by Damon Suede
Silas arrived elevenish. Time had gotten away from him as he tried to find the energy and a jacket that fit him properly. Outside the brass doors, the sidewalk throbbed underfoot. A scatter of paparazzi and a few curious tourists stood across the street and stole snaps as the line of limos upchucked masked partygoers.
He’d forgotten to wear a mask. Fuck it. Silas wanted to get found.
He flashed his unopened invitation to a human refrigerator in a cheap suit who waved him into the lobby toward the pounding music and babble of a thousand people dancing on the grave of the old year.
Projections of the Unbored Games logo skated over the grooving crowd in the center of the rotunda to echoing dubstep. Five forty-foot banners advertising past OutRuns hung from the gilded ceiling at regular intervals around the room’s perimeter. At the base of each poster, Kurt had installed a raised platform about eight feet square, roped off for VIPs. On the far side of the room on a mezzanine, Silas saw Kurt’s stylish profile against a wide gory banner for Chopping Mall 4.
Unbored built cool video games. OutRun gave cool fund-raisers.
Silas checked his watch. 10:51. He might manage to reach Kurt by eleven thirty if his luck held… later if he managed to bump into Trip trapped somewhere. Most of the guests had worn masks, which complicated matters.
He veered left and began the agonizing, sweaty process of plowing in even rows through the crowd, ping-ponging back and forth between the curved teller walls from the days when this joint had been a bank.
This party is a dog, and I am a flea comb.
At one of the bars, Silas found Tiffany under three framed posters for the Miss game trilogy that had gotten so much feminist ink: Miss Taken, Miss Demeanor, Miss Fortune. Silas complimented her spangly beaded dress with a thumbs-up and a dishy nod. She’d piled her sandy hair on her head in a saucy tangle and wore dollar-sign contacts.
“Oh God. Silas!” She gasped with frog-eyed guilt and covered her mouth. “I had a number. That guy came by this afternoon. Later, with a number for you.”
“What number?” Silas’s insides surged with anticipation. That simple?
She grimaced and confessed, “Dark buzz cut. Cute. Whaddayacallem? Scrubs! Came by the tent during strike and left a card.”
He smiled wide. “Trip? Was his name Trip?” Maybe he could blow this gig and just call.
“Maybe. I dunno. That’s the thing.” Tiffany pouted. “I couldn’t find it when I got home. I lost it in my supplies.”
Disappointment and irritation whipped through him, though he kept his voice steady. “Oh.”
“He came by at the end. You were hanging with the Unbored VIPs. And the park service rushed us. I’m so sorry.”
Bummer. He didn’t yell at her. Not her fault. He should have gotten the number himself.
“It was so nuts after the run. The card had a dog on it, maybe. Or a wolf? No, I think it was a big… dog.”
Dog? Trip did something with dogs? Didn’t fit. He spoke like a painter and his fingers were ink-stained, but he’d worn a twelve hundred dollar watch. Silas ran through their brief conversation, but already the edges had gone fuzzy. He remembered being horny and rattle-brained and not much else. Trip’s grin had knocked him sideways.
Tiffany half smiled and bit her lip. “He acted like you knew him, so I figured he was a friend.”
“Sorta.” Silas counted to five and pretended to smile. “No big.”
Even though he knew better, he wanted to strangle her. He wanted to drag her home right now and pull her kit apart till they found Trip’s digits. Instead he hugged her, lied that he’d see her later, and continued his search of Gotham Hall’s rotunda with a mounting sense of desperation. Crappy New Year!
Silas’s phone buzzed: a confirmation text from the hip-hop producer saying he’d scheduled the girl group for the second. Two days from now: alien bikinis. Good, he needed that paycheck. If only he could find his blood-spattered doctor boy.
Silas promised himself not to discuss Trip at all tonight.
“Goolsby! Silas Goolsby….” That was Barney, a stocky actor in his late thirties. He stood outside the bathroom like a tow-headed bouncer in a Dutch music video, all watery eyes and chapped lips. “I thought that was you.” He played one of the recurring pimps on Undercover Lovers.
Barney only dated men extremely short-term, as in ten minutes max, mostly in public bathroom stalls while his faux-girlfriend claimed his jacket at the coat check.
God save me from closet cases.
“Barn.” Silas waved noncommittally. “I gotta find Kurt before his ball drops.” He pretended not to hear the reply and went back to searching for the scrub suit.
Almost an hour later, Silas had needle-in-a-haystacked his way through every square foot of the inlaid marble floor and navigated his way to Kurt’s little riser sitting about nine feet off the floor. Good thing. The stuffy air had started to make him feel trapped. The mezzanine would, at least, give him a place to breathe, and the velvet ropes would protect him from the press of flesh.
Kurt Bogusz sat enthroned like a pinstriped Caligula, exhausted and defiant. Since it was New Year’s Eve, he had worn a vintage one-button Dior tux, gray silk with a stripe, over today’s OutRun T-shirt. Salt and pepper hair, chopped into expensive bedhead, with a trim beard to match. Even to Silas, Kurt claimed to be twenty-nine, but knowing the stories, he’d probably crept up on thirty-three. For gay Manhattan, anything past thirty was the Twilight Zone, and Kurt had no intention of going gently. They’d known each other since NYU, before Kurt had dropped out to start a video game company.
He founded OutRun about three years ago and it had quickly quadrupled in size. He had a lot of celebrity chums and a talent for whipping bullshit into meringue. The charity focused on getting press for “LGBT Issues That Refuse to Die”: HIV, domestic violence, suicide prevention, elder care. For each run, he hired Silas to design a themed monster for the poster and the run itself: a gay-basher zombie, a hepatitis zombie, a teen runaway zombie… and then dressed a hundred young actors up as the problem so it got plenty of mass-media coverage and moolah—the whole point, after all, of spending six figures on a big tacky hootenanny.
Up on Kurt’s mezzanine, a chiseled waiter in an extra-small “OutRun: Organ Trail” T-shirt stood with a tray. He’d torn his sleeves off to flaunt the glossy roll of his shoulders, and the cotton stretched so tightly across his torso it had ridden up to expose his sweet swirl of a navel and extra-large basket.
Silas paused at the bottom of the stairs. He fired a finger-gun at a kinky lawyer couple he’d tussled with one weekend in the Pines. Great. Then he climbed up a single tread to scan the party. Trip’s dark shorn head was nowhere in sight.
Kurt’s flirting flatlined with the waiter. Maybe the guy was straight. Maybe he wasn’t interested. Maybe he didn’t know Kurt was their host. Impossible. Not with him holding court up here in a tux that cost more than a used pickup.
“—because I make too much scratch to live in anybody’s closet.” Kurt’s bluish eyes browsed the waiter’s bod like he was a salad bar.
Silas climbed the last few steps to rescue the poor kid.
“Goolsby, you came!” Kurt jumped up to squeeze Silas hard and pat his back. “And you wore a jacket!”
“Diet Coke.” Silas looked the waiter straight in the eye, trying to apologize telepathically for Kurt’s sleaziness.
The athletic waiter bobbed his head and trotted down the stairs.
“That ass.” Kurt cocked his head at the golden ceiling as if balancing a mental checkbook. “I’m gonna say: high school wrestler. Two ’roid cycles, but he’s weaning himself. Trying to be a fitness model.”
“Stop it.”
“Bitter jizz ’cause he smokes.” Kurt bit his tongue with his gleaming caps and smiled. “Whimpers and pops when you go really deep.”
Silas turned to his friend in irritation. “Kurt, not everyone’s a whore.” He scanned the dance floor and bars for Trip again. Nothing.
> “Everyone but you.” Kurt raised a shoulder. “Whatever. ’Cause you’re a helpless slut at the mercy of your dangly unmentionables.”
Silas kept his yap shut. Sure, he had a couple exes here. And he’d seen a couple tricks on his way to Kurt’s VIP mezzanine. More than a couple. This is why Silas avoided bars and A-gay fund-raisers now. Every ocean becomes a puddle. If you stayed underwater long enough, you eventually swam into monsters you’d rather forget.
Kurt fingered Silas’s lapels and clucked. “Sharp threads.”
“I’m making an effort.”
Silas had unearthed an old Hugo Boss blazer that hung right on his broad shoulders. The invite said “black tie/masquerade,” i.e. Kurt being a pretentious asshole. Still, if Silas did manage to track Trip down, he at least wanted to pretend he had a steady paycheck.
“I been watching you cruise the room.” Kurt sized up his blazer again. “Who’s the lucky twinky-dink?” He leered.
“Who? No one.” Silas frowned back. “I did not have sex in the park dressed as a zombie.”
“Sh’yeah. ’Cause you’re such an angel, Goolsby.”
One thing had preserved their friendship: Kurt didn’t date anyone, because he only paid for sex. He rented his men and discarded them when they got boring. More times than Silas could count, he got stuck doing the boyfriend shit for Kurt, like picking up the birthday tab and fending off trolls. They fucked other people but took care of each other.
Kurt’s pocket buzzed, and he fished out his phone. Hot light stained Kurt’s grayish hair magenta for a moment. “Don’t worry. I ordered Italian for us. With a side of Greek.”
“Dinner?”
“Dates. Duh.” Escorts, he meant; a literal catalog was probably involved. “And there’s plenty on the hoof besides….” Kurt leaned forward, holding the edge of his seat with his manicured fingers. “If he doesn’t show, there are, like, a thousand people here. Gotta be at least five or six you haven’t taken for a test drive.”
“Fuck off. This guy was cool. Something else.” Frown. “Trip.”
“He seemed cool, you mean. As in: you projected imaginary coolness onto this Drip because of his bone structure and bod and the way it coincided with your porn collection.” Kurt surveyed the crowd, jewel-toned under the swirling Lekos.
“I don’t have a porn collection.” True. Silas got laid plenty.
“Wait: he’s hot.” Kurt pointed down and to the right, Silas didn’t bother to check. “Oh wait, I think you ‘dated’ him too. Jim? Jay? Never mind.”
Silas sat down on a vinyl Barcelona chair. He’d started to sweat under his blazer, and he felt dumb for coming and wasting the past hour combing through the throng for a stranger.
Mentally Silas swapped the scrubs for something formal, obviously. He designed an imaginary Trip who might be searching for him this second. He could see the etched planes of Trip’s face perfectly: big haunted eyes, pale pink skin, the aggressive chin, the black hair buzzed down close to the scalp. His knobby wrists and the expressive fingers.
Where are you?
“Score!” Kurt pushed away from the railing and took the chair beside him. “Timberlake’s name was on the invite, so we got a thousand groupies outside ripe for the rumping.” He nodded knowingly and pumping his arm. “Achievement unlocked.”
Silas stared at the other mezzanine platforms that ringed the rotunda. Most of the roped-off platforms were empty. On one, shirtless men crouched, blowing lines. Across the way, a stick-thin girl with massive implants texted furiously.
He consoled himself with the number Tiffany had lost. If Trip had left his info, then he might come here on his own mission.
Except… he hadn’t seen Trip on the way in. He hadn’t seen Trip while crossing the dance floor. Even standing at the rail with a view of the entire three thousand square feet of rented party space, he hadn’t seen Trip anywhere.
Smiling privately, Silas peered through the walls, trying to remember the planes of the boyish face, lean build, the close-cropped dark hair, the soft sparkle of—
Holy fuck!
At that exact moment, he realized what Trip would expect to find: ratty suit, exposed organs, gray skin, ruptured face.
“Oh shit!” Silas lifted a hand to his face. “I was a zombie.”
“Yeah, zombie run?” Kurt looked over dubiously. “Verily, the dead have arisen.” He signaled to someone over Silas’s shoulder.
“Even if he wanted to find me, he couldn’t.” Silas kept his voice steady. His sense of humor on the subject was zilch.
“Your turbo-twink is probably blowing one of my bankers in the john.” Kurt plucked something off his sleeve. “Maybe he’s a hustler.” That wasn’t an insult. Kurt loved hustlers in general and was frank about their no-nonsense appeal.
“No.” Silas sniffed. “He’s just a nice guy.”
“Hustlers are just guys. Some are nice, even.”
Silas forced a distracted smile, mainly because nonreaction drove Kurt batshit and that was the best way to keep him from further sharpening his tongue on Trip.
Kurt squinted at him, then perused the dance floor. “He’ll call.” He stirred his glass with his finger and sucked it clean. “When they like you, they call.”
A thirty-foot projection of a clock shone cobalt on the white wall, brighter even than the strobing lights. The big hand pointed at twelve and the little hand snuggled a little closer. Only a few minutes more and the year could get on with being new.
If he got lucky, Trip might be his midnight kiss. Fat chance. Silas pushed himself to his feet and drifted to the edge.
Down below, the music was wumpa-thumping the crowd into a sweaty frenzy under the enormous Unbored Games banners. The oldsters had split, and tipsy grinding had caught fire in several parts of the room.
No way was Trip a whore, no matter what Kurt said. Trip had dug him. He had come by with his number. Tiffany had lost it, but at least he’d followed through. They’d both made an effort, and no one in Manhattan wasted energy unless they had a real good reason.
“Hey, Goolsby. Remind me, again….” Kurt squeezed his leg and thumped it. The teal light chased over his gray-flecked hair, making him look like a Lost Boy waiting too long for Captain Hook. “Why aren’t we a couple?”
Silas walked partway down the treads. “Because I’m too fat.”
“You’re not fat.”
“Then I’m too polite and you’re too selfish.”
“Oh. Right.” Kurt laughed and flattened his smile into a sideways parentheses. “Tricks and dicks. Good point.” He shook his head.
Silas skimmed the crowd again as ugly hope flopped and withered inside him. What did it matter? Kurt was right. Trip was probably another twink out to get what he could.
The gigantic clock winked even closer to twelve, its big eye watching the corporate fun-fun-fun. Tray held high on bulging triceps, Kurt’s studly waiter had paused to talk to a ponytailed guy on crutches. That one wore a tux too. The waiter twisted, and then the ponytail man turned a noble, solemn face their way and pointed a crutch at Kurt.
Unsmiling, Kurt inclined his head in reply; he’d stopped talking at least, though his mouth worked like a couple words wanted out as he stared at the disabled stranger. He shook his ashen face and smiled, then—click—inhaled as if to say something funny to Silas.
Before that could happen, Silas swatted him and waved his arm at the crowd below. “I’m gonna do another lap in your lackeys.”
“Hey.” Kurt blinked again at the man on crutches before he wheeled to watch the crowd parting for the hunky waiter’s trek to the bar. “What about your drink? Your date—”
“You have mine. Have both.” Silas hugged his friend good-bye and clumped down the stairs into the jolly coked-out mob. The music got quieter and the DJ grunted something indistinct into the mike. On the wall, a second hand blinked into existence and swept the face of the colossal clock that loomed over them, staining everyone blue.
No Trip.
&
nbsp; Silas closed his eyes for a moment so he could stand in the bright, cold park again, hopeful and happy. He opened them with regret.
“Ten!” The crowd squealed and bobbed.
“Nine!” A thousand maniacs underwater bellowed the countdown over the relentless thrum of remixed Scissor Sisters.
Silas strode toward the doors that opened onto Broadway. He thrust his hands into his pockets, kept his face aimed at the floor so none of his exes and tricks—his dates and mistakes—would catch his eye and keep him trapped here in the glittering tar pit.
“Eiiiight!” A middle-aged woman in a plastic top hat waved her arms and screamed blissfully at the gold-tiled honeycomb ceiling. Against the wall, two guys making out; he’d dated both, screwed both, dumped both.
“Seven! Six!” High fives.
Silas passed the bar where Kurt’s sad, hunky waiter stared blankly up at the clock along with all the other underwater faces. Trip would never know his number had been lost, not tossed. Life, baby.
“Five!” Flash bulbs. Group hugs. The celebration felt like mockery. “Four!”
The room jumped up and down as Silas picked up speed. He pulled the tattered OutRun invite out of his pocket and tossed it at the trashcan. He hated mementos. Coming tonight had been a waste. He had a shoot to prep, sculpts to do. Fake blood, fake pain.
He wanted to be gone. He wanted to be home. He wanted this past year over and the world on the other side of a door he could lock. He wanted a real kiss at midnight from a future who didn’t feel like his past. Fucking fool.
“Three!”
He pushed outside into the crisp air, nodded curtly at the oversized bouncers in baggy off-the-rack suits as he slipped through a gap in the velvet ropes. He secretly prayed the big door would swing shut behind him before he had to hear it. He stepped out into the street and raised his arm for a cab. Even in his jacket, he was freezing. The searchlights pointed straight into the sky, illuminating nothing.
“Two!”
Trip would fade into a memory, another missed opportunity that led nowhere. Anyways, what did some stranger matter?
Then far away, the muffled roar pounded through the bronze doors and the concrete walls while Silas shivered in an empty street and spoke the word with everyone else in the city. They shouted; he whispered:
