The next day I hit the gym (double cardio), volunteered at The Stuff of Life for the lunch shift, and then polished off a quick client at an uptown church (don’t ask).
At 6:45, I met Freddy in front of the building on the Upper East Side where the Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy has its offices.
Once again, I went for the preppy look: Brooks Brothers khakis and blue polo shirt. Freddy looked dashing in black Juicy Couture jeans, a white T-shirt, a silver choker, and black cowboy boots with silver tips.
“You forgot the spurs,” I told him.
“I didn’t want to over-excite the masses,” he said, giving me a hug. “You look very Republican.”
“I’m trying to look unhappy with myself,” I said.
“Repressed. Self-hating.”
“That’s what I said, darling. You look Republican.”
We took the elevator to the second floor. The Center had the entire story to itself. The lobby was vast and intimidating, cold and modern in its design with lots of stainless steel and white surfaces.
“ V e r y 2001: A Space Odyssey,” Freddy observed. “Where’s HAL?”
“Straight ahead,” I said, as we walked towards a handsome but blank-looking young man sitting at a long, curved reception desk. He didn’t smile as we approached.
“Hi, we’re here for…” I began.
“Straight ahead and to your left,” he directed. “The big room at the end of that hal way.”
Freddy rested his hands on the counter. “How, if I may be so bold as to inquire, do you know what we’re here for?”
Blank Boy didn’t blink. “I assume you’re attending our free informational session, Flight from Homosexuality. Am I correct?”
“It’s the boots, isn’t it? Straight boys would never wear boots like this.”
“It’s the only session being held tonight,” HAL answered.
Freddy leaned in closer. “What do you think?” he half-whispered. “Does this shit work?”
“It did for me,” Hal said robotical y. “Have a productive session.”
Freddy pul ed me aside as we walked towards the meeting room. “We have got to get out of here!”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s like a whole Stepford thing going on here,” he hissed. “Did you see that boy? They make you straight by stealing your identity and replacing you with a pod person!”
“The pod people were Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In The Stepford Wives the women were replaced by androids. Or something like that. I don’t think it was very clear. Now stop being such a baby.”
“OK,” Freddy said, “but if I wake up in a giant pod, I am going to be very, very angry with you. Green is so not my color.”
The meeting room was as cold and sterile as the rest of the office. Ten rows of eight chairs apiece faced a raised white platform that served as a stage.
The room was brightly lit from overhead halogens.
We sat in the back where there was a chance we’d go unrecognized.
There were about forty other men in the audience.
Although the program had not yet begun, they sat silently, staring straight ahead, leaving an empty chair between them whenever possible.
“This is weird,” Freddy whispered. “We just walked into a room ful of gay men and no one turned around to check us out.”
“They’re here to eschew that kind of behavior,” I reminded him.
Freddy stood up and raised his arms over his head. “Damn, I think I pul ed my shoulder out at the gym this morning,” he groaned. He stretched out, causing his T-shirt to ride up and reveal his flawless stomach and his biceps to bulge menacingly against the sleeves of his T-shirt. “Mmmm…” he moaned,
“that feels better.”
Every eye in the room turned to look at him. Eyes widened, jaws dropped. Lips were licked. Then, almost as one, the men, remembering why they were here, guiltily flushed red and turned away.
You could feel the defeat in the air.
Freddy grinned. “That’s better.”
Just then the overhead lights dimmed to total blackness. At the same time, a spotlight from behind us il uminated the stage. I could feel the floor vibrating a little before the music started to swel.
The song, incredibly, was “Sharp Dressed Man.”
“ZZ top?” Freddy asked.
“I think it’s like a theme song for straight guys,” I answered.
Just then, from where I don’t know, a tal, handsome man ran onto the stage. Michael Harrington, bursting with energy. Over the roar of the music he shouted, “You. Can. Change!” With each word, he pointed into the audience. “You. Can.
Change!” he shouted louder, stil turning and pointing. “You. Can. CHANGE!”
He pointed right in the direction of Freddy and me, but his expression didn’t alter. Good. He couldn’t see into the dark audience.
Gone was the reserved and dignified man I had met at the reading of his father’s wil. Michael was now in ful televangelist/motivational speaker mode, and it was a sight to behold.
Suddenly the music cut off. The room seemed quieter than silent, if such a thing was possible. The loudest noise was Michael’s heavy breathing. He stood stil for a moment. Then, in a whisper, he slowly extended his finger and swept it around the room, pointing to al of us at once.
“You… can… change,” he whispered theatrical y.
Another dramatic pause.
He pointed directly to a man in the front row. Stil whispering, he asked him, “Can you change?”
No answer.
“This is not a hypothetical question,” Michael’s deep voice began to rise again. “This is not a hypothetical life. This is the real thing, man!” He got right up in the guy’s face. “Can you CHANGE?”
The poor bastard in the front row wasn’t getting it.
“I hope so,” he squeaked.
“You hope so?” Michael thundered. “You hope so?
Hope is for church and for women! You are men!”
He pointed to someone else. “Can you change?” he bel owed.
“Yes,” the man said.
“Louder!”
“Yes!”
“Make me believe it!”
“Yes!”
“If you can’t make me believe you mean it, then how can you make yourself believe it?” Michael raged at him.
“YES!” the man screamed like a lunatic.
Michael threw his hands to the sky in a silent hal elujah. “That’s it! That’s the passion. You have to believe! You have the power! Al of you, together now: Can You Change?”
It was hard to tel in the darkened room, but I’d say about three quarters of the audience answered with various degrees of enthusiasm, including Freddy. I turned to look at him.
“I got caught up in the moment.” He shrugged. “I thought he was talking about changing my outfit.”
I scowled.
But the truth was, it was easy to get caught up in Michael Harrington’s moments.
Have you ever seen a TV infomercial that seemed to be too good to be true? Someone tel ing you that you could make ten thousand dol ars a week extra income with no investment of time or money? A pitchman extol ing the virtues of a vitamin that would turn back the clock and melt off the pounds? A motivational speaker promising you that his life management system can add hours to your day and years to your life?
And even though you knew-knew! — there was no way the product could meet those claims-were you ever tempted to pick up the phone and order?
Those spokespeople have their jobs for a reason.
There are some people who are just natural persuaders, people whose charisma and carriage and charm strike just the right chords to be convincing on even the most spurious claims.
Michael Harrington was one of those people.
Fantastical y attractive, deep-voiced with authority, he strode the stage like an athlete about to set a world record.
As he spoke on, it was hard not to get excited and believe. Some of what he told us was what anyone would want to hear. We “have the power.” We “are in charge.” We “control our destinies.”
Some of what he said were generalities that could apply to anyone, but when he looked into the audience, you felt he was looking into your soul. Your mother “loved you, but she couldn’t love you enough, and not in the right ways. You worshiped your father, but you feared him, because you were always afraid you couldn’t measure up. When you hit adolescence, you felt different from the other kids, apart from the other boys, frightened of the blossoming girls, awkward and alone.”
Wel, who didn’t feel awkward when they were growing hair in new places, erupting in acne and springing inopportune boners? But if you were looking for a cure, looking for someone who understood you and could lead you to a better place, Michael Harrington would be easy to fol ow.
Then, he spoke specifical y about homosexuality.
How gay men were stuck in a developmental stage,
“like a caterpil ar that never emerged from the cocoon.” That we needed to “break free, to spread our wings, to fly (that word again!)”. That any behavior can be changed through the right kind of conditioning and support.
At the end, he threw in references to a higher power. We were not fol owing Mother Nature’s plan.
We needed to get back to what the Lord had intended for us.
“I don’t get it,” Freddy whispered to me. “Is it God who’s in charge or Mother Nature?”
“I think they’re the same person,” I whispered back.
“Like in drag?” Freddy asked.
Throughout the message, Michael planted seeds of self-hatred and doubt. Weren’t we there because we knew we were on the incorrect path? Didn’t we always sense there was something wrong with us, something deep inside? Didn’t we want to live a life congruent with society’s values? Didn’t we want to make our parents proud of us?
“Wel you can!” Michael thundered. “You have the power! And so, I ask you one more time: Can You Change?”
This time the crowd roared. “Yes!” they cried with one voice. They clapped and shouted and whooped it up like Oprah’s audience being told they had al won brand new Buicks.
“OK,” Freddy whispered, “this is a bit much.”
“Ya think?”
Suddenly, the lights came on ful force. We blinked in the sudden bril iance. The room became sober again. “Just by coming here today, you’ve al taken the first step towards reclaiming your lives and your identities as men,” Michael smiled. “Any questions?”
A man in the third row raised his hand. Michael nodded at him.
“Excuse me,” the man asked Michael, standing up, “I’m wondering if you’d like to go on a date?”
The audience was shocked by the audacity of the man’s proposal. A few men gasped, one hissed.
Michael glowered. “Excuse me?”
“Wel, since I figured that’s the last time I’m ever going to ask another man out, it might as wel be one who’s as good looking as you!”
The audience exploded with laughter and applause. Michael grinned. The man went on.
“No, real y, you can’t imagine how much you’ve inspired me today. I came here with, wel, not exactly no expectations, but pretty low ones. But a friend I know, he went through your program, and, he’s real y doing it, you know? He’s dating a girl at work now and he says it’s not too b… wel, he says he’s real y getting used to it. And I just thought, wel, why not; let’s give it a shot, because I’ve been so unhappy for so long and,” the man’s voice caught for a moment and I real y hoped he wasn’t going to start crying,
“wel, I guess I don’t real y have a question.” He sat back down again.
Michael smiled warmly at the man. He put out his hand. “Come up here.”
The man walked to the front of the room and turned to face us. He looked to be in his early thirties. He was tal, thin, and had one of the worst cases of post-adolescent acne I’ve ever seen. If Michael were honest, he’d tel this guy to skip the counseling and get to a dermatologist.
Michael put his arm around him. “You’re going to do it, friend. Our program combines counseling, peer support, positive reinforcement, neuro-associative conditioning, hypnosis and, where indicated, even pharmaceutical assistance that wil make it impossible for you not to change!”
“He left out the pods,” Freddy whispered.
No, I thought, but he’s thrown pretty much everything else into the mix. Hypnosis? Drugs? Dr.
Chambers was right-it takes a lot to suppress someone’s natural orientation.
Michael pul ed the guy closer and put his other hand on the guy’s stomach. Right above his belt. It was almost sexual. “And the next time I put my arm around you,” Michael continued, “I promise you, you won’t be hoping my hand slides lower.”
The room again broke into laughter and applause.
Michael put both his arms around the guy and squeezed him tight. I could swear he even ground his crotch into him a little. He released him and, with a pat on his ass, sent him back to his seat. The crowd was stil laughing and cheering. I looked at the guy’s crotch and thought he might have gotten a little chubby from Michael’s teasing.
I thought about something else Dr. Chambers said, that many of these “ex-gays” were gay themselves. Michael was total y butch and said homophobic things, but he was also single. Where, I wondered, did he fal on the Kinsey scale?
Michael looked out at the audience again. He took a few more questions and answered them with the professional aplomb of a talk show host. Every time his eyes glanced our way, we slunk low in our chairs to avoid detection.
At the end of the session, Michael marched triumphantly out a door at the front of the room to cheers and applause. Immediately, two fresh-faced young men with clipboards came in to announce that anyone interested in signing up for a discounted one-on-one introductory session should fil out one of the forms they were handing out.
“Can we leave now, or do I have to attend the individual brain washing session, too?” Freddy asked.
“Come on,” I said, as we slinked toward the back door. I noticed only one other guy was leaving without signing up. A pretty-good-looking guy who was one of the youngest in the room. One of the staff members gave the three of us a dirty look.
Sorry, I thought, no sale.
Right outside the room was a restroom.
“Darling,” Freddy said, “I need to powder my nose. Want to join me.”
“No,” I said, “I’l wait out here.”
I was looking at some flyers on the wal when I felt someone come up from behind me.
I turned around. Michael Harrington was standing there.
“Leaving so soon?”
I looked up at him. And he was tal enough that I real y did have to look up.
He grinned. “One might think your interest in my seminar was less than sincere. Did you real y think I didn’t see you there?” His words were a little harsh, but his delivery was charming, frisky. His eyes wrinkled with amusement.
It was a completely different face than the one he had shown me at the lawyer’s office. Gone was the officious authority figure. Now he was playful, teasing. Provocative.
“That was quite a performance,” I said.
Michael stepped closer. A chal enge. “Did you like it?”
I stepped closer too. If either of us moved another inch, we’d be touching. “Very much. Very inspiring.” I tossed back my hair, bit my lower lip. “You had the audience in the palm of your hand.”
“How about you,” he asked. “Where did I have you?”
“That depends,” I husked. “Where do you want me?”
Michael’s eyes burned into mine. “You’re flirting with me.”
“Like you were flirting with the guy you brought up?” I asked. “You know, the one you felt up in front of us?”
“That’s my job,” Michael said. “It’s a seduction, you see? Al sales are a seduction. You of al people know that.”
“You seemed to enjoy it.” I was trying to figure out what makes him tick.
“What I enjoy about my job,” Michael said, “is the opportunity to help people.”
“I bet.”
“Believe it or not,” Michael said, “I’d like to help you, too.”
Michael wanted something, but I didn’t know what.
Any other man and I’d be thinking he wanted to bang me. But Michael had made a career out of hating homosexuals, and teaching them to hate themselves.
Of course, be they preachers or politicians, most of the people who are real y rabid about homosexuality are just acting out on their own repression.
Or, Michael could just be playing me. But to what end? To throw me off the track of his father’s murder? To convince me he real y was an OK guy?
And, to be brutal y honest, standing next to his rampant hotness, feeling the undeniable sexual energy he exuded, I could think of worse places I could be than mano y mano in his office.
I decided to play along. “Real y?” I asked, doing my best to sound naive. “You think you could help me?”
“I do. Why don’t you lose your friend and come with me to my office?”
“Just the two of us?”
Michael put his hand on my shoulder. I could feel the cotton of my shirt begin to smolder. Nobody this sexy could be al bad.
“Just the two of us,” he said. “It may take al night, though.” He winked and gave my arm a gentle squeeze.
My knees buckled. There was something that was just very… compel ing about this man.
“Wel, maybe…” I began
Michael’s smile widened, baring his teeth.
When you hustle for a living, there’s a look you learn to watch out for. It’s a look that’s not just excited, not just aroused, but feral.
It’s not a look that says “I want to have fun with you.”
It says “I want to hurt you. And I’m going to enjoy it.”
Men like that especial y like to hurt cute little boys like me.
Michael Harrington had that look.
Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf? I was. I took half a step back.
“Sorry,” I said, “I can’t leave my friend.” Speaking of which, where the fuck was Freddy? “Maybe some other time?”
Michael closed the distance between us. “You sure? Maybe you’d enjoy it?”
I took a ful step back this time. “How about tomorrow?”
Michael’s grip on my arm tightened. It didn’t feel sexy anymore. It felt like a vise.
“Just for a minute,” he said. “We’l look at my book and schedule some time for later in the week.”
I hesitated.
“Come on.” He put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed. He pul ed me close enough that I could feel the strong bulge of his pectoral muscles.
Had I misread him? He pul ed me closer, ruffled my hair.
“Don’t be a knucklehead,” he said. “Come on.”
I was being paranoid. No one who wants to hurt you cal s you “knucklehead,” right? I was just about to tel him “sure” when my knight in sequined armor reappeared.
“For a man who’s so fucking straight,” Freddy said, “you can’t seem to keep your hands off guys.”
Michael looked up at him and growled. Yes, he actual y growled.
Gone was the playful big brother, the charming seducer. This was the Michael I first met at Tamela Steel’s office. This was the wolf.
“Ah, if it isn’t the sidekick,” said Michael. “Your friend and I were just going to make an appointment.
How about you wait here and we’l be right back?”
Freddy moved to my side. “How about I come along?”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Freddy looked at me.
“We come as a set,” I said, feigning casualness.
“Maybe you could help my friend, too.”
“I think your friend is beyond help,” Michael said.
He turned to me and tried to smile, but the mask was melting.
“Why, doctor,” Freddy said, “that doesn’t seem very Christian of you.
Michael’s face twisted into a bal of rage. “You think you’re clever, don’t you, boy? You think I don’t know what kind of filth you are?”
“I think we better go,” I said to no one in particular.
“Did you just cal me ‘boy’?” Freddy asked.
“I’l cal you worse than that,” Michael said, moving toward us, his color rising.
I think he was about to take a swing at Freddy, but then the doors of the meeting room opened. Men streamed out, chatting away, making a beeline for Michael when they spotted him.
Upon hearing the crowd, Michael transformed instantly. His body relaxed and his practiced smile returned. To anyone looking, we had just had a friendly chat.
It was creepy how quickly his entire demeanor changed. As if his most intense feelings could be cycled through like premium channels on cable. In the time I had observed him tonight, I’d seen him be charming, friendly, inspiring, seductive, angry, threatening, and then charming again.
The Mirror Has Two Faces, I thought. Only a lot more than two.
“Wel, gentlemen,” he said to us. “It looks like you’ve been saved by the Tinkerbelles. How appropriate.”
He turned away, but not before Freddy said, “Oh, yeah? Wel, fuck you, too.”
“Good comeback,” I told him as we walked away.
“It was the best I could think of under the circumstances,” Freddy admitted.
Over dinner at the new Chelsea restaurant Foodboys, I told Freddy about how I sensed that Michael had a real sadistic streak.
“Wel, duh,” Freddy said. “That’s why I stepped in. I think if he’d gotten you into his office, you might never have come back out.”
“I know. What scares me is that for a moment, maybe even a few moments, I was almost ready to go with him. He’s got some crazy thing going-he’s super-charming one minute, then psycho the next.
He’d have made a great hustler.”
“He kind of is a great hustler, no?”
“I guess so,” I answered. I thought for a minute about how close I had come to stepping into the lion’s den. Which reminded me: “Where were you, anyway? It seemed like you were in that bathroom forever.”
“Oh, I met that guy who left the room right before we did in there. Remember him? The one with the great hair?”
“You did a guy in the bathroom at an anti-gay conversion seminar?” I asked.
“I didn’t do him,” Freddy corrected me. “I mean, OK, we made out a little, but that was it.”
Knowing Freddy, “made out” could cover anything short of fisting. I decided to let it pass.
“I got his number,” Freddy said. “He was real y very nice. Twenty-three years old. Real religious family. When he came out in his teens, his mother stood up, went to the kitchen, and put her head in the oven.”
“Real y?”
“Yeah. He told me she didn’t turn it on or anything, she just did it for effect. Anyway, they sent him to one of those camps they have for teenagers-you know, the ones that are supposed to make you straight?”
I nodded.
“They screwed him up pretty good. Tried to make him hate himself, but it didn’t real y take. When he saw the ad for the seminar tonight, he thought he’d give it one more try, but his heart wasn’t in it. He told me that Michael sounded like one of the counselors at his camp, only a little more pop psychology and a little less fire and brimstone.”
I figured that assessment was probably about right.
“Anyway, after a couple of minutes of fooling around, Charlie-that’s his name-told me he didn’t think he was going to be trying any more conversion therapies anytime soon. We have a date next week.”
“You’re truly a giver,” I said.
“I try.”
“OK,” I said, “what’s next?”
“Wel, we know now that Michael has a real mean streak. And something about you obviously makes him nervous. To me, he looks more like a suspect than ever.”
“OK, but we have to be able to prove it.”
“I know,” Freddy said. “Oy. That’s the hard part, ain’t it?”
“What’s next?”
“Check your list.”
I pul ed out my iPhone and pul ed up my to-do list.
1. Fol ow up with Roger Folds-fight?
2. Talk to Randy Bostinick
3. Research Paul and Michael Harrington.
4. Look into those gay suicides-was that true?
5. Fuck Tony
“OK, Freddy said, “you can cross one and two off the list. Number three-we’ve gotten some information about Michael Harrington-what about Paul?”
“Nothing yet,” I said.
“OK, so let’s leave that. What’s this about ‘gay suicides’?”
I shared what Tony had said about a rash of gay men taking their own lives.
“OK, so can you find out more about that?”
“Not without talking to Tony,” I said.
“Wel, that might get you closer to goal number five, too.”
“I’l find another way.” I had something in mind.
“Do that. And listen, while you have that thing out, don’t forget about tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night?” I asked.
“Sexbar?”
“Oh, right,” I said. I quickly clicked over to my calendar-yep, there it was. “I got it.”
“OK,” Freddy said, looking over my shoulder at an Asian man with the most amazing green eyes.
“What’s for dessert?”
I left Freddy at Foodboys and headed home.
Although it was 10:45 when I got there, my mother was sitting on the couch, purse in hand. She was wearing her black boots, a black sweatshirt, and, bizarrely, a black ski mask.
It was ninety-seven degrees out. This didn’t look good.
“Don’t sit down!” she cal ed as I walked through the door. “We’re going back out.”
I had, as they say, a very bad feeling about this.