Chapter 32 The Gay Team
Matt was twisted in knots about this first date with Adam. If you could name an emotion, he was feeling it: anxious, cocky, scared, excited. Everything all at once. Feelings colliding like dice in a Yahtzee cup.
He arrived early at the Habana Inn. Checked in at the front desk. Felt such pride telling the clerk that he had a reservation—as if this were the Ritz Carlton.
It was perfect.
He laid Adam’s Christmas present on the bed, the present he had intended to mail, but which had been forgotten in the wake of Debbie’s termination.
It had been eighteen days since he’d sat in Debbie’s living room and tried to console her. Eighteen days during which his thoughts had been 99% consumed by how to squash the cockroach that was Colton Langley, 1% on this date.
Those numbers were about to shift.
He hung a change of clothes in the tiny closet, stored his bag of toiletries, and headed out.
It was 6:30 p.m. Adam would arrive at 8:00.
Matt needed to attend to the cockroach-squashing part of the evening, then return to the room, shower, and change clothes.
After that, his attention would be 100% on Adam.
The dressing room was not as glamorous as the name might imply.
Tucked in the dark bowels of the Copa, it was a tiny broom closet framed by 2 X 4’s and shingled with leftover sheetrock.
It was an after-thought, a lean-to of a room where that night’s “star” could shimmy into her costume and apply her makeup.
It was 3 walls and a flimsy door. No ceiling.
Little more than a fitting room at Old Navy.
“Bella Bottoms” was printed on a sheet of copy paper tacked to the door.
“Hey handsome!” Vince said as Matt entered. Vince sat facing a lighted vanity mirror. Makeup, brushes, and tweezers littered the small countertop. His vodka bottle and Solo cup props stood sentry.
Vince’s voice conveyed warmth and affection. His face—halfway through its transformation into Bella, was frozen. His eyebrows were glued flat, covered by tape. A wig cap tugged his skin taut. Several layers of makeup smoothed the transitions.
“Still wearing Tucks pads from the bonings I gave you?” Vince asked, which was comical considering that the wig cap made him look like Dan Akroyd’s “Conehead” from the 1993 movie of the same name. It was hard to take anything a Conehead said seriously.
Matt shrugged as if he could barely remember the bonings, as if they were a mere blip on a crowded graph of his couplings. The truth was that Vince’s donkey cock had stretched him so much he’d worried whether he would need adult diapers.
“Does your clit miss me?” Matt asked in return. He could play this game, had heard variations of it ad nauseum in countless locker rooms over the years.
Matt understood (did not like—but understood) that since he and Vince were both Alpha males, man code dicktated that they pantomime their way through this dominance dance, ultimately bestowing Alpha-Alpha status on one of them, Alpha-Beta on the other.
Never mind that they had flip-fucked their way through a long, sweaty, and drunken night.
Only one of them got to be the Silverback who thumped his chest.
And, while Matt might have scored points for originality and delivery, while his cock might win Best in Breed here and there, Vince’s donkey cock won Best in Show, making him Alpha-Alpha.
Vince chuckled. “I thought of you the other day. I was watching TV and then, ‘Holy Moly Batman,’ your pissant college made national news!”
Matt couldn’t contain himself. His face sprouted a shit-eating grin. He had hoped that Vince had seen the news coverage. It would make it easier to sell him on the cockroach squashing plan.
Vince set down his makeup brush, eyed Matt discerningly. “That was your doing? Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric dissing on Midwest Christian Fuck-You-Niversity?”
Matt nodded. Who was the Alpha-Alpha now?
He remembered the moment, sitting on Debbie’s couch, when he’d realized that Nicholas Covington, one-half of the Nicholas-Bradley duo, was the gay man who had married and divorced Debbie. Nicholas was the reason, thirteen years after the fact, for Debbie’s getting sacked.
Matt hadn’t known Nicholas that well, but thought he seemed like the sort of decent person who would want to come to his ex-wife’s aid.
And then Matt had remembered the plaques lining the stairwell at Nicholas’s house, all the awards and honors Nicholas had earned in his career assistant producing the local television news…
And Garland Stone-Dancer, esquire: part-time face fucker, full-time attorney at law who, Matt knew from experience, was the kind of guy who could take charge of a situation, who was good at persuading people to do his bidding.
An idea had sprouted in Matt’s mind. He excused himself, left Debbie in the company of her cats.
Bradley had answered the door and invited Matt inside. They sat in the formal parlor with its grandfather clock.
After hearing the news about Debbie, Bradley had called Nicholas at work and suggested—emphatically—that he needed to come home: Pronto, Stat, NOW!
“Did I ever tell you what I majored in at MCU?” Bradley had asked Matt while they were waiting for Nicholas to join them.
“No?”
Bradley had chuckled. “Psychology. I wanted to be a therapist, believe it or not. I even started in a Master’s program at OU.”
“That’s interesting,” Matt had said neutrally. He didn’t see how this had anything to do with Debbie. And he wasn’t in a chatty mood.
“When I saw you at the door,” Bradley had said, “I hoped you were taking me up on my offer to be a good listener.”
Matt had felt suddenly claustrophobic in that small parlor. Same parlor where Garland had propositioned him for a face fuck.
Bradley had smiled disarmingly. “I’m not a counselor, and I don’t even play one on TV, so what I’m about to say is just a hunch. You don’t have to respond at all. Okay?”
Matt had nodded. Eyed the clock, willing it to tick faster.
“You’re an amazing person,” Bradley had said. “People talk, so I know how you stood up for Paul. How you stood up for that boy who attempted suicide…”
“Adam. His name’s Adam,” Matt had said.
“And now you’re planning to stand up for Debbie.
It’s an admirable quality. Sometimes, though, when people feel the need to rescue others, it’s because no one rescued them when they were young and vulnerable.
They’re trying to heal a deep wound in themselves by treating other people’s wounds.
It doesn’t work that way, is all I’m saying. ”
“Even if that’s me,” Matt had said, talking past the lump in his throat and the cold, leaden fear in his chest, “it doesn’t change the fact that Debbie needs my help.”
Shortly thereafter, Matt had presided over a hastily called meeting at Nicholas’s and Bradley’s dining table. The other attendees were Nicholas, Bradley, and Garland.
Exhibit #1 had been Debbie’s termination letter, borrowed with her permission.
Exhibit #2 had been the Trespass Notice she’d signed, acknowledging she had been warned not to return to campus property, including athletic events.
Vince retrieved his Solo cup, splashed in a finger of Vodka, and offered it to Matt. “Congratulations! I don’t even need to ask how things turned out. The moment Katie Couric said she was Team Debbie, I knew that MCU was toast.”
Matt tossed back the vodka, handed the cup to Vince.
Vince poured a finger for himself. “Was that your idea? Those ‘Team Debbie’ t-shirts?”
Matt nodded. He’d birthed the basic plan and assembled the dream team. Nicholas and Garland were the true architects. But, yes, the “Team Debbie” t-shirts? His idea.
Garland had started the meeting with a flourish, like a motivational speaker inviting them to dream big. “Remember that case last year where McDonalds was ordered to pay millions to a lady who spilled hot coffee on herself?”
They had all nodded and smiled.
Matt had imagined future Debbie sipping Pina Coladas on a beach, shaded by a hot pink umbrella.
Garland had dashed their hopes as quickly as he had raised them. “That dog won’t hunt here. Not in a month of Sundays.”
“Dial down the hokey Okie,” Bradley had snapped. “There aren’t any cameras rolling. Just tell me in plain English why we can’t get Debbie at least a million dollars.”
“Here’s why.” Garland had held up three fingers.
“One. McDonalds has more money than God, so the jury in that case had no problem skimming a little bit off the top for the plaintiff.”
“Two. Coffee lady had second- and third-degree burns on her vag, and her lawyers had glossy, color photos that made the jury squirm. Trust me. Those pictures will give you nightmares. And, in case you’re not pedaling fast enough here: we don’t have any scabbed vag photos to pass around.”
“Three. This is Oklahoma, where 2 out of every 3 jurors are people who went to church last Sunday morning and listened to a preacher who got ‘edumacated’ at one of the 10 Bible colleges in this God-forsaken state—MCU being one of them! No jury in this state is going to hand Debbie a judgment that could bankrupt a Bible college.”
“Then why are we even here?” Bradley had asked.
Matt had stared down at the table, embarrassed that he had wasted everyone’s time by convening the meeting. He should have stayed with Debbie and consoled her.
Garland had flashed a mischievous smile. “Just because there isn’t a million-dollar jackpot on the table, doesn’t mean we have a losing hand.”
“You all know what MCU is like,” Garland had said. “The administration is steeped in the arrogance that comes from thinking everything they do is God’s will. They stink of smugness. We can use that against them. They would rather eat a turd sandwich than admit they made a mistake.”