Page 2 of King of the Crease

“Don’t be. One day, I will be king, and that means I need to find a queen and produce heirs. The crown is bigger than our personal desires,” I say, the line drilled into me by my father for decades. It’s his guiding principle. We can’t afford another scandal, Nicholas, is another greeting-card-worthy saying he loves repeating to me.

“I understand, Your Highness,” Agnes responds quietly.

Every so often, I agree to these setups, hoping maybe I’m just bisexual and merely haven’t found the right woman.

And every time, the answer is a big, fat, homosexual no.

The limo maneuvers through traffic until we reach Columbus Circle, the busiest roundabout in all of New York. Straight ahead is the entrance to Central Park. We crawl into the roundabout, which comes to a complete standstill as a gaggle of pedestrians cross the street.

Agnes reviews the schedule and scrolls through emails on her tablet, while my attention gets pulled outside the window.

A group of four male friends stand outside a coffee shop huddled in a circle, all of them shivering but none of them leaving. They’re engaged in animated conversation that seems to have followed them from the restaurant. One of them talks so fast, his hands and mouth are barely able to keep up with the story spilling out. His friends are rapt with attention. Then, he pauses and says one final thing, likely a punchline that sends them rolling with laughter, the vibrations of which I feel through my door.

I let out a soft chuckle, too, imagining for a brief, fleeting moment that I’m shivering in that huddle alongside them.

One of the friends takes out his cell phone, and they cram into a selfie, with each of them holding up their index finger. It makes no sense. It must be some kind of inside joke.

I look down and find that my index finger is also sticking up in desperate solidarity.

When they disperse, two of the friends head up north…holding hands. They smile at each other, eyes filled with beaming warmth that wards off the wind and the snow. One of them pulls the other closer, gives him a quick kiss on the lips, then hugs him tight to keep him warm.

The firm hand of jealousy wraps itself around my stomach and squeezes, making it hard to breathe for a second.

The windows are tinted, so they can’t see me, but for a moment I wonder if they can feel me watching them. When you want something badly enough, and it’s right there in front of you, it’s hard to look away.

Before I can gawk at them any longer, the limo pushes out of the roundabout onto Central Park West.

Snow peacefully rests on the branches of trees lining the passing streets. Christmas garland loops around the awnings of swanky high-rises.

“I do love New York during the holidays,” Agnes says. “Nothing beats it.”

Being a member of a royal family and a closeted gay man, I am the world’s foremost expert on holding in one’s true feelings.

So instead of reacting or letting Agnes see any of this, I simply exhale and clear my throat.

“Right,” I say as the men fall out of view.

2

HANK

There’s a reason the most famous video game hero in history is a plumber.

It’s because in real life, we plumbers are heroes. We go where most people dare not go. We journey into treacherous pipes and vanquish substances that would make the average person recoil in horror. And we do it all with a smile on our faces.

Has Captain America ever unclogged a toilet? I don’t think so.

Currently, I’m unscrewing a pipe underneath the Kinczyks’ kitchen sink on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. All of their dirty dishes from the big feast are stacked on the counter. The husband and wife, both in their sixties, watch me from a few feet away, fear and hope dancing in their eyes.

“I always remember to take off my wedding ring before I do the dishes,” Elsie says. Her husband Karl hugs her to his chest and pats her shoulder. “I was so tired after Thanksgiving, I forgot.”

“All that turkey,” I say from under the sink. “My mom was the same way. She couldn’t go to bed with dishes in the sink.”

I remove the pipe from under the sink and dig my fingers into the grimy opening, digging around the muck. My fingers come into contact with something hard and smooth. I nudge around the object, tracing along its circular shape.

A few seconds later, I pull out a gunk-covered diamond ring. The rock sparkles through the grossness. Feeling the weight in my hand, I try to remember what it felt like to wear a ring. It seems like an eternity ago that I was twisting one around my finger when I was nervous or listening to it clang against the doorknob.

Elsie and Karl recoil at the sullied sight of her jewelry.