Page 17 of Dark Promises

At the time I’d been working my way through college, and then law school living in a crappy apartment in Brooklyn and going to Brooklyn college. There wasn’t any time to go out partying like my few friends had done in their teenage years. They’d described how they’d skipped school, and headed uptown with phony identification and seen the real world, while I was suffering to pass tests to become a lawyer. After graduating from college, then it was the LSAT to get into law school and after that I found myself taking the MBC just to keep my options open where I could work in a different state if New York didn’t work out, and later I discovered that because I’d taken that test, I’d lose the only man I’ve ever loved, wanted to love, or had something in common with, and it had to do with the way we accepted each other when it came to our sexual desires.

A few years back a friend had gotten me out of my apartment and books to go to this bar called Pluck the Cherry. My friend, Cody, threw down his books while we were studying and had planned on pulling an all-nighter, and said, “Let’s go out. You’ve been spending too much time in the books.” Looking around my studio apartment, he said, “You even sleep with your books. Half your bed is covered with tablets, a computer and all these fucking books. You know there should be a man somewhere under those sheets with a hard dick and cum stains, but knowing you, I won’t waste my time looking.” He stood and strolled to my bed and raised the sheet and shook his head. “Just as I thought, a waste of my time.” And he turned to me. “I thought maybe I’d find a used condom at least.”

I closed my eyes for a second and opened them.

“I have to pass the bar exam, and if I manage to do that and get a job, then I have to find an apartment in Manhattan. You don’t know how hard this is. You have parents who can afford to take care of you, and besides you live in your parents’ basement half the year. ”

“Don’t hate me because I take the road that’s already traveled. You like the hard way.” It’s not that I want things the hard way. I’m doing what I think will make me happy in my life and that’s working with creative people.

“You would have to take the hard road. A law degree in entertainment? Who does that anymore when the chances of you succeeding in a city like Manhattan is next to impossible. Everyone knows someone, and their brothers and sisters and their children have those jobs locked up,” Cody said.

Well, Cody did a job on me that night. I was so depressed that I placed my books down, rushed into the shower for a second because of the cold water, found a pair of tight jeans and tee, then we jumped on the subway to hit the clubs in Manhattan.

We didn’t get far before we were standing in front of a building with a bar called Pluck the Cherry. I watched as all the cute gay guys strolled in the lobby, and inside was this high-end club where men wore expensive suits and I wanted that to be me. They looked so different from the dudes I’d hang out with. I wanted what they had and that was why I worked at that profession.

“I don’t think this place is for us,” I said, hunching my shoulders, and furrowing my forehead, and placing my hands across my chest. Cody pried my hands that had taken the form of tight fists from being wrapped around my chest.

“You look like you’ve never been anywhere or done anything. Relax. I’m going in here without you if I have to, and you can take the train back to Brooklyn. But here is where the big boys are. Don’t you want to be drinking with them.” I tucked my hands in my pocket. I didn’t think I would have enough to get back to Brooklyn if I bought a drink. Maybe a beer, but looking at the building and the men strolling with their satchels, I couldn’t afford this.

“That’s because I haven’t,” I admitted. I’d gone from high school to college and the only exciting or adventurous thing I’d done besides going to off Broadway plays with my mother was to stand outside a club called Pluck the Cherry.

We looked at the sign with a cherry sitting in a cocktail glass, and Cody said, “This should be a great start on your road to excitement, and getting your cherry plucked like the sign said. What can go wrong?” Cody asked when I pulled out the few dollars in my pocket to show him after I’d paid my rent.

“How much do you have?” I questioned. I had more than him. At the time my mother had just sent me money for rent, that she probably suffered for. If things didn’t go as Cody had planned, I’d have to get a part-time job someplace. Maybe in a grocery store on Flatbush or Ocean Parkway, or working at a burger house. My mother and my father warned me that they could pay for the first degree, but not law school. And I didn’t listen. I tapped my grandparents for the rest they had put aside for their retirement.

I’d been wracked with guilt about taking the money from them, but Granny assured me that they had the first dime they ever made and had land they planned on selling. After that I relaxed and spent that time studying, tryingnotto make them wish I’d never been born.

If I could graduate without too much of a scandal, and for me that would benotpassing my tests andnotgetting a job and becoming homeless without telling my parents I was homeless. And if they happened to drive by me one day and see me with a squeegee blade cleaning cars there would have been heart attacks I’d caused, and I’d be blamed for that. Now that would come under the umbrella of scandal for my father’s family. Not even my father knowing I was gay had put that to the top of the list on his side of the family of lawyers.

My mother’s side had wanted me to be a decent human being and that was all they’d asked of me when she died. I had tried to fulfill their wishes the best I could so far.

Working on becoming a lawyer took all my time and energy and because I was dead tired, I let Cody convince me that I needed a life. The night I walked into Daniel’s club, I began to live. Because he taught me how to relax, and because of him I passed the bar, and got that job I’d been waiting for, which would change my life and make my family proud of me.

Chapter 11

Cole

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