The Trouble Boy, page 3
When I arrived at B Bar that night, there was a line stretched all the way to the Bowery. Converted from a former gas station, the combination restaurant-bar-lounge was now all about gas station chic: photographs of trucks, blue and orange trim, wood paneling. It was the perfect backdrop for this weekly parade of the beautiful and the bizarre.
“Step aside, step to the back of the line,” barked the enormous black bouncer to a crowd trying to storm the velvet rope.
I approached, reaching into my bag for the stack of business cards Sonia had printed up at Kinko’s. “Toby Griffin, Nightlife Editor,” they read. I spoke to the doorman, a rail-thin man with a goatee and blue-tinted glasses whom I had never seen working before. After I explained that I was doing a review, he still seemed skeptical. “City what? Citysearch, did you say?”
“No, CityStyle. It’s a site about nightlife, fashion—” My hands were clammy. What if I had to wait in line?
“Never heard of it. Is it a gay Web site?”
“No, it’s not. I mean, we have a large gay readership, but, no, it’s not exclusively gay.” I remembered the Lola connection. “Lola writes for it.”
“This is a gay night. Are you sure you belong here?”
“Look, it has a very gay sensibility. And I’m gay. Isn’t that good enough?”
“Prove it.”
Just as I contemplated grabbing a boy off the street and kissing him, the doorman laughed. “I’m just giving you shit. Go on in. But I better see that review in a couple of days.” He turned to his assistant. “Write that down for me, will you? CityStylin.com.”
“CityStyle.com,” I said.
He laughed. “Whatever.”
After grabbing a vodka cran at the front bar, I found the boys sitting in the back room as promised. The back lounge was outfitted as a ski-lodge-slash-rec-room, with the final touch being a series of Nan Goldin-esque portraits of drag queens, heroin addicts, and Filipino prostitutes lining the walls. Through the windows, the trees in the garden were decorated like a Midwestern Christmas with strands of twinkling lights, a glittering paradise for those who had once bitten the apple of knowledge, but were now content to drink apple martinis. Like an outpost of the Velvet Mafia, Rupert Everett, John Waters, and Rufus Wainwright were parked conspiratorially in a nearby booth.
“Hey,” Jamie said. “We weren’t sure if you’d show.”
Jamie, David, and Alejandro were sitting in a brown leather banquette with another friend, Brett Perotta. A little guy, he had a body created by too many trips to the gym and too many helpings of his mother’s ziti. To prove his bulk did not equal fat, he had a habit of lifting up his shirt to reveal his perfectly formed abdominals, something he did several times over the course of the evening.
Unlike Brett and Alejandro, David and Jamie were still wearing their suits from the office, ties loosened, sleeves rolled up. “We just got off work,” Jamie explained.
“You worked until 10 P.M.?” I asked.
“Yeah, I-banking. The hours are insane.”
“Except when you sneak in at ten in the morning,” David said. “We’re supposed to be there at eight. His secretary covers for him when he’s late.”
Jamie grinned. “Sometimes I leave my jacket there overnight, so if people come by my desk early, they think I’m in the restroom or something. I’m sorry, I have a life, you know?” He held up his drink.
I pulled out my pack of Merit Ultra Lights, and Jamie took a cigarette for himself.
“I’m trying to quit,” he said.
I asked him how they’d all met.
“During orientation for work, David and I were in the same group. I didn’t want anyone to know, I mean, no one knows we’re, you know, 429, but David kept following me around and asking me what I was doing each weekend.”
“I didn’t know anyone in the city,” David said.
“One day, I just told him, ‘I’m going dancing at the Roxy,’ to see if he would get it. That’s a good way to tell if people are 429, to ask what clubs they go to, and on which nights.” I had never thought of nightlife listings as a way of running a witch hunt. “Everyone’s really homophobic at work. We have to be careful.”
“And how did you meet everyone?” I asked Brett.
He laughed and Jamie blushed.
“We met online,” Jamie admitted. “I mean, nothing ever happened. It’s a good way to meet people . . . well, sometimes it is.”
So Jamie was an AOL slut. I looked at him askance.
“Oh, come on, don’t tell me you’ve never done it,” he said.
“I never have,” I said. I had heard about friends’ adventures in the chat rooms, but it had never interested me. It seemed like such a calculating way to get someone into bed. I preferred to wake up next to someone in the morning and pretend it had all happened by magic.
On the other side of the room, Lola was standing on a platform, posed like the Venus de Milo rising from her shell. She was naked except for a translucent sheath wrapped around her lower half. Having begun her transformation at age sixteen, she had attended to every detail over the years, including having a pair of ribs removed, further highlighting her concave stomach. Her nipples stood at attention, large as silver dollars; her black hair was piled on top of her head like an expensive hat. Despite Lola’s gyrations, most of the room—it was getting crowded with a mix of fashion queens and young professionals—pretended not to notice the spectacle taking place directly over its head. I pulled out my pad and made a few notes.
“That woman is such a freak,” Jamie said. “She’s got so much plastic in her, she’s probably flame-retardant. Do you want another drink?” He motioned to my empty glass, and I nodded as he got up.
“It’s so good to see you!” he said, giving my shoulders a quick grab, as if we were on a soccer team and he was motivating me for the final quarter.
I tensed up, then tried to relax.
Jamie, undeterred by my lack of enthusiasm, left to get the drinks.
Brett had gone to talk to someone across the room, so I was left with David and Alejandro. In this room full of swarming singles, they sat together like two smug suburbanites who had just come back from their honeymoon.
“You know, Jamie is really into you. He can’t stop talking about you,” David said.
“You two would make a cute couple,” Alejandro said, as I almost gagged.
“What are you, his PR machine? Please, he’s totally not my type. But don’t tell him that—I don’t want to hurt him.”
“Of course you don’t.”
I squirmed as I realized Donovan was standing beside me. He had on the same light blue cotton sweater he had worn earlier that day, but now his khaki cargo pants were stained with ink, the result of too many hours at the office.
It turned out that Donovan and Jamie were friends from Princeton. The banker boys had formed a little posse over the summer, galvanized by their status as gay outcasts in the mostly straight world of finance; Donovan and Alejandro provided just the right amount of bohemian color. They were actively seeking new members, and I had arrived right in the middle of rush.
Since I had already had a few drinks, I felt more relaxed around Donovan than I had at the office. I couldn’t help thinking about what it would be like to bring him home.
Donovan slid into the booth, sitting next to me. “So I’m outside, getting out of a cab, and this queen yells at me, ‘Oh, my God, that man’s wearing a sweater!’ as if it’s a hundred degrees or something. I mean, I know it’s warm out, but it wasn’t this morning, and I came straight from the office. Of course, that guy will probably be wearing the same sweater himself next week, since he saw I didn’t have to wait in line.”
“Why didn’t you have to wait in line?” I asked.
“Please, I never wait. I’m press.”
“I hope you didn’t tell them you were doing a review.”
“Don’t worry about it; they know me. You’ll get the hang of this soon. Before you know it, you’ll be the King of New York.”
“Queen,” David said.
“I want to be the Queen of Seventh Avenue,” said Alejandro, who had a habit of continually bringing the conversation back to himself. At some point, I would have to mention to him that my mother was a fashion designer.
Donovan told me about his history as a food writer, and how he had launched the first serious restaurant column for the Daily Princetonian by traveling into New York to review downtown restaurants.
“My parents give me shit about being a food writer with an Ivy League degree,” he said. “But food is about everything: art, culture, history. People think of food writing like it’s not the real thing. But it’s about the journey, you know?”
Donovan was in the middle of telling me about his childhood in Kansas City when Jamie came back and interrupted everyone with a tirade about the long line for the restroom.
He looked at Donovan. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight,” he said as he handed me my drink and sat down at the other end of the booth.
“What’s that about?” I whispered to David.
“Donovan sleeps with everyone Jamie is interested in. Jamie’s afraid that he’ll steal you away.”
I scoffed as a tingle ran to my groin.
“Oh, my God,” Jamie said, pointing. “It’s the guy from The Real World.”
I resisted the urge to slap his arm down. “You mean the gay guy from this season?”
I never watched the show anymore, but I recognized him from a photo in Entertainment Weekly. His features were striking, framed by curly blond hair cut short on the sides; he wore a suit and loosened tie, and was carrying a large duffel bag by its shoulder strap. And he was headed right by our banquette.
Like a snake charmer, I willed him to talk to us.
Come to me, but don’t bite my head off.
He saw us, but kept moving..
Fuck it. I would have to make the first move. Emboldened by the drinks, I said hello.
“Hey,” he said, sizing up our table.
I asked him if he was coming from work. It was a stupid question, but it got him talking and before we knew it, Real World Guy was sitting down with us. I could see that Donovan was impressed.
“We should get shots,” Jamie said, and Real World Guy agreed that this was a good idea. Jamie waved to a nearby waitress to bring us tequila and limes.
I was convinced that if I was going to seduce Real World Guy, the best way would be to pretend I didn’t know who he was. And he went right along with it, until he got to the part about explaining what he had been doing for the last year. “I was on this show,” he said.
“Oh, really?” I said. “What show?”
“It’s on MTV,” he said. “You know, The Real World.”
“Oh, that show!” I said. “I don’t watch much MTV.”
“Yeah, well, I was on it,” he said.
“That must get you laid a lot,” Donovan said.
I glared at him.
Our shots arrived, and we downed them, licking the salt off our hands and sucking on limes. It felt like spring break in Cabo, not that I had ever done spring break in Cabo. It was goofy and unsophisticated and made us look like frat boys, but it didn’t matter, because we had Real World Guy at our table.
Jamie was obviously having similar thoughts, because after he finished his shot, he turned to me and said, “Don’t you just love being part of the Beautiful People?”
I told him to shut up, and hoped Real World Guy hadn’t heard him. It was something you could think but weren’t supposed to say, like arriving at a party and announcing, “I’m so fabulous!” Anyway, it was ridiculous: while we were all decent-looking, we weren’t exactly an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.
Real World Guy said he should really be going, so I gave him my CityStyle card. When I asked him for his number, he just said, “I’ll call you,” before disappearing into the crowd, his duffel bag trailing behind him.
“I can’t believe you just talked to the guy from The Real World,” Jamie said. “That is so incredibly cool.” I could tell he was jealous.
“He’s never going to call me,” I said.
“You never know.” Jamie downed his drink. “Do you want another?” he asked, sliding out of the booth.
I gave him money. I could get used to this table service.
“I’m going to see if Brett’s around,” Donovan said, getting up, “though he’s probably lost in hookup land.”
David started giggling as soon as Jamie and Donovan were out of earshot. “Oh, my God,” he said. “While you were talking with that guy, Jamie whispered to Donovan, ‘Hands off, he’s mine! I met him first and you’re not stealing him away from me!’ We call Jamie the cock-blocker.”
“Why, was Donovan interested in me?” I stirred the ice around in my glass, suddenly excited again.
“I think he knows it wouldn’t be a good idea, since you guys are working together.”
I must have looked disappointed, because David piped up again. “Don’t worry about it. Jamie said the exact same thing to me when we first met Alejandro. It didn’t stop us from getting together.” They smiled at each other.
I was starting to get annoyed with David and Alejandro’s continual flaunting of their matrimonial bliss. “So,” I said to Alejandro, “when does your visa run out?”
“I have as long as I want,” Alejandro said. “My father knows people at the Argentinean embassy. Of course, I’m in school now, so it doesn’t matter.”
I thought about what David and Alejandro had—and what I desperately wanted. I had to make it happen.
Jamie was tapping me on the shoulder. “It’s almost two.”
I knew the smart thing would be to leave, but I had a good buzz going. I was on my fifth drink, plus a beer I had drunk at home.
“I’m going to stay for another drink,” I said. I looked in my wallet; I had just enough for one more.
David, Alejandro, and Donovan took off. Donovan was clearly a long-term project.
I slid into the banquette so Jamie and I had more room. I flagged down the waitress and she brought me another vodka cran. At the next table, there was a guy I didn’t recognize sitting with the Velvet Mafia. “That’s Cameron Cole,” Jamie said. “The guy next to Rufus Wainwright. He used to go to my school when his dad lived in Jersey.”
“What’s his connection to all those celebs?”
“He’s a film producer. He runs a company that’s a division of his mom’s business.”
Since I was drunk, I smiled as I looked at him. He caught my eye, and I looked away. I wanted to talk to him, but what would I say? I would just be another interloper with several unfinished screenplays deep in the bowels of my computer.
Jamie slid closer to me in the booth.
“I should be getting home,” I said, and was met with a frustrated look from Jamie. “But give me a call tomorrow. We’ll chat.”
“Now I know where to reach you,” he said. We exchanged cheek kisses before parting.
I stumbled out into the warm Bowery night, the cars whizzing by, and walked east to Avenue A. Maybe Real World Guy would call me tomorrow. We would go on a date and hit it off instantly, realizing we were soul mates. Since he was a bona fide C-list celebrity, we would go to movie premieres and restaurant openings, and my writing career would soar. New York magazine would write us up as a gay “Power Couple to Watch,” and the two of us would make the Out 100. David Geffen would invite us to pool parties in the Hamptons and Fire Island, where he would introduce me to Barry Diller, who would sign me for a three-picture deal based entirely on the quality of my repartee. Barry, as I now called him, would also be interested in CityStyle.com, which he would purchase and take public, making our stock options worth millions....
When I reached my building, there was a homeless teenager sleeping in the entryway near the mailboxes.
“Come on,” I mumbled to him. “Go crash somewhere else.”
He woke up with a jolt, grabbed his backpack, and tripped down the stairs, seemingly annoyed he had been roused at this hour.
“Cocksucker,” he muttered.
I had forgotten to feed Gus the night before, so I was woken in the morning by his mewing at my bedroom door. Since all I had managed to do after getting home was to strip naked and collapse into bed without drinking water or taking a Tylenol, I was now in the throes of a painful hangover. It wasn’t the I-scored-and-it-was-worth-it kind, either. It was the kind that meant panic.
It was 11:30 A.M. and I was late for my second day of work.
Donovan greeted me at the office, looking as bright-eyed as he had the night before. My stomach was still churning, my limbs fatigued. “You’re lucky Sonia was out at meetings all morning,” he said. “She called, and I said you were in the restroom.”
“What time did you get in?”
“Nine, like I always do.”
“But weren’t you exhausted from last night?”
“It’s my routine, it never changes. Learn to work hung over, that’s my secret.”
I slumped down at my desk and wished I could have Donovan’s dedication. It was one thing to tie one on in college and sit through a “Films of Alfred Hitchcock” lecture or a screening of Satyricon the next day, but it was entirely another to suffer the wages of sin while working. At CityStyle, I was in charge of my own time, and I needed to be alert and organized in order to get everything done.
I opened up my Web browser and decided to do some research on Cameron Cole. I learned that he was twenty-six years old and had graduated from Tufts with a degree in economics. Every summer he had interned for his mother’s company, Eastside Pictures. Katherine Cole’s company had made its mark with strong female-driven comedies like Working Moms and Relax, It’s Just Therapy. A champion of the niche genre, she had decided her gay son would be the perfect person to exploit that market, so when he graduated, she gave him his own production division that operated under her company’s roof. According to a recent profile in the Advocate, Cameron liked to spend his time at clubs like Lotus and Bungalow 8 with friends like Alan Cumming, John Waters, and, I was surprised to learn, publicist Ariana Richards, who represented Cameron and his company. I glanced through the open door towards Ariana’s corner office. I hadn’t realized I had gotten a job so close to a contact in the film business.
