How I Met Adam, Part 4

Sometimes it’s hard to let go of things (or people) you’re attached to.  God knows I have had to let go of my share in my life and sometimes I think that that is what my life is really about; letting go.  Up to this day I am always finding myself having to take a deep breath and absolutely let go of something, some idea, someone, some habit that I feel like I can’t live without….that’s an understatement…more like something I feel like if I let go of it, my lungs won’t work and my blood will boil out of my eye sockets…yeah, that’s more like it.  So when Hank was having trouble getting over Adam, I had a lifetime of experience that I could offer to him to get through that rough period.  “Don’t worry Hank, it won’t always hurt this bad.  The most important thing is that you not call him at all.  Just think of yourself as an alcoholic and calling Adam is that ‘first drink.’  If you can stay away from that…you’ll be fine.  Whenever you have the urge to call him, just call me instead and I’ll talk you through it.”   So that’s the way it went.  I helped Hank get over Adam.  And even though you know how the story ends, you have to believe me when I tell you that I wasn’t just clearing the way so that Adam and I could be together.  As far as I was concerned at that point, it would probably be better if Adam was just out of the picture completely.  The more time passed, the less Hank talked about Adam and so I figured we were pretty much through it…until one night. Hank had been invited to a Halloween party in Venice and he asked me to go.  The plan was that we would all meet up at Bill and Dave’s place and go on to the party together from there.  It was actually walking distance from their place.  I lived in Hollywood so I rode my motorcycle to Bill and Dave’s.  When I got there, Hank said, “Uuuuuuh, I kinda invited Adam to come along so he might show up.”  (“Holy Shit,” I thought.)  But…to continue the alcoholic-not-to-drink metaphor, Hank had already had that first one and there wasn’t much that I could do at that point except pray that it didn’t end up too messy.  It did.

Adam showed up a few minutes later.  He was sweaty and drunk and wearing a gorilla costume.  When he took off the mask, the bourbon on his breath nearly wilted my eyelashes.  I’m telling the truth when I say that I haven’t wanted a drink in years but there is still something about the smell of bourbon and cigarettes on a man’s breath, especially a devilishly handsome man like Adam. Call me tragic but it just brings out the Patsy Cline in me.

So off we all go to the party.  I didn’t know the guys who were throwing the party.  The lived in a very nice little bungalow on the canals in Venice with a very well thought out garden in the back yard where the party was held.  (fags. go figure.)   Like I said, Adam was already “three sheets to the wind” and he showed no signs of slowing down.  God, I hadn’t seen anybody drink like that since the last time I went out drinking with me!  I was having a decent time, all things considered.  At some point Adam went to the bathroom.  When he came back, I asked him where it was ’cause I had to go to.  “I’ll show you.”  He slurred.  Uh oh.  Now I have been around queer men for way to long to fall for the old “let me show you where the bathroom is” trick.  But as it turned out, he was a perfect gentleman (albeit a drunk gentleman).  He followed me to the bathroom but it was a big room and he stayed well on the other side so I knew he was there just to try to establish some connection and not play “peek-a-boo-privates.”  I finished and we rejoined the party.  By that point, someone had found a boat paddle and a few of the guys were taking turns seeing how hard they could whap each other on the ass.  (reminds me of some of the stupid games marines make up when they’re bored.)  So we joined in…and no, before you go there, it wasn’t turning into some wild S&M party.  It’s just that the crowd of fags I hung out mostly with in LA was more the hyper-masculine, “look how gay we don’t act” crowd.  Trust me, they can be as tiresome as a room full of drag queens with all that, “You should’ve seen what happened at rugby practice last night” bullshit.  So many of them have those mildly industrial names like Brick or Lock, I fully expected one to introduce himself as Mortar.  They’re cool though.  I love all my queer bros, fem, ferocious or both…but I digress.

Adam just kept tossing back the drinks and he was getting wilder and wilder.  His behavior matched his costume to say the least.  Now I already told you I have a thing for bad boys but honestly this was just annoying and not hot at all.  At some point (thankfully out of Hank’s eyeshot), he grabbed me by the shirtfront and tried to kiss me.  Now I have a very hairy chest so instead of just grabbing shirt, he also grabbed a fair amount of me.  The marine in me wanted to put five across his face but I took a deep breath, remembered how hot I thought he was, thought about all the wildly annoying things I must have done back in my drinking days and said, “Look Man, I’ve thought you were beautiful since the first time I saw you and I’m getting that you’re feeling something for me too, but Hank has been and, to one degree or another, is still in love with both of us and there is no way in hell we can do that to such a sweet and awesome guy like that.  So as much as I would like to….I think we should go back outside and pretend this never happened.”  I’m sure his embarrassment over the whole situation added to his need to get totally fucked up.  So pretty soon he’d put his gorilla mask back on, was making ape noises and swinging through the exotic foliage that those queens had no doubt spent thousands of dollars and many a Saturday afternoon making look just perfect for parties such as these.  Finally, when the branch of the imperial palm made a cracking sound loud enough to be heard over the techno-dance remix of “Monster Mash,” our hosts had had enough.  While one of them manned the pause button on the sound system, the other announced in a loud and very annoyed lisp, “Okay, sssomebody needs to take the monkey home!”  And so we did.  Hank and I pulled out the tranquilizers gun, netted the gorilla and headed out for Bill and Dave’s place…but not before the gorilla, as if punctuating the sentence of his demolition of the party, made a perfect hook-shot with his beer bottle into the neighbor’s yard.  I did crawl into the yard and retrieve the bottle.  It was the least I could do.  I felt at least a little responsible for the whole mess.  I wasn’t mind you, I just felt that way.  Who knows, maybe something buried deep inside me knew that that drunk monkey would someday be my husband as since he couldn’t do it for himself, I thought I’d make nice on his behalf as much as I could.