“Or it could be her testicles,” I conceded.
“That’l do it,” Cody responded.
At that we both smiled. I could have hung out longer with Cody, but I had to get going.
“So,” I said, “I guess I should go see Randy. How’s he doing?”
“Randy, right.” Cody gave a brisk nod to indicate he was turning back to business. “Randy is . . .” He looked at his chart and grimaced. “Randy’s about the same, I’m sorry to say. Stil not conscious. But holding on.”
I was hoping for better news. “Can I see him?”
Cody stepped out from behind the counter. “Come on, I’l take you in.”
He signaled for another nurse to take over for him at the desk and walked me to see my friend.
“Whoa,” I said. Randy’s room was fil ed with flowers, bal oons, and a huge pink stuffed bunny that sat in one of the two visitor’s chairs. “Mrs. Cherry again?”
“She thought the place could use a little cheering up.”
“The Macy’s Christmas Parade isn’t this cheered up,” I said.
I went over to Randy. He lay motionless except for the slight rise and fal of his chest as a machine puffed life into his sleeping lungs. I brushed the hair off his forehead. The skin felt thin and cool.
He could have been sleeping. I wished he were.
Cody made himself busy checking the IV drip.
“He’s taking in a lot of fluids,” he said.
“That good?”
“Yeah, it means things are working.”
“Good,” I agreed. “I never thought I’d see Randy looking so . . . weak.”
“Yeah,” Cody said, “he does have that Incredible Hulk thing going on, doesn’t he?” Cody’s admiring gaze made it clear that Randy’s superhuman musculature worked for him.
“Maybe you should check him for exposure to cosmic rays,” I suggested.
Cody corrected me. “Gamma rays. Cosmic rays are what gave the Fantastic Four their powers. Hulk was gamma rays.”
“Nerd much?”
“I have a mind for useless trivia,” he admitted.
“You like him,” I teased.
“I treat al my patients equal y, with compassion and no preference,” he answered.
“Yeah,” I said, “but you like him.”
“I confess nothing,” Cody said. “Although I may have paid his charge nurse fifty bucks to let me do his sponge bath.”
I laughed. Even in a coma, Randy was the stuff of fantasy.
“I mean, does he live at the gym?” Randy continued.
“Not quite. But he’d appreciate knowing you think so.”
Cody came over to me and looked me in the eyes.
“I’m sorry your friend is hurt. Do you want to sit with him awhile?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Do you think he can hear me?”
“I do. I think he’d real y appreciate a little visit just about now.”
As Cody was leaving I cal ed out, “Thanks.”
“No problem,” said cute Cody.
So, I sat with Randy and told him about my visit with Socko the Clown, and asked his advice about how to ask Cody out for coffee without embarrassing the both of us by making it sound like a come-on. It’s weird—hitting up a guy for sex is easy. Putting the move on a potential friend, though, gets awkward.
If Randy had an opinion, he kept it to himself.
“Besides,” I told him, “I think he’s into big boys like you. Tel you what, wake up right now and you can ride him into the night like a Harley.”
Even that wasn’t enough incentive to rouse him.
After a while I felt like Sandra Bul ock in While You Were Sleeping. Only Randy was even better-looking than Peter Gal agher, and I wasn’t in love with him.
But it did break my heart to see him like this.
As I was leaving, I asked one more question.
“Listen, Randy, you’re going to think this is crazy, and it probably is, but is it possible someone did this to you on purpose? The thing that has me wondering is, just before that car hit you, you were going to tel me about some trick. Who was that, Randy? What did you want me to know?”
I waited for a minute, but Randy wasn’t tel ing.
As I was leaving Randy’s room, Cody just happened to be walking by. Funny coincidence, huh?
“Hey,” he said. “You OK?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Wish I could say the same about Randy. Do you think . . .” I wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence.
Cody put a hand on my arm. “I think he’l be fine.
He seems like a strong guy. Hel , he seems like a friggin’ gladiator.”
I laughed. “He is pretty hunkalicious, isn’t he?”
“You sure you two aren’t . . .”
“No,” I assured him, “we’re just friends. I’m kind of involved with someone else these days.”
“Good!” Cody’s hand dropped off my arm. “Sorry, I just meant I was happy for you.”
“What about you?” I said. “You seeing someone?”
“Me?” Cody frowned and shook his head. “I have bad luck with men.”
I scrunched up my face. “You? A boy like you should be beating the guys off with sticks. And not just the ones who are into that kind of thing.”
I meant it, too. He was smart, he seemed sweet, and you could just tel he’d be a snack and a half in bed. Plus, did I mention he was adorable in that lives-in-a-library way?
“I’d tel you about it if I wasn’t afraid of boring you to death.”
“I’m tougher than I look,” I promised him. “Tel me everything.”
Cody looked at the big clock on the wal . “I could take a break. You brave enough to eat cafeteria food?”
“Told you I’m tough,” I answered.
Cody and I found a quiet table in the cafeteria. He sipped a coffee and tore into a tuna fish sandwich. I got a bottle of water and a croissant.
Cody was tel ing me about his man troubles. “Me, I’m kind of like that girl from Twilight. Bookish, pale, a little too thin. But a guy like Randy is al cheekbones and muscles and perfect blond hair.
Guys like that don’t notice guys like me.”
The fact that Cody didn’t know how hot he was only made him more attractive. “You’re, like, total y luscious,” I assured him.
“Oh please.” He stuck out his tongue. “I’m just a regular guy. The only thing that makes me even a little special is . . .” He stopped and clamped a hand over his mouth. “Strike that last part,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. I’m embarrassed. Just forget I said anything.”
I swatted him on the head. “Come on, spil .”
“It’s embarrassing,” he moaned.
I lowered my head and gave him my most threatening glare.
“OK,” he said, “it’s just that, some guys, they like me because . . . look, I’m don’t want to sound like I’m bragging on myself. Can we just drop it?”
I pointed my croissant at him. “I have a baked good, Cody, and I’m not afraid to use it.”
“OK, it’s just that some guys like me because, at the gym and al , guys notice . . .” Cody blushed again.
“What? A third arm? Webbed feet? You’re real y a girl?”
“No, no, no.” Cody took a deep breath. “I’m, wel , let’s just say my ears aren’t the only part of me that’s big.”
“You mean you’re embarrassed because you’ve got a big dick?”
“Wel , not ‘big’ so much as ‘huge.’ It’s kind of freakish.”
“Oh, please,” I said. “What’s ‘huge’?”
Cody put a finger down on the table and, about 10
inches away, laid down another.
“No,” I whispered.
“It’s true. It’s nice and al , but sometimes I think it’s the only thing guys like about me.”
I smacked him on the head again. “You idiot. I thought you were adorable way before I knew you had the Verrazano Bridge hiding i
n your shorts.”
“Real y?”
“I promise,” I said. “Cross my heart, slap my thighs, stick a needle in my eyes.”
Cody laughed.
“And if a guy can’t see beyond that to notice what a real y great guy you are, you’re better off without him.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.” Cody looked genuinely touched.
Then, because I was, at heart, a brat, I had to spoil the moment. “Of course, in their defense, it may be hard to see much beyond that. It must, I don’t know, block the view. Being so big and al .”
It was Cody’s turn to smack me.
“And I thought you were a nice guy,” he teased back. “But I see you’re just rude, like that other friend of yours.”
“What other friend? Mrs. Cherry?”
“Oh, that’s right. You don’t know. Another guy came by to visit Randy while you were in with him.”
“I didn’t see anyone.”
“No, when I told him that Randy already had a visitor, he turned around and left.”
I thought it might be one of our mutual friends. “Did you catch his name?”
“He didn’t throw it. Just heard you were in there and hightailed it away. Didn’t say ‘good-bye,’ or
‘thank you’ or anything. Like I said, rude.”
“What did he look like?”
“Gosh, I hardly noticed. He seemed al right, average height and build. Middle-aged. The only thing that caught my attention was his eye patch.”
“Eye patch?”
“Yeah, on his . . . um . . . right eye.”
Something about this bothered me. “What else?”
“I don’t know—medium height. Brown hair. You know, now that I think about it, I was so caught off guard by his eye patch that I didn’t notice much else.
Weird.”
The eye patch. It was making me think of something, but what?
Focus, Kevin, focus.
Where had I seen someone wearing an eye patch?
The guy who drove the car that hit Randy. There was something about his eye . . . I knew it wasn’t sunglasses or, sorry, Freddy, a Terminator-like bionic enhancement, but I couldn’t figure out what the black hole on his face was.
It was an eye patch.
Randy was run over by a pirate!
No, that didn’t sound right.
But what were the odds that Randy would be hit by someone wearing an eye patch and then a similar cyclops shows up at his bedside?
The eye patch. Not real y a disguise, but enough of a prop to distract you. It worked with Cody and me.
“Listen,” I said, “this guy with the eye patch? I think he might have been up to no good.”
“What do you mean?” Cody asked.
“I’l tel you in a minute. But first I have to cal my semi-boyfriend.”
Cody went back to his desk while I cal ed Tony from the cafeteria. I told him about the strange appearance of Patchy at the hospital.
First, because he considers me to have somewhat of an overactive imagination, Tony told me to calm down. In his best policeman manner, he got me to admit that I hadn’t real y seen an eye patch on the driver. It could have been a shadow. He asked if this wasn’t a case of my mind fil ing in the blanks. I admitted I couldn’t be sure.
But he also said he’d relay my message to the officers who had taken my report on the accident. In the meantime, he suggested I have Cody cal hospital security to be on the lookout for anyone fitting Patchy’s description. Then he asked, “This Cody guy—the nurse—is he handsome?”
“Why, are you looking for a date?”
“No, I’m just wondering what you’re doing with him on his coffee break. Does he provide this level of service to everyone who comes to visit?”
“He kind of looks like you. Only younger, hotter, and more muscular. And better hung.” Does it count as kidding if one of those things was true?
“Ha-fucking-ha,” Tony answered, ’cause he was classy like that. “Just tel him to keep his stethoscope in his pants, OK?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered. I enjoyed Tony’s jealousy too much to remind him that he was the one who wanted an open relationship.
“OK,” he said. “Be good.”
I went back to the intensive care unit and relayed Tony’s message about alerting security. Cody said he would. He looked nervous. “You real y think someone hit Randy on purpose?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But watch out for him. And for yourself, too.”
“I wil ,” Cody assured me. “Thanks for the pep talk.
You didn’t have to say al those nice things.”
“Listen,” I said, “you need to get a mirror and realize that you have a lot more to offer than”—I nodded toward his crotch—“Old Faithful between your legs. Trust me, you’re delicious.”
This time, Cody’s blush threatened to go nuclear.
But if his dick real y was as big as he said, he’d need a healthy blood flow, wouldn’t he?
He was about to say something when a beep sounded from behind his desk. “I have to distribute meds now. But I’l keep an eye on Randy for you.”
“Thanks. I’l see you later.”
“No,” he said, stil blushing, “thank you. ”
10
Honey, Can I Put on Your Clothes?
I took a cab to my apartment in Chelsea. Once inside, I stripped off my clothes, set my iPhone’s alarm to go off in two hours, and lay down on my bed. It was going to be a long night. A little disco nap would do me good. I thought I had too much on my mind to fal asleep, but the shocks of the past two days must have hit me harder than I realized. Within five minutes, I was out like a light.
I woke up to my iPhone’s alarm playing an Ari Gold song. Not only is he a terrific singer, but he’s crazy hot. My only regret was that he wasn’t there to wake me in person. I decided to go back to sleep and dream of Ari when his sexy voice was interrupted by a ring tone. I picked up the phone to see who was cal ing.
“Hi, Freddy.”
“Darling,” Freddy answered, “get out of bed and get dressed. I’l be there in an hour to pick you up.”
“I’m not in bed,” I said, getting out of bed.
“Of course you were. You’re like an old man—you always nap before we go out.”
“I hate you,” I reminded him.
“Yes, yes. Have you opened Rueben’s care package yet?”
I had total y forgotten. “No, how is it?”
“It’s total y, total y hot,” Freddy said. “Very butch. I look like a mil ion bucks. We real y get to keep this stuff?”
“It’s a gift. As long as we wear it tonight, it’s ours.”
“Fagtastic,” Freddy gushed. “This outfit probably costs more than my rent.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“You’l have to see for yourself. Now, go open your little gifty and get yourself ready.”
“Yes, Mom,” I said, hanging up.
Rueben’s package had arrived two days ago, dropped off by a private messenger. It was in a rectangular box about two by four feet long. On the top was scrawled “Do Not Open Until the Night of the Event,” an instruction already hammered into me by Rueben the day before the box was delivered.
“Now, this party is very important to Ansel . He has everything planned to the smal est detail. You must promise me you’l wear exactly what we send,”
Rueben said.
“I promise.”
“Al of New York’s fashion elite wil be there, Kevito. ”
“I get it.”
Rueben was a former rentboy made good. About six months ago, he hooked up with Ansel Darling, one of New York’s brightest up-and-coming young designers. It was love at first trick, and Rueben now lived in Ansel ’s fabulous SoHo loft. He was even pictured in a catty item on page six of the New York Post that asked “Is Darling’s Darling Charging by the Hour?”
I hoped Ansel was good for Rueben. Rueben was a fantastical y beautiful Puerto Rica
n guy of about my age. Skin the color of caramel and green eyes to die for. But he was also a bit of a party boy, and the last time Freddy and I saw him at a club—about a month before he started dating Ansel —Freddy took one look at the dark circles under Rueben’s eyes and a tel tale bruise on his arm and said “heroin.”
I didn’t know how Rueben was doing now, other than being anxious about the party.
“You, Freddy, a couple of my other best-looking friends, and al of Ansel ’s models are going to be wearing the actual designs from his latest col ection.
It’s a whole back-to-the-seventies theme. It wil be like a runway show, but you’l be interacting with the guests. Isn’t it genius? It was Ansel ’s idea, but he’s counting on me to help him pul it off. I real y need this to work.”
He sounded desperate. “Is everything al right between you and Ansel ?”
“Let’s just say, mi hermano, it’s pretty crucial I come through for him on this.”
I decided to let it drop. “Cross my heart, I’l fol ow your instructions to the letter.”
“Oh, did I mention there were instructions? They’re right on top of the box.”
“I was kidding. Instructions? I know how to get dressed, Rueben. I may be blond, but I’m not that blond.”
“Oh, it’s a whole look you’l be putting together. I picked it out for you myself. I know you’re going to love it. You’l be the hottest thing there. Muy caliente, bambino. You’re not shy, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just . . . oh, there’s Ansel now. I have to go.
See you at the party!”
I opened Rueben’s box, excited to see what was in there. As promised, right on top, were instructions, handwritten in Rueben’s casual scrawl. The more I read, the worse it got.
He had to be kidding me. I tore away the paper in which my outfit was wrapped and discovered he wasn’t.
Inside was the clothing and glass vial he described to me.
Oh my God.
I couldn’t wear this.
I couldn’t.
But I had to.
I’d promised.
And Rueben sounded real y urgent that I show up exactly as he described.
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