Nobody in Sarasota has any power. I think the hurricane knocked over a transformer or something. Dead seagulls litter the grass. Broken glass shimmers on asphalt. I was stuck inside literally all day yesterday. Alone. In the dark. Waiting, in breathless silence, beneath the howl of a vengeful wind. The storm is over now. I survived. Unfortunately. It’s never as bad as they say it’s going to be.
My fridge is completely empty. I ate an entire jar of maraschino cherries for dinner last night out of desperation. I’m headed across town, toward somewhere with electricity. Thank god I had a backup battery bank for my cellphone. Its radiation is burning a hole in the pocket of my bedazzled, skin-tight jeans. It calls to me, begging to nourish the tumor I probably have in my brain. I won’t let it. I am strong. I have willpower. I may hate myself and wish I was dead sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I actually want to die. Like that, at least. Slow. Like my sister. Hopeless. Alone.
I keep having these intrusive thoughts. I’ve tried to block them. I’ve tried switching the channel as my counselor, who I stopped going to because he was an idiot, recommended. Nothing works. Something inside keeps telling me to end it all. The monotony. The forced drama. The loneliness. The endless waiting for something better that’s never going to come.
Scientists say there’s less than forty years until Florida is completely underwater. Elon Musk is going to fly all the billionaires away to Mars while the rest of us stay here and fry like ants under a magnifying glass. There’s a lingering fantasy I have of finally overcoming my fear of heights by doing a backflip off the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and splattering myself into little bits of fish food. I think it’d be poetic, and the cleanup wouldn’t be malicious.
I try distracting myself by counting each of the uprooted palm trees blocking traffic. 6. A tranquil drizzle drips from grey skies. 7. My Uber driver is explaining to me why her mom won’t talk to her anymore. 8. She’s asking me what my thoughts are on the subject. 9. I can tell she’s going to be offended by any reply that doesn’t empower her rambling. Did I already say 9? 10. 11. 12. Road debris alters our route several times. I better not get charged extra for this.
This is all Daryl’s fault. 13. 14. What good is having a cop for a best friend if she can’t reverse your DUI’s? 15. Grocery store employees pitch rancid yogurt containers at a dumpster behind Morton’s. There’s a dead lizard mushed into the floor mat.
“I just think Mom’s being totally irrational, you know?” The driver pulls a petite, pink handgun from her glove box and waves it around, “I keep it unloaded most of the time anyways.”
- I make it to 17 sad, wet, dead palm trees. Against my better judgment, I pull out my phone and commence browsing various apps, all at once. Scruff, Hornet, Growlr, Jack’d and Surge. But not Grindr. Grindr’s been taken over by a horde of middle-aged, married men suffering through midlife crises and they are just so fucking tedious. I can tell you from experience, most of them couldn’t fuck their way out of a paper bag.
The Uber drops me off just a bit early out front of the small, brick building. I pace around, scoping potential escape routes. There’s a herd of identical black SUV’s jamming up the tavern’s quaint parking area. Even though she doesn’t deserve it, I give my driver five stars because there’s not many of them in this town and a lower rating may result in even dumber conversations with someone worse.
I make a silent vow to myself that I’ll get better at driving drunk. I just have to get my license back and practice. I finish the travel-sized bottle of Vodka I had tucked away in the chest pocket of my acid wash jacket.
***************************************************
I’m pretty sure I’m being catfished. A set of jagged, sepia abs on Jack’d invited me out to Maguire’s, a supposedly posh gastro-pub in Gulfgate that no one’s ever heard of. The abs were very complimentary and promised me we’d have a lot of fun together. The restaurants in Gulfgate are a lot kitschier than the ones downtown, but at least there aren’t any hobos here to piss on the sidewalk or threaten me for being a queer.
Based on experience, if anyone shows up to this date at all, it’ll either be a scoliosis man-child living out of their parent’s garage, or they’ll be a sassy, fat, ugly woman with a camera crew waiting for me to show any signs of disappointment so they can start screaming about how sexist or racist or ableist I am. That’s why I’m completely taken aback when I see my date already waiting for me. He’s wearing a very gay leather vest and drinking a blue margarita, as was foretold.
“Holy shit, you’re Tom Cruise,” I announce to the room, more confused than surprised.
“What? No,” apparently not Tom Cruise promptly denies reality, “you really think I look like Tom Cruise? Ha!”
I scan the room for hidden cameras but there doesn’t appear to be any. Nobody is aiming the backs of their phones at us. No one is asking for selfies. Not one single glance lands in our direction, which is insane because I’ve seen throngs of Sarasotians lose their minds over much lesser celebrities. Justin Long. Tony Danza. I once saw Andy Dick getting the Caligula treatment from a pack of theatre nerds in the green room of McCurdy’s Comedy Club.
My fascinatingly elfin date pulls out my chair and motions for me to sit.
I take my seat and gawk at the eerily handsome man, “Do you not get that very often?”
“Never,” the mysterious little stranger laughs.
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I mean, I have a mustache,” not Tom Cruise pets the strange fur streak dangling above his upper lip.
I have nothing to offer besides an obvious look of disbelief. I quietly swirl off my tasseled, denim jacket and drape it over the back of my seat. This coat has been with me since sophomore year of high school. I found it buried in a dusty bazaar in Englewood. It’s my prized possession. It goes with everything.
“Well,” not Tom Cruise lowers his jaw and drops an embarrassed bark of a laugh, “I get a lot of, you know, ‘You look like Maverick from the Top Guns’ or, ‘Lestat, from Interview with the Vampire but not the one from the Vampire, Lestat, who I hear is a real jerk, is that you? The nice Lestat?’ The real Tom Cruise is such a chameleon, you know. He really inhabits his roles. People can’t separate the… uh… identities.”
“Huh,” I break my trance to research the tiny drink menu.
Not Tom Cruise takes a sip out of his aquamarine slushi and proceeds to tell me, “I heard he learns whatever skill his character excels at in any movie, perfectly. He’s like, a world class bartender because he was in, what was that movie?”
I have only the vaguest recollection of what he’s talking about, “I think it was just called Bartender.”
My date quickly corrects me, “Cocktail. He can play pool like a pool-shark because of the Color of Money,” he’s suddenly really excited to inform me, “did you know he does all his own stunts?”
“That can’t be true,” I hums indifferently, “no insurance company would allow that. I think I’m gonna’ try the Fruity Yummy Mummy. What are you drinking?”
“It is true!” He screams. His voice quickly descends back down into a calm giggle as he brushes past his random, emotional outburst, “Anyways, let’s talk about something else. Who cares about, you know, Hollywood sex-symbol, fuddy-duddies. I sure don’t.”
I snort, “Did you just say fuddy-duddy?”
He’s kind of cute for a socially oblivious dork.
“I know, right?” Not Tom Cruise chuckles, clapping his hands, “We’re having fun over here!”
A slender waiter with unyielding, frosted blond tips from the early 2000’s arrives, “Hello, my name is Ethan and I will be your waiter this evening. Do you two know what you’d like to drink this evening?”
“Well, Ethan, my friend Glen here would like two of your Fruity Yummy Mummies and I… will… have…” he chugs the rest of the sea-colored, chunky liquid in his margarita glass, “another Mango Tropic Thunder. Do you want to do shots?”
“Me?” The waiter asks, excited and flummoxed.
“No, Ethan,” not Tom Cruise responds frigidly.
“Oh, um,” I contemplate this and realize I really don’t have much to lose if this date goes completely awry, “sure?”
“Tequila?” N.T.C. grins his weird, angular, trademark grin as he raises six fingers in the air, “Six shots of Tequila, my good friend Ethan.”
“Yes sir, Mister Crew-,” Ethan’s eyes bulge with instant, pained regret. He disappears quietly, his head hunched. The living embodiment of shame.
I can’t help but start to ask, “Are you sure you’re not-”
“Not having a good time?” Not Tom Cruise cackles, “I’m having a great time, Glen. You! Are! Gorgeous, am I right? Ha, ha!”
“Well,” I allow myself a miniature smirk, “you’re not wrong.”
***************************************************
It’s been twenty minutes and this guy will not shut up about scuba diving. It’s not long before I’m getting bored. It is taking all of my willpower not to whip out my phone. I try to eavesdrop on any of the other patrons but no one is speaking. Literally no one but him.
My date, who looks like he could be anywhere between 38 and 60 years old, depending on how talented his plastic surgeon is, hunches forward interestedly, “So what do you do?”
“I cut hair,” I shrug timidly.
“You’re a stylist?”
“I’m a cosmetologist,” I correct him flatly.
“That’s AMAZING,” my date erects his index fingers to emphasize, “it’s an art form. I’ve had the same person cut my hair for the past thirty years. I don’t trust anyone else. Did you notice my receding hairline?” He pulls back the hair covering his forehead, “Be honest.”
I squint and study but can’t find any evidence of hair loss, “No.”
“EXACTLY,” my date lets his hair down, visibly relieved.
“So, if you’re not a world famous actor, which is not necessarily something I believe, what do you do for a living?” I wonder aloud, despite knowing the answer will probably be a lie.
“I. Am. A,” the man who is most certainly maybe not a world famous actor ponders this for too long “pilot!”
“Oh that sounds super interesting,” I say as our second round of drinks arrive.
“Yeah, I’m an airplane pilot. A, what do you call it, aviator. It’s fantastic, it’s really,” the man who definitely was not nominated for an Oscar for his role in Born on the Fourth of July takes great pride in his super interesting occupational answer, “it’s exhilarating.”
“You’re gonna’ think I’m a coward but,” I take another shot of tequila and ever so slightly shed my inhibitions, “I’ve never flown.”
“Really?” The guy who probably hasn’t won three Golden Globes and approximately zero Academy Awards seems genuinely perplexed and concerned, “You’ve never-“
“No.”
The person who was not the lead actor in the film All the Right Moves, who’s penis you can’t see in it for a second if you press pause at just the right moment, takes a shot in disbelief and ponders, “How is that possible?”
“I’m scared of heights.”
We both take a shot.
“Listen, Glen,” not Tom Cruise leans over the table close enough to kiss me, “is that your real name, can I call you Glen? Should I call you Glen?”
“Yes, it’s my real name,” I’m quite buzzed but still sober enough to ask, “why wouldn’t that be my real name? Is your name not actually Stacee Jaxx?”
“Oh, no, Stacee Jaxx is definitely my real name,” the man who has most likely never been in arranged marriages with Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman or Katie Holmes clears his throat, “look, Glen. Facing your fears is what keeps us alive. It’s the only way to truly recognate your true identity.”
“Is that real word? Recognate? That’s not a word.”
Not Tom Cruise guffaws, looking around the room for approval, “This guy! Glen, my man! Are you familiar with a concept called the KRC triangle?”
“Oh god,” I sip my third margarita, “no…”
“Knowledge. Responsibility. Control.” N.T.C. takes a shot and continues his thought, “These are simple concepts, but if utilized properly, you can conquer all your fears and live beyond your wildest dreams. Realistically. In this lifetime. I’m serious.”
“Yeah, I don’t know,” I flip over the dinner menu and scan the desserts, “self-help stuff just doesn’t work on me. I ate a lot of acid in high school.”
“You say you’re afraid of flying, you know who else used to be afraid of heights?” He points toward his jutting chin, “This guy. Guess what I did two summers ago?”
“You took flight lessons and became a certified pilot?”
“I hung on the wing of a jet, 1000 ft in the air,” he lifts his palms toward me to emphasis how impressive and dangerous this was, “it was going over 150 miles per hour.”
I sigh, my disbelief exhausted, “With your bare hands?”
“Well,” he squirms self-consciously, “there was a harness. And I had to wear special contacts so debris wouldn’t you know... carve out my eyeballs.”
“I don’t believe you.”
The booze is starting to kick in on this man who has very possibly never danced in his underwear to Bob Seger in his entire life. He holds his hand to his heart. His eyes water just a bit, “I swear on the life of my dead father.”
A new waiter sneaks over to the table like a ninja and stealthily places strawberries and lobster pinwheels drizzled in caviar in front of us before vanishing.
“You’re insane,” I shake my head and bite the tip off a strawberry, “why would you do that?”
“It was fun, ha!” Not Tom Cruise elongates his posture and claps his hands, “Also, you know, spring cleaning. You have to… clear out your… disruptors.”
“Oh god,” I recoil from my latest shot and sip my margarita, “you sound like a Scientologist.”
“Ha,” the man who’s never jumped on Oprah’s couch mouths sternly.
My eyes grow wide in horror, “You’re not a Scientologist are you?”
“Um,” not Tom Cruise shifts his weight, takes a shot and lets out a somber, “no.”
“Oh good,” what a relief, “did you watch that Leah Remini show about Scientology?”
“No,” he grunts, “I don’t even know who that is. I bet she’s not really famous at all. Whoever she is, she probably only ever got work in the first place because of her connections to the Church.”
I look around the room. Nobody has touched their food. No one else has said a single word since I arrived.
I am fully aware that I’ve stepped in an alternate reality but am also now too drunk to care, “She’s the wife of the King of Queens? So like, the Queen of Queens? I guess?”
“Nothing,” he grimaces his meticulously buck teeth in an agitated attempt at a smile.
“Stacey Carosi from Saved by the Bell? No?” I ignore not Tom Cruise’s non-verbal cues to drop the conversation topic and continues, “Anyways, they’re fucking crazy, and like, they’re led by some like, legit evil guy, named like, Davey Miscarriage or something, and his wife has been missing for like-”
Not Tom Cruise chimes in gingerly, “Hey, isn’t Tom Cruise a Scientologist?”
“He’s basically their Jesus. Did you know Hyde from That 70’s Show supposedly raped, like, a dozen or so-”
“And didn’t we, ha, didn’t we agree earlier to STOP FUCKING TALKING ABOUT TOM CRUISE?!” Not Tom Cruise pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to wish away a migraine with his non-Scientology mind powers.
Lordy-loo, “My b.”
He clears his throat once again and settles down, “No b, no b! No b to be had, my man! We’re just two attractive gentlemen having a lively conversation, am I right?”
I bite my bottom lip, “You wanna’ hear something crazy?”
“Glen, my friend? Ha! I would love to. Please amuse me with an anecdote.”
“My friend Sam is a massage therapist in Atlanta and he says he got a hand job from John Travolta.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because John Travolta isn’t gay,” he swears.
“John Travolta is extremely gay.”
“He was married to Kelly Preston. She was gorgeous.”
“And she was with George Clooney. She was a professional beard. She was probably gay. Or Asexual.”
“You’re insane. She was engaged to Charlie Sheen, the most notoriously sexually active, heterosexual man on the face of the Earth. I’m not condoning his existence, but that’s a fact.”
“Corey Feldman literally made a documentary about how Charlie Sheen raped Corey Haim when he was like, thirteen on the set of Lucas and that’s why Corey Haim got fat and did drugs and died.”
Probably not Tom Cruise screams loud enough for everyone in the next building to hear, “JOHN TRAVOLTA IS NOT A FUCKING FAGGOT YOU GOD DAMNED FRUIT! YOU FUCKING PUSSY! HE IS A GOOD MAN WHO HAS ENDURED BOTH PERSONALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY THROUGH SEVERAL POTENTIALLY LIFE SHATTERING TRAGEDIES!”
Forks drop. Curious eyes peer from heads reluctantly turned away. I cower in my seat. Fight or flight is kicking in. I get my phone out and starts ordering an Uber, “Yeah, this has been fun, kind of, but I think it’s time for me to go.”
“Oh come oooon. Glen,” not Tom Cruise reaches for my phone. I pull away from him in disgust as he’s telling me, “Don’t be so glib. You’re being glib right now.”
“This is weird, you’re weird,” I grab my jacket, “I’m leaving.”
“No Glen, Glen. GLEN! Ha. Let’s just, I’ll go into the…”
“Yeah, no,” I head for the door.
My date leaps in front of me, blocking the exit, “Just at least, wait. Let me get through my apology and then maybe I won’t hate myself entirely for the rest of my life for botching this date.” Potentially not Tom Cruise drops the phony smile and does his best to look me in the eyes as an unspoken affirmation of sincerity, “I just try a little too hard to impress people sometimes,” he runs his fingers through his perfectly quaffed hair and kicks the door with the back of his heel like Kevin Bacon in Footloose, “and you are like, way above my league. You’re not an eleven, Glen. You’re an infinity. So I guess I just got nervous and… drunk. I had to get drunk to even talk to you. You’re so pretty. And witty. I’ve really enjoyed our conversations. And the worst parts of me want to push someone like you… my insecurities wanted to push you, out of my life. Because they don’t want me to be the me you deserve. Because you deserve the best, Glen. And if you would just share a little bit more time with me, maybe I can act like,” tears are welling up in his eyes; our audience is utterly, unashamedly captivated, “and maybe even hopefully become the person you deserve. Or at the very least would enjoy sharing a little bit more time with. So. Ha. I want you to know, Glen, and this is important to me: that if you will have me, for this moment, I will march right into the first stall I see in that men’s bathroom and I will suck. Your. Cock. Lick the taint. Swallow the balls. Slurp down all the gravy. Glen. Whole package. Whaddaya’ say?”
I reach out and tenderly touch his fingertips, “You had me at free blowjob.”
The patrons of the restaurant burst into applause as the two of us enter the bathroom hand in hand.
***************************************************
Not Tom Cruise unzips my pants and fumbles awkwardly with my brown, uncircumcised taquito cock. He puts me in his mouth and almost immediately scrapes my dick with his pearly white veneers. My fellator is drenched in nervous sweat. His mustache is peeling off his face. He tries to get it back on, but it won’t stick, so he just holds it in place and does everything else with his mouth and one hand. I reach over to help try to reapply the faux facial hair, but he slaps my hand away.
At one point, the man who clearly did not play a woodland unicorn hunter in Legend, tries to juggle my balls and dick in his mouth at the same time and just ends up gnashing it all together. This is bad. Like, middle school experimentation bad.
I pull out and put his hand on my dick and politely suggest that maybe he should just tug on me. He practically rips my penis off. Despite all this, I somehow eventually manage to ejaculate. I think all the shame and embarrassment for him may have helped the process.
Not Tom Cruise basks in the moment. He smears my semen on his cheeks and draws a cross on his forehead. He styles his hair like Flock of Seagulls with my man batter before sucking the rest off his fingers. Holy fuck I came a lot. Which is especially crazy cause I jerked off like nine times yesterday during the hurricane. Somehow, mercifully, nobody walked in or even approached the bathroom door for the duration of our awkward and mildly unpleasant experience.
“Well,” I tucks myself back into my pants and politely lie, “thank you for a lovely time, Thomas.”
Not Tom Cruise wipes the ethereal mixture of tears and other bodily fluids away from his eyes, “Just get the fuck out of here, faggot.”
I roll my eyes at the sheer insanity of this rendezvous and reenter the restaurant. It’s dim and barren. No patrons, no waiters or bartenders. The plates of food have all evaporated, along with the drinks, menus, silverware and table cloths.
“Hello?” I call out to no one. I look around for just a bit, under some tables, behind the bar. I walk through the front entrance alone, thoroughly creeped out.
*******************************************
The moment I step outside I can hear the doors lock behind me. The few remaining lights inside Maguire’s die out behind its crimson windows. The rain has stopped. The sky is blue and the sun is shining. The moist air hits me in the face, warm and muggy. I realize pretty quickly that I left my jacket inside but no one will respond to my shouting and banging on the door. Finally my Uber arrives. When the driver starts ranting about how feminism is destroying his opportunities as an aspiring professional gamer, I contemplate suicide.
Tomorrow morning I’ll Google, “Maguire’s Sarasota, Florida,” and find no evidence that it ever existed. I’ll go back in person to check their lost and found for my coat, but the building will be locked and vacant. The colorful logo covering the windows will be gone, scrubbed away without a trace. I’ll call yesterday’s date, and when someone who looks like Tom Cruise, and sounds like Tom Cruise, but for legal reasons is definitely not Tom Cruise answers, he’ll grimly whisper, “If you ever call this number again I will fucking kill you,” before hanging up.
Tonight, as soon as the power comes back on, I’ll iron my clothes and hate-watch E. A bleached blonde, plastic pez-dispenser of a woman will be talking about the new Mission Impossible movie, which will look exactly the same as every other Mission Impossible movie. I’ll be smoking a joint, reliving infinite past traumas, and when the interview starts I’ll notice Tom Cruise is wearing my tasseled, acid-wash, denim jacket. He’ll look amazing in it. It will fit him perfectly, better than it ever did me. That fucking bitch.