Florida Agenda

All right, if you’re going to tell me you’re going to top me in the first five minutes of our first conversation, at least be a man about it, and take off your wig and earrings. I mean, seriously? Is this my pay-off for entertaining a chat at the bar? Well, if so, I’m not impressed. But then again, I suppose that it’s my fault, because I’m making myself more ‘accessible’. Why? Well, because my friends say I’m a dick-tease, and I need to lower my standards. So fine! Tonight, I’m talking to everything with or without a pulse. And slowly, I’m getting used to the fact that not every frog is a prince, particularly when it comes to a beer kiss. But meeting the parent of a stranger I have no intention of kissing? Well, this might be too much. But then again, I can’t be too picky. You see, this drag queen with a Bette Davis wig, he wants to control me; he wants to lurve me. But first, he wants me to meet his mother.

“Mom, Anthony Paull, Anthony Paull, mom,” he says, making the introductions. Smoking alone on a bar stool, she waves a proud hello, urging her son to buy me a beer. “For God’s sake, have some manners!” she tells him.

“Can it, mother! I can take it from here,” he groans. Then turning to me, he takes a long drag off his cigarette before fluffing his wig. “So, Anthony. Before this relationship goes any further, I need you to know something. I don’t need some damn, stupid man.” Hence, this is when the surrounding gay hipsters, in skinny jeans and lumberjack plaids, clear out. “I got a job. I got a car. I got a house. Why the HELL do I need you?”

“You don’t. I’m just a poor writer who lives with his dad,” I say, turning to follow the hipsters. But no, that’s not enough to deter him. You see, he wants me to know that he just raised 10,000 for some gay benefit, and I guess, I’m supposed to give a shit, but I don’t, because he just freaking spilled wine on the sneakers I spent my entire paycheck on. Therefore, I turn away, dancing off to an electro-pop number playing on the jukebox.

“Don’t walk away when I’m talking to you. We got something!” he calls – his blue sequined dress, reflecting off the disco ball. “Dude, I’m straight,” I attempt to explain. “Mmhm. Straight to the next dick,” he remarks.

“Fine, I’m shy. Look, I don’t even know you….”

“Oh, but you know my mom!” he snaps. “You don’t know me…but you know my whole family!” Shaking his booty, there’s wine flying here and there, and saving the day, his mom joins the conversation, telling him to calm down or he might scare me off. But it’s too late. That happened the minute we made eye-contact. You see, his Bette Davis-wig, it merely got in the way when I was peeking around for someone who wasn’t wearing a mini-dress. But again, maybe I’m being too picky. Yet, dear God, how can I not be? Once you’ve been loved right, it’s so hard to be loved wrong. Can I come down from this cloud?

“Yeah, you got to let your guard down a little, man,” my friend Max tells me, as I haul ass to the jukebox, pretending to be preoccupied with finding a song. I’m thinking: this is why I don’t date. I have this code. Like hey, if you like me, come up and say ‘hello’. I really dig that. Call me a traditionalist, but I don’t like some guy talking about sticking his penis in my ass when I don’t even know his name. As a matter of fact, that idea hurts, especially the thought of him lifting his dress to top me. But I’m not giving up! No! There has to be a nice guy somewhere in the midst. After all, I’m here, and I’m nice. So I must go on I think, as Max introduces me to a few co-workers — one of which who approaches me with a drunken leer.

“Aw, you’re pretty,” he says, tipping his fedora hat. Then he tells me it again and again, and I kind of like it, except he’s already leaning in to kiss me, and his breath stinks like corn chips and bacon. So I push him away, saying ‘no’ — an act which he takes as an insult, resulting in a conversation with Max, where he inquires if I’m a whore.

“Whoa! Are you kidding me?” I respond, when Max relays the message.

“It’s no big deal. The guy’s drunk. He just doesn’t understand why you won’t kiss him,” Max says.

“Wait a minute. So I’m supposed to kiss and screw everyone who approaches me? Otherwise, I’m a whore? That doesn’t even make sense!” Overhearing the conversation, the drag queen’s mother attempts to save the day, yet again.

“SEE? My son would NEVER call you a whore,” she attests.

“No. He would just talk to me like I’m one.”

And all the gay hipsters go ‘oooh’ in the crowd. But I’m not joining them. Rather, I’m fleeing the bar, before driving home, thinking how much this hurts. More than being a bottom for any big-top penis — this kills, being single and realizing this is my path, that this is what I have to face in the face of dating. It’s pimply, the pursuit of a mate, and I’m picky, because my heart is itching for a love it once had. So tell me, where do I go if I’m a prude, and I want a ‘hello’? I haven’t found such a place, so I say it to myself, staring into the rear-view mirror. “Hello, hello.” For tonight, it seems me being nice to me is my only reminder of what I want and who I am.

by Anthony Paull

The backdrop beckons with a most brilliant set-up. You see, tonight, there’s to be a festival – full of sparkles, magic, and music – embodying equality with the spirit and spunk of the late Harvey Milk. People fighting for love, in any form, will create a crowd, lining the streets. The have-nots, what-nots, the why-the-hell-nots, shall all be there. And me, I’ll be there too – deep in the sweat pit of the first row – freaking over the hottest acts in indie rock. Me, I’ll be shagging to sheet music for lack of being shagged in my sheets for weeks. It’s ok though. I’m not alone in my awkward, abstinent life. My friend Jason’s single too. And right now, he’s ringing my cell phone, saying he doesn’t care I only slept three hours last night; honestly, he could give a shit less that my friend Jessica was piss-drunk and kept me up all evening because she couldn’t find her car after consuming a keg of vodka.

“Dude, where’s my car?” Jessica repeated all night, tossing and turning on the bed beside me. “Seriously. Dude. Where’s my car?”

So today, I stay in bed, resting to be sexy and single for the stratosphere tonight.

“Wake up. I need you!” Jason moans over the phone. “It’s Greg again. I’m telling you, he best stop messing with my head if he’s not messing up my bed!”

Fluffing my pillow – the sun filling my eyes with fire – I wish away the weight of my eye-lids. “Pleeeeease. Let me sleep,” I beg.

Still, Jason proceeds, ignoring me. “He’s not giving me what I want. So I’m ‘bout to stack the cards, bitch.”

“Ugh, not another game.”

“Oh no, it’s no game ‘cause I got all the pieces….”

Puzzled yet? Well then, let me connect the jaded edges, the spots to make the plot connect. You see, three weeks ago, after a near-death accident, Jason decided he’s stupid; he’s always been in love with Greg. The problem: they’re best friends and second, maybe, third cousins. Hence, it’s been extremely awkward, particularly for me, because I’m the only one who knows the secret. “That way if it gets out, I know who to knock out,” Jason once explained, leading to today, where he refuses to attend tonight’s festivities because Greg might be there. Jason thinks it’s best to play hard to get. His plan: get completely drunk and then punch the keys to Greg’s cell phone, where he’ll casually announce he’s been to dinner with a new man tonight. Some guy he met at ‘the beach’.

“Let me guess. Somewhere ass-up in the dunes?” I inquire.

“NOT funny!” Jason spits. “Listen, you’re the one who told me to play hard to get when you like someone. Leave the one you want wanting more. Isn’t that what you say?”

Yes, but can you play hard to get if you’re the only one playing? Or are you just a white lie away from a stack of spades in a mind game of solitaire?

“You don’t understand. I can’t risk telling him! I can’t!” Jason screams, calling in drunken rant when I’m at the festival, later that night. “Have you seen Greg? Damn him, he’s not answering my texts. I need him to respond. Is he there?”

“Yeah, he’s around. What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

For the last two hours, Jason states he’s been dancing alone at the beach, in ankle-length water. The moon is his night light, he says. The stars have been cradling his cries.           Meanwhile, I’m drowning in the electro-beat of an indie song – one signifying a ceaseless fight for equal rights: a change for us all, a change we can believe. And through the dark, I spy a rainbow of glow sticks. “Stop being dramatic and come hang out,” I say. “This is stupid.”

“Whatever, what do you know about risks?” Jason challenges. “Since you broke up with your golden goose of a boyfriend, you can’t even kiss a guy.”

‘Tis true, I think, with a sinking heart. But then again, is there no greater risk than giving up everything you know – everything you’re comfortable with – just because your hearts insists there is more? Is there anything dicier than going at this life alone?

It’s intriguing, how quick we are to take risks daily, for humor, entertainment or a night of casual sex. How we wind up behind the wheel after a wild spin at a bar. How we breeze over the thought of disease when presented a night with sleazy stranger. But take a risk in the name of love? Well, that’s unheard of. There’s too much to lose. Or gain.

So weekly, I witness Jason’s proud, poker face as he hides behind a deck of cards, stealing touches from Greg without really touching him. That casual kiss on Greg’s cheek is a friendly kiss, mind you, even though Jason’s voice – sullen when Greg can’t be found – often sounds desperate enough to sing, “Dude, where’s my heart?”

“I can’t tell him!” Jason cries – his voice, drowning under the music. “I love him, but I’m keeping that to myself. That way, I’ll never lose it, right? It’ll always be with me. Isn’t that smart?”

And with a breath, I risk being slapped with a dead signal by saying no. But that’s a risk I take, because I believe loving and not letting the love be known is always a losing hand.

Hi. I’m single. I’m announcing it to the world because my ex-boyfriend decided it would be best for us to declare it quickly – with an easy sweep. That way, we don’t have to share the same, old story a thousand times. For those wondering, that’s why he updated his relationship status on Facebook to ‘single’ before I had the chance to say single aloud.

I guess I shouldn’t be complaining; I’m the foolish one who ended it. We’d been separated for some time, trying to make it work, because it was good…once. Still once is the past – not the present – and once I realized that I no longer liked holding his hand – I knew I had to end it.

It’s not been easy; we’re trying to be friends, whatever that means, and I’m trying to not call him baby or say the word love when I’m with him. Inside, I’m sad, mad, dazed, hollow, and horny all the time, but I know that I’m not ready to kiss or even look at a new guy. So lately – to pass time – I head to Target, where I rummage through aisles of knick-knacks I don’t like or need. My preference is the craft section, where I reach for wooden shelf ornaments carved into inspirational words like ‘marriage’, ‘baby’, and ‘love’. I have this delusional idea that if I purchase one, that word is what will await me at the exit door. But no instead, I head to the parking lot, where exhausted, I nap alone in my car, afraid to turn on the radio. “Awww, how…pathetic,” declares my friend Jasmine, who instructed me to stay away from Target last week after I confessed that I had lingered in their bathroom for too long. It all started off as harmless. First, I was peeing. But then, I was refusing to let go – a habit I learned from being in a safe, comfortable relationship. “You know, you can get arrested for that,” Jasmine says, over the phone.

“For jacking off ?”

“No, for being a pussy! Now go home and take a shower. We’re going out tonight. Just a few friends.”

This is Jasmine’s idea of a quick-pick-meup: her acceptable answer for anything. Just a few friends, just a few cocktails, until the point where everyone is drunk enough to forget they’re friends and make-out. But tonight, I agree, because she has been attempting to help me. Her technique: usually, a play-by-play conversation in regard to how hard her sexy boyfriend nailed her the night before. And then there are her typical text messages. How her weekend was ‘hot-t-t’ and how her man’s penis is so macdaddy she can’t cross her legs because of the razor burn. “You think you’re torn up?” She lifts her wine glass to salute my single hood. “Try dating Italian. Cheers!” Her friends erupt in laughter as I wander over to the DJ spinning low-tempo house records. In the VIP room of the middle- eastern lounge, silver, shimmering curtains dance under a wealth of ceiling fans and everyone – except Jasmine – talks in a whisper.

Taking a seat at the bar, I ask the bartender to pour Sprite into my stout so I won’t head to a drunken state, where I find being single funny before getting depressed about it. “You’re not mingling,” Jasmine observes, finding me. She points to a muscle-man with greasy black hair she knows from yoga. He’s wearing sunglasses at night. “That one has a crush on you.”

“I’m not ready.”

“Nonsense,” she says. Then calling him forward, she tells him not to mind me for being a bitch; I’m just grumpy because the gay press has been blogging in jest about my break-up. “He needs someone to kiss him and make it better,” she coos.

“Aw. No worries. You should get drunk!” he tells me. And soon, I learn that’s the limited amount of English he knows. Each time I escape, his robotic arms find me, taking me to him, where he sings it again. “Get drunk. Drunk! You should really get drunk.” He only shuts up when he starts kissing some girl in front of me. And that’s when I bolt.

“No! Why are you leaving?” Jasmine asks. Grabbing my hand at the entrance, she cradles a cigarette while balancing herself on one heel. “That guy likes you!”

Speechless, I’m boiling with anger. I can’t do this again. I’m rusty at dealing with idiot men; I have no game and little patience to practice.

“Are you mad because he kissed that girl? He probably thought you would find it sexy,” Jasmine states. But I don’t find it sexy. All I see are his sunglasses at night and his hairy tentacles around me, and as I walk – no – run away, I hear her scream about getting laid, but I’m not listening. I’m racing along an empty downtown street, and I find a dark alleyway leading to my car, where I fall asleep for twenty minutes before waking up with the flooring thought that I haven’t progressed in a month. I don’t know who I am without my ex. I’m in the same place. I’m afraid of movement, of touch. I don’t if what I’ve done is right, but I know that staying in this same spot is wrong. So bracing myself, I turn on the car, and press the power on the radio – the first act I can think of to begin welcoming in all the others who have been wronged by love.