First half courtesy Punk.
Straight, No Chaser
It's dark in Sam's apartment, like a dream he once had. Josh doesn't
remember
the dream, doesn't even really remember why he has a key to
Sam's apartment,
but he's there now, creeping past the couch and a
number of expensive tables
that he knows are there but can't see in the
dark. He runs his fingers along
the wall, because Sam has expensive
tables, but nothing hanging on his walls,
no photographs or posters or
Renoir knock-offs.
His
fingers catch on a doorframe and he flows into the room. Three
beers make
him feel like god, though he still can't see in the dark and
he trips over
a pair of Sam's shoes.
It's
three in the morning in Georgetown and Sam's bedroom is empty.
He's not still
working, because Josh saw him leave, heard him say he
was going home, heard
him say he was tired and going home to bed.
He
wonders where Sam is, and he wonders why he's here. Because he
has a key,
but that's not an explanation. And he had a couple beers, but
that's
probably an excuse.
He
kicks the shoes under the bed, the unslept-in bed. Sam can just drop
to his
hands and knees and look for them in the morning.
He's
gotten lost in the elaborate folds of the comforter cover. Under
his
nose the ripples look like mountains and valleys, hills and dales,
here and
yonder. Three beers and he's not just god, he's a poet. And
poetry
was always supposed to be Sam's territory.
Sam's
immaculate territory is still unoccupied, no native settlers. He's
feeling
drunker the longer he lies there, so he sits up and then gets
dizzy and falls
back on the bed again, facedown in a fjord. He closes
his eyes and this time
when he opens them again Sam is standing there,
knees at his eye level.
Josh rolls onto
his stomach and elbows like he's doing a push-up, like a
sissy push-up using
his knees because his legs are still asleep.
"Josh,"
Sam says, seriously, ponderously, as if he's done something very
wrong, and
Josh flashes a smile and tries to wave but falls down again.
Sam
sits on the edge of the bed and Josh tries to lick Sam's knee
through his
pants and Sam stands up again. Josh remembers then that
before Sam left he'd
been pissed.
"I've
been," Josh starts, but he gets tangled up in his tongue. "I've
been, it's
possible I've been drinking." Sam is quiet. "Possibly a lot.
Or, you know,
a lot for someone with my ability to drink absolutely no
one except perhaps
a 62-year-old grandma from Iowa under the table."
Sam
shakes his head and sits down again. "Even she could drink you under
the
table," he says, and Josh knows it's okay because she's their
bellwether,
she's their swing vote. She's the one they write policy for,
a 62-year-old
grandma with a husband three years out of retirement, one
television, two
radios, a late-model sedan and one grandkid in college.
In Iowa.
She's the reason
they had a fight today, because she wouldn't approve of
this.
"Fuck
her," Josh says, and Sam actually laughs and bends down to kiss
him. Sam
tastes like Jack and Coke and he's a beer chaser and they fall
asleep naked
on top of the covers.
END.
props to Monk for the title