And the Next Thing You Know . . .

by Chase Taylor Hackett

  “I did, thank you. She asked after you, by the way.”

  “She didn’t either.”

  “I know it’s weird, but she actually did. Just how she is.”

  “So whose apartment was that?”

  “It’s Michael and Dave’s.”

  “They have an actual library. I never knew anybody who had an actual library before.”

  “I’d have introduced you around, but you scooted off on me. Dave is an old fraternity brother of mine.”

  “Of course. I knew you had to be a frat boy.”

  “What have you got against frat boys?”

  “Frat boys—bunch of middle-class straight guys interested in just one thing—hanging out with other middle-class straight guys exactly like themselves. Girls come a distant second.”

  “Bros before hos.”

  “In a nutshell. Their only interest is in hanging out with others of their kind, and to allow them to do that, they’ve developed these elaborate structures to make sure they never have to deal with anyone who doesn’t fit in, winnowing out the unsuitable through the whole rush thing.”

  “Oh that’s what rush-week is. Someone should have told me.”

  “Like you didn’t know. Think about it.” And then he dropped his voice to sound really butch. “Jim’s a nice guy and all, but he’s not really an Upsilon now is he?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “It’s exactly like that. Even your interest in sports is just an excuse to have a common subject to talk about with other guys like you, and so you have a code by which you can recognize each other when you meet—and identify the outsider, who doesn’t know his hockey scores—definitely not an Upsilon.”

  “It has nothing to do with liking hockey?”

  “Absolutely nothing. And you guys do all this because deep down you know you’re a bunch of insignificant, scared little boys—but if you’re surrounded by a group of similarly inconsequential and untalented guys, it gives you this comfortable sense of your own self-worth. Even if it’s totally false.”

  “Damn. Don’t hold anything back, just because it’s my birthday.”

  “You know I’m right.”

  “But you said ‘a bunch of middle-class straight boys’—and obviously I’m not straight.”

  “Were you out in college?”

  “Well….”

  “I knew it. You were there in disguise. I bet you and your friend were messing around furtively in the attic.”

  “Basement,” I had to admit, laughing.

  “So how was your birthday? Feel old yet?”

  “Only since I sat down on this rock.”

  “I got a phone call today from the animal shelter,” Theo said after a bit.

  “Puggle on a pay phone?”

  “No, although almost as startling. It was from the director of development, thanking me for introducing you to the shelter.”

  “Oh, her. She wrote me a nice letter, too.”

  “You sent them a check?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You didn’t need to do that.”

  “It’s deductible.”

  He looked up at me out of the corner of his eye. I felt that about half the time I was around him, I didn’t begin to understand him, or know what to do with him. In that moment it looked like it was the other way around. For once.

  “Do you even like dogs?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t really have an answer.

  “You do,” I said finally.

  And I could feel the heat rush into my cheeks, as I stared down at my hands. Oh good lord, I was blushing?! I felt like I was turning thirteen instead of thirty.

  His hand slid across the rock until it was on top of mine.

  “So,” he said. “How’s it feel to be thirty years old?”

  “Right at this moment, sitting on a rock in Central Park, holding hands with a cute guy? Not so bad.”

  I looked out at the empty park.

  “But generally?” I went on. “I don’t know. I mostly feel like the same jerk I was yesterday, the one trying to bluff the world into thinking he’s got it together and knows what he wants—the same insecure fraud I’ve always been, as you so kindly pointed out about me and my frat brothers. The career thing is really good. I’d love to get out of ad claims, sure, but I’m good at what I do, and I’m seen as being good at what I do. Which is all good. I still get a charge out of doing a good job. And I get a bunch of money for it. Also good.”

  “Sounds like there’s a ‘but’ in there.”

  “I suppose there is. But. In a way, I’m still waiting for it all to start, you know? I remember being a little kid, thinking, someday my life will start and then stuff will happen, I’ll do this thing, I’ll own that car, I’ll go there and there, I’ll have this big adventure, I’ll meet this special person and it will all happen. And I still feel like that.”

  “What are you waiting for? What do you think’s going to happen?”

  “No clue,” I laughed, and looked down at his face. He was smiling a little, and really beautiful with the light from the street lamp on his upturned face. “Maybe it’s starting now finally.”

  He leaned up and kissed me on the cheek.

  “What was that for?” I asked.

  “It’s your birthday,” he shrugged.

  “Maricón,” said somebody.

  Ahhhhhh fuck. I don’t speak Spanish, but I certainly know the word for faggot. I also knew this was not going to go well.

  In the shadows, just a bit down the hill from us, stood this guy. Probably homeless. Probably drunk. Probably about my age, which, in light of the conversation we were just having, gave me something to think about. I mean, how’s this guy feel about the way his life’s going at this point?

  The guy started rattling in Spanish until Theo interrupted him—in Spanish. Who knew? I was impressed.

  But it was weird. It was like watching a movie you’ve seen before, that had been dubbed in a foreign language. Without understanding a word, I still knew what they were saying. The mocking contempt in Theo’s voice was rising in a familiar way, and then the homeless guy said something about maricón again, and then Theo said sí something, and something maricón. And then—

  “Besame,” he said, smiling. “Justo aquí, amigo.” And, with a sneering air-kiss, he pointed to his left butt cheek.

  This was apparently an insult too far, and the guy started lumbering in our direction. I stood up to intervene. I would be the hero, and with luck I’d do it without having to put Theo in a fireman’s carry to get him home, since he hadn’t really appreciated that the last time.

  “Hey, my friend,” I said to the homeless guy frankensteining toward us. “There’s no need for a big thing,” and I reached for my wallet. “Here, why don’t you get yourself something to—”

  Before I could give him the twenty—or finish my sentence—a meteor came hurtling out of the sky and slammed into my head. I was blind, I was lying on wet grass, my head and left eye were screaming with hurt, and I was holding my face, moaning and rocking back and forth, oblivious to everything in the universe but the pain.

  Then I was sort of aware enough to hear Theo. I felt his hands holding my face, and I tried to open my eyes enough to look at him.

  “Theo,” I asked, “are you okay?”

  “I’m fine!” he said, laughing. “He didn’t hit me, just you.”

  “Why is that, do you think?”

  “You pissed him off, dude.”

  “Why didn’t he hit you?”

  “I never get hit.”

  “That makes no sense to me,” I said feeling the flood of tears—at least I hoped it was tears—running into my hand. “Is my eye okay?” I tried to open it a little.

  “Here, let me see. Yeah, you’re okay, but I bet that hurt.”
r />   “Yyyyyeah. It did. Does. Fuck.”

  “So—nine-one-one? Or walk home?”

  “Walk home, for sure.”

  “You don’t want to call the cops.”

  “Did he take my wallet?”

  “No, just the twenty you dropped. And then he staggered off.”

  “No doubt with a profound sense of satisfaction. I can’t blame the guy. After all, he’d just bumped into Theo McPherson. It’s totally justifiable. Not sure why he hit me, though. Here, help me get up.”

  Which he did.

  “Your place?” Theo asked, watching me to see if I was going to fall over.

  “Yeah. My place.”

  He looked at me again under the brighter street lights of Fifth Avenue—which my left eye did not like at all.

  “Dizzy? Blurred vision? Nausea?” asked Dr. Theo.

  “No, I’m good, I think. Humiliated, but okay.”

  “Wait ‘til Monday when you’re explaining that eye for the seventy-third time.”

  “How will I explain this? This ijit I know tormented a homeless person, so naturally the homeless person slugged me.”

  “You should probably lie. Less demeaning.”

  “You are a hazard, you know that?”

  “The red hair is supposed to be like nature’s warning. You should have known it wasn’t going to be easy.” He gestured to the little twenty-four-hour market we were just passing. “We should get you something for that eye.”

  “Okay.”

  He was hoping for a steak—he’d seen that in a movie somewhere—but he settled for a bag of frozen peas. And some Dr Pepper.

  I had some aspirin at home, so we were good to go.

  We hobbled into my building past Buddy, the ferrety door guy, and Theo got me into my apartment. We split a Dr Pepper and I got into the shower, which I wanted more than anything. When I got out—in fresh underwear, and cautiously toweling my head—Theo was still there, sitting on my bed, flipping through a golf magazine.

  “There are no cute golf players. Not one.” He tossed the magazine on the floor. “Got any tennis magazines? Cuz some of those guys…”

  “Sorry.”

  “So. You okay, you think?”

  “Yeah. Just bruised.”

  “Happy birthday.”

  “Seriously! Happy fucking birthday!”

  “You want me to go?”

  “No. No, I do not want you to go.”

  “Okay,” he said, “but understand—there will be no repetition.” With a sigh, I flopped down on the bed, leaning against pillows and the headboard.

  “You have the meanest way of training me.”

  “What are you talking about?” he laughed, carefully untying his new shoes before pulling them off.

  “Whenever I say something stupid, I hear it parroted back to me for the next several days so I realize just how stupid it was.” He settled himself in under my arm.

  “Yeah, I guess I do do that.”

  “You said do-do,” I said.

  “Yeah, I did-did.”

  “I don’t think I’m quite in the condition for a repetition anyway, okay?”

  “Fair enough.”

  “But you’ll stay?”

  “Of course.”

  “Hey, Iowa,” I said after a second. “Ever go sailing?”

  “No, why?”

  “Want to? I got invited. Tomorrow—wanna come?”

  “Is it fun?”

  “Yeah, kinda. And it can get kinda boring, too, staring at the water.”

  “And you can’t just stick your hand out and call a cab.”

  “No. Which is why I was going to pass, but it would be fun if you came along.”

  “Okay, sure.”

  “Good.” I kissed the top of his head, and sent a quick text message to Dave.

  “I’m sorry you got clobbered,” he said, once we were settled under bedcovers.

  “Me, too.”

  “It’s funny, I do this shit all the time, and I never get hit. I think you must be doing something wrong.”

  I wanted to pinch him so bad. And I wanted to pull him still closer to me. Guess which one I did. And before you judge me too harshly because I was getting all sentimental over somebody who could easily be mistaken for a Chucky doll—I would just like to point out that I had had a severe blow to the head, so cut me some slack.

  And thus I saw the thirtieth year of my life come to a close—with this stupidly pretty boy’s head on my chest. When I woke up on the first day of my thirty-first year, he was still there.

  There are worse ways to get a year older.

  Chapter 36

  Sunday, by the Blue, Purple, Yellow, Red Water…

  Theo

  “Wow, Jeff. Your eye turned a really impressive color. Not sure what you’re going to wear that’ll go with that particular shade of violet.”

  “Sunglasses.”

  Jeff booked one of those Zipcars, which we found easily enough, and his phone worked like a GPS. I hadn’t been in a car in a while, being a poor farm-boy transformed into a poor city-boy, and I thought the GPS thing was pretty cool.

  It looked like a fantastic day for my first time sailing on the ocean (or anywhere). The sky was almost completely clear, and it was warm and sunny. Oh, what a beautiful morning!

  We rolled the windows partly down to enjoy the rush of air. That’s how it started anyway. By the time we got out on Long Island, the sun was gone, we’d closed the windows, and I’d even discovered that the heater in Jeff’s cheap little rental didn’t seem to work.

  It was less than an hour getting to the harbor. As Jeff parked, a couple guys started waving from the deck of a boat that was at the dock.

  “There they are,” said Jeff.

  No no no no no no no.

  “Those are the friends we’re sailing with?” I asked, my stomach sinking.

  “Yeah—why? The roly-poly one is Michael, and the younger one is Dave, my old frat brother. They hosted my birthday party. That was their apartment.”

  “You remember I told you about the guy pestering me at the party?”

  “Dave?”

  “You can probably get his fingerprints off the bruise on my thigh.”

  “If he touches you again…” said Jeff, and he yanked the emergency brake lever so hard, I thought he’d rip it out.

  “Whoa. Easy, Tarzan.”

  “It’s not funny,” he said.

  Maybe not funny, but I had to say it was pretty cute. Not Dave, of course. Dave was revolting, and he didn’t get any more charming when I understood he had been reaching for my ass in the posh apartment he shared with his partner.

  Jeff, on the other hand. Getting all ferocious, defending me of all people. That was pretty damned cute.

  “Hey there!” shouted the chubby one. “Good lord, what happened to you?”

  The black eye.

  “I told you it was too much eye shadow, Jeff,” I said.

  “You didn’t have that last night—did you do that?” he asked me.

  “Hey Michael, have you met Theo?”

  “At the party last night, of course,” he remembered after a second. “Glad you could come along today.”

  The other one—the icky one—jumped down onto the dock.

  “Ooooh, that’s pretty,” he said, pulling Jeff’s sunglasses off. “How’d you do that?”

  “I bit it,” said Jeff, gingerly putting the sunglasses back in place.

  And the asshole turned to me—and for once I don’t mean Jeff.

  “We met at the party, too, didn’t we, Theo?” he slimed at me, rubbed the back of his head and smiled.

  “We did. I’m glad I made an impression on you.”

  Was the whole day going to be like this, trapped on a teeny
boat with this letch making handsy-handsy the whole time? And right under the nose of his boyfriend?! What a turdball. I was just about to tell him what would happen if he touched me again, but there was suddenly a big strong arm around me, pulling me close.

  “Pretend you’re my boyfriend,” Jeff whispered as he nuzzled against my ear. I immediately slipped my arm around Jeff’s waist, and gave good ol’ Dave my most vicious smile.

  Take the hint, peckerwad.

  “Ever been sailing, Theo?” said Michael, reaching down to me and pulling me up onto the boat.

  “No, I haven’t! Thank you so much for inviting me.”

  “A virgin!” That was Dave, of course, and no doubt staring at my ass as I climbed up.

  “Hey!” That was Jeff’s voice. I turned, and I could see where Jeff had spun Dave around to him, and Dave was doing one of those asshole I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about faces. I thought they might get into it right then and there, but —

  “Let’s get started, shall we?” said Capt. Michael, blithely clueless.

  Michael and Dave got the boat away from the dock and steered carefully out of the harbor using a tiny motor—while Jeff and I did our best to stay out of the way. Once the boat was out in the clear, Dave switched off the motor, and we were enlisted in helping get the sail up—which immediately caught the breeze and pushed the boat forward. This little farm-boy had to admit—it was awesomely cool. It was so quiet! I loved that.

  There was a little seating area in the back of the boat and Jeff pulled me down next to him, with Michael just to our right, steering. Dave was futzing around getting us sandwiches—poached chicken sandwiches if you can believe it. La-di-fucking-da! I gave Jeff a look—my pinky cocked as high as possible—at the sheer gayness of poached chicken sandwiches. No crusts of course.

  “What’s the green stuff?” I asked. It tasted like something you pulled out of the bottom of a lawn mower.

  “Watercress,” said Dave.

  “Of course it is,” said Jeff, trying not to laugh, but not trying very hard.

  “Go ahead,” said Dave, all martyr-y. “I try to do something nice…”

  The best thing about the watercress was that it was easy to pull out. I cast my greens upon the water and hoped they never came back.

  As we got farther out, the wind really picked up and the whole boat leaned sharply over to the side where Jeff and I were (the port side, someone said, which is ‘left’ to you and me). The boat leaned and it kept leaning, and I thought –