A Room with a View (of the Brooklyn Navy Yard) - 8. viii. Finale Ultimo

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viii.

Finale Ultimo

Like the Classical Athenian male couple – Aristogeiton and Harmodius – who plotted in secret to overthrow a dictator and return their beloved city-state to the arms of democracy, Patrick and Ted devised a plan of proportional, propitiating, payback. In the month or so since their long-weekend stay at the Vanderbilt, many cog-like wheels have been in play, and now they’re all set to converge in the day’s live television and streaming broadcast. The boys also plan to ‘come clean’ on who is who in terms of the actual Dirty-Degas-creator of Where Rascals Fear to Tread.

Therefore, cast your mind’s eye, gentle audience, over the faultless day now rising upon Rockefeller Center. In the plaza before MBC, the Mutable Broadcasting Corporation, loyal Patrick Forsa fans have been gathering since midnight. This is a chance to see him – Ted Rector, really – not to be missed, and rosy tourists from Nebraska, knock knees and eke out some elbow room with sullen, seen-it-all New Yorkers in mutually giddy anticipation.

They don’t even mind the heavy security the network’s been required to provide since the “Not Enough Beans Riot,” which is what the official Pikipedia page – more like Pick-a-Part-a-Pedia – has termed the hullabaloo initially dubbed The Tribeca Troubles.

The ”Thisday Show” has already been on for two hours. Currently, musical warm-up act Sotley Crew’s been droning on and on for the last ten minutes, and have five more to go until the live feed is thrown to Ted, or, um – Patrick.

So, here the boys are outside, standing close to the building in the hidden-from-view ‘greenroom’ area. Internally nervous, they shed glances at Marshall Kingston and Bray J. Gayheart Gerhard loitering a little ways off.

Assured the suits are out of earshot, Patrick says, “We’ve sure picked a spectacular day to spring our surprises.”

Ted sees the author scanning the crowd size from the monitors. “Not to fear,” he intones airily. “Our ducks are in a row concerning the Random, Reed and Sales dopes.”

“Yes, that too. But I meant our other surprise. What if . . . . What if—”

“The sky should fall?” Ted annoyingly smirks, stroking his boyfriend’s cheek. “What IFs are no way to live our life, Puma. Things will turn out fine.”

At just this moment, Gerhard is caught glaring at them. Ted doesn’t let Patrick see, but says – to lighten the mood – “I wonder what the J stands for.”

Patrick chuckles. “Isn’t it obvious? Bray Jessica Gerhard. From a long line of queens, just like Adolf Elizabeth Hitler.”

Ted’s impressed. “Wow, you smart. You work in both a Randy Rainbow and Mel Brooks reference into the same quip.”

“When you got it, flaunt it, baby! Flaunt it!”

“But seriously”—Ted’s eyes lock on the detestable lawyer’s—“what could be at the heart of that so-called man’s anti-queer sentiments.”

“That’s easy. Same thing at the core of every guy like him in this country – fragile WASP masculinity, or at least, the myth of what they think of as masculine superiority.”

“Yup. Every bigotry’s but a façade of one sort or another.”

Men with headsets arrive. It’s time.

Ted and Patrick, and Marshall and Bray, are escorted onto the stage. Big cameras are pointed at them, but Patrick and the suits hang back.

The hostess of the “Thisday Show” announces to the television and Interwebs audience, “Welcome back to hour three of our 10-hour-long morning of entertainment, news and whatever. Now we have a special treat—”

A few preliminary screams volley forth from the plaza crowd.

“—Yes, the segment you’ve all been waiting for, Patrick Forsa’s going to read an excerpt – a clean excerpt, mostly – from his runaway smash hit Where Rascals Fear to Tread.”

Amid calls of “I love you, Patrick,” and “Double the dick!”, the presenter waves Ted to come join her. Handed a copy of the book by Kingston, Ted shakes her hand and replies, “Nice to be back with you, Melony; always a pleasure.”

And then, as the rest of the world fades; as the assembled hush to cathedral murmurs – as the camera pulls into a close-up of the sexy man’s face – Ted reads:

Phillip let out a moan of ecstasy, sending it towards the ceiling.

Oh, God. Phillip thought he might die. He loved Todd so very much, and had wanted this since the moment he’d first laid eyes on the ravishing artist.

So now he stroked Todd’s ears tenderly, then his cheeks, the side of his neck, bending lower to let his hand run along the man’s hairless, sculpted chest.

His hands gently latched onto the back of Todd’s head, and showed him how to best please him; pleasure him with the other’s willing, skillful mouth.

“Todd,” he whispered.

“I know, baby. I know.”

It was all the testament either man knew to say at this moment of near-perfect union.

Knowing they’re enraptured still, Ted closes the book and informs the audience, “Actually, as beautiful as these words are, I had nothing to do with them.”

He glances to Patrick, and Forsa joins him by his side. They take hands as the cameras pull back to full-length shots.

Ted, looking only at his partner, says, “The passage I just read however expresses how I feel about the true author of Rascals – Patrick Forsa.”

He lifts their linked hands and kisses the back of his boyfriend’s fingers. Ted finds the central camera again. “I’m an actor, named Ted Rector, hired to play the part of the author. This is the real Patrick Forsa, and the man I love.”

Ted’s palms go up to Partick’s cheeks and guide him into a tender, sustained, lip-parted kiss hot enough to melt the Web.

Any lingering shock of a dismayed nature in the plaza instantly transforms into “Awwwww”s.

Bray J. Gerhard and Marshall Kingston storm forward; the law-man grabs Forsa’s arm; the publisher, Ted’s. Together they forcibly pull the lovers apart, growling: “You can’t do this! You’re under contract at Random, Reed and Sales!”

Ted tells them, wrenching his arm free, “Let go.” Then he helps Patrick free himself as well.

The crowd is none too pleased to see their newly discovered ‘boys’ manhandled like this, and begin to make menacing grumbles to show it.

Suits on one side, our heroes on the other, Bray barks: “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but we own you!”

“Contractually, you mean?” intones Patrick.

“Yes!” shouts Kingston.

“Think again,” continues the novelist. “You gave me a first-time deal, one with the usual ‘opt-out for any reason’ clause of renewal. So, I’ve dumped you.”

“That’s right,” affirms Rector. “You tell ‘em, babe.”

“I’ve signed a seven-figure deal with Radically Different Publishers – an LGBTI2S+ owned business. They’ll be releasing the follow-up to Rascals.” He then ogles the camera. “Out next spring, and available wherever you purchase your fine smut.”

This the assembled purrs contentment over.

“Can he do that?!” Marshall demands of Bray.

The lawyer pouts his lower lip out a good two inches. He nods.

“And”—Ted’s extracted his phone in the meantime—“there’s something everyone should know about Bray Jessica Gerhard.” He presses a button.

Instantaneously, chimes and beeps and burps are heard stereo’d amidst the crowd.

Hundreds of hands reach out, and soon the owners are watching a video.

Ted calls out “Roll ‘em,” and by special arrangement with one of The Erector, Yo!’s Fanaticsonly patrons in the MBC control room, the television and streaming audience are treated to the same spectacle.

Recorded on a camera phone, Bray’s scowling puss – his resting counsel face – pops up on the screen. At the glass entry of a posh Manhattan apartment building, Gerhard is telling the filmmaker “You don’t live here,” and doing it in his best drunk Karen lilt.

He’s attempting to lock out a family by closing the door on them. The guy with the camera turns it so we can see him, his husband, and their young child nestling in the other man’s arms. The couple are Asians in their mid-thirties, and the tot wears a rainbow tutu around the waist; the men proudly sport polo shirts with the Equality symbol on them.

“We do too,” the camera holder says, returning the picture stream to Bray’s oh-so-entitled sneer.

The family finally make it into the building lobby, and despite the doorman greeting them by name from his desk, Gerhard continues to sashay his big fat attorney ass in front of them.

He’s trying to head them off at the elevators. “Prove it!”

“We don’t have to prove anything to you.”

“Oh, yes, you do – you pillow . . . stuffers! This is a decent building, not one of your ‘radical left’ commie hole-up migrant flophouses!”

Ignoring him, the family move into an open elevator. But Bray follows with more ass-sashaying, using it to try and block the buttons with typical mean-girl superiority.

“What floor do you live on; What’s your apartment number; Who are you really here to steal from – ur, visit, I mean.”

The video clip ends with Bray screeching: “Show me your Gop Party registration cards, right now!”

Horrified, the crowd is instantly hostile to the law-man on stage. “I can explain”—Bray starts limply, raising ‘don’t hurt me’ jazz hands.

“Save it,” replies Ted, touching his screen. “We’ve got one more to watch. Okay, Fred – roll ‘em, round two!”

More beeps and grunts and pings.

Now we see Marshall Kingston in the bird sanctuary part of Central Park with a small Asian dog on a leash. The man’s in the midst of goading his canine scamp to pounce upon and catch sparrows in the grass when a young African American woman approaches him. She has something in her hand.

“Marshall Kingston?” she asks most politely.

“Yes,” he creaks fearfully in reply.

“Hi! My name is Janet McCovey, and I have this poetry manuscript I’d like you to read.”

Janet holds it out to him, and Marshall throws up his hands like it’s a gun – gagging his pooch in the process.

“Look, I’m not lookin’ for aaannnyyy trouble,” the publisher whines.

Janet continues cheerily, “See, I’m a self-published author, and I’d really like some feedback—”

As she takes another step towards him, Kingston nearly squeals: “Look, Jemima – or whatever your name is – I don’t want noooo trouble. Look, don’t you go and make me call the police!”

By this time the dog is wrapped around his leg, with Marshall choking the Shih Tzu out of the little guy.

“But—”attempts Ms. McCovey reasonably—“I just wanted. . . to—”

“That’s it!” He pulls out his phone; dials. “Hello, 911? My name is Marshall Kingston . . . yes, that’s right, Patrick Forsa’s stable-genius publisher.” He nods at his ‘assailant.’ “And I’m in the Park’s bird sanctuary with my dog being attacked by a rabid poet!”

There’s a pause, as if the man’s listening to a question along the lines of ‘Well, aren’t they all mad?’

“That’s right,” he exclaims, eying the young woman. “But this one’s also Black, and trying to push a manuscript off on me. I’m afraid for my life – plus . . . plus—” He can hardly bring himself to say the next part out loud; it’s just too horrible for external vocalization. “And please, for God’s sake, hurry. She’s self-published!”

Video ended, a universal gasp goes up from the live audience, TV crew, and “Thisday Show” host – the entire Internet universe explodes in Socials rage.

Bray and Marshall exchange a single Adam’s-apple-raised side glance, and then decide they’d better run for their lives.

The whole plaza jeers, moves as a body, and begins chasing the despicable pair up 5th Avenue. Thus begins the riot later to be known as the “MBC Midtown Melee.”

Meanwhile, left alone on stage, with the camera once again coming in for a closeup, our couple, gentles all, erase the space between them for another, heartfelt, Interwebs-melting kiss. The day is theirs, and so are all of their tomorrows.

~

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