This is going to sound completely silly and totally sudden, though for many not sudden enough, but I've found an apartment, more or less, in Buckhead that seems nice and affordable, and I'm going to put in the application. I hope beyond hope that everything turns out all right. I hope that I never again have to worry about my Buford-based, hot-water-less existence. The real estate agent is calling me tomorrow morning after he calls the complex. And I owe Larry and David, once again, a debt of gratitude.
The real estate agent, Jason, is a friend of Larry's. (Those of you who know Larry can illustrate the context of that friendship, more than likely, without me saying much more than, "No, they didn't. But it's an interesting story nonetheless, involving one of his Pride Parties." The rest of the details, for anyone who's attended one of Larry's Pride Parties, would fall into place.)
When we called Jason today through the Pride Realty listing in SoVo, he didn't recall at first who Larry was.
"My friend Larry thinks you might be a masseuse he once hired," I said over the phone.
"Excuse me?" Jason asked me.
"Oh," I said to Larry. "I guess he's not that Jason."
"What are you talking about?" he asked me, and Larry told me to drop it.
"It's hard to explain," I said. "Never mind."
"What's the problem?"
"Um," I said. "My friend seems to think he got a massage from you. But that's another Jason, I think."
Something in him lightened up. I don't know if he was acting offended because he thought I was acting like there was a stigma to being a masseuse. (I guess he's technically a massuer, but whatever.)
"Who is it who's referring me from the table?" Jason asked eventually. "You say it's someone I know."
"My friend Larry," I told him. "Apparently, he hired you for a party once."
"Oh," said Jason.
He directed me to the apartments website using light flirtation. It was rather amusing. When he told me that I needed to increase my flexibility, I knew he didn't just mean my price range and planned moving date. The man knew his stuff, though. He kept pointing me at available rentals on "Sidney Mucus," as he called it, but one of the complexes was three minutes from my office, so we went to check it out.
But that part of the story's boring, so I'm going back to explain how Larry knows the real estate agent.
My real estate agent was the door prize at a party Larry held a couple years ago, the party that I think Lupo attended with me. Apparently, after Lupo and I left or while I was helping Lupo off the floor of the bathroom, Jason the real estate agent/masseuse, caused a bit of a spectacle. When he and Larry got on the phone together, for Larry started to talk apartments with him, Jason was able to refresh his memory.
"You live in McGill Park?" Jason said. "Oh my God, I know who this is. I know who this is! I fucked that guy in your kitchen!"
It was a rather wild night, aside from Jason's audience-attended dalliance. (I didn't see it.)
Lupo only attended it because a wedding reception he attended was raided by cops. Within 10 minutes of our arrival, I ate a strawberry off the ass of an exotic dancer (don't faint, Jenipher!) to save Lupo's virtue, for I wanted to make a good impression with him. (I don't know why, but it was my project for that summer. I'd known Lupo for months, mostly during my dark period of employment-enhanced depression. But he was leaving town, so I decided to finally show him that I could be a bit more fun than I let on by taking him to places that had strippers, like Swinging Richard's or Larry's apartment on the weekends.) Later, while I was holding Lupo's hand on the floor of Larry's bathroom and making sure he was all right, the strawberry dancer came into the room to redress. Lupo, though a bit under the weather, was able to recognize the strawberry dancer from his illustrious career in hardcore porn video, a moment in our friendship that I reflect on with a smile to this day.
(Lupo said something like, "Without that goatee, you look like a guy in a three-way I once watched." Or something. Maybe it was, "Hey, don't I know you from BUTTFUCK NATION?" But that would be too funny.)
So anyway, Jason pointed me at a nice, apparently affordable apartment in a gated community. If I hurry, I can solve everything within two weeks, still go out of town to Ohio with my family, begin my new life and never have to worry about the Bufordite squalor or about being incredibly late to work due to the heavy traffic (for the place Jason recommended is minutes from my office) ever again.
Larry says his massages are top-notch. His help with this apartment, if I don't end up getting this one but end up getting another one, is what's calming my nerves right now.
Life, though once again not at all innocent or pretty, is getting good.
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