Chapter 2
From watching Reggie in action, I could believe this background, but I was still incredulous.
“Reggie’s recruited members with military experience, but also athletes and tech wizards and some extremely smart and connected people with access to the most powerful politicians and Silicon Valley investors.
Mikaela and Pei-Sze have sold homes to prime ministers, oligarchs, and Mark Zuckerberg’s yacht broker.
Maunders Coxley, the florist, is on retainer at the White House, and routinely supervises the décor at think tanks and summits and Swiss chalets where major Bitcoin deals go down.
No one notices him because, as he says, ‘I’m just a silly homo waltzing in with eighteen boxes of calla lilies and birch branches.
’ Miles, the Olympic diver, still competes and can pass information to other champions from countries the CIA can’t get anywhere near. ”
“But why do they need the dinners?”
“As cover, so Reggie can assemble the players he needs, and conduct actions in less-than-authorized locations, like that restaurant men’s room.
When people see the Tuxedo Society members laughing and drinking and carrying on, we don’t just seem harmless, but ridiculous.
No one’s scared of us, or gives us a second thought, except maybe to roll their eyes. ”
“Us? How long have you been involved?”
“One day, about a year and a half ago, I was working at the store, and there was a commotion coming from one of the dressing rooms. When I went to check it out, I found this guy lying on the floor unconscious. Reggie was standing over him and explained that the guy was a terrorist who’d been hiding in the store to execute a Japanese diplomat browsing with his family.
Reggie had, as he put it, ‘neutralized the threat,’ and he asked me if I could grab an outfit so we could get the guy, who was still breathing, dressed up and pretend he was a drunk country club board member.
I tracked down pink pants and a Kelly green polo, with deck shoes and a visor, and Reggie was impressed.
He trained me and has also been using the store as a resource, because I can make anyone look rich.
I’ve done three Tuxedo Society dinners, and Reggie’s been asking me if I know any actors, so I thought of you, and I told him about how great you are at improv and accents, which would ordinarily be hopelessly geeky, but he said that’s what he’s looking for.
He just texted me and says it’s a good sign you didn’t call 911 tonight, because it means you’re either cool under pressure or a mindless sociopath, and I said, ‘You mean an actor?’ He uses all sorts of professionals, which you and I sort of are, and he can get you into the program. Are you interested?”
I couldn’t speak. This was all so unlikely and at first I thought Brock was making it up, but I’d seen Reggie and his team at work and there might be blood on the soles of my cheapo black shoes.
I trusted Brock, but I was overwhelmed by what he was proposing, so I asked, “Can I think about it overnight and get in touch tomorrow?”
“Sure. It’s a lot. But, I don’t know, since I’ve signed on, I feel like I’m not just selling down-filled vests and windbreakers with little embroidered anchors. It’s sort of Jason Bourne with a dash of the Marvel movies before they got boring and incoherent.”
“Except—people are actually getting killed.”
Brock was sucking the dregs of his smoothie through a straw, and he waggled his eyebrows at me and said, “Darling, not always.”
Back at my apartment, my roommates were sleeping, so I locked myself in my room, in my boxers and a T-shirt, and I shut off the light, but I wasn’t about to get any sleep.
I’ve been raised as a very nice Jewish boy by devoutly liberal parents—my mom’s a middle school librarian and my dad’s an English professor at a community college.
They’ve always emphasized that violence is never the answer; as my mom once told me, “If you lay a finger on your brother, I will break your arm.” I’d avoided contact sports during gym class (claiming “a history of herniated discs”), and even when playing baseball I’d specialized in positions like left field where I might as well have been dozing in the parking lot.
When I was in a play with a fight scene, the moves were always meticulously choreographed, with me usually yelling, “OWWWW!” thirty seconds too soon.
But, if Brock was being honest, the Tuxedo Society members were the good guys, and those creeps in the bathroom had been armed and aggressive.
I couldn’t believe I was even considering the whole deal—it just wasn’t me, and even the thought of operating under that sort of pressure made me shiver.
As I pulled the covers up, I decided I’d call or text Brock in the morning, on my way to buy sprouts at Whole Foods, and tell him, “Thank you so much for thinking of me, but I couldn’t possibly commit mayhem even for a worthy cause. I shop at Whole Foods.”
“Of course you’re anxious,” said a voice from the darkness, causing me to stifle a not particularly masculine scream, jump up, bang my knee on the nightstand (one of those plastic crates), and switch on a floor lamp to illuminate Reggie, standing at the foot of my bed.
As I was about to ask him how he’d managed to enter a triple-bolted apartment and a locked bedroom, he said, “Honey, that’s amateur night.
A kids’ birthday party magician could break into this building.
But Brock told me he’d approached you, so I suspected you’d be all over the place. ”
“I… I can’t. I’m not a coward or a baby, but I do ride a bicycle and I always wear my helmet and come to a full stop at lights and stop signs.”
“Pussy.”
“I am not! I’m law-abiding! And I’m a pacifist! The theme of my bar mitzvah was Non-Violent Protest! Okay, the theme was really Cabaret, and I was dressed as the Emcee, but the subtext was antiwar.”
“Exactly. And the only thing I love more than being a Navy SEAL and defending my country is being gay, and that shouldn’t be a contradiction.
And you won’t necessarily have to kill anybody, it’s not a merit badge.
I need someone who can transform into anything, from an embassy secretary to a clueless tourist, so think of it as an acting challenge.
Brock says you’re really good but that you haven’t been getting work, so why not put your talent to use?
And I’ll only mention this because I can tell from your haircut and college-dorm-room sheets that you don’t have a boyfriend, but with the Tuxedo Society you’d be meeting some of the hottest guys all over the world.
But above all else, you’d be doing good, unless you don’t think that freedom matters. ”
This stung, because every year on Presidents’ Day my mom would build a display in her school library called a Salute to Freedom, with books about Nelson Mandela, Harvey Milk, Sojourner Truth, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and, at my request, she’d added a poster of Meryl Streep in Silkwood, where Meryl plays a character who gets killed just as she’s about to expose the cover-up of nuclear mishaps.
Meryl is my acting hero, and if I joined the Tuxedo Society I could combine all her greatest roles, from the impervious strength of Margaret Thatcher to the international romance of Mamma Mia!
“You’re thinking about Meryl, aren’t you?” said Reggie.
“No! Maybe. Okay, what happened in the men’s room tonight? Why did you have to kill those guys?”
“Because they’d both been hired by a cartel to destabilize the American government, beginning with the assassination of the First Lady.
Those men were at the restaurant to sell a hard drive with an outline of how the murder could be falsely but credibly traced to the Chinese, igniting an international catastrophe. ”
“Who were they going to sell it to?”
“I’m not sure, but there were Russians and Iranians on-site. We stopped the sale but not the larger operation. There are many countries in play. Something major is going down, but we’re chasing the details.”
“How did you know it was that restaurant?”
“Timothy slept with one of the waiters, who’d heard something from a sous-chef who bakes gourmet chocolate chip cookies for one of the three wives of a Saudi prince.”
“Oh my God…”
“Yeah, it gets tricky. And dangerous. And interesting. This could be your Tony Award for Best Performance in Saving the Free World.”
Reggie was diabolical, because while I’ve dreamed of winning an Oscar, although I tell people that one of those Indie Spirit or Tucson Film Festival awards is actually more meaningful, I’d spent my childhood glued to the TV broadcasts of the Tonys, which were not only the gayest prizes but could lead to my meeting Meryl at the nominees luncheon and just naturally becoming her protégé and BFF.
I forced myself not to ask Reggie if the Tuxedo Society held a Tony-night dinner, or if the Tuxes, as Brock had told me the members were called, might attend the ceremony itself.
“We went to the Tonys last year.”
“Shut up!”
“I’m going to leave now. But remember this address: 581 Hannister Avenue in Queens.
Don’t write it down or put it on your phone—we don’t like to leave breadcrumbs.
But you can show up tomorrow morning at eight a.m. to start your training, instead of going to the gym for spin class.
If you’re not there, no harm done. I’ll just assume you hate America and democracy and the LGBTQ+ community. ”
I wondered if he’d leave in a puff of smoke and fire, or leap out a window except we were in a basement. At my bedroom door, he turned: “And by the way, there’s a swimming requirement, taught in our private pool by a special guest instructor, Ryan Gosling, naked.”
“You’re lying. Nice try.”
“Find out.”
I spent the rest of the night debating the absurdity of the Tuxedo Society and its activities.
But every time I Googled their name on my phone, to see if there was any record of the group’s existence, my screen would be filled with a photo of a naked Ryan Gosling from the locker room scene in that comedy with Steve Carell (with Steve’s head blocking the full-on view of Ryan’s crotch).
I’d been hacked, because my screensaver is ordinarily a photo of Ryan Reynolds wearing just pajama bottoms in the Amityville Horror remake.
Okay, there it is, my helpless obsession and the ocean I drown in: pop culture.
Ever since I can remember, stars, movies, theater, music, and TV shows, from every era, have been my second language.
Who am I kidding? My first language. I’m not even listing my social media habits, because TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are pop culture sliced into digestible tidbits or amateur reworkings (“Look, it’s me pretending to be famous!
”). My phone is pop culture for the subway, or any other venue where my hands and brain start twitching for content (by which I mean that saved meme of the hot naked guy lip-synching to early Britney).
I translate everything, from a sunrise to a stranger’s overcoat, into a plotline and a set of obscure references.
I’d be the Jeopardy! Supreme Grand Master Champion but only if every category was Useless Information Only a Strange, Lonely Gay Guy Would Have Memorized Without Even Trying.
I’m not snobby about show business—I’m fascinated by everyone involved in it, from the glammed-up faces on the cover of Vanity Fair’s annual Young Hollywood issue to the grips and boom operators on the location shoots in my neighborhood, blocking traffic and irritating everyone except me.
When I see assistants with old-school walkie-talkies telling pedestrians the block is closed, I get giddy.
I’m not proud of my particular approach to life, but I’m not ashamed either.
It’s a matter of DNA, as if my parents were watching Entertainment Tonight or scrolling through Other Shows You Might Like on Netflix while I was being conceived.
Luckily, I’ve found that a surprising number of people, from every demographic, will happily compare Broadway revivals of Company (including the gender-swapped version) and the Ghostbusters reboots (don’t get me started).
They’ll also watch indies filmed on the writer/director/star’s iPhone in a Bushwick apartment, hoping to be astonished, even if they’ve seen indies shot on iPhones before.
As my mom has said about me, “Some people take heroin, so your just being strange is better.”