The $20 Mistake

For a while after Phoebe finished, nobody said anything. The fire had become quieter, and the bourbon had begun doing what bourbon does when it has been given enough time: it had loosened the edges of the evening without actually making anyone less aware of the people sitting around them. Joey was looking at Chandler with the expression of a man who had just discovered that one of his friends possessed an entire history he had somehow never been told about. Phoebe looked amused. Monica looked thoughtful. Rachel looked at the fire. And Ross, who had been smiling a little during the story, suddenly seemed to become aware that he was holding his glass too tightly.

He loosened his hand.

He had always liked control.

This was one of the things people liked about him. Ross was organized. Ross knew what he wanted. Ross had a plan. Ross had plans for his plans. If a restaurant had a reservation system, Ross had a reservation. If a flight departed at 7:10, Ross was at the airport at 5:30. If a hotel offered a choice between two rooms, Ross had already researched both rooms and determined which one received better afternoon light. He exercised because his body was something he could control. He dressed carefully because his appearance was something he could control. He drank because, in his experience, alcohol was one of the few things that could make a man temporarily stop trying to control everything.

His wife knew about the control.

She knew about the other thing too.

Not the details.

Not the whole truth.

Just enough.

Rachel had known for years that there was a part of Ross he kept behind a locked door. She had never seen everything inside the room, but she had seen enough through the crack beneath it to understand that something was there. She had learned not to ask. Marriage, Rachel had discovered, was partly the art of recognizing which doors were locked and which ones were better left alone.

The others knew nothing.

They thought Ross was simply Ross.

A successful man.

A handsome man.

A fit man.

A married man.

A man who had everything under control.

He looked at the bourbon in his glass.

Then he said, “I paid for sex once.”

Joey’s head came up.

Phoebe smiled.

Monica looked at him.

Chandler said nothing.

Rachel did not move at all.

Ross stared into the fire.

“I didn’t mean to,” he added.

There was a pause.

Joey leaned forward.

“That sounds like a terrible opening to a story.”

“It was.”

“Where?”

“Italy.”

That changed the expression on everyone’s face.

Italy was the sort of place people expected stories to begin well.

Wine.

Architecture.

Beautiful women.

Beautiful men.

Old churches.

Long lunches.

Nobody expected Italy to end with twenty dollars and regret.

Ross had been there in his twenties, on a guided tour that was supposed to be educational but had quickly become an extended exercise in proving that American college students could drink in any country without learning the local customs first. He had been twenty-one or twenty-two, old enough to believe he was immortal and young enough to have the medical evidence to support the belief. The group had spent the evening drinking. By four in the morning, the streets were nearly empty, the air was cool, and Ross was drunk enough to be brave but not drunk enough to be unconscious.

There is a particular kind of drunk in which a person can still walk in a straight line and therefore assumes he is making excellent decisions.

Ross was in that condition.

He and another American student had left the club together. They were laughing. They were talking too loudly. They had reached the stage of the night where every stranger looked like a potential friend and every poorly considered suggestion sounded like an adventure.

A local man approached them.

He spoke some English.

Enough English.

That was the problem.

He told them about a party.

There was always a party.

The young men followed him.

Because they were young.

Because they were drunk.

Because it was Italy.

Because they believed that the world, having allowed them to travel this far without serious consequences, had apparently decided to continue doing so.

They walked through unfamiliar streets.

Then into a building.

Then up some stairs.

Then through a door.

And there was no party.

There was a kitchen.

There were two men sitting at a table.

They were large men.

Not enormous. Not theatrical. Just the kind of men who did not need to announce that they were dangerous because the announcement would have been redundant.

There was a woman in another room.

The two men spoke very little English.

Ross’s friend looked at him.

Ross looked at his friend.

And in that instant, both of them understood that they had made a mistake.

The kind of mistake that cannot be corrected by saying, “Actually, we’re going to head out.”

Ross tried anyway.

He smiled.

He gestured.

He used the universal language of a polite American trying to exit an uncomfortable situation: palms up, eyebrows raised, friendly little laugh.

He said they should probably go.

The men did not seem impressed.

Ross tried again.

He explained that they had misunderstood.

He mentioned the club.

He mentioned friends.

He mentioned that they were expected somewhere.

He even tried humor.

This was usually his strength.

He could charm people.

He could make people like him.

He could make a waiter forgive him for complaining about a table.

He could make a professor give him another chance.

He could make a woman laugh.

But there are situations in which charm is simply another word for confidence, and confidence is useless when the other people in the room have no interest in what you are saying.

His friend went into the bedroom first.

Ross watched him disappear through the doorway.

A few minutes passed.

Then his friend came back out.

He looked different.

Not physically.

Just different.

The two men looked at Ross.

One of them nodded toward the bedroom.

Ross understood.

“No,” he said.

They looked at him.

He shook his head.

“No.”

The men did not touch him.

They did not need to.

Sometimes the threat of violence is contained entirely in the space between two people.

Ross looked at the bedroom.

He looked at the door.

He looked at the men.

He thought about fighting.

He thought about running.

He thought about shouting.

He thought about how stupid it would be to die in a foreign country because he had followed a stranger to a party that did not exist.

He thought about his parents.

He thought about the news story.

He thought about the embassy.

He thought about all the things that happen in the minds of people who suddenly discover that the world is much larger and less forgiving than they had previously imagined.

Then he did what he had always done when confronted with a problem he could not control.

He tried to negotiate.

He went into the bedroom.

The woman looked at him.

She was not smiling.

Ross began explaining.

He said he did not want to do this.

He said he had made a mistake.

He said he was sorry.

He said he wanted to leave.

Then, because his mind was searching frantically for anything that might change the terms of the situation, he said the first thing he could think of.

“I’m gay.”

The woman looked at him.

There was a pause.

Then, in her accent, she said, “Blowjob twenty dollars. No blowjob fifty.”

Ross stared at her.

He had twenty dollars.

Only twenty.

He thought about this.

It was such an absurd detail that for a moment it almost made the rest of the situation seem unreal.

He had spent the night drinking.

He had followed a stranger.

He had walked into the wrong apartment.

He was standing in a bedroom with a prostitute.

And now the entire moral and financial structure of the evening had been reduced to twenty dollars.

He looked at the money.

Then at her.

He closed his eyes.

A condom on his dick. Her mouth sucking up and down the latex. A finger in his ass, massaging his prostate because he said he was gay.

He tried to think of somewhere else. He thought about home. He thought about his mother. No don’t think about your mother with a finger up your ass. He thought about a girl he had once liked. Big tits. Big bouncing tits.

He thought about absolutely anything that would make his cum erupt more quickly.

And then it was over.

He left the bedroom.

He walked through the kitchen.

He did not look at the men.

He did not look at his friend.

He did not say goodbye.

He did not say anything.

He had never felt so dirty in his life.

And the worst part was that there was no time to process it.

No shower.

No bed.

No chance to sit somewhere alone and understand what had happened.

He had a guided tour that morning.

People were waiting for him.

There were churches to see.

Museums.

Statues.

Historical facts.

There was a schedule.

He was expected to be cheerful.

So he went.

He washed his face in a public bathroom.

He straightened his shirt.

He tried to make himself look normal.

Then he met the group.

And for the next several hours, he stood in front of old buildings and talked about things he barely remembered while tourists listened and took photographs.

Nobody knew. Nobody could have known.

The sun came up over Italy. The streets filled. Cafés opened. People drank espresso. Tourists laughed.

The world continued.

Ross continued with it.

He never told anyone. Not his parents. Not his friends. Not the woman he eventually married. Not even himself, not completely.

For years afterward, whenever he remembered the night, he told himself that the important part was the mistake. He had been drunk. He had followed the wrong person. He had been young. He had been stupid.

He turned it into a story about poor judgment because poor judgment was something he could understand.

Poor judgment had rules.

Poor judgment could be corrected.

Poor judgment could be prevented.

There was another truth buried beneath it, but he had not yet learned how to look directly at that one.

The fire had gone almost completely silent.

Ross took a drink.

Joey’s face had lost its usual amusement.

Phoebe was staring at Ross now.

Chandler looked down.

Monica had gone very still.

Rachel had not moved.

She was watching her husband.

Ross looked at her.

For just a second, something passed between them.

Not recognition. Not exactly. More like confirmation.

Then Rachel looked back toward the fire.

Ross smiled. “Well,” he said, “that’s my twenty-dollar story.”

Joey shook his head slowly. “You’ve got the worst vacation stories.”

Ross laughed. “I’ve had worse.”

Nobody asked what they were.

And perhaps that was the first real act of kindness anyone had offered him that night.

Because Ross had spent years believing that if he could control the story, he could control what the story meant.

But stories, like lives, have other plans.

And sometimes the thing you spend the most effort hiding is the thing everyone eventually learns to see.