Gulliver Takes Five (36 page)

“DiTempto, come on, man! What the fuck is going on with you? Since when are you one of those bullshit promoters who don’t go to their own events? Forget the fact that I need you there. It’s going to be the fucking party of the century! Where are you going? What’s better than this? Did Lady Gaga personally invite you to her VIP party on the moon?”

“Actually, I was thinking I would just stay in,” I say, looking out the window. It’s 6 and the sky is way too dark. It’s going to rain. The Weather Channel says it’s going to be a fucking storm and a half too. “The weather is turning to shit. Plus, I’m exhausted.”

“Todd, don’t pull this shit with me.” Michael’s voice has changed from a scream to a whisper. It’s much scarier. I’m half expecting him to jump out of a closet brandishing a knife. “You WILL come to the party tonight. And you WILL be there by nine.”

“Michael, please?” I beg, at my wit’s end. “I really can’t be there, okay?”

Michael says nothing. I can hear him breathing on the other end of the line. Thinking? Maybe he’s getting it. I’ve never pulled anything like this, never had a reason to. But if I see Gully in that sex show, I’ll never be able to look him in his fucking pierced face ever again.

Please, Drama. Please understand.

“Okay. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to make yourself a cocktail, right fucking now. You’re going to drink it. And then get showered, get dressed. And all the while, I want you to
think about whether or not you REALLY want tonight to be the last party you throw in this city. EVER again.”

Oh, God, here it comes.

“Because if you aren’t at eWrecksion tonight, gorgeous and sociable and all the other fucking words we use to describe Todd fucking DiTempto, I will call Xavier and tell him that we’re done. And I’m pretty sure you and he will be done too if I have to make that fucking call. You’ll never work in this town again.”

Ah, there it is.

“What the fuck, Michael? Can you not see I have a good fucking reason not to be there tonight?”

“You said tired. You said weather. Those are NOT good fucking reasons. Those are lame-ass, shitty reasons! If you have a good fucking reason for committing to throw the party of the century and then backing out at the last minute, you can tell me. Come on, spit it out, I’m sure it’s quite a fucking story.”

Outside, people are running for cover. The sky has opened up like God just spilled the universe’s largest bottle of Dasani. From nothing to pouring in half a second. Umbrellas are out. Others are scrambling to duck under awnings and apartment entryways. Cabs fill and speed away as people dive in to avoid the soaking assault.

“Well?” Michael asks.

“I’ll see you at nine,” I say, then hang up. “Asshole.”

I sit in the living room in silence, hearing myself blink. I have to get outside before I start screaming at the walls. I stick a leash on Señor and take him down in the elevator. Outside. Señor stops every few feet to shake himself out before skipping ahead and pulling me along with the leash. I’m wet and don’t care.

My phone is beeping, pinging, chiming. Exploding. I pull it out and watch the notifications fly in: new Grindr chats, new Facebook invites, new text messages, e-mails from both day job, night job, and personal life. Foursquare updates. LinkedIn e-mails. I want to fling the phone into the street and buy a drink for the first cab driver who will agree to drive over it. Shut up, just SHUT UP. Give me five fucking seconds by myself.

Instead, the phone rings. And it’s the last number I want to see at this moment.

Incoming call: Mama Leverenz
.

I can’t not answer. Never once have I pushed Ignore on my surrogate mama. I just can’t.

“Mama Leverenz!” I say, sucking it up and trying my best to sound as chipper as I usually do when I talk to Gully’s mom.

“Todd, are you okay?”

Fuck me.

“Yeah! I’m fine! Just walking Señor. What’s going on? Everything okay out west?”

“I just wanted to check in on my boys and see how your weekend upstate is going. Gully hasn’t picked up his phone all day, and I was worried sick about him.”

Oh yeah. That. I covered for Gully as recently as a day ago, spun some fairytale about us tripping upstate. Where’d I pull that from? My ass, of course. “Oh, he’s pretty busy, Mrs. Leverenz. We’ve been getting a little crazy up here, you know.”

“And you brought Señor with you all the way upstate?”

“Um, yeah! Figured he’d enjoy getting out of the noisy city,” I say as an ambulance speeds by, its sirens blaring.

“It sounds pretty loud out there.”

My mouth is moving, but there’s no sound coming out. Is she on to me? I should be so much better at this. I’m just so fucking shaken that I’m off my game. Dammit. And I’m not a liar. Never was, until Gulliver went away. One last favor he required without even having the fucking courtesy to ASK.
Hey, Todd? Do me a fave? Can you spend the next few months bullshitting my mom about where I am and what we’re doing in case she ever asks? I’m gonna go be a gay porn star. Peace out!

“Todd, you wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

I’m so close to telling her. Because I have to tell SOMEBODY, and that somebody can’t be anyone in New York. Brayden and the gang might use the information to get back at Gulliver for lying to us. They’d smear his name so fast that, by the end of tomorrow, every
busboy and cab driver and street meat vendor in the city would know Gulliver Leverenz was now taking it up the ass on camera.

But, in the meantime, the secret is burning on the inside like a bad shot of Jäger. Like heartburn and food poisoning. I need to get off the phone before I blow it and cause even more damage.

Too much silence. I finally speak up: “No, of course not, Mama Leverenz. I’ll be sure to tell Gullzo to give you a ring soon, okay? He’s in the shower, I think.”

“You’re not being a bad influence on him, are you? With those parties you throw, I bet you both drink like fish!”

Phew. “Only a little bit, Mrs. L. Kid’s gotta unwind somehow, right?”

“I suppose. Just watch out for my baby, okay? You’re my eyes and ears out there!”

“Of course. You know I’ve got your back.”

This lie hurts more than all the others. This shit IS my fault. It has to be. The thought of the Gulliver I knew in California changing his name and appearance to do porn would have been laughable. And after just a few short months in the city I convinced him to move to, he’s undergone an Extreme Makeover: Slut Edition. I suck. As a human being. As a watchdog. As a best friend. Fuck me.

Now what can I do? How can I help?

If Gulliver’s going to live this life, I’m not sure friendship’s in the cards anymore. I can’t sit back and watch him destroy himself, can’t wait around for the news that he’s now a meth addict, now an escort, now contracted a life-altering STD. No.

But I can at least try to clean up the mess I made of him. Gully would be devastated if his family found out he was working for the Screwniversity. Devastated enough to quit? Probably. I could tell her and nip this in the bud, right here and now. Stop Gulliver from doing any more harm to himself. Hell, probably stop him from even going to eWrecksion tonight. He’d go cold turkey in a heartbeat with one horrendously awkward and painful phone call from his mother.

But in the process, I’d break Sharon’s heart. And his dad’s. And his brother’s. They’d look at Gulliver in a completely new light. They’d still love him, but they’d never forgive him after learning that the Gulliver they thought they knew is hiding a host of unsavory things from them. And that sucks. It’s probably even worse when the kid is your own flesh and blood.

So even if maybe, in the long run, telling Sharon the truth might do Gully good, it’s not something I can do. It’s not my place. This is one responsibility I refuse to take.

“You’re sure, Todd? You sound strange today. The last few times I’ve called, actually.”

I take a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m fine. I promise. I’m just tired and hungover.”

A brief silence on the other end of the line. I can imagine Sharon pursing her lips, carefully choosing her next words, as I’ve seen her do anytime she suspects something is up and is trying to draw it out of someone. “You know, Todd. You’ve mentioned you don’t talk to your own parents as often as Gully talks to us. We’re lucky to have such a close relationship. But you can always talk to me too.”

“I
am
talking to you, Mrs. L.”

“You know what I mean. Life’s tough out there, I can only imagine. I may be a little old lady from California, but I’m always here and there’s nothing you can’t open up to me about. Nothing. Should the mood ever strike.”

I wince a smile and wonder,
When was the last time anybody saw past my can-do exterior?
I say, “Okay. I promise. One of these days, I’ll ring you up and talk your freakin’ ear off. And then you’ll be sorry.”

She giggles. “That’s what I like to hear! Thanks, Todd. I love you. Now, you take care of yourself. BEFORE you take care of everybody else, you hear?”

“You got it. I’ll tell Gulliver to call you.”

That Sharon Leverenz is a smart lady. And she’s right: One of these days, I am going to have to talk to someone. Tell someone. Make it real.

Just not tonight. Tonight, it’s got to be the last thing on my mind.

We hang up and I drag Señor back to the apartment, unleashing him and letting him return to his doggy bed for yet another nap. I can only hope Gully calls his mom tonight or tomorrow. I can’t keep making up his life for him. It’s fucking exhausting and depressing as hell, because every lie I tell is conjured up out of some alternate reality where Gulliver and Todd are still best friends and having the time of their lives. It’s the life we SHOULD be living. The life we WERE living, not so long ago. How did things go to hell so rapidly? Is there any chance of getting it back?

People say I’m lucky. I stumbled into nightlife, grabbed it like a bucking bronco, and rode it to first prize. I somehow found a job in finance and have (to date) held on to it against all economic odds. I’m attractive and financially secure and popular and successful in all things. That’s what they tell me, anyway. What these fuckers don’t get is that this has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with hard work. I studied my ass off in college, work my ass off at the hedge, walk my ass off at the clubs and bars to get my name into the universal New York gay vernacular. It may just be the busiest ass in the city—besides Gulliver’s, lately.

And okay, some people work themselves to the bone and never get as far as I do. Some might see that as good fortune. But when it comes to actual luck, I don’t have a fucking drop of it. And I’m worried about how much luck Gulliver still has to spare.

All it takes is one person. One guy who recognizes his smile or laugh like I did. What happens when he leaves the Screwniversity and future potential bosses find his videos? What happens when
an old friend in LA realizes whose photos he’s jerking off to and sends the link to everyone Gully ever met there? His whole fucking world will come down. What then, Gully? Who will you turn to then, if not me?

And when people realize I knew and didn’t say anything, I’ll look like a giant tool. Because of Gulliver. AGAIN. What would Sharon say if she found out I knew Gully was doing porn and didn’t stop him?

She’d hate me. The only reason she can sleep at night with Gulliver in this city is because she thinks I’m taking care of him. That I would never let anything bad happen. Like I’m some kind of superhero who has the power to save people from themselves. Instead, I pulled Gully around with me through the VIP nightlife scene, introduced him around, got him plastered. Then when he got in over his head, I sent him packing. Instead of pulling him out of the hole he dug himself into, I left him there. What did I expect to happen? It’s like I gave him the knife to stab himself with! Now I’m going to have to look at that face tonight, since Michael will surely find a way to introduce me to the evening’s entertainment.

And then what happens? Do I let him know that I can see through the blue? Do I pretend he’s just some fucking porn boy I don’t really give a shit about?

I have no idea.

I arrive, early, at 8, determined to get lost in the busywork of the event’s finishing touches. When I am interviewed by gay magazines and websites, they usually ask how I was able to rise to the top so quickly. After (honestly) telling them I’m nowhere near the top, I openly let them in on my secret: this is a business as much as anything else is. Whether you’re running a restaurant or a hair salon or a plumbing company or a gay party, it’s business. This one may be a lot of fun, as far as businesses are concerned, but still. With that mentality, I’ve been able to keep my head in the game and my emotions out of it, which has kept the drama at bay. Until now.

Tonight marks the first night I’m having a hard time making that split.
This is business
, I tell myself as I walk down the corridor past men running around with cardboard boxes full of decorations. This is business, which makes Gulliver a performer, which makes us colleagues for the night.

But fuck, that isn’t working. My fucking best friend is gearing up to spread his legs and get fucked in front of at least six thousand guys. For a second, I consider telling Michael to cancel the Screwniversity performance, but I’m not that stupid. The money has been paid (I should know, I have the copy of the check in my e-mail), and my reasoning is of no consequence to my partner. And if I did somehow convince Michael? So what? Gulliver’s been doing this shit for a while already. The damage is done.