After jumping onto the La-Z-boy with him and waiting for Boo-Boo to go to work, I asked Skeeter, "What happened!?" He had just come home from a visit with Straight Guy (SG), his best platonic male friend for the last 25 years. (Fuck, don't these humans ever die!)"What happened?" he repeated disingenuously.
"You were going to ask him something intimate, something personal, something—"
"All right!" Skeeter bellowed. "How the fuck do you know all this?"
"Little doggies have big noses and you did discuss it rather at length with Boo."
"From, now on, cough when you're in the room. There are certain things you shouldn't be hearing."
"What the fuck! I'm not some toddler with Mommy and Daddy lowering their voices when they discuss the divorce!"
"There's not going to be a divorce, Little Man, it was just something I got into my head."
"Big head; must have been rattling in there for a while. I wonder why I didn't hear the echo."
"Ha. Ha. And, yes, I have been obsessing about this and losing sleep and for some unfathomable reason it started to feel like a sane idea."
"How does SG figure?"
He sighed deeply and then he spilled his guts. "He's straight, so Boo and I agreed he wasn't dangerous to our relationship; he's sexy; he's my best friend...I thought he might pose for some pictures."
I don't know if you've ever heard a dog shriek with laughter. You may have but probably didn't know what it was. For instance, we run around like mad, get you chasing us like mad, then we stop the game and when you look at us we let out a sound (like a yodel with me). You think we're over-excited and want to play some more, but it's really us laughing our mother-fucking arses off at how fat and wet and red and...human you look.
That was the noise I made when he said, "pose for pictures." I could not stop laughing—I even got off his lap 'cause I thought I might piss a little. I could barely get out, "What kind of poses?" and, of course I knew but shrieked some more anyway.
"Shut up," he growled.
"And your request was hanging out there, the big, farting elephant in the room—"
"—the café—"
And I exploded with laughter again.
"It was the most difficult thing I've ever done since coming out to my father!" he wailed. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to ask him that?"
"I know how hard it must have been to ask him, if you know what I mean and I think you do." Now I was just giggling and so I jumped back up on his lap. "Poor little Skeeter," I said and licked his nose. "So what's going on with you and Boo?"
"Nothing. It's all me." Then he ratcheted up the tone a bit and yelled, "You saw the thing! You saw how hideous and big it was! I can't let anyone close to me anymore without freezing up! I turn rigid—"
"—and not in a good way," I piped in, trying desperately to simmer him down.
"And there was Brian—that's his name, by the way, not Straight Guy...I mean, I wasn't asking to blow him! Just pictures!"
"Wow, that's sad."
"Well, it was sad. Now it's just humiliating and silly."
"Did he handle it well?" I asked.
"Short and sweet. No. Change the subject real fast."
"Well...yeah!" Skeeter was calmer now, thank God. "And the friendship? Will you be able to look him in the eyes?"
"Yeah, but he'll probably be thinking I'm looking him in the crotch."
"Which, of course, will be the case." I snerfed a laugh. There was more quiet for a bit and then I said, "It's kibble."
"Hunh?"
"Life is like kibble. It fills your stomach, it's supposed to be good for you, but it often tastes like shit." He laughed wearily. "You're a bit of a freak, you know that?" I said.
"You think?"
"Well, you're nearing 60—"
"—I'm nearing 53—"
"Whatever. On top of that you're human wreckage...facing yet another operation—"
"—does this have a point?—"
"—Yes. All that and yet you're still got a spring in your step. You're like a dog. For us sex is life and life is sex."
"Yes," he said tiredly, "maybe so. But sometimes I wish I was one of the normal 50-year-olds who didn't care about anything but food, liquor and TV."
"No you don't."
He smiled—a real smile at last. "No I don't."
"Hey! Here's a question: would you rather be straight?"
"Hm." There was a long, long silence and the longer it lasted the more interesting I became in the answer. Finally: "No. I'd have not met Boo."
I snerfed. "It's an odd little love story you got going there, you two."
There was an easy, relaxed quiet at last. But then it came: a snerf, a giggle, a laugh and then I was yodeling and managed to howl, "In a café! I can't believe it! What a fucktard!"
He laughed too.
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