21-Year-Old Scotch - 10. Chapter 10

Gradually, faint sounds reached Scott, as if a portable radio was playing a mile away and being flitered through a mixture of caramel and nougat that filled the space between his ears. What at first seemed like the yipping of a distant dog gradually resolved itself into distinguishable syllables, then grew louder and became actual words.

"Sir, are you okay?", someone asked. "Scott, can you hear me?"

Echoing far in the background, Scott could detect voices singing over a driving beat. He'd heard the words many times before: "I was dreamin' when I wrote this, so sue me if I go 2 fast. But life is just a party, and parties weren't meant 2 last."

Scott slowly moved his eyelids, prompting a different voice to say, "I think he's coming to." He felt two hands on each of his forearms, lifting him off the cool, hard floor and planting him on a barstool.

When Scott finally opened his eyes, he stared blearily ahead and saw a middle-aged man staring at him. Things were fuzzy, but he didn't look bad for an old guy, with lean features and a close-cropped cut clearly designed to deemphasize his dwindling gray hair. That he kept himself in decent shape for his age was emphasized by the tailored fit of his white Oxford shirt. The top two buttons were undone, offering a hint of a solid, tanned chest. An empty glass rested on the bar before him. He looked a little lost.

Flanking that customer were a muscular young blond without a shirt and a shorter man in a v-neck tee, heavy-set and cue-ball bald. As Scott regained his faculties, he realized that two men of exactly that same description were standing on either side of him, steadying him on his barstool. When Scott raised a hand to feel for bumps on the back of his head, his mirror-image did likewise. Scott looked down at the bar and noticed his own empty glass.

His confusion lifted as Scott realized he had been looking at his own reflection. He regained his bearings, and the murkiness in his brain dissipated quickly as memories came flooding in, as if a data dump of his entire life history was being downloaded into his mind in a single burst from an immense zip file.

"You all right, Scott?", the golden-haired adonis asked, checking the dilation of his customer's pupils. "You really took a header off that stool." Scott recognized him as the bartender who moments ago had served him a birthday drink, the most amazing drink Scott had ever had.

"I'll be fine," Scott assured him, although he was still a bit loopy from the drink's after-effects. "That stuff sure has one hell of a kick!"

The bartender nodded, with a sly grin. "We only bring it out on very rare occasions for customers we think will appreciate it."

Scott turned toward the stocky man. "Thanks to you too for helping me up."

The stocky fellow said, "My pleasure." Despite his jowls and the Billy Joel bags under his bloodshot green eyes, there was something elfin and spry about the guy. He was examining Scott's face carefully. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

Reluctantly, Scott admitted, "Maybe you've seen me on TV."

"Nah, I don't watch TV," the bald guy growled dismissively.

Realizing they were roughly the same age, Scott suggested, "Well, I did go to college here. Maybe we had classes together?"

"Could be. Jew ever used ta come here?", the man asked, indicating the bar.

"Yeah, once in a while. Once I was legal."

The fireplug of a man leaned closer, giving Scott a full blast of beer breath. "Did you and I ever...hook up?"

Scott gave the man's face a second look. Although there was indeed something familiar about him, Scott shook his head and said, "I don't think so."

"Aw. Too bad. I betchoo were pretty cute."

Scott watched as the guy gimped toward the front door, taking one last wistful look at the patrons on the dance floor who were partying like it was 1999. Scott did the math and calculated that most of those dancers would likely have been in pre-school in 1999. Scott shook his head in disbelief and thought, "God, I'm old."

The hunky young bartender jerked his chin in the direction of the exit and said, "Don't mind that guy. He's harmless. My uncle told me, back in the day, that guy was quite the stud. Almost went to the Olympics."

Now it clicked. "That was Art?" He could now see the facial resemblance, but it was hard to grasp that those once perfectly-honed muscles were now buried somewhere inside that roly-poly body.

"Yeah, that's Art. So you did know him?"

"I used to see him around. Why didn't he go to the Olympics?"

"Really sad. Apparently, just before trials, he suffered a bad groin pull."

Scott hated himself for finding this hilariously poetic. "The way I remember it, somebody new was pulling his groin every night."

The bartender chuckled. "Yeah, I've heard the stories. People sure change over time, don't they?"

Scott nodded. "You're very wise for your age, Trey." He was surprised he could still remember the bartender's name after the tumble he had taken.

Trey returned behind the bar, and Scott once again admired the intricately filigreed tattooed wings that dominated the bartender's back. Over the cash register hung a framed poorly-focused and off-kilter photo of a cranky man with a crew-cut, giving the camera the finger with both hands. Trey pointed to the picture and said, "If you used to come here, then you must have known my uncle."

"Your uncle was Shemp? Wow. I haven't thought about him in forever. He sure was a crusty old fart. Hey, this has always bugged me. Shemp wasn't his real name, was it?"

Trey shook his head. "Shepard. When my dad was a baby, he couldn't pronounce Shepard. Closest he could get was Shemp, and it stuck."

"Huh. Interesting. So, is he still around?"

Trey hung his head solemnly. "Afraid not." Scott was about to offer his condolences when Trey looked up and said, "He and his husband live on a boat in Key West." Scott shook a fist in mock anger at Trey.

Scott always grew nostalgic whenever he was back in town. His thoughts naturally drifted to the people he knew during his college days, like his old roommate Lee, who had approached Scott on graduation day and apologized for voting to toss him out of the apartment. They hadn't stayed in touch over the years, but had recently reconnected on Facebook. Seemed like a perfectly decent family man, but they shared little in common besides briefly living at the same address.

On the other hand, Scott had never spoken to Kevin again after the eviction. Lee informed Scott that Kevin had indeed gone on to be a cop and was already retired. The one detail that Lee felt compelled to share with Scott was that Kevin's oldest son was gay...and that Kevin had recently walked him down the aisle. No news on whether this had made Kevin any more tolerant of people who weren't related to him.

Following the great eviction, Scott and Todd had found a nice two-bedroom apartment close to campus, which they shared until Scott graduated. Todd did ask Amanda on a date once, shortly after she and Scott broke up, but, to no one's surprise but Todd, he wasn't her type. Scott and Todd had remained good friends, trying to get together for a weekend someplace every couple of years. Todd was very successful in real estate, and had become something of an international marijuana connoisseur, traveling to the remotest corners of the planet in his endless quest for the most righteous bud. Todd had never married, but each year his Christmas card showed him in some different exotic locale in the company of some different stunning young lady, each of whom Todd expressed certainty would turn out to finally be "the one". Because of Todd's globe-trotting adventures as an international man of mystery in search of primo weed and foxy ladies, Scott had taken to referring to his old friend as "James Bong".

Phil (he dropped the whole "call me Phillipe" thing after a month) remained around town after graduation, getting a job as a hair stylist and staying involved in drama at the community theater, doing hair and costumes and occasionally performing. It was during a production of "Greater Tuna" that he met the love of his life, a visiting director from London named Rafe who was so flamboyant that Phil seemed downright pedestrian by comparison. They had four spectacular years together -- and Phil remained constantly by his side, dutifully nursing Rafe through a long losing battle with AIDS.

Scott felt the cell phone buzzing in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw a birthday text from Amanda, accompanied by a photo of her family. After their breakup, Amanda had done a lot of soul searching about her own conflicted feelings. Long story short, she and her sorority sister Patty (who now preferred "Pat") had been together since college and now had three extraordinary kids: Yana, who was adopted from Syria; Olivier, who was adopted from Rwanda; and Patrick. When Amanda and Pat decided to try in-vitro fertilization, they asked if Scott would be the sperm donor, the greatest honor of Scott's life. Unfortunately, after two failed attempts, it was determined that Amanda could never carry a baby to term, which is how Pat ended up being the one who gave birth to Patrick from Amanda's egg and Scott's sperm. Growing up, the family nicknamed the boy "Scooter", as a nod to Scott and to avoid confusion with Pat, but he abandoned his nickname when he entered school and encountered children who had seen "The Muppet Show". Inside the family, he still answered to "Scoot". Scoot got Amanda's breathtaking looks and Scott's blond curls, which the now college-age boy wore in a bountiful afro. Scott would always point to his own thinning hair and warn Scoot not to get too attached to it. Interestingly, in the family snapshot, Pat's hair was roughly as short as Scott's. Scott and Amanda chatted frequently, far better friends now than they ever had been as a couple in college, and the whole family, including Scott, vacationed together as often as their busy schedules allowed. When the women finally tied the knot two years ago, Scott stood beside Amanda at the altar...as her best man. He was delighted to see both women smiling in the photo and so obviously still in love. He would have hated to see Amanda get tied down in an unhappy marriage to some loser.

Scott and Jared had flirted with a relationship on and off in college, but Jared's reluctance to become a couple openly caused a rift which only intensified when they moved to opposite coasts after graduation. Jared headed to Hollywood as he planned, intuitively knowing that his was a face born to be on the big screen, while Scott tried his luck in New York City. The fiercely competitive environment forced Scott to work hard to improve his craft, while he scraped by bartending at a dive in the Village. He gradually made his way from off-Broadway to supporting roles on Broadway to the occasional guest spot on one "Law And Order" or another. He eventually landed a role on a soap opera as one of the first openly gay characters on daytime, unsuccessfully lobbying the writers and producers to give him the first male-on-male kiss in soap history. The material wasn't exactly Mamet, but he was making a more-than-good living as a professional actor, something his father had sworn would never happen.

From three thousand miles away, Scott watched as Jared's stardom grew, getting increasingly bigger roles in increasingly bigger movies, but becoming typecast as the prototypical handsome lout who tended to end up covered in frosting or manure by the end credits. Scott envied Jared's mainstream success, while Jared was jealous of Scott's greater ability to keep his private life private. Glancing at the tabloids in the supermarket, Scott frequently saw Jared's name awkwardly portmanteau-ed Brangelina-style with that of some rising starlet or another. Jared played along with the game publicly, assured by his "people" that it was good for his image, but the dishonesty and secrecy ate away at him. He turned to booze more and more, sometimes drunk-dialing Scott in the middle of the night, L.A. time. During those marathon calls which often lasted until dawn rose over Manhattan, Jared on more than one occasion told Scott, "You're the only person I can tell the truth to."

The two of them had gone without seeing each other in person for several years when they were asked to serve as pallbearers at Phil's funeral. Despite everyone's initial assumption upon hearing the news of his death, Phil did not meet the same fate as his longtime companion. Phillip had been crossing the street, on his way to opening night of a one-man show he wrote and starred in about his years with Rafe, when he was was struck by a hit-and-run drunk driver. He died instantly and, everyone hoped, painlessly. Scott was heartbroken, having traveled to town specifically to be there for the premiere. When Jared arrived from Hollywood, he was devastated and blotto, barely able to keep it together during the service and finally losing all composure at the cemetery (where Scott was pleased to note that the headstone read "PHILLIPE"). After the funeral, Scott and Jared went to the Rusty Nail to get good and shitfaced, and Jared couldn't stop asking out loud, "What if I had been the drunken asshole who hit Phil?" That night, they returned to Jared's lavish hotel suite for some sloppy foreplay before, in what had become a time-honored tradition in their friendship, both of them passed out. In the morning, Scott helped Jared make arrangements to enter rehab -- and took an extended leave from the soap opera to go to Los Angeles to be there for him. After five weeks, he pulled up stakes permanently and moved in with Jared.

They attempted to keep their relationship low key, but avoiding paparazzi became more and more difficult. One morning five years ago, Jared woke up, told Scott he was tired of pretending, booked an appearance on "Ellen", and just happened to casually mention his boyfriend during the interview. Jared's agent and manager objected fiercely. Jared promptly fired them both. Six months later, Scott and Jared got married in Paris on the Eiffel Tower. Scott dearly wished that his mom had lived to see that day. He was glad that his dad hadn't.

"Sorry, Nugget. Did I miss anything important?"

Scott turned around on his stool to face Jared, who had only grown more handsome as he got older. His slicked-back hair and matching goatee were currently dyed jet black for his latest movie role, but even without the dye, Jared only had a few stray gray hairs. DNA had been exceptionally generous to Jared. "Let's see, while you were in the men's room, I took a drink of scotch and I passed out on the floor."

Jared tsk-tsked. "Liquor is a dangerous thing." Jared's sobriety bracelet was barely visible inside the cuff of his black Versace suit.

As the sounds of Prince segued into the opening strains of "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life", Scott pointed up toward the speakers. "Your request?"

"You know me too well," Jared said.

"Hey, you'll never guess who was just here," Scott said. "Remember Art Concrete, that big gymnast from school?"

"Oh, yeah!", Jared said, lighting up at the memory. "He used to be smokin' hot. How is he now?"

"Room temperature," Scott informed him. "Oh, I almost forgot. When I came to, I had this crazy idea stuck in my head for a movie. A guy gets magically transported back to his college days and has the chance to alter the way his life turns out. Huh? What do you think?"

Jared wrinkled his nose. "Been done. I prefer stories that are a little more grounded in reality."

"Says the man playing Kraven the Hunter in the next Spider-man movie."

"Touché."

Scott loved to tease Jared about his latest part, but in fact, Scott was immensely proud that Jared had emerged from his dark years, his stint in rehab and the hubbub over coming out of the closet, and now had the biggest role of his career as the main bad guy in a Marvel movie. Scott certainly couldn't gripe about the studio requiring Jared to get in the best shape of his life for the part, in which he would display his impressively jacked torso beneath a vest made from a lion's mane. Scott had stayed admirably fit, mostly through swimming after he wrecked his knees running, but he finally had to concede that Jared had outstripped him in the body department. Seeing how much grueling effort at the gym it had taken for Jared to develop python-sized arms and an eight-pack at the age of fifty, Scott promised Jared that he would be willing to do the same, but only under the condition that Marvel paid him millions of dollars to do it.

Jared noticed the time and said, "Hey, we better start heading to campus for the ceremony." Scott nodded, pulling on a gray Armani jacket. The two of them had returned to town not just to mark Scott's fiftieth, but because the stage where they had first acted together in "Equus" was officially being renamed the Jared Taylor/Scott Mitchell Theater tonight. Scott couldn't help but think of the line from that old movie: "Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough." Apparently you could now add Jared and Scott to that list.

As Scott rose to his feet, Jared noticed something strange in Scott's hair and attempted to brush it away with his hand.

"Watch it with the hair, Kraven," Scott said. "I need to protect my vanishing natural resources."

"Sorry. I just saw a little dandruff."

"Dandruff? I don't get dandruff." Scott reached back and could definitely feel something odd clinging to the hair on the back of his head. He grabbed a few granules and examined them. "That's not dandruff. It's sawdust. Must be from when I hit my head on the..." He looked down at the smooth black floor, and didn't see a speck of sawdust. "Hey, Trey, when did you guys stop putting sawdust on the floor?"

Trey shrugged his impressive shoulders. "No idea. Before my time."

Scott looked flummoxed. He sensed that something was askew here, but he couldn't for the life of him think what it could be.

Jared studied Scott with genuine concern."You sure you're okay, Nugget?"

Scott shook off his confusion and smiled adoringly at his husband, squeezing his hand. "Never felt better in my life."

THE END