by Ty Jacob
“Look, I don’t want to fight,” Mike said. “There’s something I need to talk to you about. Something else.” He turned away again, so that Dale saw him in profile.
Dale didn’t want to hear whatever it was that Mike had to say. It felt like something was unraveling.
“I don’t really know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it.” Mike was speaking slowly. “We’ve been living together for eight years now. We’ve had a lot of fun.”
It was a knit dress, and it was unraveling starting at the bottom, working its way up. Someone was pulling a string. Dale felt like his clothes were disappearing.
“What are you saying?” he asked.
Mike continued to stare at the wall. “Dale, you know sooner or later I just need to go out on my own.”
The string went out into the hallway, through the front room, out the apartment door and down the stairs, through the foyer and into the outside air of LA.
“I’m moving out,” Mike said.
In one strong pull, the rest of the dress was gone. Dale felt naked.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean it’s time for me to go, to live in another place.”
“Not with me?”
Mike stood up and turned around to look at him. “I really care for you a lot Dale, but I need to do this. It’ll be good for both of us.”
“Oh. So you have to leave LA.”
“No. I’ll still be in West Hollywood.”
“It’s this apartment? You’re sick of this apartment. So we’ll move. We’ll get a new place together.”
“No, Dale. The apartment’s fine. It’s just… I need a little space.”
“We’ll get a bigger place. Maybe you need a bigger bedroom. We could buy a house together. That’s it. A house would be nice, don’t you think? We could even move to the suburbs if you want. I’d do that for you. Let’s move to Lakewood. The streets are tree lined and it feels like a small town. Would you like that?”
“No. I don’t want to buy a house. I’m moving in with Nick.”
“Nick?” Dale said. “You mean that dopey-faced little street whore?”
“He’s not a street whore.”
“Bullshit. I saw him on Sunset Boulevard just the other night in a pair of little hot pants.”
“I used to be a street whore.”
Dale said nothing.
“He works for Premier Escorts,” Mike said. “I doubt that was him you saw on the street, but even if it was, so what. Listen, you don’t have to make up reasons to hate him. We’re just going to be roommates. His old roommate left and I’m moving in. He needs help paying the rent. No need to be jealous.”
“Jealous? What do you mean? Why would I be jealous of him?”
“So I’m moving my stuff over there tomorrow. Nick’s coming over in the morning to help me.”
“Tomorrow? Tomorrow? You’re leaving just like that?” Dale paused. “Wait a minute. Is that U-Haul on the street yours?”
Mike mumbled, “Yes.”
Dale was suddenly both hurt and angry. “You little fucker. You already have a truck.”
“I’ll pay you rent for the next month, so that you have time to find another roommate if you need to. But I’m taking my stuff, moving out tomorrow.”
“Which stuff?”
“My stuff. My dresser and bed, my clothes, the little TV in my room.”
“Your bedroom will be empty.”
“It’s my stuff. I’m taking it with me.”
“You can’t.”
“I bought it. It’s not yours.”
Dale felt an enormous pressure behind his eyes, and the room seemed very far away. He did not want to cry. The Western World box lay open and empty on the bed, the tissue paper folded back. The boots were still on Mike’s feet. Dale sat perfectly still and said, “So you’re giving me twenty-four hours’ notice?”
“I’m sorry. It’s just better like this. I’m not leaving you in a lurch. It’s really like a month’s notice, because I’m still going to pay you rent for June.”
“Oh, great. A month.”
“If you haven’t found another roommate by the end of June, then maybe I can pay you a second month’s rent. We’ll see. I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”
Dale looked at the empty box. “You’re such a fucking boy,” he said. “This is totally juvenile. At thirty-two, you’re still a god-damned child.” When he looked up, he saw Mike’s brown eyes staring back. “It’s not about the money, Mike. I thought you understood that.”
“You’ll still see me. I’ll come around.” Mike’s voice had grown soft, trying to soothe. “I’ll be here for porn star roast dinners. You can still have them.”
The pressure behind Dale’s eyes grew stronger. Mike was just standing there. “I can’t believe that you’re leaving me like this,” Dale said.
“Relax. It’s okay. I’m not leaving you. I’m just moving out. I’m sleeping here tonight.”
“Oh, lucky me. One more night, then that street whore gets you.” Dale stood up and turned his back toward Mike. “You’re leaving me because my career’s hit a rough patch.”
“No, I’m not.”
“I wish I could believe that. What else are you planning to take, besides your bedroom furniture?”
“Do you mind if I take the burgundy chair?”
“What?” Dale looked back at him. “Why would you do that? Why would you want to take our chair?”
“Sorry. Forget it. You can keep the chair.” Mike forced a smile and reached forward and lightly punched Dale in the arm. “Hey. Buck up little fighter.”
Dale had never wanted to hit Mike before, but now it was all he could do to stop himself from slapping him. He jerked away.
“Dale, it’s not the end of the world. You’ll find somebody else to be your roommate, maybe some new model who’ll need a place to stay. He’ll be younger than me, and hot. Maybe he can even be in your horse movie. He’ll boost your career.”
“I don’t want just some roommate, or just a model for my movies. Do you really think that’s all you are to me? I want you. I want you here with me. In this apartment. Together.” Dale realized that he was crying, speaking loudly, making a mess of everything.
Mike looked away and said nothing.
“You really don’t get it, do you Mike? You never got it. Damn it, you have no idea how much I care for you. You are the single most important person in the world to me, Michael Dudley. But you’re so fucking selfish, so wrapped up in yourself that you can’t see past the end of your own nose. You ride roughshod over everyone around you, totally insensitive to what you’re doing to people, what you’re doing to me. Goddamn you.” Dale felt his hands shaking. “Get the fuck out of my room.”
“Dale –”
“Get out!” Dale heard the intensity and fury in his own voice. It was as though the sound itself pushed Mike back, made him move toward the door, then out into the hallway. Dale walked over and swung the door shut. It slammed loudly.
As he turned back toward his room, his eyes came to rest on the picture of Mike that he kept in a small frame on his nightstand. In it, Mike was seated nearly naked on the floor with his jeans down around his ankles, turning his head to the side and looking at the camera. His left leg was raised, hiding his crotch, and his fleshy bubble butt was pushed against the floor. Dale had taken the picture before a shoot one day, and he’d always loved the way it had caught the sultry, relaxed look in Mike’s eyes, the smooth beauty of his body.
He yanked the photo off the nightstand, threw it at the door, and let out a long, loud scream.
42. Moving Out
STANDING IN THE hallway, Mike heard something crash and fall. He heard Dale yell. He lifted his hand up to knock, but stopped. There was no point. He’d done enough damage tonight. He couldn’t mend this right now, not in the state Dale was in.
He walked down the hallway into his bedroom and closed the door. The boots made loud clunks on the floor as he w
ent. He took them off, set them aside, and once again began taking his posters down off the walls. He felt the sting of what Dale had said. It was probably true. He was acting like a boy. At heart, he feared he was still selfish.
Although he would never say so to Dale, Mike agreed with the poor reviews of Sasha’s last few films. The fact was that the only successful films she’d ever made were the ones he’d starred in. It was confusing. Sometimes he wasn’t quite sure how much he owed Dale, and how much Dale owed him.
Even so, he hoped that what Dale had said wasn’t true. He hoped he wasn’t leaving Dale because Dale’s career had hit a rough patch. But he wasn’t sure.
He finished rolling up all of his posters and had begun clearing things out from under his bed when a door slammed shut. He poked his head out into the hallway and called Dale’s name, but there was no answer. He knocked on Dale’s bedroom door, but there was only silence, so he opened the door. The room was empty. He went into the front room and opened the door to the hallway and called down the stairs, but there was no answer at all. Dale was gone.
That night he went to bed half listening for a key in the front lock, but the sound never came, and the next morning there was still no sign of Dale. It was then that Mike started seriously worrying. Even on the rare occasions when Dale found casual sex, he never stayed out all night. He always finished up and came directly home. Mike tried to tell himself that it was fine, that Dale simply didn’t want to be there when Nick showed up, that everything would be okay. He’d see Dale soon.
When Nick arrived the next day, he was carrying two iced skim lattes and he handed one to Mike. There was something strange about Nick’s manner. His lop-sided grin seemed hesitant. They drank their coffees before they got started moving furniture. As Nick sat on the couch and Mike sat in the burgundy armchair, it finally became clear what the problem was.
Nick said, “Mike, you pay your rent, right?”
“Of course I do.”
“I heard something last night. Remember that guy who used to be German?”
“Earl?”
“Yeah. That’s the one. Used to call himself Günter.”
“What about him?”
“I was out on a job last night and Earl paged me,” Nick said. “I don’t know how he got my number. He said he wanted to meet me, had something urgent to tell me. So after I got done fucking this banker in Bel Air I drove over to meet Earl at Pinky’s. He told me how Dale’s kicking you out because you haven’t paid your rent in over six months, how all your money goes up your nose.”
Mike was surprised, but then he laughed. “That’s not true.”
“Really?” The look on Nick’s face showed he wasn’t sure.
“Hey, you know me. Earl’s a total liar. He’s the one with the drug problem.” Everyone in West Hollywood knew the story of what had happened to Earl.
* * *
Four years ago, when Sasha first told Steve Logan that Günter-the-German-Assistant was really Earl-the-Tennessee-Backwater-Boy-Willing-to-Fuck-for-Money, Steve hadn’t been upset at all. He knew an opportunity when he saw it, and when Sasha told him her Appalachian Ass idea, he immediately loved it. She promptly began planning the movie, securing the location, hiring models and crew. She was so caught up in her plans that she remained completely oblivious to Earl’s sudden downward spiral.
What started for Earl as a secret return to his old coke habit very quickly grew into a strong and fanatical devotion to crystal meth. On the day he was scheduled to do his first big scene for Appalachian Ass, he simply never showed.
Sasha was forced to find a last-minute replacement to fuck Earl’s then-boyfriend Phil Dass. The entire movie had been planned around Earl, and the replacement not only lacked Earl’s perfect, melon-like biceps and rock-hard abs, but he didn’t have the natural Tennessee charm or friendly, lilting accent. Sasha made him fake the accent, which sounded so obviously phony that it made the entire production come across as amateurish and a bit silly. To make matters worse, the replacement had never touched a banjo in his life when Sasha – stubbornly wed to her original idea – made him play one naked on film. Appalachian Ass was a terrible failure.
As for Earl, by the time the movie had found its way to the discount bins at gay video stores across the nation, his love of crystal meth had grown so out of control that he’d already lost his job as Steve’s assistant at Cougar, and then he eventually lost Phil too. Last Mike heard, Phil was back in New York doing drag as Philippa Phanny. Everyone knew Earl was currently making his living as a third-rate street and bar hustler, that he was now HIV positive, and that he was still hopelessly addicted to crystal.
* * *
“Who told Earl my money goes up my nose?” Mike asked Nick now.
Nick shook his head. “He wouldn’t say.”
Mike wondered what Dale was doing last night. “Nick, you know I’m a total light-weight. Nothing goes up my nose. And I always pay my rent. You can ask Dale.”
“Where is Dale, anyway?” Nick looked around.
“He didn’t come home last night.” Mike paused. The rumor must have come from Dale, from Sasha. There was no other way. Mike could almost see Sasha sitting there at the Lucky Pony last night, telling Earl what to say, then slipping off quietly before Nick showed up. Mike was touched. Sasha wanted him to stay with her so badly that she was willing to tell pathetic little lies to stop him from going. It was an act of total desperation, but it grew out of love, and he was moved by it.
“Don’t worry, Mike,” Nick said. “I didn’t believe Earl.”
“Thanks.”
Nick smiled. “But I’ll tell you what, if you don’t pay your rent, I’ll fucking throw your shit to the curb and change the locks while you’re out. Got it?”
Mike laughed. “Got it. Let’s load the truck.”
They carried everything Mike owned down the stairs and into the truck – except for the burgundy armchair. Nick didn’t say anything else about Earl. After the truck was loaded, Nick waited outside while Mike went back into the apartment one last time to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.
Opening the front door, it already felt like the space wasn’t his. In the front room he looked at Dale’s two Silver Dicks standing alone on the long bookshelf – one for My Swim Coach Loves Me and the other for Tender is the Knight. They looked lonely without Mike’s own awards beside them. Mike couldn’t help thinking that somehow the household looked less exceptional now, less talented. Then he felt bad for thinking it.
He wandered around, looking at all the rooms. His own bedroom was empty and clean. The kitchen looked like it was ready for someone to make breakfast, all the plates and cups just waiting. He stood by the kitchen counter and opened his wallet, left a month’s rent in cash under a pink flamingo glass on the counter, along with a note with his new phone number. Dale – Call me. Take care of yourself. M.
He walked back down the hallway to Dale’s bedroom door, opened it, stepped in, and stood there for a moment. Everything was chaotic in that room, makeup spreading across the vanity and even nearby on the floor, costumes and dresses thrown left and right across the bed and on the back of the chair. Video equipment and old cameras were stacked in one corner. Piles of fabric had nearly buried the pink sewing machine. Mike’s photograph was on the floor in the corner. He picked it up, found the glass cracked in a long diagonal, and put it back on Dale’s nightstand as it was. He wished he knew what to do with Dale, how to handle him, how to love him in a way that didn’t hurt him.
Standing in front of the open closet, he took in all the glitter and feathers there. Dale’s shoes were in a heap on the floor: men’s loafers, women’s platform boots, red stilettos, pink fuzzy things. Matching shoes were nowhere near each other. He leaned down and picked up a black woman’s shoe with a chunky heel and realized it was a tap shoe. He laughed to himself. Dale didn’t know how to tap dance. No doubt he planned to learn. Then Mike noticed the corner of a grey box, behind the shoes. He pushed aside some of the
dresses and saw that it was a tiny safe. As far as he knew, Dale didn’t have any jewelry precious enough to lock up. He’d always assumed all of Sasha’s baubles were fake. What did Dale need a safe for? Suddenly he felt guilty for snooping. He returned the tap shoe, slid the dresses back, and quickly left the room.
Out in the front room he paused for one last look. The burgundy chair was waiting for Dale. The air felt stale. Then he left. He locked the apartment door behind him, and he ran all the way down the stairs.
43. Empty
DALE STEPPED INTO the apartment wearing a black flamenco dress and carrying Sasha’s wig, which was still pinned with a tiny black veil. Upon seeing the Silver Dick shelf, his heart fell. Until that moment he’d held out a faint hope that Mike would still be there.
Some of the books were missing off the bookshelves. The burgundy chair was still in the corner. Dale dropped the wig onto the coffee table, stepped over to the Silver Dick shelf, and let his hand come down to rest on the spot where Mike’s awards used to be. The lace of his dress sleeve dragged across the shelf.
He backed away slowly, then turned and began to move down the hall. Looking into Mike’s bedroom hurt the most. It was entirely empty. He paused, took a deep breath to regain his balance, then stepped forward into Mike’s room until he was standing in the very middle, looking at all of the things that weren’t there. Bed. Dresser. Nightstand. Mike.
Indentations in the carpet marked the missing furniture. The walls were dotted with the blemishes of thumbtack holes from those adorable, silly posters. The room seemed drained, as though a plug had been pulled out of a spot in the middle of the floor and Mike and everything had swirled down and disappeared. Dale remembered Mike appearing like an angel under the disco ball at the Lucky Pony that very first night, all the stars turning around him. But now Mike was gone. Dale knelt, and then laid down on his side in a heap of black ruffles and lace. He wished for the floor to open up and swallow him too, to take him to wherever Mike was.
The realization came to him then, as he felt the texture of the carpet pushing against his cheek. His worst fear had come true. He was nothing. He was just a middle-aged man in a dress, lying on the floor in an empty room. Without Mike, there was nothing spectacular or fabulous about Dale Smith at all. He was entirely and hopelessly mediocre. If he’d had any real talent he never would have fallen, never would have failed, never would have lost Mike like this now.