Friday night I did sound for a night of lesbian folk-singers in Hell’s Kitchen. It was part of the celebrations for Pride Weekend but it turned out to be hard work for me. The place was packed with raucous drunken lesbians, and a couple of the wispy-voiced performers had trouble competing with the noise level. Very difficult on my end.

“Can you turn up the vocals a bit?”
“Not if she isn’t singing into the microphone.”

I kept waiting for someone to do that “ran down the mountain, jumped in the fountain” song. Sure enough, at the end, everyone got together and encored with it. “I went to the doctor, I took what he offered. I ran up the mountain, I fell in the fountain…The more of this stuff I take, the closer I am to high!” I guess it’s a lesbian anthem about taking speed. You go girl!

I was possibly the only straight male in the place and possibly there was only one straight woman in the place. And later on in the alleyway the two of us concluded that, on this particular night, we must have been made for each other.

Next morning/afternoon I got up and went to the diner. Steak–rare; eggs–sunny side up (baby, I like it raw). The waitress was pretty and took good care of me. “Would you like a newspaper to read?” she asked. “Or an issue of Cosmo?”

After I finished eating, I glanced at the cover of the issue of Cosmopolitan. “‘Thirty Surefire Seduction Lines,'” I read. “That sounds useful.”

She said, “Maybe I should read that, because I can’t seem to think of any right now.”

“‘Your brunch is ready‘ usually works quite well.”

She paused. “Really?” she said.

I was out the door but I’ll be back.

I went home and put on the tuxedo I’d borrowed.

I danced around the house in my tuxedo, singing: “I would go out tonight, but I haven’t got a stitch to wear.” Then I went to the fridge and gulped down a long drink of orange juice straight from the carton, in my tuxedo.

I ate a bowl of flaming hot chili in my tuxedo. Then I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth in my tuxedo.

Got down on my knees and scrubbed out the tub in my tuxedo.

I took a long sharp straight shiny dull razor and slowly shaved my face with it, dragging the edge of the blade forcefully against the grain of the stubble, in my tuxedo. Then I cleaned out the cat’s litterbox in my tuxedo.

I went out to the backyard for a while and did some gardening, in my tuxedo.

My tuxedo looks amazing. My tuxedo is indestructible.

Then I got picked up by the groom’s mom. In the backseat of the car, I looked down and saw a tiny rip in the crotch of my pants. A sliver of white fabric showed through at the bottom of the zipper. I folded my hands across my lap. “Nobody needs to know about this.” Also, I didn’t have any cufflinks (“Mom, what are cufflinks?”), so I folded back the cuffs of my shirt and stuffed them up into my jacket-sleeves. “Nobody needs to know about this.”

The ceremony took place on the deck out at the Rowing Club. As soon as I showed up at the place I had a big crush on the viola player. It was one of those situations where as soon as you see someone you think, “Uh-oh, I am in deep trouble.”

She was dreamy. I spoke with her for all of five minutes after the ceremony, and then she had to rush off to another wedding. I was heartbroken and spent dinner staring into space. The salmon simply melted in your mouth. It was over three hours before I could flirt with anybody.

The bride looked lovely; Melissa positively glowed with natural beauty. And Lukas made a tall, fine Edgar-Allan-Poe-looking groom, complete with a long wool coat from Value Village.

From the moment I met up with Lukas I started feeding him Tic-Tacs. The only thing I really understood about my job as the best man was that it was my duty to keep the groom well-supplied with mints. He was up to five Tic-Tacs at once, just before we all headed down the aisle.

When he finally kissed the bride, it was a minty-fresh moment that will last forever.