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The Lazarus Columns

lazarus 1: born again My Lazarus moment, the exact minute I realised I would live and not die, was when, speeding six pints of other people’s blood, 48 hours after being barely able to walk into the ward at St Bart’s, I found myself on stage at the Black Cap pub in Camden...

lazarus 2: radiation poisoning Stupid, stupid, stupid Gus. You don’t reveal you’re HIV positive to a bisexual Italian boy who’s not out to his girlfriend, and who fucked you without a condom last week, without expecting some drama, do you...

lazarus 3: the old devils Scene: Bloomsbury Square, 2am. Men are wandering through the shrubbery and leaning against trees, pants sometimes down, barely concealed from clubbers passing in the street. “Get lost, granddad,” says the young lad. “This place isn’t for you”...

lazarus 4: Tom or John? Ko Samui, Thailand, last Christmas. “I not good for you,” begins the dark, solemn boy from the ticket agency. “I not what you want.” Hello, I thought, this is where you find out you’re a John like all the others...

lazarus 5: cracked boy The park near here is a fertile cruising ground, a distraction when I work from home. Day or night, male sex hunters saunter along the paths, oh so casual, all hands in pockets and laser glances, like village cats patrolling their territories…

lazarus 6: do you hate gay music? Normally my ex-boyfriend Love Rat is a better dancer than me, but when they put on the Stone Rose's She Bangs the Drum I went crazy, swinging from the stair-rails like a demented chimp, then settling into this spastic gurn routine, yelling…

lazarus 7: a dog's life I can't kill my dog...Peanuts the dog, Jack-Russell-cross-whippet, my companion of 16 years. Who used to be the fittest living thing I have ever met, 20 pounds of ripped muscle, charged with a galvanic energy...

lazarus 8: D*I*V*O*R*C*E It’s taken me 18 months to even get myself to the point where I can articulate what I feel. Before that, experiencing my emotions clearly enough to write them out was like grasping white-hot metal.