Blackouts and Breakdowns (7 page)

“Mark, you can’t bring that guy home.
Our toilet is broken.
If he spends the night, he is going to have to go to the bathroom at some point and he most definitely cannot use our toilet.”

“Damn it!” I replied, “maybe I can go to his.”
Jason walked away and I gave him a
thanks-for-the-reminder
smack on the ass as he walked away.
I refocused my attention on Michael.

“So, do you want to get out of here?” I casually asked Michael.

“Yes!” he replied.

“Should we head out to yours?” I asked.

“No, we can’t, I live in a studio with another guy and we agreed not to bring people back to our place.”

“Oh.”

“Why can’t we just go back to your place?”

“Well…” I said. I couldn’t tell him that our toilet had been clogged for the past two months and that he would have to pee out of the window if he needed to go to the bathroom.

“Is that Jason kid your boyfriend?”

I laughed until I almost chocked and replied:
“Of course not. Jason is my best friend. We are just having some problems at our apartment.”

“I really want to hook up with you,”
Michael said. Damn it.
Why hadn’t we fixed the toilet weeks ago?
Why did we suck at life so much that now I was missing a night in bed with a total hottie?
I tried to think of an elaborate lie to tell him, but I was too drunk to lie, something that never happened.

“Well, you can come over if you want,” I said as Michael’s eyes lit up.
“But, if you have to go the bathroom you’ll have to pee out of the window; and if you need to take a shit, I am afraid that you will have to go in a plastic bag or run down to the Chinese restaurant downstairs.
Just tell Ming, that you are with Jason and I, she knows us.”

His face went from a smile to a face of utter disgust.

“Are you serious?” he said.

“Yes,” I replied.
“Our toilet is broken.”

“That is the most disgusting request anyone has ever asked of me.
You people should be ashamed of the way you live,” he said as he grabbed his coat and walked out the door.

The one time I don’t lie about my life I don’t get laid.
Typical.

HOW TO TURN A STRAIGHT MAN GAY IN TWENTY MINUTES OR LESS

Hobbies are fun.
For most people, hobbies are something that allow them to get away from everyday responsibilities and do something different.
Many people enjoy sports or the arts as a hobby.
In college, my hobby was forcing seemingly straight guys to come out of the closet.
For some reason every gay straight man who wants to come out of the closet comes to me for guidance.
I don’t know how I do it, but I have turned straight men gay faster than Bette Midler can sing “The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B.”
The following are some tips in helping that cute ‘maybe-gay-guy’ find his way out of the closet.

MISSION NUMBER ONE: ZACK

HOMOSEXUAL TENDENCIES: Yoga, General love of theatre and Britney Spears.

Junior year of college, I moved into a hotel.
It was the most wonderful option for student housing anyone had ever thought of.
It was perfect for me because the usual annoyances of student housing were not present.
Gone were the student aides and non-smoking rooms.
Living in the hotel allowed me to do pretty much whatever I wanted and the shenanigans ensued.
Shortly after moving into the hotel, I met a really cute guy named Zack.
He lived on my floor, but went to a different school and the two of us became fast friends.
I was always telling him that he needed to come out with me because all of my straight girlfriends from school were really cute and after a few drinks, pretty easy.

That Valentine’s Day, my friend Candace, whom I had told Zack about, and I had gone out and gotten completely wasted.
So wasted that the two of us were vomiting out of the cab on our way home.
Candace was too sick to make it back to her apartment all the way in Brooklyn so she decided to stay with me.
I put her drunken ass in bed and was beginning to get ready for bed myself when I heard a knock on the door. I opened it and was surprised to see Zack.

“Hey Zack, what’s up?” I asked.

“Nothing, man.
Just went out for Valentine’s drinks with some friends from school and got pretty wasted,” he said.

“Fun,” I said.
Zack peered in and saw that Candace was passed out on my bed, possibly in a coma.

“Is that your friend you wanted me to meet?” he asked.

“Yea.
We had a bit too much to drink. I think she is out for the night,” I said.

“Oh well.
Why don’t you come hang out in the lobby with me before you go to bed?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said.
Zack left and I finished brushing my teeth and went to the lobby to meet him.
He was sitting in a chair smoking a cigarette.

“Hey, man,” he said, “I fucking hate Valentine’s Day”

“Yea.
Me too.
Candace and I always end up spending it together and always end up getting blackout drunk.
It’s a shame you couldn’t meet her, she really is a nice girl.”

“Oh, well maybe next time,” Zack said as he got out of the chair he was sitting in and moved to the floor.
Once on the floor, he began doing yoga positions that were a bit provocative.
I watched this cute boy maneuver around the lobby floor, and since I had so much to drink and my bullshit filter was completely gone I blurted out:

“If you keep moving around like that I am going to have to have sex with you.”

Zack stopped and looked at me. “Ok,” he said.

“Wait…what? I thought you were straight.”

“Not really.
I mean, I have never hooked up with a guy before, but I have always wanted to.
We’re friends, so we might as well just do it.”

This was amazing.
Nothing is better than Valentine’s Day booty, especially from a straight guy.
I told him that we obviously could not do it in my room because Candace was asleep in my bed.
Although she probably was so drunk that she would not have even noticed that two guys were having homosexual sex next to her, I didn’t want to risk it.
He told me that his roommate was home and we could not go to his room.
He then told me that there was a room on the top floor of the hotel that was filled with old mattresses that no one knew about that we could hook up in.
I told him that we needed to get up there immediately.
I was getting excited and we needed to move this along.

We went up to the room that was filled with mattresses on the forty-fifth floor of the hotel.
It had an amazing view of Central Park and had I been with anyone else, it may have almost been romantic, but Zack and I were both very drunk and I am not sure that Zack really knew what he was getting himself into.
We sat down on the pile of mattresses and began making out.
After a few seconds, Zack began crying.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I can’t do this!” he said.

“Can’t do what? Make out with me? It was your idea.”

“I know,” he said sobbing, “but my grandmother is very religious and if she finds out about this, she is going to flip out.”

“What?” I said as I looked around, “do you see her here?”

“No.”

“Then what the hell are you crying about?
No one is going to find out, just relax.”

We continued making out until Zack began crying again.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Do you think they bury gay guys in Catholic cemeteries?”

“What?”

“Do you think they bury gay guys in Catholic cemeteries?”

“I don’t fucking know, I’m Jewish!”
I said.
Now I was getting pissed off.
All I wanted to do was make out, possibly get a handy j and go to bed and this guy was having a moral dilemma at four in the morning in a room full of mattresses.

“Because if they don’t, my parents will find out that I am gay when the Catholic Church refuses to bury me in a Catholic cemetery.”

“What?” I was so confused, “are we
really
having this conversation right now?”

“I just don’t want to disappoint my family.”

“Who is going to fucking find out?
We are in a room filled with mattresses that no one knows about but us.
Aren’t your parents in Arizona?
Are you afraid they are going to randomly come in right now?”

“No, but what if you tell someone and it gets back to my parents?” he asked.

“I highly doubt that will happen,” I said.
I really didn’t care that much to be honest. I was horny and drunk and saw an opportunity that I really wanted to jump on, literally.

“I can’t do this,” he said as he got up.

“Fine,” I said.

Zack got up and walked out of the room.
I sat on the mattresses and looked out the window to see the amazing view of Central Park after dark.
I sat there and thought about the first time I had hooked up with a guy and how awkward it was for me.
Perhaps I should have been a bit more understanding with Zack.
Perhaps, I should not have downed a pitcher of margaritas earlier, but what was done was done, and I went back to my room and passed out next to Candace, who thankfully was still breathing.

A few months later, I saw Zack in tight jeans and an even tighter shirt en route to the Britney Spears concert at Madison Square Garden.
I guess he figured out that gays can be buried in Catholic cemeteries and just went with it.

MISSION NUMBER TWO: DAVID

HOMOSEXUAL TENDENCIES: Likes dick.

A big group of us had met at my friend Stephanie’s apartment for a Cinco de Mayo party or Saint Patrick’s Day party or something.
I don’t remember why we were all there, but it was one of those holidays that involved a lot of excessive drinking.
Maybe it was Bastille Day, I honestly don’t remember, but Stephanie had all of us over including one of her co-worker’s high school friends David. David was really cute.
He was short and Jewish, just the way I like them.
I began chatting with David and ended up flat out asking him if he was a homo.
He was well dressed and cute and in New York – all signs pointed gay.

“Of course not,” he said as if I was offending him.

“Oh, I just thought…”

“It’s OK.
A lot of people ask me if I am gay.
My parents asked me last weekend,” he said with a laugh.

Maybe because you are a big fucking homo,
I thought.

We continued chatting and my friend Chad, who was visiting from Atlanta, met up with us.
The second Chad walked into the room, David’s eye lit up.
Now, if David was as straight as he claimed to be, his eyes would have lit up if Halle Berry had walked into the room.
But, it wasn’t Halle Berry who had walked into the room; it was Chad so my suspicions grew deeper.

ÒHey Chad,” I said as I waved for him to come over to David and I.

“Hey guys,” Chad said.

“Chad, this is my new friend David.
David this is Chad.”
The two shook hands and I could see that David’s mouth was almost watering.
I smiled knowing tonight was going to be the night that David was coming out of the closet.
One of the greatest parts about meeting a stranger and having him come out of the closet right before your very eyes is that you never know when it is going to happen.
It’s part of the thrill for me.
I watched this all go down right in front of me, when I assumed it was going to be a low-key night with the girls.
And here we were.

David and Chad chatted for what felt like hours.
I stood there and mediated. Meaning, no one was talking to me so I stood there and eavesdropped on their conversation. When David went to refresh his drink, Chad pulled me aside.

“I am going to fuck that little Jewish kid tonight,” Chad said, “he is fucking hot!”

“He’s straight,” I said with air quotes.

“No!” Chad said, “no he isn’t.
We were just talking about Madonna’s last tour. There is no way that kid is straight.”

“I am sure he isn’t, but he is claiming to be a hetero,” I said.
All of the sudden, I had a thought and smiled, “Chad, let’s get him really drunk and see if he will hook up with you.”

I decided I was going to let Chad have this one, but I wanted to be there for the big reveal.
We continued drinking the whole night long.
When everyone was drunk, Chad suggested that David and I come back to his hotel room with him for a little after party.
I knew this was going to be David’s coming out party because he was so eager to join us at Chad’s.

We all got back to Chad’s hotel room, cracked open a bottle of vodka and mixed it with anything we could find.
I think it may have been Diet Coke.
We sat around and chatted for a while until I passed out on the bed.
A few hours later, I woke up to find Chad and David making out in the bed next to me.
Straight my ass.

David and Chad hung out a lot while Chad was in town and after he left, David latched on to me.
I questioned David on whether or not he was gay and his response was simple, but greedy:

“I am bisexual,” David said.

“Bisexual?” I asked. “Yea, I was bisexual for like a week before I just admitted I was a homo.”

“No, I really like girls
and
guys,” David said.

“Ok, whatever.
Let me know how that works out for you.
I don’t think a lot of girls find it sexy to find out that the last person you dated may have been named Steve.”

David and I continued hanging out and after a couple weeks, David had officially hooked up with all of my gay single friends.
Every time I introduced David to a new friend of mine, he would end up hooking up with them.
It did not take me too long to realize David was not to be trusted around any of my friends and that my cute little straight boy had turned into an ugly gay monster.

MISSION NUMBER THREE: MICHAEL

HOMOSEXUAL TENDENCIES: Avid love of theatre, distaste of sporting events, took better care of his hair than most girls I know.

Every homo loves gay pride in New York.
It’s like where homosexuality was born and the events that lead up to pride in New York are like nothing else in the country.
For me, it meant a weekend of blackout drinking and hopefully a hook up or two.
It’s a weekend filled with parties and excess and Pride 2006 was no exception.
My friend Roger, who worked at a theatre in Times Square, was hosting a huge party on the theatre’s roof and it was to be the party of the year.

I arrived at the party, alone, hoping to find someone to leave with.
However, the pickings were very slim.
It seemed as though there were mostly lesbians in attendance.
I tried to find Roger and ask him what the hell all of these lesbians were doing at his party when someone filled me in that Gay Pride encompassed lesbians as well as gay men.
What a disappointment.
It didn’t matter because shortly after this revelation, I met a little lesbian girl who worked on
Guiding Light
so I started talking to her.