The Gilded Madonna by Garrick Jones (ebook reader for comics TXT) 📕

who barely make ends meet. You remember that look—every second man had it during the Depression. But every time he came here and paid his entry fee, I’d noticed that although he was clean, always well-groomed and well dressed, there was something ‘needy’ about him. After I’d told him to leave, I walked him to the gate and asked again if he was broke. He said he had enough money and thanked me politely for enquiring. Told me that asking the men in the steam room for money was a way of justifying his feelings of doing something bad. He said the devil got in him while he was servicing those men, and only the fact they paid him for what he did could drive the evil from his body.”

“He said what?”

“He said he loved what he did while he was doing it, that every man was a new adventure, and that was why he was so energetic at his task—I’ve never forgotten that description, ‘every man was a new adventure’—but as soon as the man had squirted he felt bad about it, and that taking money gave him an excuse not to.”

“Not to what? Feel bad?”

“I suppose so. I can’t even remember if what I’ve told you were his precise words. I could be paraphrasing, Clyde. I haven’t thought about it from that day to this.”

“But it obviously made enough of an impact on you to be able to recall in a fair amount of detail.”

“Do you know why?”

I shook my head. He had that look, the one men get when they have to tell you things they’d rather not and which are only revealed to very close mates, and only under certain restrictive circumstances.

“Because all the time we were speaking I couldn’t take my eyes off his mouth, Clyde.”

*****

“Yes, I’ve seen him around a few times,” Neil, the usher from the Boomerang, said after I’d shown him the photograph and then, before I could stop him, beckoned the one-legged man Steve had told me he liked, who I’d been watching doing laps, wondering how he kept swimming in straight lines.

“Hello,” the man said, extending his hand to me from the water. “My name’s Boyd, and I know who you are, Mr. Smith.”

Even if they did know who I was, I thought it only polite to introduce myself to both of them, telling them I didn’t really need to know their names, I was just after information, but neither man seemed to mind. It turned out they were pals, former lovers, and still met up in the pub for a beer, or went to the footy together and often came down here to swim.

“You remember this guy?” Neil asked his friend Boyd, showing him the photo I’d given him.

“Of course. What’s this all about?”

“I’m just wondering what you can tell me about him,” I explained.

They’d both seen Green Eyes around and about. Neil had not only been aware of his activities in the steam room years back but had also seen him at places men frequented at night. Both of them had originally run across him in Hyde Park in the city years ago on the same night but not at the same time, and while they’d still been a couple. They explained they’d not had a monogamous relationship.

The Archibald Fountain after dark, with its bronze life-sized statues of naked men, was one of the most well-known pickup places in Sydney, within walking distance of the gardens opposite Saint Mary’s Cathedral and the Domain parkland, it was where men made contact and then went into the gardens or the park to do their business.

Boyd’s recollection of Green Eyes had been one of initial surprise when someone so young had slipped his false teeth into the pocket of his jacket as he’d fallen to his knees. Boyd said he’d been rather taken aback by the man’s eagerness. He’d been quite shy in those days, worried about what people might think when they discovered that the left leg beneath his trousers was wood and metal, rather than flesh and bone. Boyd drove an automatic, and although Green Eyes had declined a return favour, had asked him if he needed a lift home, but had been shocked when he’d been told, with a genuine and disarming smile, that the young bloke had only just arrived and had said he wanted to spend a few more hours seeing who else he could pick up before taking the last tram home. Just after they’d said goodbye, the man had run up to Boyd as he was getting into his car. He’d wanted to know if Boyd knew where the pickup places were in the Eastern Suburbs, because he’d been thinking of moving there.

“Do you remember by chance exactly when this was?” I asked him.

“January, 1951.”

“Any date come to mind?”

The two men looked at each other and then Boyd said, “It was the twenty-seventh of the month, the day after Australia Day. We were both in the mood for tomcatting and decided to go into town, because it was the safest place to pick up in those days. Went in separate cars and then by chance ended up with the same man.”

“Is it improper of me to ask how you knew it was the same bloke?”

“He told each of us he needed money to get the tram home, and we both fell for it. I gave him five bob and told him to get a cab, and then Neil told me he did the same thing.”

“And?” I asked. “Was that the only thing that made you think he was the same bloke?”

Neil laughed. “The story’s a bit sordid, but I’m sure you’ve heard worse, Clyde.”

“I’m sure I have. Go on.”

“I drove into Boyd’s parking spot in Cathedral Street just as he pulled out of it—I smiled to myself because I recognised his car. One out, one in. And that’s how I met the man in your picture. He was lighting a smoke, standing right next