He was really irritated when he came home from his spanish course but wasn´t able to see why. His wife knew this pretty soon, just looking at him with her "everything-noticed-view" and asked him. As usual he had no words and only shrunked shoulders. "Something has changed", he thought with an unfamiliar flattering in his stomach, he felt like giggling and blushing like he did when he was a teenager. "Surprising myself in this age".
He was a very tall and sensible man, quiet but accepted by collegues because of knowledge and emotionless working to a pont by friends and relatives because of his calmness and listening skills. Married for nearly 30 years and having three grown-up daughters who worked and studied successfully he thought he could really be content with his life at all. In this age, so his opinion, life is very calm and unspectaculous, not exciting and always spicked with new experiences like as a young and growing up boy, not full of wishes and hopes like between his 20th and 30th and not longer full of hard working like the last 10, 12 years longing for acceptance and success. He was in a stadium where human beings start looking back and valueing what their life was and what they have done in nearly 60 years on earth.
His thoughts went back to the course. There was this young man, Parker, perhaps in the age of his eldest daughter, he was sure not older, he knew him from the spanish-courses before, his wife had started with him but had given up after the 2nd because at this time, till now, her job was too hard and stressing to concentrate on a new subject and learning seriously. He went on liking this evening where he could switch to something completely different to his daily work and seeing how it would go on noticing that it went better and easier the more he learned and practiced. And there was Parker, sitting together with some other girls and boys in his age, laughing and being very extroverted and, well there was no word for this in his mind, "special". He stopped thinking and snapped to the newspaper hoping to find some relaxing of his irritated feelings.
- Hey, do you know what´s going on with Parker?
- I´ve no idea, just starting worrying like you
- was he at the café the last week?
- not very often
- I´ve seen him yesterday evening at the station, just standing there, looking so sad and depressed
- perhaps waiting for someone who were late or didn´t come. Being together with others he seems quite normal, screaming and shouting and laughing as usual or... even more than usual
- that´s why I´m worrying
- perhaps he is involved in an unhappy love
- well, normally he would have told us, he isn´t as secret and shy as now. I´m sure he would have told us
- have you seen him with a lover?
- not for months
- how unhealthy (they both laugh)
There was a party in the café about the topic "the Netherlands". All the waiters were wearing dutch shoes and blue-white-striped skirts and the white maiden-cap, a typical stereotype about the dutch. There were plates with little cheese-pieces, tomatoes and the whole room was decorated with tulips and little mules and many flags of course. On the small side, seen from every table was a stage where the programm would start in a few minutes. All the guys were very excited and exhausted, laughing all the time, hugging each other and pretending being charming dutch ladies, it was a game, as usual, but, also as usual, with a little essence of seriousness in it, knowing that they were - for others - mad, weared or even worse "not normal". This evening they just forgot about all the troubles they had in daily life, longing for acceptance, and celebrated themselfes. Dutch poems were declared emotionally rough sea-songs about captains and affairs in many harbours were shouted with enthusiasm, pretending to be strong and wild men with their cute girl admiring the man from far away. Tonight they felt quite comfortable with playing roles and act like on stage because they were together, knowing about the pretendings they had to use, they were all similar in a way and all very different, everybody a personality formed from life and fate.
Very late or better very early the next morning a group of about 5 were sitting together, tired but not tired enough to go home for sleeping. They were smoking and drinking coffee, for staying awake, and just gossiping a little about the evening, the people, the events and happenings. They all were touched from the tulipdance Parker showed nearly at the end of the programm. "He is a really excellent dancer, I love him", a very young boy said, expressing with very simple words what most of them thought. "There was a flavour of freedom and hope in his motions, I was surprised of his positive charisma after the last weeks" "and dreams, I had the feeling as if he wanted to show us his dreams even if they never will come true." "What do you know?" There was a shiver of sharpness in this short question, asked by the last lover of Parker, a man at the beginning of his 20th, still not accepting the end of their relationship. "Nothing, but havn´t you seen the photographer coming with him?" "By the way who was it?" "I don´t know, havn´t seen him before." "Noone has", an older man added "I´m sure he is Parker´s new problem, or dream as you said", smiling at the young boy´s face, who started this discussion. "So he is Parker´s new lover?" The sharpness grew to aggressivity. "Calm down young man, nobody knows exactly, we are just wondering and guessing that´s all." "He could have been his father!" The young man blushed as he saw the amused faces of the others. "Still the heart full of Parker, right? Well, I know it´s hard to loose a friend like Parker, but you must accept, he is an artist, just flying over the earth, his head full of dreams and ideals, if you know what I mean?" There was a silence, because all of them had experiences with loosing love. "But you´ve had a chance, Parker now won´t." It was again the boy, so sensitive that he had felt Parker´s dreams in his dance. "I mean, look at this photographer, I´m sure he is married and has family. He´ll never break out for Parker, even if he might have similar feelings for him." "Are you sure?" There it was the little hope all the guys knew, when they themself were just falling in love to a "normal" man, the hope that you can change him just by loving him as much as possible, that you can awake something in him, so that he might be able to face his "real" feelings - for you, no question...
- Is dad ill?
- no, why?
- well, havn´t you seen him yesterday?
- no
- he was coming from this party where he had to take pictures and was just sitting in his chair, doing nothing
- and?
- not reading the papers or sorting photos
- it was late, I guess?
- half past one
- so what
- why didn´t he went to bed or talked a little with me, I was just arrived some minutes ago and really surprised to see him
- but you knew that party-thing?
- yes, but he was looking so absent and thoughtful
- did you ask him?
- I tried but he pretended to be tired
- he was perhaps, photographing at a party is really hard work
- yes, I know, crowds ofpeople, chaos, motions and this with his will of perfectness, but why he didn´t went to bed?
- hm, no idea
- I wake up again at nearly four and there was still light in the living room. Going to the kitchen for something to drink I had a quick look and he was sitting there in the same position as I left him two hours ago
- we should have an eye on him
Parker was strolling around, no direction or goal, just crossing the streets, walking here and there, not noticing what´s going on around him. He felt awfully hurt and ill, his admired photographer wasn´t at the spanish-course the last weeks, exactly after the party the contact broke off, only the pictures he sent him with no comment. He tried to telephone him but unsuccessfully, always his wife or one of the daughters picked up, saying that he was gone to a workshop somewhere in the south for 2 weeks or so. He didn´t believe it. Wandering around he felt totaly uncertain what to do now and how to react to this rude behavior. He tried to clear up his feelings, yes, he was very attracted from him, his calmness, his being like a stone in the curly water, his seriousness, he stands for all he never was able to be, the direct opposite of himself. He was the type of a gay man everybody expected after the first glance, his feminine motions, the way he talks and walks, his extravagancy in clothes, his extroverted laughing and being some kind of exaggerate, people would call him "special" or "different" to be polite and would mean "gay". He had choosen a profession where it was familiar to be "special", dancers are a separate community, not easy to live in because of all the strong individuals, often excentric and full of narcism, but a helpful hand when you think being alone with all this complicated love-feeling-problems. There were so many nice and friendly and excellent dancers in the café, remembering his last love, but why this photographer, why a man with wife and children, nearly double-aged. Was it love? Or perhaps something else he couldn´t see at the moment?
Having reached the end of the city where the woods begin filled with all these depressing thoughts he looked up and couldn´t believe his eyes: There he was, sitting on a bench straight in front of him, staring into the air not noticing him yet, doomy and alone - like himself. With caution he went to the bench "I don´t want to disturb you, Mr. ..." "Parker!" He looked up and his face enlightened immediatly but when their eyes met he suddenly knew and a mixture of feelings fell over him: love, hate, shame, luck, power, freedom, understanding, rebellion, peace, anger and passion. No words were necessary any more, they were together and Parkers only thought was: "Fuck the future!"
