Gulliver Takes Five (31 page)

On my way to the kitchen, I stop and look into the empty second bedroom across from mine. Like maybe it was magically reoccupied in the middle of the night.

No such luck. Inside is a bare mattress, an empty desk, two framed photos: one of me and my best buddy Gulliver on the day of my graduation from UCLA, the other depicting the two of us one year later, the day of his. No Gulliver, though.

I still get a killer pain in my gut when I see this room and think of what’s missing. Yet I can’t bring myself to just shut the door.

Where did you go, Gullzo? In gay New York, it is impossible to disappear. The seediest dive bar, the smallest off-Broadway theater. Doesn’t fucking matter. The second you do something embarrassing, you can be sure ten people will be calling and texting their friends to update them on your latest social snafu. Yet Gullzo is inexplicably gonezo. And I’m pretty sure it’s my fault. That’s why I haven’t called his parents.

Three days after his disappearance, I got a vague postcard in my stack of magazines and bills. Not very informative, other than serving as proof that he’s somewhere, and alive. Wherever that is, he doesn’t want me there. He doesn’t want me to know. Nor does he want his parents to know. Gulliver is going it alone.

I’ve thought of turning his room into an office, but it feels wrong. Like I’m giving up on him. The truth is, I’d do anything to have him back—best friends separated by just one thin wall.

Instead, we’re separated by—Jesus. So much. Where to start?

A lot of bad shit has gone down in the past few months. Gully going missing, my day job getting shittier and shittier, and...more. A lot more. But I don’t have time to throw myself a pity party. Not when there are actual moneymaking parties demanding my time and attention.

I sigh at the empty air and close Gully’s door.

“The fucking asshole!” I scream, slamming back into the room to find Gulliver right where I left him. “Fuck him!”

Gulliver looks up at me, eyes wide with shock. He’s right to be surprised; I’m not supposed to be here. I just left our room, headed to my boyfriend Josh’s place, thirty minutes ago. Presents and champagne in hand, my plan was to celebrate our ten-month anniversary
.

That, of course, is now all shot to shit and back
.

Gulliver is sitting Indian style on his bed in a pair of bright-orange underwear and a sleeveless Abercrombie T, under a pennant of our house’s Greek letters, his notebooks spread out in front of him
.

“What happened?” he asks, climbing off the bed and walking across the room slowly, carefully, like I might lash out and deck him in the face
.

I cry. I never cry. But here I am, letting it out like some sort of pussy
.

Gulliver gets closer to me, wraps his arms around me as best he can. Now I’m heaving and sobbing
. FUCK, Todd! Get your shit together!
Gulliver holds me, says nothing. Squeezing me and patting my back
.

“I walked in on him and his fucking roommate,” I choke out. “Fucking each other.”

“Oh my God,” Gulliver whispers
.

What else could he say? What else do I want to hear? I caught my boyfriend in the act—with his roommate! I DID deck him in the face. Threw his roommate out of the bed and kicked him in the stomach too. And then I left. Because if I hadn’t, I’d probably have beaten the living shit out of both of them, and then Gulliver and I would be having this conversation separated by a glass partition in a prison somewhere
.

“FUCK him!” The bottom is falling out from beneath me and Gulliver is trying to catch the dropping pieces. He continues holding on to me. He’s so much smaller than me that he actually has to stand on his toes to keep his arms around my neck
.

Five minutes later, I’m done crying. For now, at least
.

“Well. I think this calls for a celebration,” Gulliver says, letting me go and dropping to his knees, crawling under his bed
.

I look down at his bubble butt, blinking and confused. “What, bro? Check your ears. Maybe you didn’t fucking hear me right.”

“Did YOU hear ME? A celebration!” he shouts from under the bed. “Aha! Here we go.” He pokes his head back out with a bottle of Patrón and a bottle of Cuervo in hand. “I knew I still had these.”

Gully takes the bottles to his college-issue desk, pulls two plastic cups out of a sleeve of fifty, and pours us both the equivalent of three shots. “We still have some salt packets from the dining hall?”

“Somewhere,” I say, going to my desk to find them. “But you’ve got a final tomorrow. I’ve got a final tomorrow.”

“So we’ll only get slightly shit-faced.” He smiles, shoving the cup into my hands when I get back to him with the salt packets. “Here’s to freedom, Todd. You’re graduating. You’re moving to New York City. And I didn’t want to say anything, but Josh always looked like an exhibit from Ripley’s Believe It or Not, anyway. Have you looked in the mirror lately? You can do WAY better. So, by my count, that’s a triple score for you! Hence, congratulations.” He raises his cup
.

“You said Josh was super hot!” I laugh
.

“Yeah, white lie. Whoops! The truth shall SET YOU FREE!”

“You’re a bitch,” I say, wiping my eyes. Ten months down the shitter and I’m grinning from ear to ear. “Hey, isn’t Graham coming over?”

I ask, sniffing the cup and flinching. “You being drunk ain’t gonna help him in any way.”

“I’ll tell him to take the night off,” Gully says, grabbing his cell. “There. Done. He’s hanging out with Kevin, anyway
.”

“Bro, you don’t have to do that.”

“Shut up. We’ve got a double date with Patrón and Cuervo. Ai, ai!”

“Dude, you’re ridiculous,” I say, swirling the tequila in the cup
.

“Yup. Down the hatch!”

The magic words. “Down the hatch.” I can’t remember who started using the chant first, Gully or me, but the rest of the frat picked it up, and now it’s set in stone. Now that Gulliver has invoked it, I have no choice but to comply. That’s just the way it works
.

“NATCH!” I shout back
.

Up with the cups, down with the tequila. We suck in and our eyes tear up. We Hoover up the salt
.

“Why can’t I get my own fucking Graham?” I grumble
.

“You will,” he says, ripping open a second salt packet and dusting it on our closed fists. “In New York. Right now you need to get a fucking buzz.”

“How do you know I’ll find someone?”

“Oh, puh-lease,” he says. “Name a guy who DOESN’T want to be with you.”

“Josh’s roommate”—I shrug—“after I kicked him in the stomach, at least.”

“Atta boy,” Gulliver says, smiling as he refills our cups again with a second toxic load of Cuervo. “It’s like I always say. A little violence never hurt anyone.”

“Bro, that makes no fucking sense—”

“Down the hatch!” he interrupts
.

“NATCH!”

Up with the cups. Down with the tequila. Like I said—no choice. That’s just how it works
.

In the kitchen, I turn on the coffee brewer and try to enjoy the smell of whatever flavor I threw in the basket last night. Hazelnut? Hazelnut mint? It’s from a Christmas gift basket my parents sent last year. Eight months later, I still haven’t emptied it. The little sausages packed into the giant wicker basket would have gone rotten and drawn flies by now if not for the fact that they don’t expire, which is hella disturbing. What the fuck kind of animal are you grinding up? A unicorn? What freaky fucking chemicals are food scientists shooting into this mystery beast if it has no spoil date? I should throw this shit out.

But not now. I’m on the phone with Irwin from The Day Job. My first call, since that’s today’s (and every day’s) highest priority. If I ever lost this job, I’d be fucked harder than the muscle bottom in a prison gangbang porno. It pays the bills, it fills my savings, it helps me live. Ironically, it’s also the most life-draining, fuck-boring part of my existence, forcing me to get up at 8 every morning (or sometimes 7 or 6—let’s not talk about it). I work for an endangered species—a hedge fund, which these days is like saying you’re a lion tamer. Every day, more of my coworkers go missing, back home to their families with pitiful severances and an insincere apology from the managers, who are too busy dreading the fate of their own paychecks to truly offer any consolation.

I run through my numbers with Irwin. Fuck, it
was
my fault.

I rarely slip up when it comes to The Day Job. Can’t afford to. One wrong decimal, one incorrectly placed comma, one faulty percentage, and I could send hundreds of investors to the shit house.

That’s exactly what I almost did here. Goddammit! That isn’t like me. Then again, I’ve been pretty fucking distracted over the past few weeks—but that’s a whole other hole I’m not ready to dive into.

By the time the coffee is finished brewing (turns out it’s Christmas Spice, which has me excited as hell, since it’s August and all), Irwin has the updated numbers and he can go back to Bastard Bill and calm him the fuck down. Another money meltdown avoided. The end of the fiscal world as we know it pushed farther back in time. I’m sure I’ll hear all about my fuckup in a day and a half when I get into the office.

Unless Bill fires me. Which, as always, is entirely possible. Fuck, that’s a scary thought. Big savings or not, I’d be in a hell of a lot of trouble.

I mentally tick through my savings, my 401(k), my investments. There’s money there, but how much? How long could I survive in New York without The Day Job paycheck? Scary shit, man. And that’s what really sucks. I complain about work, and yet, without it, I couldn’t afford even half of this life. I’m like a battered spouse, wincing through the bruises of boredom, stress, and constant work just because it takes care of me at the same time.

In another city, the money I make from my parties might have a chance in hell of supporting me. Here? Fat fucking chance.

When I got into nightlife two years ago, I had dreams that by now The Day Job would be long gone. A distant, hazy, only vaguely painful memory, like breaking my wrist in second grade. I’d wake up at 10:30 every morning, go to the gym, grab a bite at that place that sells grilled healthy crap down the block, then work on the parties. I’d figure out the themes, scout for talent, turn down hosting offers that weren’t lucrative enough, work with flyer designers and DJs and subpromoters...

Okay, so yes. I’m doing all that now anyway. But the money I make isn’t nearly enough to justify liberating myself from the hedge. If I lost my job, I’d be back on that Long Island Rail Road, headed for my parents’ place in Huntington by next summer. There are NO other financial jobs to be had. I should know, since all my former colleagues are still trying to feed their families and pay the bills on four hundred dollars a week from the government.

My cell rings. It’s Mikey Drama.

“You’re up early,” I say, pouring coffee and trying to sip it black. Christmas flavored, my ass! Unless it’s so named because it tastes like a fucking mugful of ground coal and reindeer deuce.

“DiTempto!” Michael screams. “I haven’t been asleep yet! Not in fucking days! This shit is falling apart!”

“Nice day, isn’t it?” I ask, emptying the coffeemaker’s basket out. “Weather should be perfect for tonight.”

“DiTempto! Are you listening to me?”

I have to laugh. “Yeah, bro. I hear you. Thanks for respecting my fucking hangover. You do realize that you are not currently shouting over a booming bassline at a club, right?”

I drop another filter into the brewer, add a few scoops of eggnog-flavored coffee, wish for the best, and set it to brew.

“Shit. Sorry. You do okay at FreakOut Fridays?”

“Amazing, actually. Didn’t get to bed ’til four hours ago. So thanks for the wake-up call.”

“You want to sleep through the fucking apocalypse, DiTempto, you go right ahead. They’re trying to RUIN ME!”

This is how Michael always is: LOUD. Whether he’s bellowing from joy, horror, stress, fury, sadness, or boredom, he never
spares the exclamation points. If he wrote a book, it’d be entirely in boldface and capital letters.