Friday night is swept in by a chorus of cackling witches and a hurricane of bats.
Clad entirely in black from my skinnies to my hoody, I head out into the bitter winter night. Well, I say night - it’s only six o’clock but it’s already pitch black outside. I meet Ryan outside the college’s student lounge and instantly realise, as we pass the huge NO ALCOHOL posters slapped all over the corridors, that this party is going to fucking suck.
And it does. We grab a seat on one of the old leather sofas in the student lounge and watch the little cliques playing pool or squabbling in large groups in their slutty costumes. There’s no music, no nothing. Why are we here again?
As if my night can’t get any worse, I notice Zander, my lovely little classroom rival approaching us, dressed like some kind of…male witch? I wanna say a wizard but his outfit is kinda girly so… Oh fuck. He throws back a chair and sits down opposite me and Ryan. Why the fuck is he-
“Hey Alex!” Ryan grins. You’re kidding me. They’re friends? Well, shit. I let my eyes judge over Zander - his bleached blonde hair, his brown eyes caked in…what the fuck even is that? Tar? Oh, it’s supposed to be spooky, scary Halloween makeup, right? Please. Stop trying so hard, son. I cross my arms and my legs, leaning back into my seat and instantly turn my head away from him.
I let the two banter between themselves as I begin to flick through Facebook on my phone. Nothing interesting is happening there either. Christ. It’s all just photos of half-naked girls I used to go to school with, captioned town, here we come! I guess I’m supposed to get excited over that and sit slobbering at my screen like an idiot but the only feeling flushing through my body is disgust. I hate my generation.
“So what are you supposed to be?” Zander’s attention turns to me and I have to bite my tongue from replying Adriano’s star student, bitch. Instead, I smile awkwardly and tell him I’m dressed as a Dean College student. He laughs heartily, because apparently I’ve changed career from his rival to a comedian now, and turns his attention back to Ryan. He can keep it there. Not interested in feigned pleasantries with him. I’m not even interested in those slutty costumed students shaking their arses as they walk from group to group to flirt. Nah, this just isn’t me.
“You already sorted for the sustainability project?” I hear the blonde asking. My attention snaps to him and I have to stop myself from growling at him. Don’t even think about asking Ryan to partner up with you, Zander. Don’t fucking do it.
Ryan laughs and nods, explaining happily that he’s working with me. Zander doesn’t even seem phased by that and I have to wonder if he ever had any intentions of asking Ryan to work with him or if he was just genuinely curious.
It gets me thinking - why do I even hate Zander? The guy’s barely spoken two words to me in the entire three years we’ve shared a classroom. We’ve never had cross words or a passing glare. He’s just a guy who tries hard at his art, like me. Or is it that I’m such a shitty person that I can’t stand anyone who seems remotely like me? Maybe he’s a decent guy and we’d get along great?
Anxiety begins to rise from the pit of my stomach and I try to combat it by twisting my lip studs round with my tongue.
What if Ryan decides he wants to work with Zander instead? I’ve seen the guy’s work - he’s pretty good, I’ll give him that. If he and Ryan are friends then Ryan’s probably already seen his photos. He hasn’t seen mine though. Shit, my throat feels tight. Am I seriously this petty? Where the fuck has that confidence gone? Funny that - I’m a cocky bastard until I’m faced with my rival. Now I just feel like a stupid wee boy. It’s like that time last year when he beat me by 2% in the Graded Unit. We both got A passes but he was a 98 out of 100. I was only a 96. It’s hard to explain to people why that’s a complete failure to me. It doesn’t matter what my grade is, as long as I’m on top, and for the first time since I’d started college, I’d been beaten.
“You okay, Gavin?” Ryan asks suddenly, “You’re face is bright red.”
I frown and tell him I’m too warm in this stuffy little lounge. He stares at me for a few seconds, blank-faced and then turns his attention back to Zander. My attention returns to my phone. I wait until Zander heads back over to his original group of friends and gently poke my elbow into Ryan. “Wanna ditch?”
He nods instantly, “yeah, this wasn’t what I was expecting. I don’t know what I was expecting, to be honest,” he shrugs. “Let’s bail.”
He suggests we go to my place or hit the town’s pubs but I have a better idea - I’ve still to show Ryan the local parks so I’ll take him an alcohol fuelled wander round the local Dean Park. He isn’t sure but the moment I mention there’s a castle, he’s sold.
The stars glitter like diamonds under the ghostly moon light as we walk closely together, breath dancing like ectoplasm in the quiet night air. The frost hugs us tightly, wrapping its chilled fingers around our bodies but we’re too hyped up to care about the weather. Under the glow of the orange streetlights, I lead Ryan down towards the country park, not a care in the world between us.
“This place is spooky,” Ryan chuckles, scanning the dark trees and gravelly paths before us.
“Well i t is Halloween, after all,” I reply, taking the lead. We’d popped into the little shop two stories underneath my flat to grab some cheap cider - we passed my flat on the way here anyway.
Side by side, we walk briskly along the pavement, hands stuffed in our hoody pockets - I’ve got the flimsy little blue and white striped carrier bag slung over my wrist. Weird how I’d been ID’d but Ryan hadn’t, yet I’d say he looks a lot younger than me - he’s baby faced, only looks about sixteen or so. Or maybe it was because I was the one buying the drink. I don’t know.
A stream of vehicles rumbles steadily past us as I cut in front of Ryan to make the detour down the leafy path. He’s surprised - didn’t see the entrance hidden away under the dark trees but I know these streets. The area is split into two parts - on one side, the side we’re in, it’s just a little play park and a huge bit of spare ground that gets used for local football matches. On the other side of the road though there’s the castle - Dean Castle. It’s been here since the 1300s, I tell him, belonged to the Boyd family. I don’t know the history or anything but I promise to take him on one of the tours sometime as the castle is open to the public. He’s pretty excited for it. I never understood the fascination Americans have for castles. Ryan explains that it’s just a stereotype - he jokes that Americans are way too busy being selfish and policing the world to care, but he’s one of the few that actually has an interest in our history.
I lead him up the small wooded hill to my favourite spot - the bench that overlooks the play park, hidden away in the dark boughs of the trees. It’s a favourite spot for my self loathing - moments when I’m struggling for inspiration - this is where I come for clarity and reflection. Always at night. Always with the stars twinkling above my head like beacons of hope. We sit on the cold bench, the wood glittering with frost, and get our alcohol out of the bag. We start drinking, joking around and chatting idly about college for a while before my curiosity turns to his older brother, our model for Re:Style.
“So tell me about our model,” I say. Ryan smiles and lowers his head to watch his feet as he scuffs them off the gravel path rhythmically.
“Saffron is…” he pauses then takes a quick drink of his cider. “He’s a good person, Gavin. He’s really intense though. Quite scary. Can be intimidating but he doesn’t mean it. He’s got a heart of gold, really.”
Weird. I only meant what he looked like, not a strange profiling of him.
“What does he look like?”
“He’s got lovely eyes. Strange eyes. You’ll see what I mean when you meet him - they’re really pale blue, like contact lenses. Couple that with ashen skin and jet black hair and you’ll understand why he’s unique looking. You can tell he’s broken.” The statement catches me off guard.
“Broken?”
Instead of answering me, Ryan completely ignores my question. I ask him something else.
“You get on with him?”
“Huh?”
“Your relationship with him - is it good?”
He shrugs, “sometimes, I guess. I mean, I love Saffron to bits but…sometimes I…”
Sounds like me and Lee. I know how hard it can be so I don’t press him.
“Sounds familiar.” I reassure him. He nods and continues scuffing his feet.
“So what about you? What’s your family like?” he asks me, his gaze still fixed on his old Converse. I sigh and unscrew the cap of my cider again - I take a huge gulp, burp so loud it seems to echo through the woodland, which Ryan bursts out laughing at, and then answer him honestly.
“My home life was good until the referendum,” I confess. “It split my family right down the middle and I learned a lot of things about my mum that I wish I hadn’t.”
“Like?”
Jesus christ, Ryan, where do I even begin?
My mum and I have always had a rocky relationship, born from her always demanding perfection from me and my brother. The harder we worked and the more we achieved, the higher she’d set the bar. It was impossible to please her and so, Lee and I had gone from golden children, good children to let downs and vagabonds, in her mind. Lee can talk all he wants but he’s still striving to impress her. I reckon that’s what all this college shite is about - he wants to go there, get to uni, get a degree and get himself set for life. Whether or not that’ll be good enough for mum is, well, who knows? Me, I learned from my dad. He always told me that as long as I pleased myself, that was enough. Work for yourself and no one else. Set your own standards. So when report card day came or whatever, I didn’t give a fuck about mum - I was just happy to see my dad being proud of us. All through my teenage years, if anything ever upset me or worried me, I’d go to my dad. He was there for me when I fucked up royally and got myself suspended from school in 4th year for punching through a classroom door by accident - I’d went to knock the door but ended up putting my fist through the glass panel instead but that’s a story for another time…
I don’t want to bore Ryan with my life story so I just tell him the essentials about my family.
“Well, my lovely mother detests the disabled but the thing is, she’s disabled herself. She’s been in a wheel chair ever since 2012 when she was in a car accident. She’s angry that all the things she took for granted were taken away from her. Resents other disabled people - thinks they’re all lazy good for nothings,” I hear him gasp in the quiet night, “and fucking god forbid if Lee or I should ever turn out gay - another group she can’t stand - and don’t even get her started on transgender people. She’s so full of hate that it makes me feel sick just thinking about her. She was pretty hard on us before the accident but after the accident she completely changed. She’s angry at the world but her anger is all directed at the wrong people.”
“Saffy would love her,” Ryan laughs. “He’s a total social justice warrior.”
“It’s just like…growing up, I want to love her but I can’t, knowing the hatred she has inside her. She was the main reason I chose to distance myself from the family. My dad…dunno how he can put up with her attitudes. He’s a good man, a soft man as she always said. Sees people for people regardless of how they themselves or society labels them. As for my brother, Lee, he’s just misguided is all.”
“How so?”
“He and I clash a lot but there’s no badness in him. I mean, we locked horns over the referendum but he believed he was voting no for the greater good just like I thought I was voting yes for the greater good. I still believe strongly in it. The dream will never die.” I cast a glance over my knuckles, reading the saor alba inked on me forever. “I can’t hold that against him. Thing is though, we fight a lot about other things. He’s jealous of me and my college success. Kinda feels like the indy ref was just a way for him to channel that hidden anger. Generally though, he’s a good guy. I just wish he’d use the energy he uses to hate on me to actually screw his head on. Like, you want to be someone? Go and be someone. Only you can make the change.”
Ryan laughs but there’s something…off about it. It’s a fake laugh, I think, a hollow laugh.
“Y’know, Saffron spent years telling me that too. All my life I lived in his shadow. His career took off, he shot through the skies but even stars have to fall sometimes. I spent all my life being jealous but when he went to prison I picked up the paintbrush. I started training, got into kickboxing, started doing something with myself. It paid off. Kinda makes me wonder how good I’d be if I’d started earlier, when he’d told me to.”
Saffron was in jail? I want to be nosey and ask the ins and outs but I need to be respectful here - if Ryan wants to tell me, he’ll tell me. Time passes. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Silence. He doesn’t wanna elaborate. Fair enough. Instead, he clears his throat, takes another drink and then tells me a little more about himself.
“I used to live near Venice Beach with my mom and Saffy. LA born and bred. Got some family out in Florida though - had a sister too but she turned out a teenage runaway. Mom knew she was safe and I guess that’s all that ever mattered because we never chased after her. My dad, well, that’s a sadder story.” He pauses as if he’s gonna tell me about it but thinks the better of it and just continues on with a lighter tone. “Saffron hit the jackpot - he was a fresh sixteen when his band got noticed. Six months later and they’re signed. He hits it off big time then blows it all two years later.”
Fuck, now I really wanna stick my nose in. I can’t. Don’t think we know each other quite well enough yet to be sticking our noses into each other’s family business. Pretty cool that his brother was in a band though - I’m looking forward to hearing more about that in the future.
“So, Mr Photographer, tell me about your craft,” Ryan laughs, his bright eyes turning towards me. “What made you interested in photography?”
I lower my gaze to the neck of my bottle and give it a few moments thought. Never really knew what made me pick up the camera - I just did. There’s not really any reason for it. It just felt natural. I tell him this and then ask him about his art.
“Always liked painting,” he tells me. “In fact, my very first memory of Christmas is unwrapping a little wooden box of paints. My parents were flat out broke back then - I mean really broke - so it was just brown parcel paper and string but it was the best gift I ever got.” His eyes become a little hazy as he begins to reminisce. “Back in Cali, a lot of people at my high school didn’t like me because I was talented - they resented that I’d just woken up one day with this great gift from God but they thing is, they never knew about the years and years of constant frustration and the amount of blood, sweat and tears. Kids would be out playing but I’d be slumped over my little plastic desk pouring my heart and soul into the shitty paper.” A smile graces his face as he turns his head to me. “So, tell me about this referendum.”
Random question but okay.
“I,” I pause for a moment - I don’t know where to begin. Guess I’ll just skip all the run up to it and tell him the aftermath, “I have never felt as empty as I did that early morning, watching the results pour in.” I tell him softly. “I sat up all night with a bottle of whisky ready to celebrate - we were so sure we’d won it, that people had seen sense and were finally going to step away from this warmongering cesspit of a government,” I sigh deeply, raising my eyes to those little sparkling stars. “No more nukes - can you imagine a world like that? I honestly hoped that by removing Trident, we’d set the world in motion. Other nations would look at this small country and think “if they can do it, so can we”. We would have walked into a better tomorrow.” Ryan’s eyes are on me, staring intently. I wonder what his opinion is on the referendum - probably wanted us to stay with the UK. Always thought that was a bit hypocritical - Americans telling us to stay with the UK. Short memory there, lads, eh? “All dreaming aside, it broke my heart that night to watch the live newsfeed coming from George Square. How can you have the audacity to call yourself Scottish when you’ll stand in our cities and burn our flags? I felt fucking sick - I cried for hours. I’ve never felt like that before.” I pause, taking a few moments to catch my breath. “I feel like we Scots are second class citizens and it’s not just us - it’s anyone who’s not part of the elite, whether English or Welsh or whatever. This isn’t a united kingdom. You have four beautiful countries ruled by one city. What’s that all about?” I stop again, breathing another sigh, “Its not just about Scotland - I think we should all be independent. Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland. We all have rich and unique heritage and history and we should all have our own places on the world stage.”
I hear Ryan’s laughter spill into the quiet night. He smiles at me, a certain softness in his gaze.
“You know, Gavin, the referendum is what made me come to Scotland,” he explains. I return his stare, frowning a little in confusion. He elaborates, “when Saffron was released, our family situation was fucked up. When he sorted out his issues with mom, he sat me down and told me he wanted a fresh start somewhere. I thought he meant another town or city but he meant a completely blank canvas - he wanted another country. How could I, as a young artist, turn an opportunity like that down?” Almost in sync with each other, we take a drink. “He let me choose where to go and when I looked at the map, two places seemed the most interesting - Scotland and Catalonia. The atmosphere is so politically charged, the people are so aware, it’s so exciting. This country is alive with all these bright minds bouncing ideas off each other - every teen is aware of politics and social issues. It’s fantastic.” Well, Ryan, I don’t know what you’re seeing but for a lot of us, regardless of which side we were on, all that energy died on September 19th 2014. Or did it? I don’t know. He’s got me thinking again. Maybe I miss it because I live it. It’s around me constantly. “I’m a politically motivated painter,” he tells me, his hands becoming animated as he talks of his work, “I create pieces that showcase social issues whether it be racism or economic crises or equality. I want to speak to a larger audience than I could get by posting blogs or vlogs. I want to evoke emotions in people. It made perfect sense for me to come here, to tap into this great energy. I haven’t felt this inspired in a long time,” he grins and I smile back at him but it’s a half-hearted smile. It’s kinda nice to see someone still feeling that pulse but for me it died a long time ago. I’m kinda jealous of him. I cast another glance over my knuckles and read those words - saor alba. It means ‘free Scotland’.
Enough politics for now.
I turn the conversation back to college life but as we get more drunk, the conversation turns to some weird shit - aliens and ufos, ghosts, cryptids and demons. This kid is a regular dreamer but according to him, so am I. He’s telling me all about this one time when he was six, he’s certain he saw one of the ‘shadow people’ in his room. I go along with it - it’s Halloween after all - but I don’t know anything about any shadow folk. We banter into the next morning - when I check my phone, it’s 2:30am. Time to get our arses back home, especially as he starts to get tired and ends up with his head on my shoulder, barely grasping consciousness.
“You crashing at mine tonight?” I ask him. He shakes his head slowly.
“I promised Saffy I’d be home.”
“I’m not letting you walk home at this time, especially drunk. You’re coming with me.”
He laughs as he sways out of the park at my side. When we reach the main road, he glances out in the direction of his house and is about to put a step forward when he changes his mind at the last second.
“Okay, you win.”
With him on the couch again and me and Indy snuggled up in my room, we call it a night. A good night.
