Men at Play

Chapter 1

Men at Play

By R.W. Clinger

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Crafton Avenue.

The Pennsington Building.

Floor Seven. Flat B.

It’s close to nine o’clock in the evening. The New Year’s Eve party at Tony DeAngelo’s is one of the better ones I attend. Festive, colorful lights decorate his twelve-hundred-square-foot flat. Some of the lights flash a bright red, screaming yellow, and blue. The buffet in the dining room looks expensive with its lobster tails, Russian caviar, and imported treats from his family in Sicily: artichoke pâté, sweet tuna bottarga, and busiate pasta. Holiday decorations are still in place, and festive music plays down from overhead speakers: an assortment of pop songs, some country ones, and Tony’s favorite tunes by the one and only Diana Ross. An open bar with a handsome ginger bartender sits to the right of the living room. Ginger smiles as he makes the signature drink: Kamikazes with a coconut twist.

Most of Tony’s guests are strangers to me: a handsome baldy named Roger Dellafold, who plays the piano for a living; the film producer, Evelyn Bish, from California; a power couple in New Hampshire real estate, Jack and Kyle Needle; the novelist, Robert Riley; the poet, Faye Worthington; Mitchell Slander, a journalist for the New York Times. There are a variety of actors present, a painter, wealthy brokers, two architects, too many doctors to count, and Tony’s close friend and lawyer, Dash Harding. There are other guests, too: blonde bombshells, his pastor, slinky models, his older brother Andrew, his dentist, and a slew of beautiful women he has dated off and on throughout the last year. These people dance, smoke pot, pop pills, drink, and stand in circles, chatting. They all seem to be having fun: mingling, kissing, and getting to know each other. People who party. Happy.

The flat is stunning, expensively decorated with a handful of Asian silks and linens. Nothing looks cheap or skimpy. Tony has obviously spent a fortune on his decorator, Cecille Marque—his current lover of two months, possible marriage material. There are two bedrooms and two baths, a reading room filled with hardback mysteries, living room, and kitchen.

Tony has been thinking about moving away from the Ohio River, inland we say, often telling me, “It’s cold near the water during winter. I hate it.”

My take on the situation is simple: Tony doesn’t like to stay in one place for very long, just as he doesn’t like to be with the same woman for more than nine weeks. Typical Tony.

I think Tony’s a very attractive man because of his Sicilian looks: high cheek bones, tight jaw, thick black hair, smoldering brown eyes, chiseled frame, and a toothpaste commercial smile. The guy is drop dead gorgeous. If he weren’t straight, I’d be all over him, inside him…whatever it takes to be his man. I want his life over mine. He’s a silent business partner in Gallento Wines; huge bank account; superior looks; amazing lovers who bow down to his every s****l need; faithful friends; fancy cars. Just about everything I don’t have, or at least I think I don’t have.