Gap Year - 8. Chapter 8

January 22, 2004

Bondi Beach, Australia

 

Will

“You look good,” Connie said to me nervously. I was wearing a gray jacket Patrick Christian made for me, along with black Dior slacks, a white Dior shirt, and sleek black Prada shoes. He was dressed in a much simpler way, so that along with his comment made me wonder if I was overdressed and I’d look like some New York runway model.

“Am I too dressed up?” I asked.

“What, are you saying I look like shit?” he asked in a jocular way.

“No, but you’re acting all uptight, so I figured it was how I looked.”

“Like I said, you look great,” he said, and ushered me out of the condo and down to the trail into town. None of that curbed the anxiety I felt coming from him.

“So why are you uptight?” I asked again and gave him a look that told him he wouldn’t be able to dodge the issue this time.

“Got a message from my teammates wanting me to meet up with them for dinner,” he said. “Told them I was with you, and they invited you to come along.”

We walked on for a few minutes. “You’re worried that if you show up with me it will look like we’re together?”

“Most of the blokes will have a girl with them,” he said, all but confirming I’d nailed his fears. “Plus, they can be a rough crowd.”

He probably expected me to be pissed off, but this was the deal with him being in the closet, and there was no way I was going to out him on purpose. “Here’s what you tell them. Tell them you met my father when he was here last year surfing and you sort of became friends. Say that he called you and told you I was visiting and asked you to show me around and watch out for me.”

“What’s your father do?” he asked.

I reluctantly pulled out a folded piece of paper from my jacket and showed it to him. It was the list of the Forbes 400 richest people. Darius and I both kept one of these with us if we were going out, just in case we needed it to get out of a tough situation. It bugged me because it showed how privileged I was, but at the same time, it was super useful. “That’s him, right above Oprah.”

“Brad Schluter?” he asked. I nodded. “He’s richer than Oprah?” I nodded again.

“He’s got two jobs. He’s a partner in one of the biggest venture capital firms in the world, and he’s Chairman of the Board of Triton Industries, a major defense contractor,” I said.

“Impressive,” he said, and seemed a little shell-shocked.

“He’s also very intense,” I said. “He’s the kind of guy who just reeks of power…the kind of guy who if he asked you to do something, you’d do it.”

“Kind of like you?” he asked, giving me shit.

“I’m the junior version,” I agreed, since I was indeed so much like him.

“Alright, I can see that,” he agreed.

“And don’t worry about the rough crowd,” I said. “I dated a guy who plays football, the American kind, not that pussy game we call soccer.”

“Yeah, well this is a pro team, so these guys are like your pro football players,” he countered with a dose of arrogance.

“He plays in an NCAA Division 1 program, so that’s pretty much the same thing,” I said. He pondered that and nodded, even as we walked on.

“Right then,” he said, smiling at me. “I won’t worry about you.”

“I can take care of myself, as long as none of them kitkat me,” I joked, making him laugh.

“No one is going to hurt you,” he said, as if it were an oath. We strolled through Bondi until we came to a really tony restaurant. Connie strolled up to the maître-d who greeted him in a friendly way, and guided us into the bar where he was enveloped by a large group of people.

“Connie! Mate!” This loud greeting came from a guy who looked like he was also Aboriginal, but not as handsome as Connie. He gave Connie a huge hug, which Connie returned.

“This is my friend Will, from America,” Connie said, introducing me.

“Welcome, mate,” he said in a friendly way, and shook my hand. “Justin Hodges, and this is Melissa.” He introduced me to a big-titted brunette who looked incredibly slutty. She in turn introduced me a similar girl who had red-hair and whose name was Becky. We all exchanged standard platitudes and greetings.

I next found myself face to face with a stunningly handsome blond dude who had a big smile. “Call me Finchy,” he said, and shook my hand in a friendly way.

“Will,” I said, and shook his hand even as I smiled at him. I surreptitiously reached up and wiped some white powder from his nose, and then licked my finger, confirming that it was cocaine.

“Thanks, mate,” he said, chuckling at me. “This is the Count.” He gestured to a guy who was really handsome; he had brown hair and looked very Italian.

“The Count?” I asked him, even as I shook his hand.

“Bastards call me that because they say I look like that guy on Sesame Street,” he grumbled.

As if on cue, Finchy did a hilarious imitation of the Sesame Street Count. “One bump of coke, two bumps of coke, three bumps of coke…muhahahaha.” When I was done laughing, he introduced me to the girl with him.

“Kelly,” she said, and held out her hand in an aloof way even as she studied me with an air of disdain. She was very pretty, with brown hair and eyes that looked as if they were constantly squinting. She stood out in this crowd as much as I did because she was dressed so well.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, then eyed her up and down. She gave me a dirty look as if I were perving on her. “Dolce and Gabbana dress, and Jimmy Choo shoes,” I pronounced. That transformed her whole attitude.

“Very good,” she said, smiling at me. “Dior pants and shirt, Prada shoes, but I can’t place the jacket.”

I smiled back. “Patrick Christian. He made it for me.”

“Patrick Christian made that jacket just for you,” she said skeptically, zeroing her eyes on me in an annoyed way, as if to warn me that joking about fashion was not amusing. I almost rolled my eyes at how well she would fit in with JJ and his crowd in New York.

“He did,” I said confidently. “We’re good friends, and after I helped him out last fall with his show, he sent this to me.” I took it off and handed it to her and she studied it in a quick but thorough way.

“Very nice,” she finally said in approval.

“He said that he normally makes men’s clothes for dudes who have no muscle tone, so this was a fun project,” I joked, getting a laugh from her. The Count interrupted our conversation to introduce me to the captain of their team, Brad Fittler, who went by Freddy. He looked like your basic rugby player, with brown hair and a five o’clock shadow, and a solid build. The other guys were all in their early twenties, but this guy was about ten years older. His date was some girl named Jessica who wasn’t as old as he was, which figured, and seemed like a cross between Kelly and the other two hos.

The maître d’ appeared and approached the Count. “Mr. Minichiello, your table is ready.” It was interesting that he talked to the Count instead of the captain, but then again, he and Kelly were definitely the classiest of this bunch.

“Thank you,” he said smoothly. We all grabbed our drinks and followed him to a private room with a table set for all ten of us. I ended up sitting next to Connie on one side and Kelly on the other. Dinner ended up being fun, for the most part. The guys talked all about rugby, constantly calling guys they didn’t like fags or cocksuckers. That really didn’t bother me, because I’d figured out a long time ago that most of the time when jocks used those words, they weren’t really referring to gay guys, but it seemed to bother Connie. I squeezed his thigh briefly to reassure him, assuming he was worried that it was bothering me, but that didn’t help all that much. It dawned on me then that while those terms didn’t bother me, they really bothered him, and I got pissed all over again at these professional sports who made it so hard for gay men to be themselves and still play. I spent most of my time talking to Kelly, who pelted me with questions about the New York Fashion Show. She was impressed when I told her that I sat at the table at a gala with Bellona Carter, and even more impressed when she found out that my grandfather owned Mode magazine.

As the dinner went on, Jessica and Becky got involved in a deep conversation about Australian celebrities, while Melissa and Hodges got into a low-key altercation. Their argument was like this freight train that was slowly building up steam, and with each round of drinks, it got a little bit more intense.

Finchy got up to go to the bathroom, which distracted me because he was so handsome. He smiled and winked at me, then nodded his head toward the toilet, so I waited a minute then followed him. I wondered briefly if he was going to jam his cock down my throat, then chuckled to myself, knowing exactly why he’d motioned me to follow him. I walked into the bathroom, which was really nice, and saw him in the last stall with the door open. He gestured for me to join him, which I did, then he shut the door. “You seemed like the kind of bloke who would enjoy a bump.” He pulled out the equivalent of a cocaine one hitter and handed it to me.

“Fuck yeah,” I said. He laughed while I inhaled the coke. We did the equivalent of two lines, then snuck out of the stall and washed our hands. I started laughing, thinking that this was the same thing I’d have done if I really had blown him.

We got back to the table to find that the tension levels had soared during our absence, which was a total buzz kill since I was feeling pretty happy as the coke kicked in. Hodges and Melissa had ratcheted their fight up to the point where they were yelling at each other, and most of the group was either trying to calm them down or was staring at them in disgust. I gave Finchy a knowing look, and he just shook his head. He went to join the effort to calm the fighting couple the fuck down while I went over and sat next to Kelly. “They do this every time,” she said to me in disgust.

“Bummer,” I said, and ordered another drink.

I thought things might finally be mellowing out when a new guy walked into the room. Unlike the rest of us, he was dressed down in nice athletic shorts and a rugby shirt, looking like he was going to a game. He was pretty hot, but wasn’t shit compared to Connie, Finchy, and the Count. He was a little shorter than me but had a broad muscular build. It seemed that Kelly and I were the only ones who had noticed his arrival. “What the fuck is he doing here?” Kelly demanded of the Count. He glanced at the door and saw this new guy and frowned.

“I have no idea,” he said with dread.

“I told you that if he was here, I wasn’t, so we’re leaving,” she said, and stood up, prompting me and the Count to stand up too.

“Let me pay the bill,” he said, and reached for his wallet.

“I got it,” I said, more to let them escape before they started fighting too.

“No way,” he said.

“I said I got it,” I repeated firmly. “Who is that dude?”

“Chris Strider,” Kelly said with a sneer. “He’s an asshole. Whenever he shows up, there’s trouble.” I nodded, and even though I didn’t really know what she meant, I conjured up images of this dude at Menlo named Nathan, who when he drank turned into a total douche and usually ended up starting a fight.

“Hello everyone!” Strider said loudly, evidently annoyed that the people in the room had been too involved in their own drama to notice him. This dude obviously had to be the center of attention.

“Strider,” Finchy said, as he got up and high-fived him. My impression of Finch was that he was a fun party guy who got along with everyone.

“Someone must have forgotten to tell me there was a big party here,” Strider said, glaring at everyone, even as he walked over to us.

“Or maybe you just weren’t invited,” Kelly said to him in a frosty way.

He gave her an evil look, but his eyes quickly shifted as he focused on me instead. I guess he thought I was her friend or something, so he’d get back at her by being a dick to me. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Will Schluter,” I said, keeping my tone neutral. “I’m Connie’s friend.”

“Schluter?” he asked, slaughtering the pronunciation of my name. “Can’t even fucking say that.” He laughed like that was a hilarious joke. I decided that there was only one way to deal with this guy, and that was to go back at him.

“That’s because you’re either illiterate, an asshole, or both,” I said. “I’m betting it’s both.” Kelly laughed at that.

“Oh, I see you already know Chris,” she said to me with feigned innocence. We laughed, and the Count joined in, while Strider gave us a dirty look.

“Fuck you,” Strider said to me and went over to talk to the other people. This dude was seriously messed up and seemed to have anger oozing out of every pore of his body. Before I could respond and get pissed off, the Count started tapping his glass like he was at a wedding to get everyone’s attention.

“Guys!” the Count said loudly. “Guys,” he repeated, and finally got everyone’s attention. “Will here is picking up the tab for dinner, so you all need to remember your manners and fucking thank him.”

That got a rousing cheer. It was good that we had a private room, since their arguing and cheering wouldn’t have played well in the main dining area of this restaurant. Most of them had no idea who I was or whether I could afford it, but they were all pretty self-absorbed and didn’t worry about it. They had good manners anyway, as they all came over and thanked me. “No wonder you didn’t invite me. Saved you money on the bill,” Strider said to me in a snide way.

“Wouldn’t have mattered to me,” I said casually. “I’d have paid for everyone else anyway, and made you foot your own tab.” That got laughs from the others and another glare from him. Strider’s arrival and the settling of the bill ended the dinner. The Count, Kelly, Freddy, and his date all smoothly slipped off in the night. Hodges and Melissa started fighting again, and that prompted her to leave with Becky.

“You don’t need that ho,” Strider said to Hodges. “Let’s hit the town.”

“I’m up for that,” Finchy said in his party-boy way. Connie and I followed them as they headed away from the beach and deeper into town.

“I’m thinking I’ll head back,” I said to Connie. I had no desire to hang out with Strider and Hodges wasn’t all that interesting either.

“Let’s catch a drink with them, and then bail,” Connie said. I looked at him, wondering why we would need to do that, and in his way where he could read my mind, he answered my question. “Don’t want to look like a dick teammate, leaving Hodges out to dry.”

“Alright,” I reluctantly agreed.

We ended up at a dive bar with a pretty rough crowd. At the other place, the other patrons had looked at the players with admiration, but here, the guys sneered at them while the women seemed to puff their breasts out a bit more. It was not a good scene, and the vibe was tense. I resolved to get the fuck out of there as fast as I could.

We walked up to the bar and Strider muscled some big dude aside to make room, almost starting a fight. He ordered beers for all of us and paid for them. “Just to show you I’m not as big of an asshole as you are,” he said, handing me the brewski. He managed to spill some of it on both of us, which was even more annoying.

“Thanks,” I said. “If I shout a round, then you’ll be the biggest asshole once again.” The others laughed, Strider glared at me, then got into a shoving match with the big guy he’d muscled out of the way. We all had to intervene to stop an all-out brawl. Once things had calmed down and we’d downed about half our beers, Finchy got up and headed to the bathroom, followed by Hodges.

“Be back in a jiff,” Connie said with a wink as he followed them. I didn’t care that he was going off to do a line of coke, and I wasn’t jealous because I could definitely have used another bump, but I was annoyed at being left here alone with Strider.

The bartender came up and I ordered another round. Strider put his left arm around me in a friendly way, then with his right hand he sucker punched me hard in the stomach. I wasn’t ready for it, so it knocked the wind out of me, and I doubled over as I tried to regain my breath. “Keep your fucking mouth shut, or the next punch will mess up your pretty face,” he said in a menacing way.

I glanced up briefly and found myself facing his crotch. He was wearing boxers, and had gotten pretty plumped up from what I could tell. I guess this asshole got off on being abusive. My mind flashed back to the party where Kyle Stride had jumped into Darius’ fight and kicked him hard, and I decided that the same method I’d used then to take Kyle out would work just as effectively on this asshole. I mustered all my energy and breath, and righted my body, using that extra motion to give my knee just that much force as I rammed it right into his balls. He grabbed his crotch and his eyes rolled back in his head as he fell to the ground in pain. I took that opportunity to use the pointy tow of my Prada shoes to kick him hard in the stomach, then ground my heel into the side of his face. “Asshole,” I said loudly.

“Fuck you,” he managed to mutter.

The big guy he muscled aside and his friends were laughing their asses off at him. I stared at the big guy intently until I had his attention. “I’ve got ten avocados for you if you take him outside, beat the shit out of him, and piss all over him when you’re done,” I said, holding up 10 A$100 bills. They called them avocados because they were green.

“Done,” he said, grabbing the money from my hand. He and four of his mates dragged Strider out of the bar, while I drank my beer and then started on the beer I’d originally bought for him. The bartender was cute and smiled at me as he handed me the bill, which I paid for with my credit card. I gave him well over a 50% tip, and when he gave me back the receipt he had written ‘Nice job, Kevin,’ and jotted down his phone number. I winked at him and he blushed, which was adorable.

Finchy, Hodges, and Connie came back out, all of them hyped up from the coke. “Where’s Strider?” Finchy asked.

I shrugged. “He bailed.”

“You drove him off,” Hodges said. “Have to keep you around, mate.” That was funny, especially since that’s the first light-hearted thing he’d said all night.

“I think we’ll head out,” Connie said, much to my relief. We said goodbye, downed our beers, then walked out of that place. We heard sounds of a fight off in one of the alleys. “Kind of place where you get into fights.”

“Yep,” I agreed. We went back to the house and I learned that Connie on coke was even more fun and energetic than when he was sober, although it was more animalistic sex and less meaningful. That I liked it better when he wasn’t high told me a lot about how hard I was falling for this guy.

 

January 23, 2004

Bondi Beach, Australia

 

Will

Connie’s phone rang, waking me up. He looked at the caller ID and groaned. “Assistant coach,” he said to me, then answered the call. He got out of bed and walked into the other room, depriving me of seeing his awesome physique from the rear. I went back to sleep and was pretty out of it when Connie nudged me awake.

“What?” I asked drowsily.

“What the fuck happened last night?” he demanded, all pissed off.

I stared at him intently to calm his ass down as I woke myself up. “Why? What’s up?”

“Got a call from Cartwright, the assistant coach, and he’s pissed as hell. Some guys beat the shit out of Strider last night and pissed all over him. Says he got a skin rash from that,” he said. It was impossible for me not to chuckle at that.

“So,” I said.

“Strider says you did it,” Connie accused. “Says you waited until the rest of us were gone and then hired some goons to take him out.”

“That’s not the whole story,” I said.

“You did that? You did that to one of my teammates? Fucking hell!” he shouted.

“Do not yell at me,” I said firmly. “You guys went to the bathroom and I bought us all beers. Strider put his left arm around me then sucker punched me hard in the stomach, knocking the fucking wind out of me.”

“I didn’t hear anything about that,” he said.

“That’s because he’s a total douche,” I answered in a smarmy way. “After he punched me, I kneed him hard in the balls, and after he went down I kicked him in the stomach. He was still mouthing off so I paid some of the guys at the bar to take him outside and work him over.”

“Christ,” Connie said. “Well Strider’s got the coaches all fired up, and the little shit even called the Godfather.”

“Who’s the Godfather?” I asked, wondering if I was about to get sucked into another drug war.

“Nick Politis, the guy who owns the Roosters,” Connie told me. “He’s tough as nails and is about as cutthroat as you can get in rugby, so that’s how he got his name.”

“Why does this have anything to do with you?” I asked.

“Because you’re my friend, and I invited you,” he said. “And because we’re supposed to have our mates’ backs, and Strider’s playing it off like me, Finchy, and Hodges knew all about this and didn’t do shit.”

“Dude, they have to know what a dick Strider is,” I said. That was pretty fucking obvious.

“He’s good at sucking up to the coaches and the Godfather,” Connie said.

“They still can’t be that blind,” I said, wondering just how stupid rugby coaches actually were.

Connie changed the subject. “I have to go in and meet with the coach today, and he wants you to come with me.”

“Why does he want me to come?” I asked, stunned.

Connie looked nervous. “Probably to see if he can get the truth out of you.”

I glared at that. “You mean he’s going to try to yell at me and bully me into admitting I hurt poor Strider for no other reason than because I’m a complete asshole?” I concluded.

“Might seem that way,” he said even more nervously.

“That will never happen,” I said, shaking my head. “When is this meeting?”

“Eleven, in three hours,” he said.

“Well call him back and tell him that I’m willing to come meet with him, but I won’t be there until two in the afternoon,” I said.

“He won’t like that,” Connie said.

“I don’t give a shit,” I said. “If he doesn’t like that, it’s too fucking bad.”

“I’ll let him know,” he said.

“Where is this place that we’re going?” I asked, realizing that once again I was completely clueless about so much of Sydney.

“About 15-20 minutes from here, depending on traffic,” he said.

“Cool,” I said. “I have to make some phone calls, then I’m going to get some surfing in.” He looked completely flummoxed by that, that in the middle of this major crisis, in his mind anyway, that I’d take time to hit the waves. He nodded, threw on some shorts, and left me alone.

I got up and headed into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet. After I was done peeing, I did some calculations and figured out that since it was 8:30am on Friday here, it was 1:30pm on Thursday in San Francisco. I called Stef but he didn’t answer, so I called his work line. I got his crusty secretary and told her it was important and left my Australian number. I managed to take a shower and dry off before Stef called me back. “Good afternoon!” I said as I answered the phone.

“If I am not mistaken, it is morning where you are,” he said pleasantly, but I could tell he was busy.

“It is,” I agreed, then got to the point. “I need your advice.”

“I will provide guidance to the degree that I can,” he said a bit apprehensively.

“Thanks,” I said. I told him all about my evening, going quickly but being thorough, which took all of 15 minutes. “I’m supposed to go meet with some coach this afternoon, but evidently he’s not the scary one. The scary dude is the Godfather.”

“The Godfather?” Stef asked, and almost panicked.

“That’s the nickname for the dude who owns the rugby team, the Sydney Roosters. Connie says his name is Nick Politis,” I said.

“Nick Politis,” Stef said, chuckling.

“You know him?” I asked, surprised.

“I do,” Stef said. “I first met him when Greg and I went to Sydney back in the 1970s. I have had some business dealings with him since then.”

“You slept with him,” I accused, prompting a giggle from him.

“Not exactly,” he said mysteriously. “I will explain our relationship more fully later on. In the meantime, I have a call to make. Go to your meeting and be as polite as possible.”

“I’ll try,” I grumbled, then ended the call, amazed at how widespread Stef’s contacts were. I made one more phone call, then went into the main room to find Connie sitting there in just his shorts, frantically texting on his phone. “Hey,” I said, breaking him out of his phone trance.

“Morning,” he said, forcing a smile.

“Let’s go hit the waves for a couple of hours,” I said. “Then we probably need to do some shopping.”

“I’m going to work out instead,” he said, almost in a questioning way, which made me think that either I was too controlling or people he’d been in relationships before this were.

“Cool,” I said casually. That he looked surprised like that made me think my musings about controlling relationships was spot on. “I didn’t tell you what my surprise is for tomorrow.”

“You did not,” he said, and really perked up at that. I’d been teasing him about it since we got to Bondi. “Are you going to tell me now?”

“Well, I was going to totally surprise you, but then I decided you may need to take some stuff along,” I said, drawing out my sentence to drive him crazy.

“Just fucking tell me,” he said, totally frustrated, which made me laugh. In the end, he chuckled with me.

“We’re going to Uluru, although the map calls it Ayres Rock,” I said, knowing that would piss him off.

“Fucking Ayres didn’t discover shit,” he growled. “It’s been there for fucking ever.”

“So who was this Ayres dude?” I asked. “Tell me all about him.” He frowned at me, either because he didn’t really know much about him, or because he realized he had the wrong reaction.

“Whatever,” he said. “We’re going to Uluru? Seriously?”

“Seriously,” I said. “We fly out in the morning really early, then we’ll be back here by nightfall.”

“How the fuck are we going to do that? That’s a lot of traveling. We won’t be there very long,” he objected.

“We fly out at 7am, which gets us there at 10,” I said. “We leave whenever we want to.”

“When’s the last flight back to Sydney?” he asked skeptically.

“It’s a private plane,” I said. “It leaves when we want it to leave.”

“What kind of plane?” he asked.

“Hang on,” I said, and pulled up the email confirmation. “It’s a G – V.” He looked confused. “Gulfstream 5,” I interpreted.

“Alright, I’ll just go with the flow,” he said, mimicking an American accent and cracking me up.

“If we’re hiking up a mountain, I may need some gear for that,” I said.

“We’re not hiking up the mountain,” he said firmly.

“Why not?” I asked. “I mean, we’re not climbers, but I’m pretty sure we can handle it.” I wasn’t that big of a pussy.

“The mountain is sacred to my people, to the Aboriginal people of Australia. To climb up it is to desecrate it,” he said, with almost a mystic reverence.

“I didn’t know that,” I said. I also didn’t entirely understand his deal, probably because there was no place in my mind that was that sacred. I mean, shit, people hiked up El Capitan and Half Dome in Yosemite. “You sure you want to go there?”

“I’ve always wanted to go there,” he said with a smile. “I just don’t want to fuck it up like the tourists do.”

“So we’ll go see the mountain, but we won’t climb it,” I confirmed, noting that I now had another call to make.

“We’ll need a few things for just walking around the base. Let’s see your shoes,” he said. He looked through the several pairs of shoes I’d brought and shook his head. “We better skip surfing and working out. We’ve got a lot of kit to buy.”

“Fine,” I said. We had a good time getting ready for Uluru, and I really enjoyed shopping for him. We finished our spree, hurried back to the house and had sex, then got ready for our meeting.

Connie was nervous as he drove back in toward Sydney, but I didn’t bug him about it. “This is shit, and I’m more vulnerable because I’m a rookie,” he said.

“From what I heard, your teammates are pretty impressed with you,” I said. At dinner, they’d all treated him with respect, like someone who was good enough to be in ‘the club’ of good rugby players.

“Yeah, but it also makes it easy for them to just brush me off and send me to the Outback,” he grumbled.

“I’ll save you,” I said, and winked at him. He smiled and shook his head, then he was quiet for the rest of the drive.