Drag Queens and Bicycles

Written after Brighton Pride 2010

A drag queen with a white face rode past on a bicycle.

An old man in a top hat smiled out at me from a doorway.

Rubbish was streamed across the street and seagulls were fighting and squawking.

A man was making eyes at me from across the street. Another man appeared beside me like a spectre.
"Don't look at her", he said. "She's not good for anyone".

We continued walking up the street. A fat bald man walked along with his leather clad slave on a chain. His pants were crotchless and his saggy ass wobbled softly in the night breeze.

A punk lesbian with a partly shaved head was pissing in her trousers at the edge of the road. Her laughter echoed out into the night sky like nails.

A Chinese boy was getting fucked across a bin by an elderly white man, red faced and panting as he writhed inside him. An audience of midgets sat and watched, munching on popcorn and clapping their hands.

We continued walking along the road. I had to meet my friends at the end of the street.

A young little twink sat passed out on a doorstep. People were taking photographs on their iPhones while a skinny man with a twitch slowly rolled down his tight white underpants and took him round the corner.

I went to point him out to the man beside me but he had disappeared, so I continued walking, to meet my friends at the end of the street.

Red lights rained down from above a shop floor and music echoed out across the street as revellers danced, drank and smoked, waving down at the scene below.

I popped into the shop to get some water. Behind the counter was a boy with eyes that glowed like elecricity. I waited in the queue. When I got in front I decided to buy some sweets and he threw in a few extra for free. As I walked out I remembered something. I looked back and he was looking right into me, as if he was remembering something as well. As if through no choice of my own I found myself back on the street.

I was standing freezing cold and waiting to go home. They were going to go to the sauna but I couldn't face it so I went home with the others.

A man appeared as if from nowhere and said "Free hug?" I hugged him and could have stayed there all evening.

I sat on the beach looking out at the sea and the reflection of the lights of the pier on the water. - reds, whites, golds, greens. The sky was rammed full of stars and the sound of the sea danced in my ear. I tried to block out the voices beside me who were talking endlessly about nothing and I kept my eyes fixated in front.

A solitary white bird hovered above, his reflection on the glass water, while the gays ran over to the seafront to rave beside a colourful bus.