Hooking Trout - 1. Coffee With Doug

Hooking Trout

by

Brian Lancaster

Some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run away.
- Thomas Fuller

Born and bred in Brooklyn, Doug Myer’s my oldest and best gay buddy, my sounding board and common-sense guru in moments of crisis.

Or so I thought.

Even though Doug is built like a quarterback, he has the mannerisms of Pee-wee Herman. Although this may be a difficult mental picture, in reality the truth confounds all sexes.

He and I enjoy a routine each Sunday. While his partner Stew prepares lunch for us all, he insists we exercise their pooch imaginatively christened Snoopy along with the rest of the Beagle population. This nervous dog picked up at the ASPCA exhibits an incredibly even temperament around people except for one annoying habit that both he and Doug share.

Ten blocks and as many minutes stroll from where they live stands Giovanni's coffee shop. Giovanni's provides gridiron tables and chairs out front on the sidewalk beneath a huge canopy, and more importantly, serves up New York's finest caffè macchiato in genuine china cups.

Whenever we meet, Doug ties up the dog while I slap down the Sundays; Times, Post, Daily News, and, for sheer entertainment, People, Sports Illustrated, and Crush—a local gay rag. We order and sit outside, whatever the weather, reading and chatting occasionally, enjoying the morning and the simple pleasure of passing time. If the experience is representative of married life then I'm all in favor, especially in an age of enlightenment when we finally can.

On this temperate June day, Doug is annoyingly animated, the way he has been ever since I recounted my family party disaster. Today, scanning one of the supplements, he hoots softly. After he snaps my picture on his phone, Snoopy and I share a quizzical look, and I watch bemused as he dials a number and books me a place at something called Romantica Express. I frown down at the upside down classifieds and make out a garish advert for an exclusive speed-dating outfit operating in and around Manhattan.

"What the fuck?"

He snaps his ancient cell phone shut and thumps back in his chair, a chuckle wobbling his shoulders and rattling the cups and bowl of brown sugar cubes.

“This is not an opportunity you pass by. Hell, in the State of New York alone there are statistically two—"

“—yeah, yeah, I know. Two women to every man. Ha ha. That must be the most over-quoted and insanely incorrect statistic in the known universe—”

"And plenty of those guys bat for our team."

“Are we forgetting the one tiny problem?”

“Go on.”

“I’m gay!”

“Oh tish. A technicality. No one needs to know.”

“But it’s dishonest.”

"How so?"

“Getting some poor woman to marry a man who’s obviously gay. And who’s doing the dishonest deed purely for personal profit.”

“Darling, women across the ages have suffered far worse. Poor Saint Liza, for example. And if we’re talking personal profit then look no further than Anne Nichole Smith. Or even our dear First Lady, poor Melatonin, God bless her soul. You think she’s in it for love and sweet nothings? Hell, some women will even have babies for us if we pay them enough.”

“Oh my God, Doug! Whoever said all gay men are sensitive? It’s a good job you’re not straight. Your wife would have you strung up and hanging from a tree by now. And not by the neck.”.

“You know what I mean, though?”

“It’s unethical.”

“Oh, this coming from the man who wears crocodile skin shoes and a leather jacket with fur trim.”

“Faux fur. And the shoes were a gift.”

“So that makes it okay? Look, honey, you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. And speed dating is an easy way to get you physically into the whole heterosex dating arena without relying on a yell from your cell.”

“Nothing wrong with Grindr.”

“The breeders use one called Tinder. An option we’ll consider if speed-dating bombs.”

“Newsflash. I can get a date whenever and with whoever I want. I don't need yours or anyone else’s help."

“With a woman?”

“Sure.”

I’m not, of course.

"Trout. C'mon on, babe.”

Trout: a nickname I've shouldered since fifth grade. Okay, first off I was born in England; a Limey, a Red Coat, from the old country the other side of the Atlantic. In my defense, my father—a born and bred Pennsylvanian and hardened Anglophile—met my English birth mother while working in London but moved the family back in my sixth year out of the womb. My passport is true blue, not the deep blood red equivalent my mother’s compatriots are set to ditch. So, despite certain give-aways, I reckon I am about as American as they come. Add to the mix that due to the influence of my proper-sounding English stepmom, I continue to pronounce certain words using the clipped accent of the British. During one particular lesson in fifth grade, asked to read aloud from a book the name of which I have long forgotten, one sentence ended with '... she waited for his argument to peter out.' For a short time afterwards, to my classmates, I became P. Trout, until the first initial, and hint to my true given name, disappeared altogether.

“You know the score,” he continues. “Find some preppy dolly your grandma's gonna approve. We need someone who’s gonna romance the family.”

"I should have just told Grandma the truth.”

Yeah, I know. That condom has already split. If I'd been man enough I would have set the record straight when the muddle first occurred. But it wasn't until I got home, long after she’d dropped her bombshell, that I realized what she thought she overheard as me saying 'I'm going to get married in June' was in fact 'I'm going to get Marisse and June' my stepsister and the incubus who poses as her girlfriend, and who I reluctantly agreed to pick up because they are too cheap to own a car. Why the hell did I call them Marisse and June that day, anyway? I always refer to them as June and Marisse. Were the gods conspiring?

Mind you, in hindsight the old girl's offer of her six-bedroom house in the Hamptons as a wedding gift is not something a reasonable person would turn down without a second thought. Especially after my cousin Garrison confronted me and had the audacity to label the whole engagement business a sham.

"You can't now, the old gal'd be devastated.” Doug doesn't even have the grace to glance up from the classifieds as he mutters. "Anyway, she's already talked with your fiancée.”

“She…what?” I begin, but there's something about his smug smile. "What the hell have you—?"

“Chill. June came up with the idea."

"June? You talked to my stepsis already? I only told you last week. Why are you talking to June?”

"She's been cool. We’ve been on the phone all week. She sees your grandma regularly and you need someone on the inside. Division of labor. She'll be keeping the old gal diverted while I help get you fixed up," says Doug, his eyes finally rising from the pages of news. "We had to haul in Marisse, too."

"Marisse? What for? The bitch hates me."

"Look doll,” he chips in, smoothing his paper on the table in front of him then picking up his coffee. "Your grandma insisted on talking to the new lady, even though June told her she's out of town. She was adamant we didn't bother you, but insisted June get a number. So June got Marisse to phone her and play the part of the fiancée. Stood next to their rattling air conditioner and said she was calling from onboard a flight to Zurich."

"Are you all on medication?"

"Don't sweat. She didn't say much. And anyway, your grandma's deaf as a politician. Marisse did good."

"Unbelievable. So you got the whole production team assembled?”

Doug tilts his face to the sky and lets out a roar of laughter into the morning air, then leans forward and takes a celebratory slurp of coffee. Snoopy's tail rises and twitches as he cowers slowly back under the table.

"Now you just need to find a real Wendy."

“Yeah, and how the hell did the old girl come up with the name Wendy?”

“No idea. Must have been something you said.” After clunking down his cup he claps his hands together, and audibly passes wind. "Hell, we ought to be holding auditions. June reckons we should have got you one of them mail-order brides off the internet. Marisse suggested calling Mike Pence for his recommendation on the best conversion camp in the state. Can you believe they call them ‘camps’?”

“Oh, ha-ha. Glad you're having so much fun. Well, I'm not going to any speed-dating roundup.”

Doug has picked up his magazine again and is no longer studying me.

“’Sure you are. And if there's nobody suitable, we can always try something different. Only try not to get the way you—you know—get."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know the way you are. Your ‘dented cans’ thing."

"My…what?"

"Tommy jokes about it. How you won't buy dented tins of food from the supermarket. You have to sort through and pick up only undented ones."

"When did Tommy say—?"

“Point he’s making is you're always looking for perfection, which, sorry honey, don’t exist. And remember that even if the label’s hanging off and the can's dented, don't mean the insides are fucked."

"Thank you, Freud,” I say, throwing myself back in my chair and running both hands through my hair. “You know me, Doug. I'm no good at pretending. Look, what we’re saying is I've got to fool some poor girl into dating me. No, hold the line a moment. I have to find someone who likes me enough to marry me? And as if that isn't bad enough, I've got to do all this within two months, and her name has to be Wendy? And somehow, once I've got her hooked, I've got to maneuver everything so we get married in June? Anything else? You want us to live happily ever after? What about sex?"

“Can I finish my coffee first?”

“Doug! I’m serious! You know I’m a vagina virgin.”

Through his laughter and coughing, Doug manages to splutter words.

“Doll, you can claim to be—what is that religion where they don't allow sex before marriage?"

"Pick one."

"Well, there you are. C'mon Trout, honey! You're thirty-two! And a card-carrying one-night-stand addict. Even if you ain’t ever gonna settle down with another man, you got a chance to score big here. As my mama used to say, ‘if you ain’t doing it for the love, then do it for the money’. And, you know, maybe it’s also time to stop running. At your age Stew and I had been living together for seven years. This is your golden ticket to something better. Stew reckons the Montauk wedding present must be worth thirty plus mill. And from what you tell me, sounds like your grandma's at the end of the ride. Play the game 'til she pops and then—bam—you jump ship."

For some strange reason, the part that stings most is his certainty that I’ll never find a man of my own to love and to settle down with.

"Yeah, and Mrs. Newlywed gets half. Or if she's smart, everything. Masterful plan."

"Prenup," he says, picking up another paper and shaking it open in front of him. "Get a prenuptial. Isn't one of your cousins a hot-shot lawyer?"

"Garrison. He's a hot-shot asshole I wouldn't call even if I found myself in Guantanamo."

Being a tax lawyer, he probably wouldn’t be much help in either situation.

"Someone else then. Just get Mrs. Trout-to-be to sign up."

“Yeah, she'd have to be pretty dumb to agree to something so obviously biased?"

"Pretty and dumb sound like a good combination right now. Look, you ain't looking for Miss Right, honey. All you need to do is get them to like you. You can do that, can't you? Didn’t you take an acting class in English studies?”

"What about one of Gwen's friends?"

Doug's smile vanishes. You need to know him to recognize the thunder in his eyes that could as easily warn of biochemical hazards or approaching in-laws.

"My sister’s girlfriends are in their thirties and still single for a good reason. They are neurotic time-bombs I wouldn't wish on ISIS. No, what you need is a billboard chick."

"Huh?"

“Chick like a billboard. Something simple, eye-catching, easy to read, and nobody really notices or cares when it's not there tomorrow. Someone plucked straight from E!“

“Oh my gawd, Doug. I am going to pretend I didn’t hear that."

"Keep an eye on Snoops, will you. I gotta shake the snake,” he says, as he stands up and flips on his Versace baseball cap. "And don't sweat it, you'll be fine. Monday after next, seven-thirty. Wish I could come with, but Stew’s seeing his sister that week so I gotta babysit the pooch.” I follow his retreating back as he turns in the cafe doorway and shouts in his butchest voice for all to hear. “And if you get lucky, bud, bring me back a little something under your fingernail.”

When he turns dramatically to move inside, a high pitched yelp issues from him.

“Oops, I am so sorry, hon.” His append is a result of almost bumping into a woman bringing a tray of drinks out from the cafe.

After cursing him and burying my head into a paper largely to avoid any glances turning my way, I sulk through his words of advice. The problem is I enjoy life the way it is; enjoy getting up when I want, knowing everything is where discarded the night before. If casual dating were an academic program, I'd have attained a doctorate—with honors. That's how I'm designed. I barely realize I've spoken aloud when I recall one of Doug's lines: 'Maybe it is time to stop running.'

"Sorry? Were you speaking to me?"

At a table across from me, a stunningly handsome, blond-haired guy I hadn't noticed earlier looks up startled. Below his attractive stubble, he wears a red bandana tied around his throat. The design resembles something I've seen before on a flag, red with a stylized, white, five-petal flower in the center.

"No, no," I reply, dropping the paper and holding one palm up in defense. “Having a conversation with myself. It's okay, I'm not crazy. It's something I do occasionally. Probably genetic."

With that, he chuckles and puts his book face down on the table. When he looks up, the hairs on my arm stand at the warm and friendly smile he provides, along with a positive vibe.

"Friend of yours giving you a hard time?"

"You heard that? Yeah, trying to organize my life.”

“Sounds like my brother. A friend of mine used to quote Oscar Wilde. He'd say: 'I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.'"

The Irish accent he adopts is flawless. For the first time that morning I laugh and it feels great. His smile, genuine and friendly, makes me feel instantly better. And just like that I transition into pick-up mode.

"What's the book?" I ask.

“Madame Bovary?”

He reaches for the spine and holds up the book's cover.

"Okay. Never read it. What’s the story?”

As I am speaking he stands, and packs the well-worn paperback into his shoulder bag of equally weathered brown leather.

“From what I’ve read so far, it’s about a loveless marriage. Not exactly laugh a minute.”

Maybe because he sees the smile drain from my face, but he casually throws a tan woolen jacket around his shoulders like a hunky Italian movie star before raising a hand in farewell. When he begins to move away from the table, the words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

"Say. How would you—?"

But my attempt at a proposal is drowned out by a huge black Harley that roars past and backfires opposite the cafe. Twenty or so steps away, as the guy stops to cross the street, he turns back and flashes me a brilliant sunset smile. While I sit and mourn the departing figure, a pathetic whining and unpleasant odor drift up from beneath the table.