Locke actual y looked very sexy with his silver mane, but I didn’t think Jason would appreciate my saying so.
The doorbel rang and Jason went over to let in the crew that would set up the video feed. “Would you let Father Locke know they’re here?”
I knocked on Locke’s open door and did as Jason asked.
“Mahvelous,” Locke said, extending his hands in a divalike pose. “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr.
DeMil e.”
As Jason would say, Lord Jesus.
While the camera crew set up in his office, Locke transformed again. Gone was the preening queen as wel as the polished politician. Locke took one look at the brawny blue-col ar videographers and went into ful al -American-guy mode. He joked with them about footbal and “the old bal and chain.”
As they laughed and chatted amiably, you could tel they thought he was a great guy. I heard one of them say, “Most of these political types are real dickwads, but this one’s a stand-up guy, you know?”
When it was time for the actual taping, Locke gazed into the camera with an intense concern and delivered his lines with conviction and strength. I looked around the room and saw the video crew nodding along. When he was done, they gave him a standing ovation. Locke accepted their applause modestly. The video crew packed up and got out of there in less than ten minutes; they didn’t want to be working on a Saturday night any more than I did.
After Jason walked them out, Locke emerged from his office. “Jason, it’s been a long day for me, and I better get to bed if I’m going to beat this cold.”
Strange, I thought. I remembered that he’d canceled his travel due to il ness, but he didn’t seem sick at al .
“Yes, sir,” Jacob said. “I’l cal your car.”
“Good man,” Locke answered. When Jason went to his desk, Locke gave me another wolfish grin.
“And you, Bright Young Thing? Have you thought
“And you, Bright Young Thing? Have you thought about what I said?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered, eyes wide. “I’m here to serve in any way you need me to, sir. Al you have to do is ask.” My words could have been perfectly innocent, but I tried to make them open to just enough interpretation to keep him interested.
Locke cleared his throat. “I have a feeling we’re going to get along fine, boy.”
I bit my lower lip. “I certainly hope so, sir. I’m wil ing to do what it takes to get ahead.” I looked up at him adoringly. “You’re a hero to me, sir.” I looked down and, sure enough, the front of Locke’s pants were ful er than before.
Locke leaned in toward me and looked around to see if anyone was watching us. Sure enough, Jason was hanging up the phone and heading over. I don’t know what Locke was about to say or do, but he looked disappointed. He leaned back.
“Jason,” Locke barked, a little pissed. “When am I back in the office?”
“Monday, sir.”
Locke turned to me. “Wil you be here?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered.
“Excel ent. Jason, did you cal my car?”
“He was just down the street, sir. It should be here now.”
Locke put his hand out again. I placed my hand in his and, as before, he held on long past the normal handshake. “You stay good now, you hear?”
“Yes, sir. Good night, sir.”
“And I’l see you Monday?”
“Yes, sir.”
Locke smiled. “I need a moment with Jason.
Would you excuse us?”
“Of course,” I said.
Locke went into his office with Jason and shut the door. I looked around for a glass, a stethoscope, anything I could use as a listening device, but no such luck. Instead I made myself useful getting something I knew Locke would need.
They were in Locke’s office for less than five minutes. When they came out, Locke had his arm around Jason again and looked pleased.
“Sir,” I said, “if I may?” I held out the coat I’d retrieved for him.
“What service,” Locke observed, as he slid his arms in. “I’m tel ing you, Jason, this one’s a keeper.”
“I hope, sir,” Jason answered. “He’s already been a big help around here.”
Jason walked Locke out to his car. When he got back, he asked me if Locke had said anything.
“About what?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Jason answered. “For a bit there, when you two were talking, he seemed in a foul mood.” He was referring to the moment when he’d interrupted as Locke was leaning toward me ready to . . . I’m not sure what. Whatever it was, it was enough to give him a woody.
“Did something come up toward the end?” Jason asked.
Other than his dick? “If it did, it must have been something smal . He seemed OK to me. He was probably just tired, being sick and al .”
“Yeah, that’s probably it,” Jason agreed, relieved.
“So, what did you think of him?”
“Amazing,” I said. “Everything I expected and more.”
“I told you he is an amazing man. He’s just so good and so loving, wel , sometimes people misinterpret his kindness, is al .”
“What do you mean?”
Jason looked at the wal about five inches to my left. Whatever he had on his mind, he didn’t want to be saying it. “Just, you know, how friendly he is. We live in such a cynical time. People aren’t always used to someone who’s so open with his feelings.”
I wondered if there’d been any sexual harassment al egations against Locke. I’d have to remember to check Michael Roger’s BlogActive when I got home; he always had the scoop on closeted, hypocritical politicians.
If I didn’t like Jason so much, I would have pressed further. But it was clear this topic made him uncomfortable. “No, everything was fine,” I assured him. “I’m real y glad to have met him.”
Jason looked grateful to be done with our conversation. “That’s great, Kevin. Now, I got some stuff to finish up tonight, but you go and get out of here.”
After thanking him again and saying good night, I did. Jason locked the door behind me.
36
Fight
I was about to walk home when I realized I needed to talk to someone about my big day of crazy. I took my iPhone from my pocket to cal Tony. Crap. Forgot that wasn’t an option.
Freddy, then. I remembered he was trying to contact me when I turned the phone off. I restarted the phone and it buzzed wildly in my hand. Twenty-two unread texts from Freddy, four from Andrew Mil er, and voice mails from Freddy, Andrew, and my mother.
Apparently it was the end of the world and I’d missed it. Everyone was trying to reach me.
Everyone but Tony, that was.
Fucker. I hoped his bal s shrivel and fal off.
Not that I was bitter.
I skipped the messages and texts and cal ed Freddy back. “What’s up?” I asked.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Freddy barked.
“Nice to talk to you, too.”
“I’m serious. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I know, I had the phone turned off. What’s the emergency?”
“Where are you?” he asked. I told him.
“Fine,” Freddy said. “I’m at Tea and Strumpets.
Come meet me.”
Tea and Strumpets was a local coffee bar/tea house/Internet café that was a popular hangout in my neighborhood. It was a fifteen-minute walk from Locke’s offices. I started downtown.
“Let me go home and change first,” I said. I didn’t want to show up there in my Young Republican drag.
Tea and Strumpets was the kind of place where you wanted to look hot, not like you were recruiting for the Mormons.
“No time,” Freddy said. “Get your lily white ass here yesterday, Kevin.”
“Al right, al right,” I said, stepping up my pace.
“What is this al about?”
Freddy asked, “Do you real y not know?”
“No,�
� I said, suddenly anxious. “Can you just tel me what’s going on?”
“Baby,” Freddy said, “you get over here and I’m going to show you what’s going on. This, you’re going to have to see to believe.”
“You know I hate suspense,” I told him. “Would you just spil ?”
“If you’re talking,” Freddy said, “you’re walking. If I were you, I’d be running down here. Toodles, dol .”
He hung up.
I’m wearing the wrong shoes for this, I thought as I started jogging.
As always, Tea and Strumpets was crowded. I saw Freddy at a table in the back. “Hey.” I waved.
Freddy beckoned me over. As I walked back, I saw two guys I knew from my gym. I nodded at them and brushed past, intent on getting to Freddy.
“Dude,” one of them said, grabbing my arm. His name might have been Ralph. Or Roger. I’d spotted him on the bench once, and rejected his advances in the steam room shortly afterward. He and his friends were a bit of a clique, harmless enough, but more in love with themselves than was strictly necessary.
They were big boys, with the kind of heavy gym muscles that looked good, if a bit overdone. I’d bet money that at least some of that bulk was built by steroids.
I didn’t real y go for show muscles like theirs. Sure, they looked impressive, but ask them to help you on moving day and you could be sure they’d be claiming a bad back.
He was at Tea and Strumpets with another guy I recognized from the gym. They weren’t hot enough for the amount of attitude they carried, but such is the Chelsea boy’s burden. They wore the kind of hip, stylish clothing that announced good incomes and bad taste.
Ralph/Roger waved his hand up and down at my outfit. “What happened? Did a JCPenney throw up on you?”
I smiled and tried to pul away.
“Naw,” his buddy said, “I think he’s just seen the softer side of Sears.” I looked at him and realized I’d shot him down once, too, right in this very café. On this night, he was wearing a distressed T-shirt that read “9.5.” Probably meant to be a reference to his dick size.
Having seen him in the showers, I knew he was rounding up. By five.
I looked at him and his friend. Their glassy, diluted eyes told me they were on something that might promote them from harmless annoyances to genuine irritations.
Ralph/Roger grabbed my ass. “Wel , the packaging may be different, but the fruit’s just as ripe. Mmmm, sweet. Wouldn’t mind splitting those melons.”
Oh, please. Helen Kel er could have pegged this demented faggot as a total bottom. “Hey, it was nice seeing you guys, but I have to . . .”
Ralph/Roger—or maybe it was Ron—pul ed me closer. My face mashed against his hard chest.
“What do you say I take you home and we get you out of al that polyester, baby?”
Mr. Doubles-His-Size moved behind me and pressed against my rear. “Or, I could come over, too, and we could have a real party.”
Great, I thought. A meatless sandwich.
“Al right, boys,” I said, my voice sounding weaker than I would have liked, muffled as it was against What’s-His-Name’s prodigious pecs. “I real y have to go.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I think you want to play with us. You just need a little convincing.”
I real y wanted to end this before it turned into a scene from The Accused.
“Listen,” I said, “I’m trying to be nice about this, but
. . .”
“Fucking little tease,” his friend said from behind me.
That tore it. I stepped into What’s-His-Name’s embrace and brought my heel down on his instep.
“Ow!” He stepped back, giving me enough room to pul my arm forward and back, driving my elbow into Multiply-By-Two Boy’s solar plexus. He stepped back, too, grabbing his chest and wheezing for air.
I slipped out from between them. “Nice seeing you boys,” I said.
Unable to put his weight back on the foot I’d stamped on, an unsteady What’s-His-Name reached out to grab me again.
I caught his hand and bent his fingers back. His eyes widened with pain. “You put one hand on me again,” I said sweetly, “and I’l shove it so far up your ass that you’l be able to jerk off your boyfriend while he’s fucking you. You feeling me, Chesty?”
He nodded vigorously. His friend looked at me terrified. “And you,” I advised, “should real y lose that T-shirt before you’re sued for false advertising.”
If anyone observed our little scene, they didn’t say anything, except, of course, for Freddy. “Ah, darling,”
he greeted me as I reached his table. “Always making friends, I see.”
“Some help you were,” I harrumphed.
“Like you needed any,” he answered. “Anyway, I might break a nail.” Truth is, Freddy could have taken those two and half the other guys in here, too.
I saw two drinks at Freddy’s table, one of which he held. Nice of him to order for me. I sat down and grabbed the other cup.
“Uh-uh-uh,” Freddy said, waving his finger at me.
“Swiper, no swiping.”
“What are you, drinking for two?”
“It’s for him,” Freddy said, pointing his chin to the pastry counter, where Cody was walking over with a tray of pastries and another cup.
“Hi, Kevin,” Cody said. “Freddy said you like this.”
He put a chai tea in front of me and placed the snackage in the middle of the table.
“Hey, Codes,” I said, getting up and giving him a big hug. He sat down next to Freddy, who put a hand on his thigh.
They looked cute together.
Freddy studied the pastries as if they might reveal the secrets of the universe. His hands hovered over the tray like the pointer on a Ouija board before settling on his unlucky victim.
“So,” I said, “enough suspense already. What’s going on?”
Freddy mumbled something, his mouth ful .
“What?” I asked.
“Cannoli here,” Freddy said, pointing at his pastry.
“Priorities, darling.”
“I just ran down here from—”
“OK, OK.” Freddy threw up his arms. “Don’t whine!
I surrender.” He turned to Cody. “Shal we show him?
Cody wrinkled his brows in concern. “Maybe we better tel him, first, Freddy. I mean . . .”
Freddy put a finger to Cody’s lips. “Shush now.
Daddy knows best.”
“Knows what,” I asked, annoyed. “Would you just . .
.”
Freddy held up his other hand to shush me, too.
“Come on,” he said, standing up. “Let’s go to the videotape.”
Freddy walked us over to the far side of the room, where a row of iMacs sat on a long shelf that ran the length of the wal . Although it was hard to believe these boys didn’t have Internet access at home, people stil loved to come here and surf the Web, cruise Craigslist, or write The Great American Novel.
Every station was taken.
Freddy walked over to a thirtysomething guy wearing a flannel shirt and baggy cords. Sexy in an English-professor kind of way. “Excuse me,” Freddy said, “would you mind if I just used that computer for five minutes? It’s real y important.”
The guy didn’t look away from his screen. “Sorry, buddy, but . . .”
Freddy leaned over and put his soft, ful lips up to the man’s ear. “Please . . .” he whispered. He put a strong hand on the guy’s shoulder and squeezed gently.
The guy pushed away from the computer and gave Freddy a startled, smitten look. “Um, sure. Yeah. I’l just get another cup of coffee. I’m, um, Charlie. Can I get you something, too?” He stood up eagerly.
“No, dol ,” Freddy said, snatching Charlie’s stool and settling into it. “But thanks!” Freddy started typing and Charlie drifted away.
“How does he do that?” Cody asked me quietly.
At times like this, I thought of Freddy as The Coc
k Whisperer, but seeing as he and Cody were just starting to date, I thought saying so might be over-sharing. “He’s just a charmer,” I said.
“Would you two stop whispering and get over here?” I stepped closer and saw Freddy was on the ViewTube homepage. He stood up and maneuvered me into the stool. “You better have a seat, darling.”
I did as he said and Freddy reached around to drive the mouse. He scrol ed halfway down the page to “Most Popular Videos.” There were links to “Al Time,” “This Month,” “This Week,” and “Today.”
Freddy clicked on the last category.
The page loaded and Freddy pointed with his finger to the fourth featured video.
“No fucking way,” I said.
“Way,” Freddy answered from behind me. I could hear the evil grin in his voice.
“Don’t . . .” I began.
But it was too late.
Freddy pressed play.
37
I’m the Greatest Star
It was painful the first time I watched this scene from twenty feet away in Andrew’s trailer.
Seeing it here was worse.
Someone had uploaded to the world’s most popular videosharing site an edited video of my mother and Yvonne’s confrontation at my mother’s beauty shop. It was cut down to five minutes, but it stil had al the highlights of their exchange.
And when I say “highlights” I mean “lowlights.”
The 550,673 people who’d already viewed it were treated to Yvonne sharing her innermost thoughts, like “faggots just can’t control themselves,” “the only people worse than the fags are the Jews,” and “take my audience—a bigger bunch of morons you’ve never seen. I want to throw up every time I have to stand in front of those idiots and losers.”
The video went through my mother’s unveiling of Yvonne’s bald head, and her cal ing Yvonne “an insufferable, homophobic, anti-Semitic poser with bad implants and a worse attitude!”
It ended on a wild-eyed Yvonne cal ing my mother a “cunt” and my mother’s dismissive, “Fuck you, Kojak.”
I appeared on screen for a couple of seconds, but luckily, my face was never turned toward the camera.
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