John opened the door to Room 805 in a gallant manner. “I wanna fly you to Chicago,” he babbled, following Vel like a puppy. “For an all-expenses paid weekend. Let me spoil you. Take you shopping. Gimme your number and we can sidestep the Boss Lady.”
“That isn’t protocol, I’m afraid,” Vel warned. “You gotta go through Medulla.”
A shrill voice down the hall echoed in the corridor:
“What did I TELL HIM about GROOMERS? But no, YOUR SON has to be all ‘Oh, I’m a BIG MAN now.’ And now look, just loo-oo-uh-uh-oook. It’s dark-sided. It’s so dark-sided.”
John and Vel slowed as the hotel’s Head of Security stepped out of Room 817. “We need housekeeping. An army,” he barked into his walkie-talkie. “And call the precinct… Felony destruction of property, easy. Narcotics, and… NO, it’s way worse than the Furry convention. Trust me…”
Ignoring the hotel staffer as he beckoned them past, John and Vel peered into the room.
One moment, there was nobody beside them; in the next, a helmet-haired woman in expensive jewelry poked her finger in their faces, giving them hell from twelve inches away.
“Oh, HI!” Kayleigh shrieked in a vicious satire of cheer. “Welcome! TAKE A ‘GANDER’ AT THE END OF MY LIFE, WHY DON’T YOU! That’s right. DRINK IT IN. The RUBBLE!”
“Jesus.” John placed a protective hand on Vel’s shoulder and hurried him toward the elevator.
“You got your eyeful! Now run along, Lookie-Loos!” Kayleigh catcalled after them. “This ain’t the freakin’ FREEWAY. It’s a HALL.”
Drawing from years of ballet training at the finest academies, Kayleigh executed a swift emotional transition and crumpled gracefully into a heaving pile on the carpet.
“I’m sorry... I’m so, so sorry...” she wept as John and Vel waited for the elevator.
Larry stepped out of Room 817, shell-shocked. He stared down at his wife as she reached toward John and Vel, her hands shaking, eyes brimming with emergent mascara tears:
“Lord, bestow thy blessings on the love between this boy and his Daddy.”
She performed the Jesus U fist-chop, ending in a T position. “Go Jesus.”
#
“Eh-hrm.”
Silence.
“Um. Ariel.”
A long moment passed.
“Ariel? ... It’sch me. Carol. Y’know, Carol Channing.”
Ariel opened one eye behind his sleep mask, then the other. “Huh, wha-?”
“I got a little dishtracted, and your 9AM alarm up and schlipped my mind.” A soothing alarm filled the room with ascending doodly-doos. “There.”
Ariel raised his sleep mask onto his forehead as context descended. “WHAT?”
“I feel abyshmal about it.”
“Carol, what TIME is it?”
Carol hesitated. “The time isch ten ... forty. Schix.”
“CAROL!”
“… Scheven,” she updated.
Ariel bolted up in bed. “Medulla gave me a ten-o’clock client! Carol, this was important!”
“I descherve forty lasches with a wet noodle,” Carol replied with a catch in her voice.
Ariel glanced into his parlor, where Gage stirred in the leopard beanbag. “Oh for fuck’s sakes!” He leapt into the parlor and yanked the covers off of Gage. “Gotta go! Go go go! Get out!”
“What happened?”
“I’m late and it’s time for you to scram.” Ariel sprinted into the bathroom, stripped off his pajamas and threw a washcloth under the tap. Roaring with frustration, he smeared soap on his armpits and nether regions and scrubbed furiously.
He noticed Gage blinking at him in the doorway. “YES. I AM TAKING A WHORE’S BATH.”
“I missed my plane!” Gage moaned.
Ariel exhaled tensely, ignoring him.
“Can I give a last look around for my wallet?”
“It ain’t here.” Ariel splashed himself with scoops of water. “Too bad, so sad. Ya gotta skedaddle.”
“But where is it, then?”
“At your hotel perhaps.”
“No, I bought Clark a pack of smokes after I left.” Gage hung his head. “Can I charge my phone for a few minutes, at least? It’s dead. I need to call my folks.”
Ariel squirted a blob of toothpaste in the vicinity of his toothbrush. “Did I stutter?” he said, brushing furiously. “Ya gotta get lost.”
It’s now or never, Gage thought.
“I need to tell you a couple things.”
Ariel spit into the sink. “I’m not fucking around.”
“I’m not twenty-one.”
“B.F.D.”
“I’m eighteen. So that’s one thing. I’m sorry I lied.”
“I’m worlds away from giving a shit. Begone!”
“There’s something else.” Gage took a breath. “See, I was looking for you.”
“Looking for me where?” Ariel smeared down his cowlick, which sprang back undeterred. “At the bar?”
Gage stepped toward Ariel cautiously. “I showed your picture to some guys online and asked if any of ‘em knew you. Clark said yes.”
“You got thirty seconds to get out before I throw you down the stairs,” Ariel warned. “In pieces. Four limbs, a torso and a head.”
“I showed him your mugshot.”
Ariel’s eyes widened. He threw his toothbrush in the sink and turned to Gage. “I HATE my mugshot. Why the hell do you have it?”
Gage pressed on. “My Dad’s sterile.”
Ariel decelerated. “What?”
“I got one of those DNA tests, like, a year ago. Thinking I could surprise my parents with, like, ‘here’s our lineage.’ But the surprise was for me.”
Ariel’s frenzy braked to a stop.
“I looked for you,” Gage pleaded.
A heavy silence descended.
“Hold up,” Ariel finally said. “I’m your… Daddy Daddy?”
Gage nodded.
“But that’s impossible.” Ariel’s mind raced. “I’ve fucked women, but with protection, and none of them were Fundamentalists. And I fucked around with a few transmen in my travels.” Ariel looked at Gage witheringly. “But I got a hunch your Daddy ain’t that woke.”
Then his face went white.
“My dad shoots blanks,” Gage said. “They told me when I, like, confronted them. They used a sperm donor. They said he graduated from Yale.”
Ariel didn’t move, so Gage pressed on. “All I could find of you online since 2002 was the mugshot. Orleans Parish. There wasn’t an address anywhere, either, just a P.O. Box.”
“Ain’t no accident,” Ariel growled with a dangerous glint in his eye. “I’m not the kind of person who wants to be found.”
“And then my robotics team at Jesus U qualified for Nationals. Which got held in New Orleans this year. So I thought ‘This is my chance.’”
Ariel exploded. “You had all night to bring it up!”
“It’s a hard conversation to start!”
“Bitch, you are shady as hell, droppin’ this shit on me outta the blue. I am not the me I’d want my son to see.”
“I tried to bring it up before but you didn’t catch on!”
“I wonder why it didn’t cross my mind!” Ariel scoffed. “I put you up as a guest in my home. You hung out with me and my friends. You’re sketchy as any con artist in Louisiana. You’re worse.”
Gage withdrew a grubby, folded envelope from his rear pocket. “Here, these are the lab results. And the family tree. Look!” He offered it to Ariel.
Ariel narrowed his eyes and snapped the envelope from Gage’s hand. He began to form words, then stopped, shaking.
The door buzzer sounded. Ariel shoved past Gage, stomped to the intercom and pounded the button with his fist.
“NOW WHAT?”
“It’s your Mommie!” Betty’s voice crackled on the other end. “SURPRISE!”
#
Standing at the side door with a pink carry-on, Betty hoped that her voice sounded cheerful enough. She was edgy from the all-night drive from Boca Raton, plus the declining returns of 120 milligrams of Adderall.
“FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU!” squawked the intercom.
Two elderly ladies dressed for church gave Betty a wide berth as they passed.
Well, THAT didn’t go so well, Betty thought. He always was so emotional. But it most always passes quick enough. Just gotta wait it out.
Her eyes fell onto a red hoodie hanging on the doorknob. She picked it up, examined it, then tossed it over her arm.
Then sure enough, the intercom buzzed. The door clicked.
That was fast, Betty thought as she grabbed the handle. She hoisted her pink carry-on and marched up the stairs with the hoodie on her arm.
#
“I didn’t go to Yale, you dork!” Ariel flung off his towel and pitched it toward the laundry basket, missing his target by an adult body length. “I lied about Yale so my sperm would stand out. There’s jism… and there’s Yale jism. Y’know? Anyway, I’m terribly sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter!”
“And what did you hope I’d be? A professor? A DENTIST, perhaps?”
“I saw your mugshot. I wasn’t expecting you to be... I knew you were, like…”
“A loser. A criminal? Human garbage?”
“No! What I mean is, I looked for you anyway. I didn’t mind. I still don’t.” Gage burst into tears. “I care about you.”
“Did you ever consider how your little side-quest might make me feel?”
“I get stuck in my head sometimes,” Gage said, withdrawing into himself.
“You were a fifty-buck wank at the sperm bank. Thus ended my obligations.”
Betty pushed open Ariel’s door.
“MORNIN’, sweet cheeks!” She stopped, taking in Ariel’s naked body. “Looks like someone’s horse got outta the barn!” She chuckled, then leaned in, squinting at his Prince Albert piercing. “Is that a ring? Didn’t that hurt? Anyway, I brought us Danishes from the gas station.”
With a magnanimous air, Betty proffered two preservative-laden pastries sealed in plastic. Catching herself, she turned to Gage. “I’m sorry. I only got two.”
Ariel took charge. “Okay, here’s how it’s gonna go.” He pointed at Betty. “YOU, give HIM my Danish and-” He pointed at Gage. “YOU, get the fuck out!”
Gage pointed at Betty. “She got my hoodie!”
“TAKE YOUR FUCKING HOODIE TOO!” Ariel roared.
“Don’t I get a HUG?” Betty asked, opening her arms.
###
☮️ & ❤️,
