The Thing I Didn't Know I Didn't Know (Russel Middlebrook: The Futon Years Book 1)

For Michael Jensen

And for everyone in the twenties

Spoiler alert! Life all works out in the end

CHAPTER ONE

So I was officially lost. And it was well after dark in a bad part of town.

Is it okay to say that—a "bad" part of town? Because I know there are people who are sensitive to that kind of talk. But the fact is, the garbage cans were overflowing, and the air smelled of beer, piss, and, well, trash from the garbage cans. The Korean grocery on my right was the kind that seals up with a big metal grate, so tight that you can't tell if they're permanently out of business or just closed for the night. In front of me, something black darted across the sidewalk—either a small cat or a
huge
rat. A minute earlier, there'd been cars passing by, but suddenly the street next to the sidewalk was empty.

Screw it, I'm making an actual value judgment: this was a part of Seattle I did
not
want to be in. How far had I walked, anyway? Was I even on the right street? Somehow I'd become disoriented in the dark.

Halfway down the block, I passed an alley. There was someone just inside, not five feet away, staring out at me. He was wearing a hoodie, so I couldn't see his face, but I could tell he was young, maybe a teenager. I jerked back, surprised, but the guy stayed where he was, like an actor in a haunted house who'd been given specific instructions about just how far he could go.

"Whachu lookin' for?" he said.

"Huh?" I said, even as I realized he was talking about drugs. "Nothing. A friend."

I hurried forward, but that's when I discovered the first guy hadn't been alone, that the street wasn't as deserted as I'd thought. There were two guys sitting on the stoop in a recessed doorway across the street, their faces somehow perfectly obscured by the shadows. And the blinds moved in the window of an apartment above—someone was looking down at me, but the face was hidden behind reflections in the glass.

They were watching me, all these figures in the dark. But one way or another, I couldn't make out any of their faces. Why was this street so dark anyway? Had someone shot out the streetlights?

My name is Russel Middlebrook, and I'm twenty-three years old. And if this all reads like "privileged middle class white boy goes into the city at night and gets freaked out by all the poor people", well, yeah, there's probably some truth to that. But that still doesn't mean it wasn't scary.

Back in high school, whenever I was in an uncomfortable situation, I had this habit of imagining that things were much worse than they were. So if, say, I was anxious in the locker room after gym class, worried that someone would call me a fag, I'd imagine I was a soldier on some bombed-out battlefield, lost behind enemy lines. Or if I was being hassled by jocks in the hallway, I'd imagine the whole school burning down around me. Looking back, I can see this must have been some sort of coping mechanism. It demystified the situation, reminded me that things could be a lot worse than they already were. Or maybe I was just unconsciously trying to knock myself out of whatever funk I was in by making an ironic joke.

But I can't remember the last time I did that. I'm not sure why I stopped. Maybe it was because things now are usually already plenty scary, like here, on this depressing street in a bad part of town. (On the other hand, let's not romanticize the past too much, shall we? The high school locker room after gym class could be pretty fucking treacherous.)

A pigeon fluttered somewhere nearby. And I smelled something even fouler than before—hopefully a dead bird or dog, not a human corpse rotting away behind the broken windows of some forgotten basement.

I could still go back the way I'd come—the bus stop was only a couple of blocks back. But I'd already come this far. I figured I might as well see it through. So I walked onward, faster than before.

I reached the intersection at last, where there were streetlights and street signs again. I wasn't as lost as I'd thought. I could even see the address of the apartment building I was looking for. It was a grand old structure made of stone, like a monument to some dead president. But it'd be a president no one cared about anymore, because the stone was drab, and the windows were cluttered with knickknacks and awkwardly balanced air conditioners.

I crossed the street, trudged up the steps, and buzzed one of the apartments.

"Yeah?" said a voice from the speaker.

"It's me," I said. "Russel."

"I'll be right down."

Was the buzzer broken, or did he want to see me before actually letting me in? I didn't know, but I waited a minute or so until a figure trotted down the marble steps inside.

The light in the lobby was dim, so I couldn't get a good look at his face. He was wearing black running shorts and a green t-shirt. His skin was dark, olive—Latino or maybe Italian. And he didn't look much taller than I was, but he was broader, more solid. He walked with a confidence I couldn't even fake.

He stepped into the light just inside the door, and I could make out a face at last—the close-cropped hair, the pointed sideburns, the impossibly dark eyes. He was definitely handsome, even better-looking than his picture.

I let myself relax. But I didn't relax too much. There was still the actual matter of why I was meeting this guy in the first place—what came next. Even now, he was staring out at me like I was a fresh plump salmon on ice at the Pike Place Market.

Finally, he gave me a hungry smile and pushed the door open for me. I guess I'd passed the salmon inspection.

"I'm Boston," he said, and I nodded. That was the name of the guy I'd come to meet. "This way," he said, and he turned and led me back to the stairs.

Okay, so this is embarrassing. If you haven't figured it out by now, this was a hook-up. As in, for sex. An hour or so earlier, I'd been at home in my bedroom, chatting with this guy on this dating app. And before too long, he'd typed,
U lookn?

And I hadn't said no. I mean, aren't we all looking for something? Peace, love, and understanding at least? I definitely was. But at that particular moment, even if I hadn't really wanted to admit it to myself, what I'd been looking for was sex. Simple, uncomplicated sex. Which isn't to say I'd done stuff like this very often before. Just two other times.

But one text had led to another, and he'd asked me if I wanted to come over to his place. It wasn't until I'd reached his neighborhood that I realized what that part of the city was like at night.

His apartment was small, one bedroom, and it smelled like dust and old kitchen grease. But at least the furniture was from Ikea, not Goodwill. The lights were off, but he'd left the TV on with the sound down low. It was some motocross show—the images flickered fast, almost like a strobe light.

The second the front door was closed, Boston stepped closer, facing me, standing with his feet wide apart. Then he leaned in, kissing me hard. I'd
definitely
passed the Pike Place Market inspection. But in fairness to Boston, I was kissing him back just as hard, which meant he'd passed my own salmon inspection. He tasted young and fresh and alive, the opposite of the smells on the street below, or even the apartment itself. There was a hint of something sweet—cola.

And then my hands were on him, fumbling, eager. He was a stone monument too, almost as hard as the apartment building, but alive, warm, pulsing under my fingers, covered with a layer of fine black hair. His hands were on me too, but not fumbling—his touch was as confident as his stride had been. We'd only exchanged a handful of words—and if you include the words we'd traded on that dating app, most of his had been misspelled. And yet here we were, alone, lips pressed together, teeth knocking, tongues touching, and fingers slipping past buttons and zippers and elastic, on a desperate, frenzied search to find, release, and explore whatever was sweaty and throbbing underneath.

*   *   *

An hour later, I was back home again, in the houseboat on Lake Union that I share with my friends Gunnar and Min.

Yeah, I live in Seattle on a houseboat. I know that's like saying, "I live in Ireland in a castle." Or, "I live in Alaska in an igloo." Living in a houseboat is just so "Seattle". To judge by the movies, you'd think we all live in houseboats. But the truth is there are only about five hundred of them on the whole lake. Which is a lot of houseboats compared to other cities, but still. And of course they're really expensive.

So how am I able to afford it at age twenty-three? It's actually my friend Gunnar's boat. When Gunnar was a senior in high school, he created this iPhone app called
Singing Dog
. It emits this high-pitched frequency that people (mostly) can't hear, but dogs can, causing them to bark out the tune of "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" (sort of). The app doesn't work with every dog, but it works often enough that it went viral, and Gunnar ended up making something like nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars. In Gunnar's defense, he went to college anyway, and even applied himself. But mid-way through school, he took about four hundred thousand dollars and bought the houseboat, which is on the east side of Lake Union, halfway between school and downtown.

Yolo and all that, right?

On one hand, it was hard not to be jealous. After buying the houseboat, and taxes, and even student loans, he still had about two hundred thousand dollars left. Which means he didn't have to get a job, at least for the time being. On the other hand, he immediately invited my friend Min and me to live with him. He wouldn't even have charged us rent except that Min had insisted (and yes, I'd wanted to strangle her, even if I'd known she was right, that we'd be taking advantage of him otherwise). But at four hundred dollars a month, it's still a very sweet deal.

The houseboat isn't big, but it does have three bedrooms (although mine is more of a sleeping loft) and a really cool roof-top deck. It also has a small front room, which is where I found Gunnar and Min. They weren't ignoring each other exactly, but they were both on their tablets. That's the thing about living in a houseboat: As cool and "Seattle" as it all is, you end up spending a lot of time breathing down your roommates' necks.

"Hey, there," I said. Every now and then, the boat rocks a little on the water, or something sloshes, and it's just as romantic as you'd think.

"Oh, hey," Min said. "Where'd you go?"

Min is small and Asian, but she has a big presence. Being with her is like eating in a restaurant with someone like Zooey Deschanel—you're always aware she's there and what she's doing. And she didn't sound like my mom just then, but that's the way it felt, given what I'd been doing with Boston.

"Nowhere," I said. Then, realizing I needed some kind of lie, I added, "I met a friend. Over on Capitol Hill."

I don't know why I wasn't honest with Min and Gunnar about hooking up with guys. Min is bisexual and so far to the left that we once got into an argument over whether it's even
possible
for a homeless person to be an asshole. Gunnar's straight, but he's the second least judgmental person I know (after Min). And I'd told them both that I'd hooked up with guys before. But only
in theory
—something I'd done in the distant, abstract past. They didn't know I'd done it
lately
, three or four times anyway. And it felt especially weird now, coming home right afterwards, having them wonder who I was with and what I'd done.

"What friend?" Min said, looking up.

"Huh?" I said.

"That you met?"

"Oh. This guy from work." Could I have possibly told a less convincing lie? Now I was desperate to change the subject. "What're you guys up to?"

The truth is, I was embarrassed. I don't think hook-ups are wrong exactly, but they don't feel quite right either. It's like opening a bag of Chips Ahoy! and only having a couple, and feeling good about your incredible willpower, but then spending the rest of the day passing through the kitchen and helping yourself to another cookie each time. I'd never thought of myself as the kind of guy who would do hook-ups. But you do it once, and you realize how easy it is, and it becomes kind of addictive. And before you know it, you've eaten the whole bag.

So I guess I did feel guilty. In high school, I'd helped start my school's first GSA, and it had been a really big deal. After that, I'd watched all the gay-themed episodes of
Glee
, usually with tears streaming down my face (I'd been fully aware at the time what a clunky, horribly-written show it was, but it didn't really matter, because the subject matter was obviously so revolutionary for television). Meanwhile, the rest of the LGBT community was working their butts off for marriage equality—coming out to friends and family, protesting, writing articles and making videos, talking to voters and politicians. Actors like Neil Patrick Harris and Zachary Quinto and Jesse Tyler Ferguson—and Ellen, don't forget Ellen—were risking their whole careers to come out, not knowing how people would react.

And then the weirdest thing in the world happened. People just...changed their minds about gay people. It was almost overnight. And by now, in 2014, everyone who wasn't a crazy Christian nutbag totally agreed with us (and was also now acting like they'd
always
agreed with us, like we LGBT folks were sort of stupid for acting like it was a big deal in the first place, which was actually rather annoying). The point is, we achieved one of the biggest, fastest, most sweeping social changes in, like, the history of the world.