I NEVER SET out to write a play about Richard.
It was more like I realized I was already writing one.
The morning after our first date, Richard cooked me a massive breakfast before sending me out into the bright West Village streets. I shielded my eyes from the sun as I stumbled out of his building. Despite my stale suit and unwashed hair, I felt incredible, buoyed by the promise of new romance. It was a stunning spring morning, one of those rare New York days when the weather is so idyllic that it washes away all memories of previous meteorological abuse.
My radiant mood even survived reentry into my scuzzy apartment. I ripped off the previous night’s clothes, slipped into a pair of gym shorts, and plopped onto my mattress. I pried open my laptop, planning to waste a few hours on the internet before I had to change for work. There on my computer screen, in a window I’d neglected to close the previous night, was my “Notes for Future Conversations” document.
I scrolled through it idly and came across the section where I’d imagined the moment I’d bring up my estrangement from my mother with the goal of triggering a similar confession from Richard. I studied my work, noting the discrepancies between my fantasy and the reality. Why not make a few corrections? I thought, and I plunged into the document and began revising. I fixed the dialogue to more accurately reflect our conversation, added a few embellishments, and noted the particulars of the setting. After an hour, I sat back to reread my work. That’s when it hit me: what I had on the page was a scene.
I was writing a play.
The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. All the plays I’d written in grad school were inaccessibly experimental—long on bizarre, esoteric ideas and short on relatable human experience. I’d always felt like nothing much had happened to me in my life (other than my familial trauma, a wound too raw to write about), and as a result, I was unable to produce the “deeply personal works” that garnered praise for my MFA classmates.
But now, life was happening to me—Richard was happening to me. I realized that Richard could not only be a source of love and stability but also an excellent source of material. I continued writing into the afternoon, riding the wave of inspiration, invigorated by my work in a way I’d never been before.
And at the center of it all: Richard. Before I met Richard, fate was a concept to which I’d never given much credence. After I’d abandoned God in the wake of my family’s ruination, chaos had seemed to be the best explanation for the arbitrary machinations of an indifferent universe. But that afternoon as I pounded at my keyboard, filled with hope, I was gripped by a newfound belief in destiny. Little in my life was certain, but of this much I was sure: Richard Shriver was my future.
“Have you seen Rashad?” I yelled to Derek, the bartender on shift that evening. Derek shook his head as he poured a nuclear-green substance into a sugar-rimmed martini glass and garnished it with a cherry.
“Not in the last twenty minutes.” He frowned at the cocktail in front of him. “How any grown man can drink these with a straight face is a true mystery.”
I was the most recent hire at Perdition, a “new-American eatery” in Chelsea, and my lack of seniority meant that I received the worst schedule of the entire staff. Weekend nights were the most lucrative and therefore reserved for employees who had been there the longest. Lately, I’d been begging for shifts from the other waiters, occasionally even scoring a Friday or Saturday. I desperately needed the money, and though I wasn’t particularly close with any of my coworkers, most were sympathetic to the familiar plight of the impoverished New York transplant. For a while, I’d managed to float on the generosity of my fellow servers, but it was becoming clear that their charity had an expiration date. I got the sense that the others felt it was time I got my shit together.
I’d just paid my rent to Ghost Dick, twenty days late, which meant I had an eleven-day period in which to replenish my zeroed-out bank account. During that eleven-day stretch, I was scheduled to work only four slow weeknight shifts. I needed to pick up at least one weekend shift to make next month’s rent, but so far every waiter had turned me down. The only person I’d yet to ask was Rashad, because he’d already let me take his Friday for the past two weeks and I didn’t want to push my luck. But now I had no choice. I scanned the restaurant for his face, praying he might bail me out one last time.
Suddenly, I felt a hand grope my ass. I turned to discover one of Perdition’s regulars, an overtanned, leather-faced fashion executive, holding an empty wineglass. “Jonah, babe,” the man slurred, “can I get a refill on my chardonnay?”
“Of course,” I said, forcing a smile.
“I think your ass has gotten tighter since the last time I was in.” The man grinned and slapped my butt. His dining companion—an equally decrepit fashion-Gollum—laughed loudly. I suppressed my disgust, issued a strained chuckle, and turned from the table.
Unfortunately, I’d gotten accustomed to the unsolicited affections of lecherous diners during my brief tenure at Perdition. The restaurant catered to a clientele that was primarily gay, wealthy, and white, and it was the type of establishment where PR gurus and real estate kingpins and Broadway producers all paid top dollar for mediocre food and a chance to grab a handful of ass. Although we were usually called “boys” by our customers, the servers were all homogeneously muscular gay men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-two. The differences between Perdition and Hooters were few—the sex of the waitstaff (male versus female) and the price of the food (expensive versus cheap). I looked around the dining room—which featured a blinding-white interior with white minimalist tables, white modernist dining chairs, a white marble bar, and walls that the owner insisted were not white but “bone”—hoping to locate Rashad.
I found him behind the waiters’ station, hiding from a table of obnoxious gay entertainment lawyers celebrating the birthday of their handsy senior partner. “Table twenty-three is murdering my buzz,” Rashad said. He moaned, lifted a coke-piled house key to his nostril, and snorted. “Mama needs a break.” Rashad peered out into the dining room and then discreetly palmed the small bag of cocaine into my hand. I shoved it in my pocket, saving it for later.
Out of all the waiters at Perdition, I liked Rashad best. He was one of the few Black men employed by our horror-show boss, Brett, who otherwise maintained a lily-white waitstaff that matched the color of both the restaurant’s interior and its clientele. But Rashad’s beauty had somehow trumped the noxious prejudices of our employer. Rashad’s face was thin and feminine; he had deep brown eyes set above high cheekbones. He was tall with long, muscled limbs that he’d once utilized in his former career as a dancer. A severe ankle injury had forced him into early retirement from Alvin Ailey and brought him limping to Perdition’s doorstep. He had the air of a fallen prince and the wit of a drag queen. Our relationship didn’t extend beyond the requisite postwork partying at neighborhood gay bars, but he was the closest thing I had to a friend in the city. He’d taken me under his wing at Perdition, and I hoped today would not mark the end of his benevolence.
“Oh my God, how is it this slow on a Thursday,” I complained. “I’ve had only two tables all night.”
“Well, hopefully the cast of Gay Law and Order leaves a hefty tip. So far they’ve had approximately twelve gallons of Appletinis each. Whoever started the myth that gay men have great taste has clearly never been to this fucking restaurant.”
I laughed and steeled myself to ask for the favor I desperately needed. “So, I was wondering . . . if maybe you wanted Friday night off . . . I could, uh, cover for you?”
Rashad shot me a withering look. “Bitch—I have thrown you my last two Fridays. And as much as I love not coming to work in this shithole, I love paying my rent more.”
“I just thought—”
“Sorry, honey. You’re gonna have to ask someone else.”
Anxiety scrambled my brain. I struggled to muster a Don’t worry about it, but my mouth felt frozen. I stood there dumbly, my face blanching. Rashad frowned.
“Hey—is everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry. I just, uh, was thinking about something else.”
“I mean, look—you’ve been working your ass off recently. It would probably do you good to have a little break.”
“Totally,” I said, distracted. I took my cell phone from my pocket and pulled up the text thread with my mother. It killed me, but I had no choice. I needed her to rescue me.
Can we talk? I typed.
“Put that thing away,” Rashad whispered as I sent the text. “If Mommy sees you on your phone, he will fucking kill you. He’s looking for a fight tonight.”
“Mommy” was the nickname we’d given to the owner, Brett, a gay, coked-out zombie who possessed all the maternal instinct of Joan Crawford clutching a coat hanger. If Mommy was in a good mood, he’d grab your dick through your pants and whisper in your ear about how he wanted to fuck you, or he’d make you kiss one of Perdition’s investors “as a joke” after the restaurant closed for the evening. If Mommy was in a bad mood, he’d circle your tables, hunting for a misplaced dessert fork or an improperly folded napkin, and scream at you when he finally found an excuse. Tonight, as Rashad and I discovered when Mommy barreled into the waiters’ station, it was the latter.
“What the fuck are you doing on your phone?” Brett snapped.
“I just—”
“You know what? I don’t even want to know. Because any excuse is a bad one. The level of disrespect I get from you guys is unbelievable.”
“Brett, I’m sorry—”
“You see this?” Brett barked, holding up an empty wineglass. “Your table is desperate for a simple glass of chardonnay. Get out there.”
I rushed out of the waiters’ station and bellied up to the marble bar for a glass of chardonnay. As I waited for the bartender, I felt a buzz in my pocket: a text. I abandoned my mission and rushed into the bathroom to check my phone, anxious for my mother’s response, praying we could mend the rift between us before the first of the month. Praying I wouldn’t lose my apartment. I locked the door behind me and yanked my cell from my pocket.
It was Richard: Miss you already ;)
A fresh wave of adrenaline washed over me, though this time it was not accompanied by dread. I felt a surge of hope. I pushed thoughts of my rent aside, allowing myself to bask in the glow of Richard’s text. Miss you too, I typed. Hang again soon?
I sent the message and instantly regretted it. Was Hang again soon too forward? Would it turn him off? I pulled the bag of cocaine out of my pocket, deciding to cut my agitation with a quick bump. I scooped a small pile of white onto a key and brought it to my nose. I hesitated, catching my bloodshot gaze in the bathroom mirror. I need a break, I thought, studying the purple bags beneath my eyes. I snorted and a familiar shame flooded my mind. I imagined my mother’s judgmental stare, my father’s righteous disappointment. Cocaine was just another wicked facet of my sinful homosexual lifestyle, proof that I’d succumbed to the unholy impulses that lay at the end of the slippery gay slope my conversion therapist had warned us about. And yet I found myself unable to resist. One bump stung my brain with enough confidence to erase all guilty feelings that preceded my consumption of the drug. Just a sprinkle of the white powder was sufficient to fill the void, to lend my spirit the illusion of wholeness.
My phone buzzed again.
Would love to. What are you doing tomorrow night?
Nothing, I replied.
My heartbeat quickened. I was unsure whom to thank for my accelerated pulse—Richard or the cocaine. It was then I realized: Daddy could be my new drug.
The first weeks of my courtship with Richard were thrilling. To describe our initial encounters as “dates” would be a comical understatement—they were quite literally events. Richard’s life was a hurricane of astonishing appointments, his wealth and status affording him access to a never-ending series of high-profile cultural happenings. There were the house seats to the revival of A Little Night Music, followed by a backstage visit to Richard’s “good friend” Stephen Sondheim, an encounter during which I remained bashfully mute. There was the New York premiere of Whatever Works, that year’s tepid Woody Allen offering, where Richard pulled me onto the red carpet and I found myself awkwardly sandwiched between him and Patricia Clarkson. There was the evening we turned down dinner with Barbra Streisand (“Oh, honey—I’ve attended that particular dog-and-pony show one too many times,” Richard had grumbled) for an opening-night table at a new Mario Batali restaurant. There was even a private tour of MoMA, an exclusive preview of the Cindy Sherman retrospective, arranged thanks to a dinner-party promise made by curator Klaus Biesenbach.
My Paul Smith suit—the source of so much anxiety on the night I’d met Richard—proved a prudent investment; though it may have been overkill at the Anthology Film Archives, it was the perfect costume for life on the town with Richard.
Of course, we always did what Richard wanted, always deferred to his calendar, his life. This was fine with me, as both my calendar and life were empty. Richard presented a ready-made identity, and I was glad to adopt it, even if it was an imperfect fit. Underneath the giddy euphoria of our early romance, I felt a nascent unease; I feared that I hadn’t earned my place at the party, that I’d entered through an unseemly loophole. That’s why during our MoMA visit, for example, when Klaus Biesenbach stared me down underneath a grotesque Cindy Sherman clown portrait and asked me what I did for a living, I froze.
“He’s a writer too,” Richard snapped when it became clear I would not summon a response in an acceptable amount of time.
“Oh, how lovely,” Klaus replied flatly, not bothering to feign even the slightest enthusiasm. He asked me nothing for the remainder of our museum tour, and I was relieved to recede into the background and claim the social posture of the silent, stunning arm candy.
Afterward, on the hot Midtown pavement, Richard asked why I had been so quiet.
“I hate Cindy Sherman,” I said, defensive.
“I wish I’d known—we could’ve avoided a whole afternoon with Klaus. I find him to be a dreadful bore, don’t you?” The dig at Klaus was Richard’s little olive branch—we could make fun of him together. I opted to sulk instead.
“Though I’m sure he would’ve liked to hear your opinion on Sherman. He’s usually up for a friendly debate.”
“I just . . . wasn’t in the mood,” I mumbled. I felt as though I had failed some test, and Richard was offering a subtle critique of my performance. “It was awkward when he asked what I did. I’m a fucking waiter.”
“You’re a writer.” Richard sighed. “And I’m sure you’re a good one. Not that I’d know, since you won’t let me read any of your work.”
“You know I’m nervous about sharing my stuff with you.”
I’d been fending off Richard’s requests to read my work for weeks. I harbored a secret fear that he would hate my writing and I would be thrust back into my old life, revealed as a fraud, a Talentless Mr. Ripley who’d failed to rise above his station. Complicating this feeling was the fact that my work in progress was about Richard himself—a detail I’d concealed in all our conversations surrounding my new play. My coyness was a cover for my anxiety regarding the autobiographical element of my work and the likelihood of Richard’s objection to the subject matter. The only thing I feared more than failure was success, the possibility that my work was too good, that I’d captured a truth about our dynamic that, once articulated, would destroy the giddy spell of our relationship—like a magician who’d explained his secrets.
“Oh God—get over it,” Richard snapped. “Just send me something already. If you really want to get ahead, you can’t be such a pussy. You’re dating a famous playwright, for fuck’s sake, take advantage of the moment.”
Richard’s outburst stunned me into silence. He stormed to the curb to hail a cab. I hung back, embarrassed. Thus far, I had consciously avoided taking advantage of the moment. I didn’t want Richard to feel that there was an implicit, transactional nature to our relationship. I wanted to believe that, although both of us might have had ulterior motives at the outset, we’d transcended those impulses and discovered something pure and honest. I wanted to believe that my place in his world was rightful, that no one was getting anything out of this.
I wanted Richard to love me.
Here, then, was the worst-case scenario of showing him my play: it would reveal my misguided conception of our relationship, a one-sided fantasy that would make Richard wince at my naïveté and banish me from his life.
“Greenwich and Jane Street, please,” Richard instructed the cabbie once we were installed in the back seat.
We rode in silence until Richard broke the tension with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I just care about you and want to see you succeed. I’m trying to help you.”
“I know,” I mumbled. “And I am going to send you my play once it’s finished. I promise.”
“Good.” Richard placed his hand on my knee and kissed my cheek.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, hoping it was my mother. She had yet to respond to the text I’d sent from Perdition three weeks prior, and as a result, I’d yet to pay my rent. It was now June 7, meaning my payment was, once again, dangerously late. I looked at my screen, disappointed to find a string of furious texts from Ghost Dick.
What the fuck, dude.
You’re late on rent again . . . AS FUCKING USUAL .
I’m serious, I can’t keep doing this.
You better fucking pay me by tomorrow or I’m kicking you out.
And I’m NOT fucking around this time.
“Who is it?” Richard asked.
Nausea roiled my gut as our cab jerked over rocky West Village cobblestones. I prayed that my sub-landlord was merely bluffing, but I didn’t have the luxury to call him on it. I hated that shitty apartment down to the marrow of my bones, but it was all that stood between me and homelessness.
“The guy I’m subletting from.” I sighed. “Things have been really slow at the restaurant recently. I’m late on rent this month.”
“What about your mom?”
“We’re still not speaking.”
“Well, why don’t I help you out?”
“I don’t know . . .” I trailed off nervously. Richard always picked up the check whenever we were out together, but this felt different. Never had he supported me so directly. Still, I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.
“It’s like, what, a thousand bucks? That’s nothing.”
“Are you sure? That’s so generous of you but . . . you really don’t have to.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. I’m happy to give you the cash.” Richard slapped my thigh to close the deal. “Consider it my apology for being such an asshole today.”
“Thank you so much,” I managed. I was struck with overwhelming guilt, but I had to accept his offer. I needed that money. “I know it’s a lot to ask.”
He tweaked my nipple. “I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to make it up to me.”