Free Anything Goes by John Barrowman; Carole E. Barrowman Page A

Prestbury island as usual, when Andrew decided to show his friends how well our family dog, now known as Pagan The Transatlantic Pup, 2     could swim.
    Before I go on, I must take this opportunity to offer a caveat, 3     especially for my younger readers. Boys and girls, there are three things you should never ever do if you’ve been drinking – actually, if you’re a boy or a girl, you shouldn’t be drinking in the first place, but I’m digressing in my digression:
    Never drive.
    Never get a tattoo.
    Never take your dog swimming. This rule also applies to cats, hamsters, little bunnies, and anything in the furry rodent family.
    Alas, Andrew had not learned the third lesson. After considerable fanfare, he chucked Pagan The Transatlantic Pup into Prestbury’s lake. Andrew and his buddies cheered and then they cheered again in anticipation of Pagan The Transatlantic Pup bobbing up from the watery depths and paddling across to the island to be duly congratulated. Problem was, no one told Pagan that was the plan, so that after about thirty seconds, it was clear to Andrew and to all his friends that Pagan wasn’t bobbing anywhere except maybe under a floating gravestone.
    Andrew jumped into the lake at the same spot he’d tossed the dog.Down he went, frantically searching for Pagan The Transatlantic Pup. After five minutes of fruitless hunting, Andrew was in full-blown ‘I’m so screwed’ mode, as were his friends, who were quickly evacuating the scene of the crime. Sadly, still no sign of Pagan The Transatlantic Pup.
    What Andrew didn’t know – and I did because I was watching all of this from the opposite shore – was that Pagan The Transatlantic Pup did indeed have exceptional swimming skills and like any smart hound he’d decided, quite rightly too, that he’d had enough of Andrew’s game. After getting chucked in, he swam directly under the boat, surfaced on the other side, paddled to the shore, spotted me, accepted a quick rub of his ears, shook himself off, and then trotted home.
    At that very moment, a song broke into my head: ‘Up the park, there was a dog, and his name was Pagan The Swimming Pup.’ Whistling the same tune as Andrew’s song, I turned from the panic on the lake and followed Pagan The Transatlantic Pup home.
    A few years later, when I was about thirteen, my dad accepted a promotion to become Plant Manager of Caterpillar in Joliet, and we were on the move again. He and my mum tried hard for my sake to find a neighbourhood that matched Prestbury. The closest they could find was Timber Estates, which was lovely, but it lacked any private neighbourhood water amenities. To make up for this, my parents joined a club that had a pool. In Prestbury, my circle of friends had always included a fairly even mix of boys and girls, and in Joliet the same was true. Our escapades at the club were limited only by my dad’s charge account – and even then, not until the damage had been done.
    My friends and I would hang out at the pool all day, swimming, diving and sunbathing, and I would order vodka tonics for the entire group; our age didn’t seem to be a great concern. I was signingfor lavish lunches and decadent desserts … until my dad cottoned on to this, which wasn’t hard for him to do since one week I charged over $1,000 on lunches alone. My dad’s charge number at the club was 007 and, man, did he use his licence to kill that day.
    It was the summer before we moved to Joliet when I realized for sure I was gay – although I’d really known I was in my gut, or thereabouts, since the age of nine, when I’d seen my first girly magazine and been more interested in the male bits than the female bobs. I’m not saying that coming of age as a gay male in the late twentieth century wasn’t difficult for many boys, but, honestly, at least for me, it was no big deal. I’d grown up with parents who were sure of themselves as individuals, very comfortable in their own sexuality, and open