The Breakup Buddy

Chapter 1: Beefsters and Puckheads-3

Jax’s apartment was seven city blocks from his office. The apartment was in the process of being painted. Benny Tanner, one of his college-aged nephews, was being paid to do the job. Benny was working on Jax’s bedroom, creating some kind of lime green and purple kaleidoscope pattern. Jax’s place was neither large nor small. There were two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, and one bath. A patio six floors up overlooked Hobb Street and Lake Erie. He never thought about buying his own house because of the responsibilities he knew went with it. Home repairs were not his thing and never would be. He could get inside the mind of one of his patients, but not the mind of a handyman. Never.

His bestie was thirty-four-year-old August “Auggie” Brandshaw, who lived across the hall from Jax’s place in flat 6-K. They met three years ago when Jax moved into the Hobb Building. The rent was steep for Eastwind, but worth it. The place came with a gym, pool access, and a rooftop restaurant called Smattering Dazzle, which was gay friendly and gave the tenants of the building twenty percent reduced from their bill. The building also came with security, maintenance, and access to Wind Spa and three free, hour-long treatments a year. So the place had its perks, was quiet, and was careful about who resided there, keeping the riffraff out.

Auggie was a beautiful man who should have gone to Hollywood to be an international star. His short black hair was curly, his eyes were a piercing blue, and his complexion was flawless with a peach hue. He had a Greek-sloped nose, broad shoulders, and stood at five-eleven. The guy weighed approximately one hundred and seventy-five pounds, and was muscular since he used the building’s gym almost every day. When someone met Auggie for the first time, he came across as a smartass. Sometimes his joking seemed arrogant, but never did he mean to insult anyone, always playing. He was a cheerful guy, sexy as hell, and not at all boring. Auggie liked his booze, men, and whatever fun he could get himself into. There was rarely a bad day in his life, and he was positive about the world, optimistic. Very few issues ticked the guy off, which was another reason why Jax liked him and the others in their circle of shared friends.

Auggie came and went whenever he pleased concerning Jax’s apartment. If he just happened to run out of butter, he used Jax’s place as a grocery store. There were so many things he could borrow from Jax. Iron, suntan lotion, newspaper, and a variety of other items. Auggie made it a point to interfere in Jax’s life, proving that the man was his best friend. Never did he use Jax, but he had come pretty damn close to it on numerous occasions.

When Auggie wasn’t a part of Jax’s life, he taught high school English at Eastwind High. Following seven years at the school, he was now tenure and head of the English Department, which consisted of three women, Macbeth’s Witches, as he called them, and himself. The job paid well, plus he had summers off, along with winter and spring breaks. He liked his role as an English teacher and department head, and felt that he had made the right career choice in his life. At one time, he thought about being a preacher, but God really wasn’t on his side since he was gay. He backed out of religion with his hands up, surrendering to the almighty Lord. But teaching six classes a day—drama, literature, composition, drama again, elements of the English language, and another composition class—was his thing. He had two study halls, which allowed him to read best-selling fiction on the job and grade his students’ essays when necessary. He was a happy guy regarding his job and his life.

Unlike Jax’s tidy and well-kept apartment, Auggie’s apartment was a sty. Being a hoarder, he collected perishables, water, knives, guns, ammo, and other bugout bag items associated with prepping for the end of the world and an unstoppable apocalypse. The apartment was filled with gasmasks, boxes of M3s, candles, matches, first aid items, blankets, and pillows. Because clutter accumulated for a period that he called end-days, there were pathways throughout the apartment from room to room. But Auggie loved his place and his apocalypse gear. Without his debris, he felt that his world would be incomplete and he would have no character, substance, and far too much like the rest of the people in the world.

Frankly, Jax didn’t mind Auggie’s cluttered apartment or his weird thinking that a plague was going to end the world, a zombie invasion, or cataclysmic destruction. Auggie was a hoot and always managed to do the unexpected. Every day with the man was a surprise because his antics were always extraordinary, never dull, and even unlawful at times. Jax relished the man’s friendship and attention. Excitement was always present when Auggie was around because the man was upbeat, filled with much personality, and had a lot of charm.

The two men would meet at Smattering Dazzle for lunch or dinner, enjoy each other’s company, and chitchat like best girlfriends. Most of the time, Auggie relished a cocktail. Sometimes Jax joined him, but today wasn’t one of those days. Jax didn’t know if Auggie was coming or not since the man was running late. Auggie was never late, which Jax thought strange but not unquestionable. As Jax waited for his friend, he looked around the lounge.

Smattering Dazzle was a mega-trendy lounge with a swimming pool, queen-sized beds by the dance floor, and seven rear rooms where couples could become frisky, and adult things could get out of hand. When the lounge first opened in 1986, it was intended for the straight crowd, heavy drugs, and rock and roll. The media compared it to Studio 54 in New York City. Queers took over the establishment in 1988 and converted it into a bathhouse for the naughty, but the AIDS epidemic that had rushed through the homosexual population had put a quick end to the endeavor.

Louie Fawn and Robert Clondye bought the place in 1990, kept the swimming pool, added posh beds, and bedazzled the ceiling with what looked like waves of diamonds and other sparkling gems. Tuesday nights were drag queen nights, Wednesdays were cowboy nights, and Saturday nights were wet and wild nights, which basically was a wet T-shirt party with a bunch of chiseled and hot beefsters for gays with masculine names like Magnum, Butch, d**k, and Drake.

Most patrons of the lounge thought that Louie and Robert were lovers, sharing a life-long relationship as s****l partners and husbands. That wasn’t the case, Jax knew. Louie was married to a redheaded, big-breasted bombshell, and Louie was the father of three boys. Robert was single, enjoyed the company of Asian-American women, and was currently intrigued with a young, Japanese geisha-looking doll named Maki Oog.

Just because the owners of the lounge were straight didn’t mean the bartenders and wait-staff were. The queer men who served drinks and food were always tan, produced gleaming smiles, and were bare-chested. Each was hairless and bulky-perfect, and enjoyed the company of other men. Few were in relationships, Jax learned. He frequented the lounge and could conceive naughty tales of male passion just as Ed Billington had concocted in Miss Tanzy’s Pet.

The menu at Smattering Dazzle was seasonal, as well as the music. The cave-like lounge reminded Jax of his many trips to Cancun, Mexico, visiting the cenotes with close friends (including Auggie), swimming inside the Earth. Today, the lounge offered summertime tunes, gem-shaped and—colored beach balls that bounced around the bar area, and lighting, which were turquoise waves, illuminating the walls and ceiling.

How could Auggie be late when the high school where he taught was only seven blocks away from the lounge? The previous evening, Auggie said he would meet Jax at the lounge approximately ten after five. Auggie added, “I have a meeting with a fall intern who will be completing his student teaching with me this winter. I’ll come to the lounge right after the meeting.”

Jax looked at his Diesel watch and saw that it was already twenty minutes after five. Then he decided that maybe Auggie’s meeting with the twenty-something intern was extended, not that Jax had a problem with that since he could enjoy a rum and Coke or something even stronger in the meantime.

As Jax waited for his bestie to arrive, listening to Katie Perry sing a song about kissing a girl, a handsome Latino man with bulging biceps and an inflated chest saw Jax sitting alone at his booth. Jax was not looking for a man to chat with or random company, but he couldn’t resist making eye-to-chest contact with the Latino, impressed with the man’s build and snug-white T-shirt that defined every particular curve and bump on the stranger’s torso.

Latino moved up to Jax, stood over him, and smiled. “Do you like what you see, guy?”

Jax did, nodded, but said, “I have a boyfriend.”

“We all have boyfriends. And we all need to play outside those relationships.”

Jax wasn’t a player.

Latino reached forward, collected Jax’s right hand within his own, drew it to his bulky chest, and rolled Jax’s fingers over his left pec and down to his tight navel. In the process, Latino asked, “Do you like what you feel?”

“Sorry,” Jax said. “I’m not interested. You’re a good looking man, but I’m involved.”

Latino huffed and vanished from Jax’s booth and his happy hour search for a man continued, needing to take a stranger home and get off with him.

Because Auggie was late, Jax enjoyed a second rum and Coke, stared into the crowd of white-collar workers visiting the lounge, and thought of William Benjamin Gramm, his current boyfriend. Will, as Jax called him, was a blond cutie with linebacker shoulders, Pacific Ocean-colored eyes, a dimple in his clean-shaven chin, and a corded neck. He was two years older than Jax, stood an inch taller, and didn’t have a blond hair on his body from his neck down. Will was a jock by nature and had played college quarterback. Unable to go professional because of a damaged right arm, Will was now a sportscaster for WNEL, channel 7. His buddies included baseball players, jocks of the NFL, and what Jax called puckheads, which entailed men who played minor league hockey.

They had been dating for the last four months, which had been an up and down adventure of fair and bad times. Jax had fallen in love with Will, but didn’t feel, or think, that Will loved him in return. Will had a very busy life with his career. He was always in a locker room interviewing sports figures, having dinners with sports officials or owners of teams, and watching sports events in local bars or at Eastwind Arena. He used his WNEL pass to get into games for free because of his sportscaster status in their small lakeside town.

Jax spent more time with Auggie than he did his boyfriend. He thought that his relationship with Will unproductive since Will seemed more involved with his career and jocks. Frustration for Jax had increased throughout the last month because of their problematic boyfriendhood. He had only slept with Will two times in the last thirty days, had dinner with the man seven times, and communicated with Will every three days by either text, email, or the occasional cellphone call, which was quite rare. In Jax’s opinion, their relationship was dead, and there was nothing to salvage. But Jax had yet to break up with the sportscaster, knowing that it was inevitable.