Chapter 3
I showed up the next day for the same reason my mom says I have to try exotic foods, like beets or kumquats: “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to finish it.
” Because nothing else in my life was going very well, I tracked down the address in Queens, although I had to retrace my steps because I’d reversed the street numbers.
I finally reached an undistinguished, grafittied brick building with a steel door.
I pushed the bell, an overhead surveillance camera rotated, and I was buzzed in to a nondescript waiting area.
There, I was greeted by a dancer I recognized from the choruses of several broadway shows, and the Instagram where he splashes in the Fire Island surf wearing the same white Speedo as his five friends, like nurses with bulges and manscaped torsos.
“Hiiii!” he said, “I’m Jace and I’ll bring you to Reggie. Let’s scoot!”
As Jace spun and did a Fosse version of walking, I followed him but without imitation, so I wouldn’t dislocate my pelvis.
I have a love/hate/deep-envy/jerkoff-fantasy relationship with dancers because, unlike actors, they have a verifiable skill.
I’m not the best dancer, and on the rare occasions I’ve been cast in musicals, I’ve always been placed at the rear, well behind the star, so my stumbling gyrations will do minimal damage.
But of course I dream of professional dancers’ physical esprit, so after a few seconds of following him, I did mimic Jace, and immediately decided I’d broken my hip, just like my aunt Penny in her Boca Raton bathroom.
I’d soon come to know that there’s a corps of Tuxedo Society dancers, used as effervescent couriers who can adeptly high-kick a weapon out of an enemy’s grip.
Jace gestured fulsomely, in spokesmodel mode, to a large, gymnasium-like space with mats on the floor, a balance beam, a pommel horse, and a thick rope dangling from the very high ceiling, an ambience designed to make me admit to any crime rather than use this equipment; if you want to interrogate a gay Jewish boy, just wave a basketball in his face.
And yes, I’m aware that many LGBTQ+ people and Jews are exceptional athletes, to which I respond, bless their hearts.
“Think quick,” said Reggie’s rough, commanding voice, as a football made a direct hit on the side of my head. Rather than quaver I stood perfectly still and said, “Really?”
“Fine,” said Reggie. “I don’t expect you to become a martial arts expert, but I can teach you how to handle yourself.”
I changed into sweats, and for the next three hours, Reggie coached me in sidestepping a potential attacker, jamming my fingers into his or her or their eyeballs (because nonbinary people can be evil, too, trust me), and using a larger and stronger assailant’s physical superiority against them, which involved leverage and calculating when to collapse.
I surprised myself by not just working hard at these bruising drills but getting into it.
Reggie was an excellent teacher, since he didn’t belittle me but worked with what meager skills I had.
At one point he summoned Jace and told him to come at me with his bare hands.
As we grappled, I pinched the most minute micro-inch of excess flesh at Jace’s waist and whispered, “Someone’s been hitting the Krispy Kremes,” causing Jace to start crying and protest, “Reggie!”
“Not bad,” Reggie admitted. “Whatever it takes.”
Reggie then brought me into an adjacent room, a sizeable laboratory and data-processing facility with a satisfying array of metal racks holding beakers filled with bubbling, neon-lime-green liquid, and a wall of tech equipment higher than my head (I’m five-ten, the official gay male size, insisted on by anyone from guys just under five feet to people who stand on their tippy-toes in group photos).
This machinery was fitted with countless blinking lights, dials, and whirring discs, all of which I was pretty sure did nothing, as assistants in white lab coats and hard hats checked gauges and recorded the results on their tablets.
I assumed these people were either swiping on Grindr or about to break into a musical number on a commercial for “the world’s most advanced hydrogen-enzyme detergent. ”
“Is any of this real?” I asked.
“Of course not,” said Reggie, as the computer wall split in half, revealing a more authentic-seeming inner sanctum, where a single engineer in a brown twill jumpsuit, with protective goggles perched on his forehead, was overseeing a metal table arranged with attaché cases.
“This is Dr. Edwin Huron,” said Reggie, as the engineer looked up from his tasks.
Dr. Huron was a version of my favorite character from any secret-agent movie, maybe because he was a role I could conceivably see myself being cast in: the sexily intense nerd.
He had a swoop of thick brown hair, a skinny neck, elongated limbs, and a wide grin.
“Hullo, mate,” said Dr. Huron, in a companionable English accent, rather than anything too sneeringly posh.
Since I’d been recruited as an actor, I duplicated his voice in saying, “Morning, guv’nor,” causing Reggie and Dr. Huron to stare at me with a message of “Are you actually an asshole or just imitating one?”
“That wasn’t awful,” Dr. Huron allowed.
“Not on your Nellie, bloke,” I said, doubling down.
“He’s the actor?” Dr. Huron asked Reggie.
“It’s just a rumor,” Reggie assured him. “What’ve we got?”
Dr. Huron held up a tired nylon backpack, explaining, “This looks like the same backpack half of New York carries, correct? Filled with smelly gym clothes, an empty titanium water bottle, crumpled drugstore receipts, and a broken pair of sunglasses. But if you unzip the front pocket, which usually holds an expired student ID or a Best Buy discount card, the whole thing inflates to a life raft with pouches of vitamin gels, so you can survive at sea for at least two weeks.”
As I reached for the backpack, Dr. Huron said, “Don’t try it, not until it’s a necessity.”
Next, he picked up a rolled yoga mat, explaining, “You can carry this or wear it slung across your back on a strap. Its first function is to make everyone on the subway despise you, as some peaceful-looking yoga freak—have you noticed that the people who are always on their way to yoga pity the rest of us? But this mat is multipurpose.”
He held the cylindrical rubber mat in the crook of his right arm and it strafed a paper cutout of a faceless man in a suit hanging from the ceiling many yards away.
I jumped at the blast of gunfire from this disguised assault rifle, as Dr. Huron said, “The trigger is located at this end of the mat, and can fire three full rounds before reloading. Additional cartridges of ammunition are tucked into this eco-conscious reusable shopping tote.” He was holding a stained hemp bag printed with the words “THE EARTH IS BETTER THAN YOU.”
“Jesus. So whenever I see a yoga dweeb…”
“They could be an operative,” said Reggie.
“And, should the mat and the tote prove insufficient for keeping people at a distance, you can add this.” Dr. Huron was waving a clip-on ponytail: “This can also be used as a hipster-style topknot, if you never want to have sex with anyone ever again.”
I wasn’t sure if Dr. Huron was joking, but he didn’t seem like the type.
He’d picked up what looked like an iPhone: “If you need to contact Reggie on a secure line, don’t use your thumbprint or retina for recognition.
Enemy combatants may force you to do that, or hack off your thumb and squeeze out your eyeball, so your life will become expendable. ”
What was I doing here? Would my thumb and eyeball be kept on ice in a mini-cooler, or stored in a baggie like playground Cheerios?
“But this device may defeat them,” said Dr. Huron, handing me what appeared to be an ordinary iPhone from two iterations ago.
“So how do I call him? What does this phone recognize? Do I need eighteen secondary authentification passwords?”
“No,” said Reggie, as Dr. Huron told me, “Put it down your pants.”
“What?”
“It recognizes your penis.”
“Just like everyone on your dating apps,” said Reggie. “Dr. Huron’s already downloaded a photo you posted on Mangle, using the name MerylMan.”
Mangle was the latest hookup app, a combination of “man” and “mingle,” and stipulated a dick pic.
“Stop wasting time,” advised Dr. Huron.
I reluctantly undid my belt and stuffed the phone into my boxer briefs, which were black and relatively clean.
When police officers find a body wearing these briefs, they scrawl in their report, “The victim appears to be a gay man trying to be sexy, while also imagining that black boxer briefs are slimming and can be worn more than once without washing.”
As I adjusted my crotch, Reggie dialed his own Android and my new phone vibrated, making me utter a small moan.
Reggie texted something on his phone, and when I fished mine out of my pants the screen read, “I’m glad you shave your balls.”
“Oh my God…”
“But this may be your most essential weapon,” said Dr. Huron, opening a slim attaché case made of compressed carbonite. The interior was fitted with dark packing foam, with what looked like a black credit card in a recess at the center. Dr. Huron removed the card.
“What does that do?” I asked. “Is it razor-sharp to cut people’s throats? Can it pick locks? Is it poisoned?”
“No,” said Reggie. “It’s an American Express Black Card, with no credit limit, which can be used all over the world.
But if I catch you charging personal items, like some limited-edition Nike whatever or a new racing bike, I’ll cancel it.
It’s for emergencies only. It’s the most valuable thing you own, including your kidneys. ”
As Dr. Huron passed me the card, I held it gently and reverently, like a Communion wafer or a baby chick.
I’d dreamed of applying for this sort of card, but the fees are astronomical, and I’d never trust myself.
This card was beyond a license to kill, because it could purchase Business Class airline tickets, obscenely expensive facial exfoliating masques from countries I’d never heard of, premium orchestra seats to shows where the star was about to leave, and more black boxer briefs in lieu of doing laundry.
“Don’t make me regret this,” Reggie warned.
“Oh, and these power bars?” said Dr. Huron, extracting an innocuous-looking cellophane-wrapped snack from the backpack. These were the sort of “protein-rich,” “electrolyte-stacking,” “stamina-optimizing” treats studded with “sugar-free carob slivers” that are more fattening than twelve Baby Ruths.
“They’re grenades,” said Dr. Huron, hurling a bar at the bullet-ridden target, which exploded into flames and billowing smoke. The noise and destruction made me recall squatting on the toilet after scarfing one too many ordinary “12-essential-nutrients” power bars.
If I’d ever fleetingly entertained the notion of becoming a spy, Dr. Huron’s output was exactly why: the gadgets. I considered asking him for an amphibious car that turns into a speedboat and a jet pack that I’d use to fly over traffic and drop water balloons.
“Fuck,” said Reggie, studying his phone. “I guess it’s now or never. Come on, we can finish your training later. You’re coming to Washington.”