Sellevision - Augusten Burroughs [86]
Max grinned.
“I check people’s E-mail. Sometimes I reply.”
Max rested his fork on his plate, leaned in. “You reply? You reply to other people’s E-mail?” As much as he thought this was extremely wrong, he also thought it extremely interesting. “Like what? What do you say?”
“Well,” Adam began, “Last week I placed a personal ad.”
Max’s eyes sparkled.
“I was in this guy’s room: Rogain, two baseball caps, Adweek magazine, Doc Martens, Obsession, Abercrombie & Fitch underwear, G4 Powerbook. So obviously, the guy’s in advertising. Which means he’s too insecure to make it in the film industry. And the Rogain, well, that was pretty funny. I loved that. I immediately opened it up and poured it down the drain and refilled the bottle with tap water. Anyway, so I’m looking around and I see this picture of him and his girlfriend, kind of slid inside his notebook. He’s got all kinds of shit in that notebook—doodles, lousy headlines, phone numbers, and this picture of the two of them, sitting at a table, dressed in black. They both looked kinda drunk, and their eyes were red from the flash. They were laughing. And I looked at him, and I thought, ‘This guy is so queer.’ I mean, it was just so obvious to me. He is completely and totally gay. No straight man I have ever known had a face that well moisturized. You could see it in the picture. And his body? Perfect. Only he obviously doesn’t know he’s gay. Hasn’t come to terms with it. Either that, or does know and the girlfriend is just unwittingly along for the ride. I started to feel really sad for his girlfriend, because eventually, he’s going to come face-to-face with the fact that he’s a fruit and it’s just gonna be too damned bad for his girlfriend. She’s a little overweight, I noticed. So there’s obviously some fag-hag stuff going on in this relationship. And it’s always the woman who gets hurt in a situation like this. I looked at this girl’s plump, laughing face and I thought, boy, is she gonna crash. He’s gonna come out and find some hairy-chested, backwards-baseball-cap-wearing guy who saw Showgirls six times for the camp value, and the poor girl is just gonna eat.” He took a long sip of seltzer water.
“You are insane,” Max said, completely absorbed.
Adam took this as a compliment and continued. “That’s when I decided to help. America Online was just right there on his computer. I hit return, which immediately signed me on. He’d already stored his password.”
The waiter appeared again. “All finished with these?” he asked, and then carried the two plates, empty except for onions, away.
“Anyway, I’m quite familiar with America Online, so as soon as I got the main menu, I went right to the gay section. And I placed the ad in the Chicago section, because I’d looked at his return airline ticket and seen O’Hare.”
“Oh my God, I can’t believe you really did this. What did you write?” Max asked.
Adam smiled, brought one of his big furry arms up and ran his fingers through his hair, then caught himself. “Sorry, I do that all the time, run my fingers through my hair, it’s like a nervous habit or something and it drives people crazy.”
Max shivered.
“So anyway, I wrote, ‘GWM thirtysomething advertising guy, average looks, gym bod, thinning hair, Doc Martens and a girlfriend. Help me out here, guys. I’m just coming to terms with my sexual orientation and would appreciate any support/advice you could give me. I’m real new to this whole thing. If you have a HOT picture, send that too.’ Short and sweet.”
“I don’t ever want to stay in a hotel again,” Max said. “I never knew that you people were so . . . involved.”
“Well, it’s like brain surgery in a way, being a maid. Because these people check out, they move on with their lives, and I have no idea what ever happens to them. Like, I’ll never know how much my little ad helped this man.”
“Or ruined his life,” Max