Rich PART 2

This is Part 2, part 1 is here.

“So, what’s the best part of being 23?” Rich asks.

He’s wearing an unintentionally muscle defining, brown, long-sleeve knit shirt. At dinner, I realize why Rich is so different from every other male friend I’ve ever fallen in love with. He looks me in the eye. And though I can’t do it back, I feel like a proper noun with Rich.

Up until now, I always think of myself as the disclaimer Pat Sajak uses to introduce the next puzzle on Wheel of Fortune, “The next puzzle category is ‘noun’ but I need to remind you that ‘noun’ does not always mean proper person, thing or place.” I’m certainly not one of those either. You'd never capitalize "fat guy," so why bother with sean.

“Umm…nothing, really…I think this might be the year I take a shower at least once a week” I joke. Of course it's a joke. I showered three times before tonight. I used some of my mom's "Banana Smoothie " shower gel. She bought me 6 bottles for Christmas this year.

Rich is belly laughing at my very dumb joke. “Where do you come up with these so fast?”

Rich thinks I’m the funniest person alive, and that makes me want to touch his body in the dark, and only in the dark.

“I have something I want to show you. Will you come back to my house with me?” He asks.

It can’t be this easy, I think. I’m sure it’s some new light switch he built out of straw or some other MacGyver shit. Or maybe it’s a fucking surprise party. I’m in no mood for that. All of my friends are girls and this is boys’ night out. Jesus, leave us alone. We're going to watch the Wiz later.

Back at Rich’s he shows me his new raised bed and the finished skylight. He’s lying on his bed while I’m in the chair. “It’s amazing to me how you just make shit. You’re really smart.” I say, trying to think of a way to turn my compliment into a backhanded one to keep it light, it's my verbal way of cleaning up my own drool.

“Me? Rich asks. “C’mon, I’m just bored when I come home. You’re all the way up in Burbank. It’s hard to meet people, so I just try to stay busy.” He looks away. “Come sit up here. Look at the stars.”

Rich just called me up to his bed. What the fuck is going on. Is he going to kill me? Not wanting to be eternally disappointed I stutter, “Nonno, its ok.”

“C’mon, this took me three months and I want you to see.” He offers me help climbing up the ladder to his bed. I'm Embarrassed that he won’t be able to hold me up so I refuse help. The steps creek as I raise one fat ham hock at a time up to the perfectly made linens. Wow, Creative, strong, and clean. He's like mid-century cabinetry.

We lay next to each other looking at the stars. Rich knows what all of their names are. “That’s O’rien, and that’s the Dipper.” Our legs are getting closer to each other and before I can object, Rich is holding my right hand above our heads showing me how to squash stars with my fingers.

“This is awesome.” He stares at me and then puts his hand on my thigh and plops his head back.

His hand is still on my knee. I’m officially a mental patient now. My mind is racing. How can I he be doing this? Is this gay? Is Rich into me? Is this just a charity birthday present? Is he done being Catholic? Is he a chub chaser? Does he think I’m gay?”

A lady bug crawls across his hand and he smashes it. “I’ll be right back.” He leaves to go clean his hand at the perfect time, because I need to adjust my underwear and hide the first authentic boner I’ve ever had, one brought on by actual human touch from a dude, not one where I'm imagining myself as the woman being made love to by that other Cinemax actor on the TV in front of me. He comes back and I look for every reason to end this perfect moment, before I'm caught, before he starts to pray or something, before I'm made a fool of and never have a chance to fix it.

Wait a second. He killed that Lady Bug. He obliterated an animal. I have my out. I'll channel my inner-P.E.T.A. and stop this faggy moment under the stars. “How can you be so pro-life but then go and smash a lady bug?” I ask him.

“What?" He asks. He looks at me for a moment and giggles, cuing me to laugh, but I don't. "It’s a bug. This is not a child. An insect is at the bottom of the chain.”

He goes on and on with some Ivy-league bullshit about natural selection and how God breathes life into humanity. I argue evolution and Roe versus Wade and Reality Bites and I’m raising my voice about how great the right to choose is, all the while thinking in my mind Why did you put your hand on my knee? How can you be into someone this fat? Please don’t tell anyone else about my boner. It would kill my mother. No, literally, it would kill my mother.

“I just don’t understand why you’re so upset about a bug.” Rich says, his voice getting higher as I glare. I almost sense panic in him. I wonder if he feels it coming from me. “But I’m tired and I need to go to bed, so you should go.”

“Oh, yeah, I need to leave. No Hard feelings (ha, except this giant one in my pants). I respect your right to kill animals.”

He walks toward the door shaking his head. He looks embarrassed. I can tell he knows this has nothing to do with a bug and everything to do with his man hands on my undeserving kneecap.

It's really over. He doesn't know how in love with him I am. For that, I win. I will never have a chance with him, and for a moment I might have. For that, I lost. He’s not laughing. This is a first.

“Happy Birthday, again.” He says, sort of shaking his head in disbelief and smiling with a kind of forced politeness. That's the Michigan in him.

I could have probably had it, I think, the hottest guy in the world, who is totally straight, and handy with woodwork. He would have loved me for the fat way I am as all straight guys do, right? I mean, I see them with their gigantic wives at the fair.

"So stupid, Sean," I think as I devour a custard filled chocolate doughnut and a mini carton of whole milk at the Winchell’s in Glendale just before I get home. It's my third doughnut. The first two were jelly-filled.

I start to feel sick from all the dairy curdling in my digestive closet. I look around, I become numb after the two final thought that clear my palette:

Number one, I never had a chance anyway, and second, who wants to have gay sex with a pro-lifer, anyways?