Hanging Lowe

Mission 1. Hook up with someone as old as my mom (54) and as young as my sister (20) in a month.
Mission 2. Live a completely gay lifestyle (without the gay sex) for a month.
Mission Three: Live without an apartment for a month.
Mission Four: Reconnect.

I try to be good, really. I don’t wake up in the morning, thinking, "Today, I’m going to obsess about tits," or "I’m going to get wasted tonight and try and screw someone," or "I’m going to fuck two hookers today." Well, two out of three ain't bad.

It’s hard to be good when you have bad influences in your life. And when you're bored on a Wednesday night, phone within reach, bad things can happen. Bad drunken things.

The night started out brilliantly. I was sitting on my couch, eating Chinese food, fresh-faced from Maha Yoga. I was going through my TiVo list and playing my new favorite show, It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia, which MA defines as a "boy show." It was about as good as a Wednesday night can get, barring American Idol. But a certain homosexual party animal had other things in store. I picked up the ringing phone and saw it was Daniel.

“Hi.”

“Rob, It’s Daniel.”

“I know, can I call you back, I’m eating.”

“No, no, no, put it away. I’ll take you out to dinner.”

“Dude, I’m almost done,” I said, pausing. “You know what? Let’s talk, I’ve had enough.” I realized he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“Ok, so dinner?”

“I just ate, how about tomorrow?”

“No, I want to go out tonight. How about drinks.”

“I’m not drinking during the week. It’s my new thing.”

“What, that’s five days of soberdom, out of seven. That leaves only two days for debauchery. You can’t be serious,” he said, increduously.

“Just trying to keep fit, that’s all.”

“Oh, don’t make me hate you more. You are fit. You are such a wreck with your need for constant reassurance.”

“Are we done, here? I’m going to bed soon.”

“Yikes, Rob, I’m coming over. You need a drink. I’m not talking about getting wasted. Just one cocktail.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“No seriously, an hour tops. And you can pick the bar.”

“Daniel, man, I’m trying to be good here, fucking no support.”

“C’mon cranky. I haven’t seen you in decades. Just one drink. One little sip. On me.”

“FuuuuuuuuuuuUUUUk, all right. One drink. Circle bar. Meet me there in an hour.”

“Oh, Rob, great. I’m glad you’re still fun.”

Ok, so I was just going to have one drink. I kept repeating the number in my head, one, one, one, one. One drink. I jumped in the shower, threw on some jeans and drove to the Circle.

I arrived exactly in one hour and ponied up to the bar. Daniel was, of course, late. So I looked around the room.

“Can I get you something,” a hot bartender said to me.

“You know what, I’m waiting for a friend. He should be here any minute, or any hour or any day.”

“I have friends like that.”

I smiled and she walked away towards paying customers. I waited for 10 minutes then made my way around the room to talk to a friend and head to the bathroom. When I got back, Daniel was sitting on the other side of the bar.

“You’re late,” he said.

I just gave him the look.

We both got up and threw down the full man hug. He started rubbing my hair and smiling. I scrunched my nose in disaffection.

"Oh, my God, I haven’t seen you in ages. Look at this mop. You look so WB.”

“I’m trying to get it a little longer. Never really grew it out before. Because it looks like this when I do.”

“It looks cute. It looks a bit gay. And before you get your panties in a bunch, I’m talking good gay, not the way you boys use it, all derogatory. It’s cute.”

“Jim said it was bad gay.”

“Oh, God Robert, when are you going to stop competing with him. He won, you lost, deal with it.”

I looked at him in astonishment.

“Kidding,” he said, smiling. “Sit down.”

“But you do need constant reassurance,” he said under his breath.

“One drink,” I told him, changing the subject.

“One drink,” he replied soberly.

“So why the Circle bar?" he asked, “Perhaps the ridiculously hot waitresses.”

“Don’t judge.”

“Oh, I’m not,” he said looking around, “You breeders are everywhere, not a gay lad to be found in the house."

“Daniel, can you stop thinking about getting laid for a few hours, remember you asked me out for drinks?”

“But Jenni sez it’s 'all about the fuck,' right?”

I laughed. It was strange. Daniel is the only friend I know who reads my blog on a regular basis. He’s just too afraid to comment.

“That’s funny, you’ve been reading.”

“My God, yes, that’s what I’ve been relegated to do, since you abandoned me. How else can I keep up with your fabulous life.”

“It’s not fabulous. And I’ve called you 5 or 6 times since I did the gay thing, and you only returned my call once.”

“I know, I’ve been busy.”

“Yea and you only want to go to gay bars. Dude, that was so early summer for me. I’ve moved on to trying to screw 19-year-olds.”

“Yea, that’s sick. She was like zero when you were 11. Yuck.”

“Oh, and you wouldn’t hook up with a sub-20 boy. C’mon.”

“Oh, you’re right, but I just wanted to say something clever for your blog. Will you write it down.”

“Yea, don’t worry.”

“I miss reading about myself. It was so fun, and you haven’t written about me for eons. It's all about Tracy and Jim.”

“I haven’t seen you, remember? Just in passing here and there.”

“Ok.”

“You didn’t arrange this so I could blog about you, did you?”

“That would be sad and superficial,” he replied.

“Of which you are both, yes. So did you?”

“Well maybe a little. I just wanted to reconnect.”

He was playing to my heart strings.

“Ok, let’s reconnect, bartender, bring another round,” I said.

So we drank. And drank. And we drank. We drank to ourselves, to our lives, to our summer and to our future. And most importantly, we drank to friendship.

“Your friend Cheffy is creepy,”

“Shelfie, like a shelf.”

“Oh, yea. That shaving story gave me the heebie jeebies. I just thought of him and his wife, sitting in their jazuzzi, filled with his short curlies and his meaty hard-on. Gross.”

“He’s not so bad, as long as he keeps the shirt on. You know his wife, right? From Tracy’s office.”

“She’s a demon. Well, I’ve never met her, but she looks like one.”

“She’s fine too. They’re both nice. Really.”

“If you say so, but the shaving sex thing turned me off. Can’t you edit that stuff out.”

“For you, maybe.”

“Hey,” he said like a lightbulb went off in his head, “are you still clean?”

He lifted up my shirt.

“Hold on, I’ll do it.”

I exposed the left side of my shirt, up to the nipple. I figured I'd kick him down a little something.

“It’s growing back. Naughty. I thought surely I showed you the light. Look at this.”

He lifted his shirt, but not discreetly. It was lifted well above his head and flawlessly without hair.

“It was my best one yet, new wax or something. And no bumps.”

“It looks great,” I said, pulling down his shirt, “I’m growing my winter coat.”

“Oh well, I guess you learned nothing from me. But when you’re ready, you need to head back to my girl.”

“Will do, I’ll make sure I mow before the spring fashions come out.”

“And that new car of yours.”

“It’s actually used.”

“Well, anyway, it sounds super grown up. Volvo. Should we talk about 401Ks or something?”

“Should we talk about Sarah?”

“Oh my God, Is she here?”

“Look at that tall girl, the one with the kind of mustache.”

“She should see my girl, she does upper lip, too.”

“Stay on track. She is right behind her. Wait for fake tits to move. Ok, there she is.”

“Uh, hide me.”

“She already saw me while you were primping. I bought her a drink. She’s depressed about her boyfriend."

“Oh, she hates me.”

‘No she doesn’t, here I’ll bring her over. I need to take a piss.”

"No," he screamed in horror. Not drama horror either, real horror.

I walked over and grabbed her and her girlfriend and offered to buy them both drinks. Sarah and I went to UCLA together, and Daniel wasn’t lying. She did hate him.

We all walked over and Sarah and Daniel both looked like ghosts when they saw each other. She was surprised I brought her over, he was surprised I had the balls to do it.

I made the motion for four tequilas to my bartender.

“Listen, I’ll get straight to the point,” I said, drunkenly brazen, “There was some shit with you two, but that’s the fucking past. Daniel is on this kick to reconnect to people, and I thought this would be a good time. Besides, I like you Sarah, and I don’t want Daniel telling me to hide him whenever you’re around. Cool?”

“But he,”

“I know what he did, he's a dick and that was fucked up, but it was a long time ago and no one really got hurt. C’mon, let’s put this behind us and be friends.”

Daniel sat silent. Not believing this was happening.

“You know, fuck it,” she said. “Ted was an asshole anyway. I should have known the guy was gay.”

“Yea, it wasn’t my fault,” Daniel chimed in helplessly.

“It was your fault, but it’s over. You could have said no, but that’s all behind us.” I said.

I grabbed her friend by the arm, and put the tequila in front of her.

“I don’t drink tequila,” her girlfriend said.

“Tonight you do.”

I put the lime in my mouth. And I poured the warm shot against her lips. She never took her eyes off the glass. She never flinched. And I grabbed her arms and pulled her to the lime. It was very safe. Very WB. And she was very cute.

“Ok, your turn,” I said to Daniel and Sarah.

And they followed. And we drank. All of us. In big gulps and small shots. In our cups and from each other. We were friends, and it was fun. And, as my motto has been lately, at the end of the night, we all went our separate ways. Expect for me and Daniel.

“Let’s take a cab, you can crash at my place.”

“Rob Lowe, you fucker, you set me up.”

“Hey, you don’t want my blog friends to think you’re boring. I can invent drama as well as you.”

“You little shit.”

“Maybe you can start your own blog.”

“Yea, he said laughing, “GayinLA.com.”

We both sat on the curb, drunkenly waiting for our cab.

“I’m never doing this again. One drink, I said. One Drink. I’m going to be hungover tomorrow.”

There was no response. I looked over and Daniel’s eyes were closed, head bobbing and falling in slow motion, like someone sleeping on a bus. I put my arm around him and put his head on my shoulder. Because, that’s what friends do. Especially drunk ones with work in the morning.

God, I'm hungover.