Scott Sherman - First You Fall

Although he always told me I was his favorite.

Which I didn’t doubt, because he was my favorite client.

“Maybe next time,” he said, “you could do it.”

“Do what?”

“You know,” he said, shyly. “Spend the night. If you want to, I mean.”

Marc looked sweet and vulnerable, even younger than he usual y did.

Maybe Marc’s earlier rejection of my offer to stay had less to do with his work than with his fear of getting too close to someone. It wasn’t an accident, I thought, that he’s locked himself in this computer wonderland.

Maybe he wasn’t locking himself in as much as he was locking everyone else out.

Maybe he needed someone to knock down the door.

He was sweet, he was handsome, he was sexy, and he was rich. Maybe that someone should be me.

Maybe this kind of thinking gets a hustler in trouble.

“Give ‘em your mouth, your dick, and your ass,”

Mrs. Cherry once told me, “but do me a favor: keep your heart to yourself.”

“Maybe I can,” I told Marc.

But I knew I probably shouldn’t.

I sneaked into my apartment somewhere around one. My mother’s snoring combined with the lumpy couch to defeat any chance of sleep. I tossed and turned for awhile, but eventual y gave in to pharmaceutical assistance and popped an Ambien.

What do you get when you cross someone with hyperactivity with a sleeping pil? Someone who can’t wait to fal asleep. Get it?

So, after ten restless minutes, I popped another pil. That did the trick. Sleep hit me like a hammer.

“Good morning, gorgeous!” someone shouted into my face. I groggily opened my unwil ing eyes. Features slowly came into focus: blood-red lipstick, long, false eyelashes, heavily teased wig.

Oh my God, I thought, a demented drag queen has broken into my apartment!

Then I remembered.

“Mom. What time is it?” I croaked

“Wake up time,” she said. She leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. “Smel.”

I covered my mouth. “I haven’t brushed yet,” I explained.

“No, you don’t smel,” she said. “Wel, maybe a little. I mean: smel.” She took a deep breath.

I did too. Oh my god. Bacon. French toast.

Hazelnut coffee. If I hadn’t woken up with a morning erection (thank you Lord for the blanket that covered my lap), I’d have sprung one there and then.

“See what you can do with food?” my mother said.

“It’s cal ed ‘cooking.’”

After breakfast with my mother, I went to the gym. I was doing pul — ups, my least favorite exercise, and thinking about what Tony told me.

“Just walk away.”

He was right, of course. I had about as much business solving a murder as Sherlock Holmes did turning tricks.

Stil, several things nagged at me.

Not the least of which was that I couldn’t believe Al en would have kil ed himself.

I don’t care what Tony told me about a recent rash of gay suicides. Al en was a happy, vital man, and he never would have taken his own life.

Someone must have kil ed him.

But who?

His children were obvious suspects.

Both Michael, the tal, handsome one, and Paul, the fey dandy, hated their father. Perhaps they had other motives, too. Maybe they didn’t believe he had cut them from his wil. Were they expecting a windfal from Al en’s fal from a window?

There were other suspects, too.

I stil had questions about Randy Bostinick, the hustler I had hooked Al en up with. Randy had a kil er temper. But did he have a killer’s temper? I couldn’t say.

Then there was Roger Folds, the development director at The Stuff of Life. While I didn’t have any reason to think he was capable of murder, it was pretty strange that he stopped coming to work right around the time of Al en’s death. And his co-worker Vicki had told me something else… what was it?

Focus, Kevin, focus.

Ah yes, she thought Roger and Al en had been fighting about something.

And I stil didn’t know enough about Paul and Michael Harrington. What was Paul doing with that shrew Alana? And what was up with Michael’s group, The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy? It sounded like a quack factory to me.

Al these thoughts swirling around in my head-it was time to get organized. My psychiatrist often told me that people with AADD should make lists. I was lazy about fol owing his advice, but I felt overwhelmed enough to admit I needed al the help I could get. I took my iPhone out of my shorts. Along with a very smal canister of Mace I kept on my keychain (we little blond boys need al the help we can get), it was something I carried with me al the time. I opened up a note and started typing.

1. Fol ow up with Roger Folds-fight?

2. Talk to Randy Bostinick

3. Research Paul and Michael Harrington.

4. Look into those gay suicides-was that true?

Then, just for the heck of it, I added

5. Fuck Tony

I wasn’t sure how I meant that last item, but what the hel. Either way would be immensely satisfying.

I looked over the list. Items one and two looked pretty doable. With the help of the Internet, I could at least get started on three and four.

Item five I had waited seven years for. I could afford to wait a while longer.

My first to-do, talking to Roger Folds, I might be able to make short order of. Feeling pumped from the gym, I walked to The Stuff of Life for my morning shift. By the time I got there, the summer heat had deflated my pump, soaked through my shirt, and left me a sweaty mess. Yuck.

I got to The Stuff of Life early and headed straight to Roger’s office. The door was closed. I knocked, once quietly, once with a little more oomph. No answer.

Next I went to see Vicki. She was sitting with her feet up on her desk, back to the door, phone held to her ear. Black cowboy shirt, black jeans, black boots. Black hair slicked back like Elvis. She was talking on the phone. “So I said to her, ‘listen honey, I wouldn’t eat her pussy with your mouth,’ and she said…”

I tapped on the door to let her know I was there.

Vicki held up a finger.

“Hey, listen, someone’s at the door. I’l cal you back later. Yeah, love you too, Mom.” She hung up the phone.

“Jesus,” I said, “you talk to your mother like that?”

“Please,” Vicki rol ed her eyes, “once my mother found out I was a dyke, she got more interested in lesbianism than I am. She read every book she could find on the subject, rented Desert Hearts, and begged me to take her to a gay bar.”

“Did you?”

“Of course! She had a great time. Haven’t you ever taken your mother out?”

“We went to the supermarket last night.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Listen, there’s not a gay bar in New York big enough to hold me and my mother.”

“You should try it. Maybe you guys could come out with me and my mom sometime. Who knows, maybe our moms wil hook up.”

I put my fingers in my ears. “La, la, la, la…”

“OK,” Vicki said, laughing, “I take it back. So, if you didn’t come here looking to hook your mother up with some hot lesbo action, what does bring you my way?”

I explained that I was looking for Roger Folds.

“Wel, don’t look here,” Vick answered. “He quit.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. He said he never wants to come back, either. Just asked if someone could bring his personal stuff to his apartment.” Vicki pointed to a cardboard box sitting on her floor. “That’s it over there. He doesn’t live too far from me, so I figured I’d do it. Give me a chance to tel him what an asshole I think he is.”

“Listen,” I said, “think you could tel him in a letter?