The Only Gay In The Village

Some things you should know :


1. Ireland is, in many ways, a cultural backwater.


2. The Boss is from a town which it's fair to say much of Ireland would consider to be a cultural backwater, which for the sake of establishing a placeholder name I shall refer to as 'Ballybackofbeyond'.


3. What passes for 'politics' in Northern Ireland has recently experienced a (totally fucking delicious, brilliant, life-affirming) sex-scandal which, (possibly) apart from the possibility of collapse of what passes for 'Government' in the North as a result, is absolute unadulterated pure and refined epic fucking WIN.


So anyway we were talking about this last item, me specifically in light of my 'Ha hah fucking ha, slap it up the hypocritical cunt' stance on this, and off the back of it came this conversation :

The Boss, seriously : "There's a gay fella in Ballybackofbeyond."

Here's me, sarky : "What, just the one?"

The Boss : "Yeah, he comes into the bar on a Saturday night. I feel a bit sorry for him."

Here's me : "Uh, why?"

The Boss : "Well he had a... partner, years ago. But he died. So now there's no-one for him to really... pair off with."

Here's me, mocking, slightly, I'm only human : "So, eh, is he like, the only gay in the village?"

The Boss, seriously : "Yeah."

Here's me : "I seriously doubt that, y'know."

The Boss : "No, he is."

Here's me : "Are you being serious?"

The Boss : "Yeah."

Here's me : "I guarantee you there's a fair few gay men in Ballybackofbeyond, Jesus like, come on!"

The Boss : "No, really. I'd know."

Here's me : "You'd know?"

The Boss : "I'd've heard. He's the only one."

Here's me : "Get a grip. I wouldn't put money on the exact figures but if you took a figure of 2% of the locals being gay as a very fucking conservative estimate, then there's about twenty gay men in the village. Come on."

The Boss, looking a bit nonplussed : "Really?"

Here's me : "Yes, Jesus. Jesus, like, Boss, seriously."

The Boss : "Ha ha. You seem to know a lot about this. Are you one?"

Here's me : "No. What, wait - what? Am I one? What? You know it's the twenty first century, yeah?"

The Boss, indignant : "I have nothing against them."

Here's me : "OK. The 'them' bit - you need to work on that. But ok. Look, the law of averages suggests there are probably a few thousand gay men living in a ten mile radius of where you live, ok?"

The Boss is silent for a second. I cannot fathom what she might be thinking.

"Then..."

I look on, and wait.

"...I...."

And further, I hope that she is not about to say something, y'know, really bad.

"Really?"

I nod solemnly.


And then she smiles. Beams, actually, seemingly genuinely pleased.

"I have to tell him! Where would he go to meet them?!"