and there were a thousand different colourful exotic looking flowers planted every year. People that knew that they were welcome at parks came and felt very welcome here. Gabe didn’t usually frequent this park but tonight he thought that it was quite lovely in here really. It almost seemed other worldly as they walked home, just the two of them, not passing or seeing a single other soul. It felt like the rain had washed everything away and that they were now the only two people left alive.

  At the wrought iron gates at the park exit, Grace took Gabe’s hand. The next bit of the walk is quite a steep hill, thought Gabe. That is why she wants to hold my hand. That made sense. So Gabe led her up the hill that took them all the way up to Millionaires Row, right to the top of that hill, back to Graces house.

  “Here we are then,” he said “I guess this is good night.”

  Grace took Gabe’s other hand in hers so that she now held both his hands and Gabe presumed that she must have just had a bit too much to drink.

  Gabe could hear someone shouting from behind the front door of Graces house. Shit, what was that? Gabe thought he might be in some sort of trouble, well probably. They were out late and drunk and she probably might not even be eighteen yet...or allowed to drink. All these worries were going around his head.

  “I better go.”

  “Yeah, me too. Thanks Gabe.”

  Gabe couldn’t quite figure out what he should do next but she let go of his hands and gave him a quick kiss, right on the lips. She slipped off his jacket and gave it back to him, although Gabe had thought he would be happy if she kept it on. He wouldn’t have minded if she kept it for a while, if she wanted to. She tapped in the secret code to open the security gates and as they started to open, Grace slipped in past them as soon as they are wide enough for her to fit through. To Gabe she seemed to drift down the long path with its sunken lighting, like an angel or an apparition, down the glowing garden path to her front door. Gabe felt like he was drifting too, suspended, until he saw her shut the door behind herself. Home...safe and sound. Even though he could hardly feel his feet on the ground anymore, Gabe turned and ran. Without the jacket on, Gabe could feel the wind and air through his clothes and on his wings. The ground was wet and Gabe didn’t even notice. Gabe ran so fast he felt like he was flying.

  What was all that about? Gabe was conscious of a bolt of electric current running around his body and a joy that had not been there before was now present, alive and flowing through his veins. It was exhilaration. It felt a lot like bliss.

  Gabe let himself into his studio. He knew he had had too much to drink and he wanted to avoid his mum. He took his wet clothes off and put them by the electric heater and as Gabe warmed back up after coming in from the cold, the full effect of the alcohol he had drunk began to take hold again.

  Gabe started to think of the reality of it all as despondency set in. How could he possibly ever be with someone like Grace? How could he ever give her what she wa
nted? She would want intimacy, affection. Sex. She would want things, need things that he could not buy. They were too young. It would never work. She had just been down and drunk and for all he knew it could all still be a big joke. Gabe sat down opposite his covered sculpture and put his face in his hands. I bloody hate myself, he thought. I hate myself and these damn bloody growths. I hate my wings and I hate that I am so fucking poor and useless. I’m so ashamed of myself and I hate the fact that I am just not good enough.

  Why am I not normal? Why was I born like this and not born different. Why was I not born as something better, easier, more lovable? No one will ever love me. I am nothing, nothing more than a fucking freak. Gabe began to cry again, tears he didn’t know he was capable of shedding. He let the sadness consume him and he cried with deep self pity, great big sobs that shook the bulk of his body. He let himself think of his friends and losing them, how close they had been, the adventures and personal things that they had shared, how they had been there for each other and how now he didn’t know them anymore. He hadn’t even known his best mate was cutting himself up and now he had to walk away to purely save his own skin.

  Gabe thought of the father that did not love or want him. He thought of his poor mum working all those hours and refusing payment or undercharging most of her clients half the time and the way she had always been there for him, with love and comfort and it seemed that her unconditional love and kindness was still not even enough to be able to save Gabe. This broke his own heart almost as much as it broke hers. But mostly he thought of Grace, of how much he loved her and how impossible it was for her to love him back and this felt like the worst thing in the world, the unique agony of unrequited love.

  Gabe felt hollow, spent. He wept into his hands and the tears collected in his palms and started running down his wrists, to his elbows where they collected and dripped off, one by one, onto the floor, leaving a trail of watery, black kohl down his forearms.

  There was something about this sight, seeing the dark trails of black make up on his arms that made Gabe suddenly have the need to laugh. Gabe’s last sob turned into a half choke half snort, even the sound of it made Gabe want to laugh even more as he croaked back his tears in gulps and wiped the copious amount of snot, phlegm, tears and gunk from his face.

  Gabe realised that here he was, a grown man, wearing eyeliner and dressed all in black in some vain attempt to be suave and adult and artistic, crying for the worst possible reasons. Pathetic, self-defeating reasons.

  The great fallen dark angel was crying. Trying to be all new and mysterious, mature and independent and here he was sobbing for himself. At this thought, Gabe laughed louder, through his tear and make-up stained face, at how pathetic he was, how piteous and pitiful. All his wretched and vain efforts. Pull yourself together Gabe, he told himself. Stop being so negative all the time. You’re doing your own head in. It had been a good night. It had actually been an evening like the ones he had fantasised about. Better. One of the wildest dreams he had ever dreamed of happening had just happened. Something he had prayed for, wished and willed for, for half of his life had actually materialised. Can you not even be happy with that! Not even pleased with a miracle, with a dream that actually came true! What the hell is wrong with you, what are you turning in to? What on earth is happening to you man? Gabe felt he was getting as weak as his wings, as damaged and as cumbersome.

  Really, he thought, it was like living with a least two different people inside his own head. It wasn’t even as if there was a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, or even a good cop, bad cop scenario. It was more like a gang of negative critics each whispering in his ear. A troupe of multiple personalities, dominated by the depressive and wind up merchant ones. Was the only voice of reason his own voice or just the one he had to listen to, to keep sane? Gabe needed to build his strength up and not just in his wings and not next week or next year. He needed to do it now!

  Gabe picked up his jacket that still smelt of Grace and he took out the black eyeliner that he had been keeping in the inside pocket. He uncovered the sculpture he was working on and, with just the feelings that he had experienced that evening that were good, Gabe got to work; the first piece he stuck onto the sculpture being the black eye liner pencil. Gabe had realised that it just wasn’t him.

  Gabe physically, mentally, emotionally gave his all to the creation in front of him. He sweated and bled and shed tears. He felt his body hurt in places that he didn’t know existed. But it felt good. He worked through the pain barrier. He laughed and he wept. He kept going until he could hardly keep his eyes open anymore and then he collapsed, sated on to the cushioned floor where he slept and dreamt the most vivid and spectacular dreams in the hour before dawn.

  Chapter 14

  An ancient nun on a mobility scooter passed Gabe one way as a punk with full spiked rainbow Mohican and studded denim jacket and face, passed him the other way. Gabe had the address and photo of his dad in his hand. He knew of this area of the city but had spent little time here before. This was not the best part of town and it was known locally as ‘Worlds’ End’. This was where everything got a bit odd and the really obvious drunks and addicts hung out and lived. Anyone here, dressed smart was either lost or after drugs or sexual favours. It was the area where adult shops, cash convertors and all hours booze newsagent could be found. It looked darker and dirtier than the rest of the city, like it was perpetually under a dark cloud expecting a storm.

  Gabe had found the block of flats with the same name as on the bit of paper. The flats looked dirtier than the street, if that was at all possible. The grime was thick and the stairwell was dark, dank, damp, dingy and pissy and Gabe was justifying it all to himself, trying to make some order and sense of it. This man, his father, was an artist, a bohemian; he was not going to be middle class was he? He was not going to live on Millionaire’s Row, even if he had the money. He’d want to be among the people, the real people on the edge of society. Gabe was nervous, so nervous that he could have puked. Every instinct felt like it was telling him not to do this, but his legs just kept going, one foot in front of the other, despite the protests from the voices in his head.

  Up the hard concrete stairwell to the top, seven floors and Gabe stalled, almost beat, on the landing for a moment in hesitation and to get his bearings and his breath back. He looked at the photo and he checked the address for the umpteenth time.

  He had arrived and there was potentially something on the other side of that door in front of him. It could be nothing, a stranger could answer with no idea what he was going on about and chase him right back down the stairs or it could, well it could be everything.

  Gabe rang on the door bell and waited. He was not quite sure if it worked as he had heard no accompanying bell noise and, more importantly, no one was coming to answer the door. So he knocked, politely and gently at first and he waited again. Still nothing. He banged on the door a few times, as hard as he could, in one last nothing-to-lose way.

  After all that stressing out and no one was in anyway. Typical!

  As Gabe gave up and turned to leave, his gut told him to stay. Whether one of his senses picked up a low vibration of their particular skill or it was something else, Gabe knew, there was definitely someone in there. Gabe put his ear closer to the crack in the door. He could hear shuffling and walking. He thought he could hear talking too, low constant conversation, a TV or radio perhaps?

  “Hello! Hello! Is there anyone in?” Gabe crouched down and shouted through the letter box.

  There was more shuffling and noise from behind the closed door, so Gabe peered through the letter box to see if he could see anything. For a moment, he panicked as it looked worse than Johnny’s dad’s flat had done. Had it been trashed too? Was his own dad in there, tied up and gagged? Is that what he could hear?

  Gabe felt that there was no other option left now but to kick down the door. The image of his dad trapped and in pain was now imprinted on his brain so that he could physica
lly see it in detail.

  Gabe took a few steps back on the balcony. He could have done with a longer run up but this was as far as the railings would allow. After a few deep breaths, he went for it. He ran, or rather hopped the two steps, and with all his weight behind him, he leapt into the air and aimed his shoulder to the lock on the door like he had seen it done in films.

  “And who...the fuck...are you?”

  Gabe found himself lying face down on the carpeted floor in the hall of the flat and it stank worse down here than it had in the stairwell.

  “Hi! Sorry. I’m Gabe.” Gabe strained his neck, from his position on the floor, in the direction of an old man’s voice.

  “And why are you trying to break into my flat?”

  “I wasn’t trying to break in…er…Sir.” Gabe strained his eyes to see the other man who was now in the door way of the room beyond but Gabe couldn’t make out his features as there was an intensely bright lamp glaring from behind him, causing the front of the strangers body to appear in silhouette. All Gabe could figure out was that he was small.

  “I ain’t got any money boy, if that’s what you want.” The old man banged a walking stick on the floor, which sounded far more creepy than threatening due to the old man not having much strength.

  “Oh no, sorry. No I don’t want any money. I was looking for my dad.” Gabe gave up and closed his eyes again. This wasn’t his dad and Gabe was more disappointed than he imagined he would be.

  “What would your dad be doing in my flat?” This old man in the dark said with mirth and sarcasm.

  “I…I...I was given this address. I never met him. My mum, Gina, she gave me this envelope yesterday and…” Gabe held out the photograph that he had, in a vain hope to add weight to his story and convince this man he wasn’t some kind of thug here to mug him and that there was no need for alarm or to call the police or anything like that. Another fine mess, he thought and his jacket was going to stink now and he didn’t want to wash it and lose the scent of Grace.