These Goddamned Boys All Stealing

I can still make myself faintly feel the delicious nausea of initiation terror which Christopher felt as Wystan pushed back the heavy leather door-curtain of a boy bar called Cosy Corner … he met a youth whom I shall call Bubi … pretty face, appealing blue eyes, golden blond hair … a body smooth-skinned and hairless, although hard and muscular … Bubi had been, among other things, a boxer, so he must has been capable of aggression. But with Christopher he was gentle, considerate, almost too polite.

Nothing could have looked less decadent than The Cosy Corner (Zossenerstrasse 7). It was plain and homely and unpretentious. Its only decorations were a few photographs of boxers and racing cyclists, pinned up above the bar. It was heated by a big old-fashioned iron stove. Partly because of the great heat of this stove, partly because they knew it excited their clients … the boys stripped off their sweaters or leather jackets and sat around with their shirts unbuttoned to the navel and their sleeves rolled up to the armpits.

They were all working-class and mostly all out of work … They were greedy but not calculating … When they stole they stole stupidly and got caught … Beyond keeping their hair carefully combed, they showed few signs of vanity … Their attitude was an almost indifferent “Take me or leave me”.

Christopher Isherwood: Christopher and his kind, 1977.

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- TKL: Two Paintings and a Book