by David Stukas
“Well,” the sergeant started, “it wasn’t a thirteen-year-old who cut down a palm tree with the intent of killing you.”
“Well, it didn’t kill me,” Rex said to set the record straight.
“Mr. Gifford, whoever cut this tree down knew exactly where your bedroom was, and you have to admit, they had pretty good aim. Whoever this person is knows what they’re doing, and they might not miss on their second try.”
“Tonight was not their first attempt,” Rex said, causing every head in the room to turn toward him.
“You mean this is the second attemp?” This question came not from the sergeant but from Vince, whose tone said that this was the first time he had heard this truth.
“Yes, Vince, there was a suspicious attempt about a week ago.”
“I can’t believe it, Rex!” Vince exclaimed. “You never mentioned anything about it to me.”
“At first I didn’t think it was intentional. I mean, the way it happened, it looked like a freak chance of nature,” Rex finished.
Sergeant Big Arms looked like he was falling behind in the line of questioning, so he jumped in with a question of his own. “Mr. Gifford, could you tell us why you thought the first attempt—which I hope you will give us a description of—was a chance of nature?”
“It happened a week ago. I went for a short hike instead of making my usual trip to the gym.”
“You what?” Vince blurted out, unable to believe what Rex had just said.
Rex held up his hand in an attempt to stop Vince dead in his tracks. “Now, now, Vince. I know that it seems foolhardy to go out alone when all this is going on . . .”
“No, that’s not what I was going to say,” Vince explained.
“Well, could it wait until I’m done with my story?” Rex asked, eyebrows raised slightly to let it be known that the master of the house was speaking.
“Fine, Rex. Whatever you say.”
“Good. I was hiking on Spitz Trail. I needed to get out and clear my head, and the gym was just too much of a distraction—with all those men, you see.”
“I see,” Sergeant Big Arms said, although from the wedding band on his finger, the George Bush Sr. aviator-style glasses, and his hopelessly out-of-date haircut, I doubted that he did see what Rex was talking about.
“I had been walking for about a half hour, thinking about some details of the Red Party, when this huge boulder came crashing across the trail only a few feet in front of me. I looked up and saw someone running away from the edge of the cliffs far above me.”
Gorski looked at Rex with complete disbelief in his eyes. “A boulder misses you by a few feet, you see someone running away from the spot from where the rock came from, and you thought it was an accident? Mr. Gifford, excuse me for sounding a little snide, but it doesn’t take Colombo to figure this out. Why did you wait so long to call the police?”
The sergeant had a point. I was wondering how such an astute businessman could fail to see such obvious connections.
Rex stared at the ice cubes in his empty whiskey glass as if the answer were written on fortune cookie slips of paper frozen inside the icy prisms. “I really don’t know what to tell you, Sergeant. I guess that I didn’t want to believe that this was really happening. If news of this got out, no one would want to attend the Red Party. People would be afraid to come for fear that something might happen to them.”
“That’s understandable, Mr. Gifford, but how did you think you were going to handle this on your own?”
“I hadn’t gotten that far yet,” Rex replied, the über-businessman apparently out of ideas.
“Well, that’s all for now, Mr. Gifford. We’ll post an officer outside on your grounds in the meantime for your protection. Here’s my card. Give me a call if you think of anything, no matter how insignificant the detail.”
Vince had the look on his face that indicated that he was about to speak, but Rex needed a little something to calm him down first.
“Vince,” Rex said, holding out the empty glass in front of him, “could you pour me another double shot of scotch? I think I need something to calm my nerves.”
“Sure, Rex,” Vince said, suddenly concerned that the undefeatable Rex Gifford, the king of party productions, was meeting his match.
As Rex sat in a leather club chair talking to Vince, and Sergeant Big Arms gathered up his official-looking briefcase and went out the front door to join his comrades, I wondered where Michael had gotten to. I went outside, around the house, and into Rex’s bedroom through the side door, feeling that since the palm tree had left several gaping entrances to Rex’s bedroom, it wouldn’t be rude to enter without knocking. After all, there was little to knock on.
I entered the bedroom only to find Michael putting his hands around the arms of another cop—whose arms weren’t anywhere near as big as Mr. Big Arms’ were. But to Michael, a cop is a cop, and a cop blew air up his codpiece more than anything. Michael didn’t notice me standing there watching him, so I remained silent and watched. I wanted to see if Michael could break his previous record for seducing a real, live cop. The previous record stood at two minutes, five seconds.
“Wow,” Michael said in faux amazement. “How big did you say they were?” he asked, copping another feel of the amazing biceps—pun intended.
“Twenty inches,” the cop said with great pride.
“Twenty inches!” Michael swooned. “That must be at least three inches bigger than mine,” Michael lied. I knew that Michael’s arms were twenty-one inches around—a fact that he continuously drummed into my head. Michael took his hands off Mr. Policeman’s biceps and goaded him to give Michael’s arms a squeeze. And to my amazement, Mr. Twenty Inches complied.
For as long as I have known him, Michael has exhibited an amazing skill for seduction. He wasn’t always subtle, but he was almost always successful. I still couldn’t quite figure out how he managed to get people to carry out his will. He said that every man has some gay gene lurking deep inside and that he just has a talent for finding and bringing it out. It was a trait that I noticed in a cross-section of the population. There would always be those who could twist others around their little fingers. These people, I noticed, had a flair for charming and flattering people endlessly, an inability to take “no” for an answer, and the chassis that enabled them to take people on the ride of their choosing. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that popular people swallowed it.
“You’re just going to have to tell me what routine you follow to get your arms that big,” Michael continued. “I eat three hundred grams of protein and hit the arms every two days, and still I haven’t got the results you have.”
Officer Twenty Inches was starting to launch into a discussion of his biceps-triceps routine when Michael interrupted him.
“The biceps are great, but what I really want to know is about your abs. How many crunches do you do daily?” Michael asked, his right hand slipping onto Mr. Arms’ lower abs and just a fraction of an inch from his duty belt. “I’ll bet you have an eight-pack instead of the usual six,” Michael added.
Like so many straight men, Mr. Abs hadn’t the slightest idea that he was being cruised by a gay man—that is, until now.
“Mr. . . .” Officer Twenty Inches started, obviously never having gotten Michael’s last name.
“Stark, Michael Stark,” he supplied.
“Thank you for the information you’ve supplied, Mr. Stark. If we need any more information, we’ll call you,” he said, squirming like a CEO of Enron at a Congressional hearing.
He managed to wriggle out of Michael’s grasp and head hurriedly for a doorway—any doorway—while running right into an expensive side table in the hallway with a shin-busting crack. He grabbed and steadied the square glass vase filled with calla lilies that stood on top of it, and cautiously pushed the table out of harm’s way.
“Damn!” Michael uttered when Officer Twenty Inches was out of sight. “Robert! How long were you standing there?” he asked.
“Just long enough.”
“Long enough to scare my policeman away,” he accused. “And I was doing so well.”
“Not from what I saw. Yes, you may have had his arms on you, but that doesn’t mean you had him in bed. And furthermore, your date, Rex, the man you flew across country to sleep with, is outside. I think he’s upset about a tree or someone trying to kill him or something petty like that. You could go in there and give a little support, you know.”
“Do I have to?” Michael whined. “All through sex, his mind was on his stupid Red Party. He barely looked at me the whole time.”
I pictured the air rushing out of Michael’s ego, leaving behind a pint-sized Michael in its place—one that you could easily step on.
“Michael, go in there!” I implored.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he complained. “I came to the White Party, like everyone else, to have great sex and I end up playing nursemaid to a forty-five-year-old baby who’s upset because a tree falls on his house. Just last winter I had a tree fall on my penthouse, and you didn’t see me crying, did you?”
“Michael, that was a ten-foot Japanese maple that blew over in its pot and broke a single pane of your window glass . . . and then blew off your balcony, almost flattening a shih tzu who barely escaped taking the last crap of his life.”
“I gave the owner fifteen thousand dollars for the inconvenience.”
“I’m sure she could’ve gotten more,” I moralized.
“Yeah, until she found out who my lawyers were. She was lucky to get what she did. When my lawyers finished with her, she would’ve been happier sewing Tommy Hilfiger knockoffs in a Singapore sweatshop.”
“Go out there!” I repeated.
Michael let out a sigh with a great rush of air that should have collapsed his lungs, then headed out to Rex like a snail suffering from low blood sugar.
I, for one, had had enough for one day. I was really looking forward to getting into my little casita, cranking the air conditioner up to maximum, then pulling the covers over my head and forgetting that there ever was a Red Party.
I was about to make my wish come true when Rex approached me.
“Yes, Rex?”
“I have a favor to ask.”
“Yes, anything, Rex.”
“Could Michael and I sleep in your casita tonight? It’s the only room in the house that has a queen-sized bed, now that mine is under a two-ton palm tree.”
“Sure, Rex,” I answered. After all, what could I say? I was sleeping for free.
“You can sleep in my office. It has a couch that folds out into a very comfortable single bed.”
“Sure, Rex. Let me move my luggage.”
“Thanks for understanding. I’m sorry to put you out.”
I was about to correct him by saying that it was Michael who was putting out, but decided that this was no time for a joke.
I went back to my casita and kissed its luxury good-bye, gathered up my clothes and shaving kit, and came back into the house, following Rex to his office. It was actually quite comfortable, complete with a flat-screen television, several lounge chairs, and a full bathroom—with black granite everything and a Jacuzzi that Rex showed me how to operate. Yes, I thought, I would be quite comfortable here.
“In case you want to watch anything,” Rex said, opening the door to one of the exotic-wood built-in cabinets, “there’s plenty to choose from. Just help yourself. If you need anything, Vince’s bedroom is just down the hall. First door on the right.”
“Thanks, Rex. I think I’ll do just fine,” I admitted quite truthfully.
I closed the door to the room and just stood there, taking in my surroundings. The lighting system, combined with the thick carpeting and the whisper-quiet air-conditioning, gave the room a hushed feeling like an extremely comfortable church. Since I was still a little wound up from the events of the past two hours, I walked over to the cabinet and glanced at the video choices before me.
They were all porn titles. I checked the next cabinet, and it contained more of the same. No Auntie Mame or All About Eve or even an Alfred Hitchcock title to lull me to sleep. I looked around the room guiltily, as if someone might have been watching me in the windowless room, then closed my eyes and reached out to randomly grab a title. This was a gay vacation, and I could watch a little porn if I wanted to. Other people did.
I opened my eyes and saw that I had chosen Caned and Able. On the cover was a huge man dressed in military fatigues, bearing the shiny nametag (blown up for all to see) that said Corporal Punishment.
I looked at the other titles and they weren’t much better—not that I was sure what kind of title I was looking for. I relented and popped the tape into the VCR, which sparked to life, feeding the monstrous flat-screen TV at the same time.
I climbed into bed and watched with amazement. I was just about to fall asleep from the pathetic dialogue and piss-poor acting when I saw something that made my eyeballs pop farther out of my head than Barbara Bush’s.
There on the screen was a very naked Michael Stark, his buttocks begging for punishment.
If the palm tree wasn’t enough already, I knew that what I saw would give me horrible nightmares tonight. And for many years to come.
3
Waiting for the Other Sandal to Drop
Somehow, I survived the night. I woke up, put on a bathrobe, and ventured forth into the living room, hoping that I wouldn’t find a palm tree lying there. I was to be disappointed. The recalcitrant palm was, however, much smaller than it had been the night before, thanks to a team of gardeners, who were busily sawing up the enormous Phoenix dactylifera and carting it away by hand. Vince was overseeing the palm tree’s dismemberment, clothed; very tight shorts were the one concession to the gardeners.
“Well,” Vince commented, “you’re up early. There’s coffee in the kitchen.”
“I could certainly use a tankard right now. Boy, you’ve really gotten a lot done this morning.”
“It’s nine-thirty!” Vince said, as if I had been sleeping off a three-day alcohol binge.
“I could pitch in if it would help, Vince,” I offered.
“Just rest. Besides the pruning shears that I keep out on the porch, there isn’t anything that would do much good.”
“With all these trees on the premises, you don’t even have a small saw?” I asked.
“Nope. Rex hires people to do everything for him.”
“Speaking of Rex, how is he this morning?” I inquired.
“Hasn’t gotten up yet,” Vince said as he raised his mug of coffee to his lips and sipped. On the side of the mug was obviously Vince’s life motto: I was born naked and I intend to stay that way. Rex must have picked up this mug as a gift for Vince the last time he dined at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. “I walked by the casita about an hour ago. It sounded like two moving men delivering a grand piano to the top of the Matterhorn, so I assume they’re alive.”
“Rex must be tickling Michael’s ivories,” I added.
Vince laughed at my little joke. “There are some pastries on the dining table. I’m going to whip up breakfast as soon as Rex and Michael get up.”
I took a gulp from my mug, downing the coffee in one quick motion. “Don’t wait for me, Vince. I’m having brunch with Monette, my lesbian friend, at eleven. Can you suggest a good place to go?” I figured that with Vince’s astounding culinary skills, he must know of somewhere to eat.
“You might try the Pesca. I also know for a fact that the food is very good at The Garage—it’s in a former auto garage. Don’t worry; it’s clean.”
“Thanks for the tip. I’ll be back later this afternoon.”
I put down my coffee mug and started to leave the room when Vince gave me a last piece of advice. “Whatever you do, don’t go to Bathsheba. It’s terrible.”
I headed to Rex’s office, shaved, showered, and got dressed. I stood outside the compound gate and waited for Monette. She showed up ten minutes late in a Chevrolet Metro, no l
ess. Seeing Monette’s six-foot-four-inch frame jammed into the tiny subcompact made me think of a tiny circus car full of clowns—an observation that I kept to myself, owing to Monette’s mortal fear of them.
“Get in,” she shouted, shoving her elbow into the rear seating area in order to unlock the door and let me in.
“Couldn’t you get anything smaller, Monette?” I joked, getting in and letting my chin rest rather precariously on my knees. It was that or I would have to put my chin on the dashboard—a prospect that seemed even more tempting to fate, owing to Monette’s notoriously bad driving skills. They were so bad, I harbored the belief that she learned to drive a car in Cairo, considering sidewalks as viable right-turn lanes and pedestrians as something to swerve around—like potholes. I fastened my seat belt and hung on for dear life. When Monette got behind the wheel of a vehicle, it was her id that did the driving. Her superego was told to get in the backseat and keep its mouth shut.
The tiny car zoomed off like a cockroach suddenly finding itself under the blaze of kitchen lights. Despite two-lane streets that were wide enough to land a Boeing 747 (a curious fact I discovered about Palm Springs), she so closely hugged the yellow line separating our tiny car from certain death, the line frequently disappeared under the car and occasionally showed up on my side of the vehicle. I said nothing.
“Where are we going—so fast?” I managed to squeak out.
“I can’t go any slower. My legs are so long, they’re wedged between my pelvis and the gas pedal. Your only choice is idling in park or doing sixty. Get used to it!”
Okay, okay,“I relented. ”I asked Vince, the naked manservant and cook, about a few places to eat.”
“Me too. I got the girls to suggest somewhere to have brunch. They raved about Bathsheba.”
Just then there was a loud thump as the car drove over something large in the road.
“Ah, I think we just hit something,” I offered. “It might have been a buzzard,” I suggested. “Or maybe an old lady.”
“I don’t know what it was—I wasn’t looking,” Monette replied with more than a little irritation showing.