Gulliver Takes Five, page 24
My lacrosse stick is on the seat next to me. I haven’t used it since junior varsity in high school. (And don’t ask me why I’ve carted it with me all these years—I like how it looks on my wall, okay?) I hope I still have the skills to snatch Mickey up—before he disappears again and comes back with reinforcements.
As long as I’m in the cab for a few minutes, I have Shane on the phone so I can simultaneously deal with THAT bit of drama. Efficiency is key when you’re expected to help everybody. At least Batman has Alfred to answer his calls and Robin to send out on lesser emergencies. Like this one. It’s like I’m in that old Root Beer Tapper video game, running from bar to bar and making sure that every customer has a tall cold one. They drink and get pissed if you don’t toss them a new one the second they kill off the last. And if you throw a new one too soon, it ends up on the floor, and they get pissed about that too. The customers in this morning’s version of the game are Irwin, Shane, Rowan, Servando, and Mikey Drama, and they’re guzzling root beer like it’s going out of style. And here I am, running from one to the next, pulling the draft handle and flinging the mug...
Shane’s filling me in: This morning, Brayden was caught looking at his boyfriend’s phone, and the guy dumped him and peaced out. Called him crazy too—certainly an apt adjective, but invoking it only makes Brayden even crazier. I don’t pay much mind to the trials and travesties of Brayden’s dating life, since they come along about as often as commercials during prime time. But Shane rarely sounds the drama alarm like this. This is a big deal, he claims. This tantrum beats out all the others Brayden’s ever thrown, including the one that left my best buddy lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood on Fire Island. A full-on psychotic/potentially murderous meltdown.
Even worse, Brayden’s most recent ex happens to be one of my favorite pop/house DJs; thanks for that added level of complexity, Bray.
“Do you really think he’s in danger? Because if this is just Brayden being Brayden, I have a lot on my plate today, and after what happened on Fire Island, he’s not that high up the list,” I say, looking out the window. The sky is getting cloudy—not too many clouds, but New York City rarely jokes around with weather. If it went through the trouble of bringing out the gloomy gray, it’s probably planning on using it. This isn’t a good sign.
“No, boo, I’m totally serious,” Shane says. “He trashed our living room, and I walked in on him screaming at nobody.”
Okay, that IS crazy. Even for Brayden.
“Jesus, is he still there?”
“No! That’s the problem. Bitch ran out of here before I was done putting all the books back on the shelf.”
“Is he responding to texts?” I ask as my cab approaches the intersection of Servando and Rowan’s place. “Have you tried calling or e-mailing?”
“All of it, boo. No response.”
“Fuck a duck. Okay, I have to help Rowan and Servando kill a rat. Or a twenty-foot-tall beady-eyed, fanged monster, judging from the way they’re freaking out.”
“Didn’t realize you had ‘exterminator’ on your résumé too.”
“Yep. Happy Saturday. Keep me posted. If you don’t hear anything after I’ve killed Remy, I’ll send out a search team.”
“Yeah. Wait—who’s Remy?”
“Ratatouille? Brush up on your Pixar while I’m gone,” I explain. “Also, try calling some of his girlfriends if you have their numbers. Okay?”
“Okay, boo, thanks.”
The cabbie pulls up to the curb. I swipe my credit card and leave him a 30 percent tip. He thanks me profusely for my generosity, considering how little he had to drive to reach my destination. I nod and smile.
I overtip everybody. Probably because, before I found myself in this place of financial security and gay fame, I was a waiter at a shitty chain steakhouse on Long Island during college summers. I had my fair share of stiffings by cheapskates and verbal abuse from insensitive assholes. Now I’m always super-nice to those who provide services and tip them generously to make up for the fuckwads they have inevitably dealt with all day (or night) long. Go-go boys, bartenders, pizza delivery guys, baristas, doesn’t matter. It’s my own bit of social charity. A couple extra bucks to cheer everybody up.
Servando and Rowan’s apartment is at the back of the ground floor of a four-story apartment building made of faded bricks, next door to a shuttered pizza joint. I hold the buzzer for their apartment and wait. There is a click as the intercom comes to life.
“Todd! Help! Please! HELP!”
There’s another buzz. I enter through the double-glass-doored vestibule quickly so I don’t get stuck between locked entrances, pass the staircase and wall full of mailboxes, and jog down the narrow hallway of cracked and peeling cream-colored wallpaper, headed for the last apartment on the far right. The hall smells like someone’s dinner from last night—just the highlights that were able to cling to the walls before giving up the ghost.
Even if I didn’t know where the duo lived, it would be easy to find them with the assistance of the screeching that echoes all the way to the entrance. Have they been screaming like this all morning? That’s one brave (or deaf) rat.
The boys’ door is wide open and the apartment looks like a tornado ripped straight through. Abandoned breakfast plates with scraps of egg whites on a small side table, glasses overturned next to them. Copies of NEXT and GET OUT and ODYSSEY magazines open and facedown all over the floor like a flock of dead gay birds. A baggie of weed is torn wide open, the green clumps smashed to useless bits. A dildo lies inexplicably in the middle of the apartment. Servando is dancing from one foot to the other on top of a folding chair, his longish black hair ragged and sticking out in all directions. Rowan is backed into the corner on top of the bed they still share even though they’ve been broken up for over a year. Both are in their underwear, like two go-go boys magically transported to someone’s home, rendered confused by the sudden change of location.
“Good morning, boys. How’s everything?” I ask, bouncing my lacrosse stick in my right palm with my left hand.
“Get it, Todd!” Servando screams, pointing in a variety of directions, like the rat is teleporting back and forth across the room.
“Where is he?” I ask, clearing the door and slamming it behind me with my ass, cutting off the critter’s possible escape routes. Okay, this might be a fun way to start my day, after all. I’ve got some aggression I wouldn’t mind taking out on Servando and Rowan’s new furry friend.
“You think I know, bitch?” Rowan yells, like I’m the one who released this creature into their home. “Probably plotting his next attack! Ugh, I hate New York! We never had rats in Wisconsin! I’m gonna move back home!”
“Funny, because you’d think they’d be all about the cheese,” I say over my shoulder, casing the joint and monitoring closely for any sort of movement. “Now, shut up, both of you queens. Maybe we can hear him.”
Servando and Rowan clam up, their hands on their mouths, eyes bugging out. The silence, once again, is wonderful; hopefully today will provide a lot more of it.
“Why are you two in your underwear, anyway? Afraid of him crawling into your pants?”
“Ew! I didn’t even think of that!” Servando shrieks.
“We were...”
“You were about to fuck, weren’t you?” I ask, knocking a garbage can away from the wall with my lacrosse stick.
No rat.
“And what if we were?” Rowan asks righteously.
“Nothing,” I say, opening cabinets in the studio’s connected kitchen area. “Not like it’s weird that two ex-boyfriends still live, sleep, and fuck together. You do know exes are supposed to hate each other, right? Avoid each other like the plague, at all costs?”
“Don’t judge us!” Rowan says, pointing.
“Especially at a time of crisis!” Servando adds.
But of course I’m judging them. I have since we all became friends. Rowan and Servando are one of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries. They broke up over a year ago, and yet they still do everything together—including live and fuck. The true mystery is that they seem to be the only two people in Manhattan who don’t realize that they ARE boyfriends. But don’t tell them that, unless you want Servando to monologue the fuck out of you and waste half your day in the process.
On the other hand, while their thinking makes zero sense, it’s a far better situation than Brayden’s. He can’t hold down a relationship for longer than a week and a half and has a must-kill list as long as a gay directory of Manhattan. Servando and Rowan’s rationales may be bizarre, but at least there will be no casualties as a result.
Except one rat, maybe.
I shush the boys again and go back to slowly tiptoeing around the apartment, cocking my head, as if that’ll make the little fucker easier to hear. I wonder if there even IS a rat. Maybe they just thought they saw it? This place is a mess—underwear and clothing all over the place. It’s like me and Gully’s room back in the frat house. But while we both grew up and learned to put our shit in drawers and cabinets, apparently Servando and Rowan have yet to reach that point of maturity.
I should have brought Señor along. He’d find the creature, if indeed there was one. Probably kill him with his Beefaroni farts too.
“Todd?”
“Shut the fuck up!” I whisper at whoever tried talking. Because I think I hear something. No—I DO hear something. It’s a light crinkling noise, like some asshole in a Broadway theater opening a candy wrapper despite the prerecorded announcement instructing him to cut that crap out before the show started.
The sound is coming from the bathroom. Switching on the bathroom light would probably scare the thing away, so I grab my iPhone and, creeping into the john, shine it in the direction of the noise.
He (or she) appears in the small beam of glow from my phone. He’s in the corner by the toilet, up on his hind legs and scratching excitedly at a discarded toilet paper wrapper. He’s barely larger than a muffin, sorta cute in that anthropomorphic children’s-movie-mouse type of way. Still, I wouldn’t want him running around in my apartment, either. He needs to be disposed of.
I hold a hand up behind me to keep Servando and Rowan quiet, then slowly, carefully step closer. It’ll have to be a quick attack, perfectly aimed, or my stick will crash off the toilet or wall. One wrong move and the fucker will fly out of the room and wreak havoc for the rest of the day. And while it might be fun to chase after him, I have too much else to take care of. All those other Root Beer Tapper customers, crossing their arms and turning red with little anger squiggles coming out of their heads. Order up!
Teeth clenched, I raise the lacrosse stick halfway off the floor and take a swipe.
Perfect shot! He’s caught right in the netting.
“Sorry, Fievel, that’s the end of your rodent rampage,” I say, smiling.
“You got it?” Rowan or Servando asks from the other room. “Did you kill him?”
“Ew, no, bitch. Just imprisoned him. We’ll put him outside so he can go back to the sewer with all of his gross friends.”
I get down on one knee and drag the lacrosse stick closer. I’ll need to slip something underneath the opening so he can be transported back to the streets he came from. His cousins and parents must be worried sick.
The furry thing looks at me as I get closer, its tiny eyes fixated on me like it’s not sure what’s going on.
“Time to go home, little buddy! How’s that sound?”
Its tiny mouth opens far wider than I could ever imagine. I blink. A warped screech the likes of which you’d hear coming from a monster in a Japanese horror flick comes out. It is...SCREAMING!
I scream. Then Rowan and Servando scream. We are all screaming, and I’m running away from the bathroom, leaving the trapped, shrieking beast stuck in my lacrosse stick’s netting.
And my phone, not wanting to be left out, rings. Another emergency.
“Aren’t you going to get it out of here?” Servando cries as I sprint out of the apartment.
“Fuck that shit! You figure it out yourselves!” I yell back up the hall. “And bring back my lacrosse stick when you’re done!”
Too drunk. Way too fucking drunk.
Because of Gulliver.
It’s the weekend of my huge party on Fire Island, and I had to send my best friend home by himself, the morning of the event. Why? Because he was stupid. He got his ass kicked by Brayden the night before. Like, REALLY handed to him. Blood everywhere. Puke everywhere. I didn’t find out ’til the next morning why Brayden laid into him: for fucking around with Brayden’s ex, Marty, behind his back. Not once. Not twice. For A MONTH.
No—make that behind ALL of our backs. Of COURSE Brayden kicked his ass. I’d have done the same goddamned thing! I wanted to, and Marty wasn’t even my boyfriend.
Gulliver lied to us. Lied to ME.
What the hell was he thinking? It isn’t like him. He’s smarter than that. At least, I thought he was. Has so much changed in the few years since I left UCLA? What has he become? When did he turn into some typical sneaky cunt?
I don’t want to believe this is the case, that my best buddy turned into just another fresh-faced, fresher-acting, new-to-New York gay boy, but what else can I think? For every pang of loss for the friend I thought I had, I take another shot. The worst drinking game of all time.
It’s a beautiful June evening. Well, at this point, June morning. We’re on a raised platform built on the beach in the Fire Island Pines. Surrounded by crashing waves and blasting tunes. Nothing but disembodied lights in the background. There’s a chilly breeze that cools the remaining party people who haven’t already stumbled home to sleep or fuck or both. My event blew the fuckin’ houses down on Fire Island, sent the sand scrambling back into the damn ocean. Over four thousand guys came out. Those numbers are typical for Gay Days and Southern Decadence, not a weekend on Fire Island.
We clogged the dance floor like a bear’s shower drain gets stopped up with curlies, almost ran out of well vodka. The ticket sales probably beat the opening night of Harry Potter. Even after paying out to everyone else, I’m going back to Manhattan with a huge chunk of cash. Even more exciting is that this is one of the events my boss Xavier let me basically run myself. I catch him toward the end of the night, drinking with a gorgeous boy under each arm. “Look at the famous Todd DiTempto,” he says through a drunken smile. “Keep an eye on him, he’s going to take this city over before you know it.”
But the joy of success crashes into my anger at Gulliver like two opposing waves. Trapped. Before I can smile, I wince, then walk away from my boss, cursing Gully for what he did.
The guy was like my fucking brother. We had BOTH been through bullshit with cheating ex-boyfriends and come out on the other side as even better friends. Then he goes and fucks one of my best friend’s exes? And lies about it? Over and over again? Fuck no. FUCK NO. It’s like he cheated on ME. He fucked that kid while living with me. While eating food I bought, watching my cable, using my Internet. Taking my drink tickets and comp entries to parties.
I’m not just angry, I feel like a fucking tool.
What should have been a celebratory weekend has been completely fucking destroyed by my bestie, who decided to think with the head between his legs instead of the one on his fucking neck. Seriously, Gullzo? I thought you were better than this.
Now I don’t know what to do. And when I don’t know what to do, I drink. When the party is yours, they don’t make you pay for drinks. And when you’re not paying for your drinks, you lose track of how many you’re swallowing. I drink because it’s the easiest thing to do when I’m pissed. Easier than thinking, easier than feeling. The world’s sharp edges go fuzzy, and that’s just fine by me.
Thanks to the alcohol or Gulliver or whatever, on this night-of-nights, I have broken a rule I’ve always lived by. Rule Number One: never get fucked up at your own parties. Done and done.
Speaking of, it’s time to refresh the ol’ cocktail. I walk through the sizable mass of remaining party people, who kindly part so I can get through. I collide with the bar, sending a jolt of pain through my pelvis. It seemed so much farther away in my eyes. Ow.
“Enough to drink there, hot stuff?” my ex-boyfriend Kenton asks, approaching me.
“Almost,” I say, smiling. “Citron and soda. In a big-boy cup, please.”
Usually reserved for nonalcoholic drinks, the big-boy cups are my container of choice this evening. Fewer trips to the bar, more alcohol for me. Yum.
I sip, finding the potency agreeable, and leave a five-dollar tip.
“Great job tonight, Toddy,” Kenton says, pouring himself a shot. Kenton is a guy I dated for a few months over a year ago, my first (and to date, only) boyfriend since college. Buffer than me, which must take a lot of work and commitment. Cute face with a button nose. Blond hair he combs to one side like a kid from a black-and-white sitcom. He’s thirty-something, but no one ever guesses older than twenty-six. He still has an adorable speck of a Southern drawl to his accent, even though he moved to the city for college over a decade ago and never left. He’s in a tiny bathing suit, his huge thing trying to break free of the fabric. We made out last night, right before Gully got his ass kicked and had to be taken to bed.
I wonder what might have happened otherwise.
Well. No, I don’t.
“You’re pretty wasted.” He laughs, shaking my shoulder. I almost face-plant, but catch myself on the bar. YouTube material avoided by the skin of my teeth.
“I’ll tell YOU when I’ve had enough!” I say, slamming my fist on the bar, doing my best angry drunk impression—which must be pretty awesome, considering I’m already working with a baseline of being both angry and drunk.
“You heading back to your place soon?”
Ugh. Home. I do NOT want to go back there. Not with the guys waiting to hear what I’m going to do about Benedict Gully. What the fuck can I tell them? That I’m going to let him stay in my apartment and they should all get over the fact that he’s done such a ridiculously shitty thing? Or that I’m going to kick Gulliver out, when I’m the only reason he left his old life behind and moved across the continent in the first place? He’s MY fucking responsibility.
