by Natasha Kent
“Looks like we’re back on the camera, Mattie ol’ boy.” I smiled a big grin.
“So you’re not going to answer,” he said with his eyebrows raised.
“Let’s finish our walk.”
* * * * * * *
We continued south on Monroe Drive, back towards Ponce and the studio. It was still midmorning and I was kinda feeling nasty from the humidity, so I was looking forward to a shower.
“So again, you’re not going to answer me?” Matt asked.
“Whatever the answer, I think I’ll keep you in suspense for eight more weeks.” I turned to face the camera and said, “You have no idea the stuff you missed! We sixty-nined on the dock in front of the boathouse!” Matt burst out laughing.
“Man, why’d you say something like that?” smiling his gorgeous smile.
“ ‘Cause, pal, I’m ‘controversial.’ “
We walked on a bit without talking, and you know what, it was actually a comfortable silence. I didn’t feel the need to yenter it up thow whole time I was with him.
“I noticed you brought a walkman?” Matt asked.
“Yep. Gotta have my tunes with me.”
“What kind of music do you listen to?”
“Anything but rap, grunge or heavy metal. Basically, if I can’t understand what the singer’s saying it can’t be that important.”
“Really.”
“But I’m kinda behind the times in music. I’ve been listening to big band music since I was real little. I mostly like easy listening-“
“-because music always has something to say?” he interrupted with Eddie’s favorite quote.
I chuckled. “Yeah, I guess. Music from back then always seemed to have a point, or to tell a story, or send a message. It’s funny, though, because I do like some current groups; only problem is that it takes me about five or ten years after they’ve become popular before I start listening to them.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m a bit of a dope. I didn’t start listening to the B-52’s until a few years ago. My roommate in college gave me their Cosmic Thing cd in the early 90’s-“
“The one with ‘Love Shack?”
“And ‘Roam.’ I really love that one. ‘Deadbeat Club’ is great too. They came out with ‘Good Stuff’ in ’92 I think it was. I just got that one a few years ago. Don’t really care for their earlier music. I really like their later sound and the harmonies. Let’s see….R.E.M. just appeared on my radar a few years ago.”
“Dude, you are late.”
I chuckled, “I know.”
“Well if you had to be on an island for a year who would you take?”
“You!” I laughed.
“Dickhead. I mean music.” Gotta love his smile, I thought.
“Duh, I know. I'd take Ella Fitzgerald.”
“Really?”
“Oh my gosh, yeah. I remember one day I was listening to a music channel on satellite t.v. and a song that she sang came on that I just had to sit down and listen to it.”
“What was it?” Matt asked.
“A song called ‘How Long Has This Been Going On?’ That’s one that, and I’m not trying to be crass, but that’s one of those songs that I would love to just….well….make love to.”
“Oh really?” That got his attention. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“Oh man, the lyrics are great. Very romantic. The orchestration is impeccable. That’s the song that really turned me on to her in the first place. Years ago she recorded a bunch of what the record company named ‘songbooks,’ where each songbook was basically a collection of a particular writer’s music; like Cole Porter, or Duke Ellington. This one song was on her Gershwin songbook. The orchestra was conducted by Nelson Riddle who’s often associated with Sinatra.”
“Never cared for him.”
“Yeah, he was a bit of a schleppa.”
“What’s that?”
“A jerk, or not-so-nice person.” He just looked at me. “It’s Yiddish; I like the language.” Matt just raised his eyebrows and shook his head a bit.
“Ok?”
“Anyway, I listened to the Gershwin collection and decided then and there that she was absolutely the most talented singer of our time.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. Before I discovered Ella I used to be a Streisand freak.”
“Oh really,” he said. This too interested him.
“Yeah, I grew up listening to her and have a ton of her music. I still love her stuff and she’s up there on my list, but Ella’s just a bit above. I remember one day I was at my parent’s house and I told my mother that there was something I had to share with her.”
“What, that you were gay?” He said this smiling and I smacked him on the back of the head.
“I said ‘Mom, there’s something I just realized. That Barbra Streisand is not the best singer in the world, Ella Fitzgerald is.’ I tell you, she looked like she was about to shit cement. ‘You know, I thought you were going to tell me that you were gay,’ she said.” Matt laughed quite a bit at this.
“She thought the same thing,” he said.
“Whatever!”
“So I take it that you love music. Well, I guess that’s a stupid question” he said.
“Why do you say that?”
“I remember that you were in a couple of musicals at school.”
“That’s true. But you weren’t there our junior year, were you?”
“No. I went to live with an uncle.” As he said this he averted his eyes towards the cameraman.
“Ahh. Got it.” I figured it had something to do with his step-dad. “Dude,” I said to the guy with the camera, “you’d better pay some attention to the sidewalks here too, before you bust your ass again.” The guy paused and looked around him some and then focused back on us. “So how’d you end up coming back in our senior year?”
“My uncle moved here. I still had some friends from school and wanted to graduate with everyone. I actually saw ‘L’il Abner,’” he said.
“Ya did?”
“Yep.”
“Cool. What’d you think?”
“I seem to remember enjoying it,” he said smirking.
“Asshole.” Matt laughed at that.
“Actually what I remember the most is when the power went out.”
“Oh God, I remember that.” What he was talking about happened during Saturday night’s performance. Just into the second act of the show, as one of my scenes with Daisy Mae was supposed to start, the stage lights wouldn’t come up. It took a moment or two and we thought it was a problem with the guy who did the lighting. After the lights finally came up I came out on stage and said, ‘what a lovely day’ under my breath. It turned out that the whole audience heard me and started laughing. I looked over at the boys in the band and they were laughing their asses off. It was one of those times that you weren’t supposed to laugh (like when the old lady in front of you at church passes gas) but I couldn’t control myself. I was standing there looking down at the floor chuckling, my body shaking as I tried not to laugh out loud. Poor Daisy Mae was standing there with this big smile on her face, laughing through her teeth.
As it turned out there was a car accident nearby that knocked out a transformer. A little while later during the performance the power went completely out and we just hung out on stage for a while. Finally I went around to the front of the building and passed a bathroom and I heard this little boy crying for help. I went in and it was pitch black, picked up the boy and carried him into the back of the auditorium where he pointed out where his daddy was sitting. I sat him down and went back around to the stage.
“I also remember when you carried that boy to his seat. He said something to his dad about being in the bathroom when the lights went out. Seemed really scared.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Poor kid. It was darker than a black cat in a coal mine in there.”
“I’ll admit that I was impressed,” Matt said.
“What, with my
stellar singing,” I said with a big Cheshire Cat grin.
“No, idiot, that you, sort of, rescued that kid.”
“Hell, it wasn’t anything that anyone else wouldn’t have done.”
“Maybe,” Matt said, “but that was when I felt some respect for you, even though I didn't really know you.”
“Huh. Well, it was just luck that I happened along.”
“So I guess if you were on an island, other than having me with you,” he looked over at me and smiled.
“Dick,” I said.
“You’d have to have your tunes with you.”
“Yep. I think that music’s in my soul. I think if I ever went deaf the worst thing to cope with would be not being able to hear music.”
“And Ella Fitzgerald.”
“And Ella Fitzgerald,” I repeated. “Dude, I don’t know about you but I’m ready to get a fuckin’ shower!”
“Hmmmm.” He had this curious look on his face.
“Matt, you know that question you asked me earlier that I didn’t answer?”
“Yes I do,” he said.
“Keep making comments and sounds like that and I’ll be asking you the same question soon enough.”
Matt burst out laughing at this. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he said.
“Why would I worry about it, goofball.”
“Oh man,” he said sighing. “Want to jog the rest of the way?”
“If the cameraman can keep up,” I said. We started jogging and this time we saw the car that the cameraman came in picked him up and they followed us as we made our way back to the studio.
* * * *
When we got back to the apartment everyone was in the kitchen except for Carla and Sonya. They were still in bed.
“Where’d you two hotties go?” Amanda asked.
“We went and had great man-sex in Piedmont Park,” I said, out of breath.
“Cute. Is that why you’re panting so hard?”
“No,” I turned to look toward my ass and said “I was hoping that running would help the gerbil fall out of my ass.”
Amanda died laughing. “You are really a sick man.”
“You got it, ho.”
“Hey, I’m not a ho.”
“How’s that nasty women’s disease?” She threw an orange at me, missed and hit Matt.
“Oof. Hey there, ho, watch it. I might have to sick Martin on you.”
“Atta boy!” I said in my goofy voice. Or at least one of them.
“Seriously,” Eddie said. “Where’d y’all go?”
“We started to go for a jog to the park but Martin wimped out on me and we walked instead.”
“Yes, but after you gave me a passionate kiss in the hallway.” At this, Eddie spit out his drink. “We are the messiest bunch of fuckers,” I said laughing, referring to us spitting out our drinks.
Amanda said, “He kissed you?” Her eyes were totally bugged out. Honey, time to hit the Zoloft.
“Well, it was more like this,” and I grabbed Matt, reached my hand around his hand to cover his mouth and gave him the same kind of fake kiss that he gave to me.
“Oh my God,” said Albert.
Matt pulled away laughing.
“You two are some sick bitches, you know that?” Amanda said.
“It was his idea!” I said with mock anger.
“Oh, I just thought I’d give the camera guy a show,” Matt replied.
“Yeah, I think he had a tent in his panties when you pulled off of me.”
“You mean when you pushed me away,” Matt said.
“I didn’t push you away, ding dong.” Oh shit, there I go again.
“So,” Amanda said, “you enjoyed it.”
“Alright now. Quit jumping to conclusions. He pulled away before I could do anything first,” I said.
“Really, Mike? You wanted to do more?” He had this evil grin on his face.
I reached up and smacked him on the back of his head again. “Asshole,” I said.
“Aww, lover’s quarrel,” Amanda said.
“Ugg!” I rolled my eyes. “I give up. I’m hitting the shower,” I said walking towards the bedroom. “And no, you can’t join me Matt. I’ve already told you that this morning.” His face reddened a bit at this. Everyone looked over at him.
He looked over at them, smiled and said, “I was hoping to toss his salad but I told him that I’d have to bathe him first.”
“Ok!,” said Eddie and Albert in a grossed-out way.
“That’s enough for this ol’ boy,” Albert said.
Matt laughed as I headed to the bathroom to take my shower. “It’s ok,” he said. “Actually, we haven’t been able to decide who’ll top and who-“
“Stop! Stop!” said Eddie. Matt kept laughing. What a nutcase.
* * * *
I think it was either Jessica or Amanda that brought up going out for drinks that night. I was game.
“Where should we go?” Sonya asked. “Starbucks?”
“Starbucks!” I said. “You know they’re constantly building those goddamned things all over the place. In fact, I think they just built one up my ass a minute ago,” I said looking around.
Everyone laughed at that.
“Hey I know!” Amanda said. “I heard of this bar over on Cypress called Rhett’s.” As she said this she looked over at me. “It’s supposed to be pretty fun. You ever been there Mike?”
Rhett’s is one of the gay bars that I'd frequented. Yes I’d been there. It was actually a really nice place that wasn’t a “themed” gay joint. Some places were country/western, others preppy, some leather, but Rhett’s wasn’t set up like that. Most of the guys that hung out there were just average Joe’s who really liked penis. “Yeah, and from what I understand the glory holes have even been sanded smooth so the skin on your pecker won’t get chaffed.” Again, my dry humor.
Eddie asked, “What’s a glory hole?”
I snickered and said, “Eddie, pal, you really gotta leave Vidalia.”
He looked around at everyone with a curious look on his face. “I still don’t know what one is.”
“Well, they’re normally found in gay bars,” Amanda said.
“Shit, there was one in the bathroom at Tech,” Albert said.
“Eddie,” I explained, “a glory hole is a hole in the wall between stalls so you plop your cock in it and offer it to be sucked by an anonymous mouth.”
“Why would anyone want to do that?” he asked.
“I guess ‘cause some people like throat yogurt,” I said.
“Oh Christ!” Amanda said. Everyone else laughed in a grossed-out sort of way.
“So, how do you know about this place?” Matt asked with one eyebrow raised.
“I already told you I have few gay friends. And a drink’s a drink so what do I care where I go.” Plus all of the cameras are still rolling, I’m still in the closet, yada, yada, yada. Gotta try to cover this somehow.
“How about the glory hole?” said Amanda with a shit-eatin’ grin.
“Fuck you and that nasty women’s disease you surely have by now.” She burst out laughing.
“Actually I heard that they do karaoke on Saturday nights,” she said.
“Hadn’t been there that often,” I said. Mikey, you’re a fuckin’ liar. “Couldn’t tell ya.”
Sonya asked, “Why’d you pick a gay bar, Amanda.”
Amanda put her hand on the side of my face and said, “Oh, I thought that Mike’d be comfortable there.”
“Screw you” I said. I don’t mind joking about gay shit, but I wasn’t exactly out, as you already know. I wasn’t sure why she kept saying crap like that.
“Why you gotta bust his balls?” Matt said.
“Oh, I’m just teasing him.”
“Whatever,” Matt said. “So are we going to Rhett’s? I’m game. Maybe if we’re lucky we can get Martin to sing a song for us.”
Oh, fucking great. I hadn’t sang in public in a while. That would take a bit of whisk
ey muscle. A few people hemmed and hawed but we all decided to go there and headed to our rooms to get ready. As we were going into our room Matt put his hand on my shoulder.