Gulliver Takes Five (10 page)

“Why not...give me twenty minutes?”

“You got it!!!”

Too many exclamations. The excess enthusiasm isn’t going to make up for my flakiness. Dammit dammit dammit. That’s strike one, and I’m sure the fact that I look like a twinky swamp monster in my sodden blue-and-yellow-striped button-down and jeans will most likely be my strike two. ARGH. The rest of this date better be the smoothest of sailings, or I’m dead in the water.

I took it upon myself to pick the restaurant—a Thai place on the northwest end of Union Square. I expected us to dine outside on the sidewalk, granting us a scenic view of the comings and goings of the small park and its many occupants to provide handy conversation pieces. Of course, that’s shot to shit. The park is now just a small rectangle of grass and concrete filled with murky puddles, its only inhabitants of the homeless and pandering variety. I give change to as many of them as I can, like I’m the weather’s personal publicist on damage control. I’m desperately trying to build back my karma.

Despite my proximity to the restaurant, Chase has still somehow beaten me. He looks miserable, ducking beneath an awning that isn’t generous enough to keep his entire body dry. The result is a Jekyll-and-Hyde effect: half of him crisp, the other dripping. My God.

“I am so sorry!” I shout as I run across the street. A car brakes and sits on the horn, just missing me. I let loose a scream that belongs in the mouth of a busty blonde in a slasher flick. By the time I reach him, I am both soggy and emasculated.

Oh, boy. I can smell that second date already.

“I am SO sorry, Chase! I lost track of time. I’ve just been so messed up and stressed out today.”

“It’s okay,” Chase says, squeezing out his shirt and putting little energy into his performance. The result is a less-than-convincing tone letting me know that I’m already skating on thin ice.

“I swear, usually I’M the punctual one waiting on everyone else. That’s why I always carry a book with me. Except tonight.”

“I said it’s okay. Enough with the apologies.” He smiles, but it’s still forced. Which I guess is better than not making the effort.

When we get inside the restaurant, I discover yet another reason to curse the rain: since the outside seating has been decommissioned, all the tables inside are filled. We have a thirty-minute wait ahead of us. Terrific. Our fellow diners are equally miserable, shifting uncomfortably in wet and heavy skirts and suits. The waiters are perturbed because the drippy customers are tipping less and their bills are wilted from water damage. The entire restaurant smells like a gigantic wet shoe.

I sigh. “Maybe we should...”

“Reschedule?” Chase incorrectly anticipates.

“...try somewhere else?” I eke out just after him.

“Oh.” He looks embarrassed. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Then I’m blurting: “Look. Clearly this was a terrible idea. It’s my fault for screwing up the timing.” There are tears sneaking out of my eyes. Not necessarily because of Chase, but man, has today been a trip. “Maybe we should cancel. Our first date hasn’t even started and I’ve already messed it up five different ways. I knew this would happen. I’m a little out of practice...”

“Oh, come on, Marty. It’s fine. I didn’t have plans anyway. I mean, you’re cute enough to take my mind off my wet clothes and the stench of this place. For half an hour, at least.”

“It does smell terrible, doesn’t it?” I laugh, wiping away my tears. “God, sorry for the waterworks. Like I’m not wet enough already?”

“Nah. I like that you’re crying. I mean—it’s endearing. Most gays in this city killed off their feelings when they crossed the bridge into town. So. Did you have a bad audition or what?”

I forgot I’d mentioned the audition in an earlier text. “Actually,” I sniff again, “they loved me.”

“Well, gosh, you poor thing! I’d hate to try and console you after you won the lottery!” Suddenly, I become aware that Chase’s smile is gorgeous. Full of bright-white teeth.

“This calls for a celebratory meal in a place that doesn’t smell like a ripe scrotum, pardon my French,” he says. “I actually know a better place around the corner. And it looks like the rain has stopped. Wanna make a run for it?”

“After you.”

Chase sprints a lot faster than me, but he has a firm grip on my hand, dragging me a few blocks to a restaurant that sits below street level. It’s designed to look like the backyard of a trailer park and the menu is all deep-fried foods filled and/or covered in Velveeta. The waiters are smiling and friendly, the customers grinning like Buddhas as they try to overcome their food comas. It’s like I died and went to deep-fried heaven.

“You’re not one of those gays who says they don’t eat, are you?” Chase asks once we’re seated at a table along the sidewall by the kitchen. I raise my eyebrows and point at the over-buttered slice of Wonder Bread sticking halfway out of my mouth. A waiter arrives with two drinks served in frosty glasses, with little plastic alligators sticking out, tails up, drowning in the booze.

It’s a whole new date. Conversation is flowing at hyperspeed. We talk about Armistead Maupin’s
Tales of the City
and how we had to spend half of our time on Google to understand all of the now-outdated references. (“Almost as much time as I spent in the companion guide to Joyce’s
Ulysses
!”) We both hate reality television. Neither of us is on the best of terms with our parents, but we both have kick-ass sisters. Then, even though it’s not proper date
etiquette, we somehow end up on the topic of guys we’ve recently gone out with.

“Funnily enough, my most recent date’s name was Marty too,” Chase says. “We met at a club, went home together, had a great night. Then, nothing.”

“That doesn’t sound like a date to me,” I say. “Going home from a club together?”

“I guess,” he shrugs. “Maybe what made it feel like a date is how into him I was. Stupid, I know.”

“To fall for someone you just met? Nah. It’s pretty common, actually.”

“Just not often mutual.” Chase smirks. “Anyway, we had...fun. And I don’t know, even though it was what it was, I felt a connection. Ever meet someone for the first time and just feel like you’ve known them before?”

“Sure,” I say. “But I have a theory that any relationship that begins in a club is automatically doomed. That’s where I met my ex, Brayden. And that was doomed with a capital D.”

“Brayden? That’s weird. Brayden was MY Marty’s LAST name!” Chase laughs, already tipsy from whatever drink he ordered us.

“That IS weird!” I laugh. “Yuck. Marty Brayden. Sounds like a porn name.”

“Yeah.” Chase is quiet for a moment before assaulting his straw again.

I opt not to go too deep into details about bat-shit Brayden. Just enough to give Chase a flavor of the insanity I put up with. In the end, my conclusion is it was a learning experience. I will never go back to Brayden, and now I have about twenty different signs of crazy to look out for on new dates.

“Notice any in me?” Chase winks.

“Not yet. But we haven’t gotten to the Rorschach tests yet.”

Now I have a new problem: I’m trying as hard as I can not to dream up our kids’ names. How I’ll get him out to Jersey to meet my sister. The outfit he’ll wear to the opening night of whatever show I get cast in. Maybe he’ll travel out of state to see me in the
Wicked
tour if I land it?

This is a problem I can’t stand: my proclivity to mentally and emotionally jump ahead forty steps with a guy I’ve just met. The point where the dumb fresh-love romance is dead and we’re picking out what toothpaste we want at Duane Reade or bitching about our double date with that boring couple from Morningside Heights.

Chase slurps his drink down to the bottom. “Oops! Refill time?”

I’m nowhere near done with mine, but I shrug and suck the entire thing down. Brain freeze commences, and I have to grit my teeth, squint my eyes, and breathe roughly out through my nose to fight
back the searing explosion in my head. Which Chase finds adorable enough to crack up.

“Gee, thanks. You’re really Mr. Sympathy over there. You seem to like me best when I’m in pain or under duress?”

“I can only hope you’ll end up in some sort of hostage situation before we say good night. Then I may just fall in love with you, Marty.”

Love, hmm? I’m letting that go. Finally, food comes, along with our second round. My God, I’ve never seen so much macaroni and cheese before—a mountain of it spilling over the trough-sized ceramic bowls plopped down in front of us. Chase digs in and I try to match his vigor.

“Let me say,” Chase starts through a cheesy mouthful, “I usually have a no-dating-actors rule.”

“You and everybody else in New York,” I sigh. “Actors included. We can’t STAND each other. Granted, that doesn’t stop us from hooking up on tour. I was with
Jersey Boys
as a swing last year. I swear, the Four Seasons was more like the Four-way Seasons.”

“What a lonely existence,” Chase laughs. “You won’t date each other, no one will date you. How do you deal?”

“We’re actors. We’re good at pretending we’re not bitter, jaded, and miserable. So are you anti–ALL theater? Or just the talented boys that bring it to you?”

“I have seen a few shows. Some Broadway. A bunch of my friends go to NYU, so I make a habit of seeing their showcases.”

“So do I make a worthy exception to your rule?”

“Hmm. You’re not NOT a worthy exception—yet,” Chase says, taking another sip. He’s drunk. So am I. Apparently, we’re both giddy drunks, which is yet another commonality I am enjoying immensely.

“Well, you should stop by a Musical Mondays sometime. It’ll help you get more accustomed to actors and theater queens,” I say.

“Musical Whatdays?”

“Mondays. It’s my favorite party! Every week at Splash. Cheap drinks. Free to get in. And there’s a live performance by a touring or Broadway actor at midnight.”

“That might be fun. Would you be interested in escorting a virgin?” He grabs my hand as he asks this question. My heart pukes happiness all over the place.

Here we go again. Gulliver? Gulliver who? Already, I’m strategizing about when to ask Chase for a second date, and a third, and a fourth. What to do on each one? I could strategically erase Gulliver by redoing everything he and I did together! I can see Chase fitting in to all those activities. And we’d look so cute together!

“I would love to be your guide,” I smile, before taking my hand back to jam more disgustingly amazing mac and cheese in my
mouth. “It’s actually the only party I really go to. ’Cause other than that, clubs aren’t really my thing, you know?”

“You don’t like to go out? What, do you hate fun or something?”

“Fun. Ugh. Kids’ stuff,” I say, doing my best gruff-old-man impression.

Chase smirks and rolls his eyes.

“No, I used to do the bar scene—Deko Fridays and Feathers in Jersey, then some parties here in the city. Especially when I was in college. I was a big party boy on the weekends. But I got over it. It’s just so...arbitrary. Everybody’s there to have sex with everybody else. ANYbody else. It’s like a cesspool! Do you know how many times I’ve had to pry a guy’s tongue out of my mouth, just to watch him stick it right back into the next-available throat? It’s disgusting!”

“Well, not ALL parties are that way. Some are just a good time.”

“You’re right, there’s Musical Mondays. Other than that, it’s pretty much the same thing everywhere you go. A bunch of people tossing crabs and herpes back and forth. I’ll take drinks at a straight bar any night over that sort of scene.”

“Right. Because straight people never make out or go home together.”

I shrug. “They do, I guess. Gay clubs are just so much more blatant about it. Playing porn and pictures of dicks all over the walls.
And the ones that don’t—well, take Splash, for example. Every night of the week they have go-go boys.”

“Uh-huh...And what, exactly, is wrong with go-go boys?”

“Um, that’s a good question! I’m guessing negligent parenting?” I giggle, a little too tipsy to realize that Chase is far from laughing with me. “They hang their asses out in front of hundreds of strangers, let gross old guys feel them up for less than it takes to buy a scone at Starbucks. For a few dollars more, they probably go home with them. It’s just sex in your face, no sense of shame or decency, appealing to the lowest common denominator. It’s tacky! And just because I happen to be gay doesn’t mean I want to be associated with those skanks when I want to go dancing with my friends and have a cocktail!”

All I can think of is Gulliver, going out every night of the week—every night he wasn’t with me, that is. My disapproval of the club scene might have been a problem had there been any possibility we could go out together in the first place. Hell, I might have enjoyed a night out with my boyfriend! But Gulliver was too skittish to take me anywhere there was even a remote possibility one of his friends might see him with me. Bat-shit Brayden, in particular. Instead, Gulliver snuck me around like an illegal immigrant in the back of a van, hiding me out of view just because his nightlife crew believed every word of the poisonous slander Brayden spewed against me. I never even had a chance to explain my side of the story before I was treated like a pariah. If I walked into a Hell’s Kitchen bar tonight and found them, I’d be sneered at from across the room until I was
driven to leave—if they didn’t actually have me thrown out on the street first.

I realize Chase has recoiled like I just slapped him in the face. And why wouldn’t he? He has no idea where my opinions are coming from. I’m coming off as a judgmental prick. “Look,” I tell him, “I just think gay men have so much more potential than going out, drinking themselves into stupors, waking up with a stranger, and spending the entire rest of the day gaining strength to do it all over again. We have the power to do so much, create so much. I could have spent my college years with my ass hanging out of my underwear for tips too! But instead, I worked that ass off acting and singing. And now it’s finally paying off. Sometimes I just feel sorry for the guys who are stuck in that scene, you know? Like slutty robots who don’t even realize they’re running on autopilot.”