Today the radio told me,
   it was Gustav Mahler's 150th birthday
And Ringo Starr's 70th too.

I guess, in 80 years
   Nobody else important
Was born on July 7th

How sad.

I met him on the Amtrak line to Central Jersey. His name was Walker, and his surname Norris. I thought there was a certain charm to that. He was a Texas man, and he fell right into my image of what a Texas man should look like. Walker was tall, about 6’4”, with wide shoulders and blue eyes. He had semi-long hair, tied into a weak ponytail that hung down from the wide brim hat he wore on his head. As for the hat, you could tell it had seen better days, and the brim was starting to droop slightly from excessive wear. Walker had on a childish smile that he seemed to wear perpetually, as if he were entirely unmoved by the negative experiences of his own life. I have often thought back to this smile, and wondered if I would trade places with him, knowing that I could be so unaffected by my suffering. I always end up choosing despair, though, because I am a writer, and so despair to me is but a reservoir of creativity. Still, there is a certain romance to the way Walker braved the world’s slings and arrows, almost oblivious to the cruel intentions with which they were sent at him.
“I never think people are out to get me.” I remember him saying, in the thick, rich, southern drawl with which he spoke, “Some people just get confused sometimes. Ma’ momma always used to tell me, ‘There ain’t nothing wrong with trustin’ everyone, but soon as you don’t trust someone trustworthy, then you’ve got another problem on your hands.’”—He was full of little gems like that.
As it turns out, Walker had traveled all the way from his hometown in Texas, in pursuit of his runaway girlfriend, who in a fit of frenzy, had run off with his car…and his heart. The town that he lived in was a small rinky-**** miner’s village that had been abandoned for years and had recently begun to repopulate. It had no train station and no bus stop, and so when Walker’s girlfriend decided to leave with his car, he was left struggling for transportation. This did not phase Walker however, who set out to look for his runaway lover in the only place he thought she might go to—her mother’s house.
So Walker started walking, and with only a few prized possessions, he set out for the East Coast, where he knew his girlfriend’s family lived. On his back, Walker carried a canvas bag with a few clothes, some soap, water and his knife in it. In his pocket, he carried $300, or everything he had that Lisa (his girlfriend) hadn’t stolen. The first leg of Walker’s odyssey he described as “the easy part.” He set out on U.S. 87, the highway closest to his village, and started walking, looking for a ride. He walked about 40 or 50 miles south, without crossing a single car, and stopping only once to get some water. It was hot and dry, and the Texas sun beat down on Walker’s pale white skin, but he kept walking, without once complaining. After hours of trekking on U.S. 87, Walker reached the passage to Interstate 20, where he was picked up by a man in a rust-red pickup truck. The man was headed towards Dallas, and agreed o take Walker that far, an offer that Walker graciously accepted.
“We rode for **** near five and a half hours on the highway to Dallas,” Walker would later tell me. “We didn’t stop for food, or drink or nuthin’. At one point the driver had to stop for a pisscall, that is, to use the bathroom, or at least that’s why I reckon we stopped; he didn’t speak but maybe three words the whole ride. He just stopped at this roadside gas station, went in for a few minutes and then back into the car and back on the road we went again. Real funny character the driver was, big bearded fellow with a mean look on his brow, but I never would have made it to Dallas if not for him, so I guess he can’t have been all that mean, huh?”
Walker finally arrived in Dallas as the nighttime reached the peak of its darkness. The driver of the pickup truck dropped him off without a word, at a corner bus stop in the middle of the city. Walker had no place to stay, nobody to call, and worst of all, no idea where he was at all. He walked from the corner bus stop to a run-down inn on the side of the road, and got himself a room for the night for $5. The beds were hard and the sheets were *****, and the room itself had no bathroom, but it served its purpose and it kept Walker out of the streets for the night.
The next morning, Texas Walker Norris woke up to a growl. It was his stomach, and suddenly, Walker remembered that he hadn’t eaten in almost two days. He checked out of the inn he had slept in, and stepped into the streets of Dallas, wearing the same clothes as he wore the day before, and carrying the same canvas bag with the soap and the knife in it. After about an hour or so of walking around the city, Walker came up to a small ***** restaurant that served food within his price range. He ordered Chicken Fried Steak with a side of home fries, and devoured them in seconds flat. After that, Walker took a stroll around the city, so as to take in the sights before he left. Eventually, he found his way to the city bus station, where he boarded a Greyhound bus to Tallahassee. It took him 26 hours to get there, and at the end of everything he vowed to never take a bus like that again.
“See I’m from Texas, and in Texas, everything is real big and free and stuff. So I ain’t used to being cooped up in nothin’ for a stended period of time. I tell you, I came off that bus shaking, sweating, you name it. The poor woman sitting next to me thought I was gunna have a heart attack.” Walker laughed.
When Walker laughed, you understood why Texans are so proud of where they live. His was a low, rumbling bellow that built up into a thunderous, booming laugh, finally fizzling into the raspy chuckle of a man who had spent his whole life smoking, yet in perfect health. When Walker laughed, you felt something inside you shake and vibrate, both in fear and utter admiration of the giant Texan man in front of you. If men were measured by their laughs, Walker would certainly be hailed as king amongst men; but he wasn’t. No, he was just another man, a lowly man with a perpetual childish grin, despite the godliness of his bellowing laughter.
“When I finally got to Tallahassee I didn’t know what to do. I sure as hell didn’t have my wits about me, so I just stumbled all around the city like a chick without its head on. I swear, people must a thought I was a madman with the way I was walkin’, all wide-eyed and frazzled and stuff. One guy even tried to mug me, ‘till he saw I didn’t have no money on me. Well that and I got my knife out of my bag right on time.” Another laugh. “You know I knew one thing though, which was I needed to find a place to stay the night.”
So Walker found himself a little pub in Tallahassee, where he ordered one beer and a shot of tequila. To go with that, he got himself a burger, which he remembered as being one of the better burgers he’d ever had. Of course, this could have just been due to the fact that he hadn’t eaten a real meal in so long. At some point during this meal, Walker turned to the bartender, an Irish man with short red hair and muttonchops, and asked him if he knew where someone could find a place to spend the night in town.
“Well there are a few hotels in the downtown area but ah wouldn’t recommend stayin’ in them. That is unless ye got enough money to jus’ throw away like that, which ah know ye don’t because ah jus’ saw ye take yer money out to pay for the burger. That an’ the beer an’ shot. Anyway, ye could always stay in one of the cheap motels or inns in Tallahassee. That’ll only cost ye a few dollars for the night, but ye might end up with bug bites or worse. Frankly, I don’t see many an option for ye, less you wanna stay here for the night, which’ll only cost ye’, oh, about nine-dollars-whattaya-say?”
Walker was stunned by the quickness of the Irishman’s speech. He had never heard such a quick tongue in Texas, and everyone knew Texas was auction-ville. He didn’t know whether to trust the Irishman or not, but he didn’t have the energy or patience to do otherwise, and so Walker Norris paid nine dollars to spend the night in the back room of a Tallahassee pub.
As it turns out, the Irishman’s name was Jeremy O’Neill, and he had just come to America about a year and a half ago. He had left his hometown in Dublin, where he owned a bar very similar to the one he owned now, in search of a girl he had met that said she lived in Florida. As it turns out, Florida was a great deal larger than Jeremy had expected, and so he spent the better part of that first year working odd jobs and drinking his pay away. He had worked in over 25 different cities in Florida, and on well over 55 different jobs, before giving up his search and moving to Tallahassee. Jeremy wrote home to his brother, who had been manning his bar in Dublin the whole time Jeremy was away, and asked for some money to help start himself off. His brother sent him the money, and after working a while longer as a painter for a local construction company, he raised enough money to buy a small run down bar in central Tallahassee, the bar he now ran and operated. Unfortunately, the purchase had left him in terrible debt, and so Jeremy had set up a bed in the back room, where he often housed overly drunk customers for a price. This way, he could make back the money to pay for the rest of the bar.
Walker sympathized with the Irishman’s story. In Jeremy, he saw a bit of himself; the tired, broken traveler, in search of a runaway love. Jeremy’s story depressed Walker though, who was truly convinced his own would end differently. He knew, he felt, that he would find Lisa in the end.
Walker hardly slept that night, despite having paid nine dollars for a comfortable bed. Instead, he got drunk with Jeremy, as the two of them downed a bottle of whisky together, while sitting on the floor of the pub, talking. They talked about love, and life, and the existence of God. They discussed their childhoods and their respective journeys away from their homes. They laughed as they spoke of the women they loved and they cried as they listened to each other’s stories. By the time Walker had sobered up, it was already morning, and time for a brand new start. Jeremy gave Walker a free bottle of whiskey, which after serious protest, Walker put in his bag, next to his knife and the soap. In exchange, Walker tried to give Jeremy some money, but Jeremy stubbornly refused, like any Irishman would, instead telling Walker to go **** himself, and to send him a postcard when he got to New York. Walker thanked Jeremy for his hospitality, and left the bar, wishing deeply that he had slept, but not regretting a minute of the night.
Little time was spent in Tallahassee that day. As soon as Walker got out on the streets, he asked around to find out where the closest highway was. A kind old woman with a cane and bonnet told him where to go, and Walker made it out to the city limits in no time. He didn’t even stop to look around a single time.
Once at the city limits, Walker went into a small roadside gas station, where he had a microwavable burrito and a large 50-cent slushy for breakfast. He stocked up on chips and peanuts, knowing full well that this may have been his last meal that day, and set out once again, after filling up his water supply. Walker had no idea where to go from Tallahassee, but he knew that if he wanted to reach his girlfriend’s mother’s house, he had to go north. So Walker started walking north, on a road the gas station attendant called FL-61, or Thomasville Road. He walked for something like seven or eight miles, before a group of college kids driving a camper pulled up next to him. They were students at the University of Georgia and were heading back to Athens from a road trip they had taken to New Orleans. The students offered to take Walker that far, and Walker, knowing only that this took him north, agreed.
The students drove a large camper with a mini-bar built into it, which they had made themselves, and stacked with beer and water. They had been down in New Orleans for the Mardi Gras season, and were now returning, thought the party had hardly stopped for them. As they told Walker, they picked a new designated driver every day, and he was appointed the job of driving until he got bored, while all the others downed their beers in the back of the camper. Because their system relied on the driver’s patience, they had almost doubled the time they should have made on their trip, often stopping at roadside motels so that the driver could get his drink on too. These were their “pit-stops”, where they often made the decision to either eat or court some of the local girls drunkenly.
This leg of the trip Walker seemed to glaze over quickly. He didn’t talk much about the ride, the conversation, or the people, but from what I gathered, from his smile and the way his eyes wandered, I could tell it was a fun one. Basically, the college kids, of which I figure there were about five or six, got Walker drunk and drove him all the way to Athens, Georgia, where they took him to their campus and introduced him to all of their friends. The leader of the group, a tall, athletic boy with long brown hair and dimples, let him sleep in his dorm for the night, and set him up with a ride to the train station the next morning. There, Walker bought himself a ticket to Atlanta, and said his goodbyes. Apparently, the whole group of students followed him to the station, where they gave him some food and said goodbye to him. One student gave Walker his parent’s number, telling him to call them when he got to Atlanta, if he needed a place to sleep. Then, from one minute to the next, Walker was on the train and gone.
When Walker got to Atlanta, he did not call his friend’s family right away. Instead, he went to the first place he saw with food, which happened to be a small, rundown place that sold corndogs and coke for a dollar per item. Walker bought himself three corndogs and a coke, and strolled over to a nearby park, where, he sat down on a bench and ate. As Walker sat, dipping his corndogs into a paper plate covered in ketchup, an old woman took the seat directly next to him, and started writing in a paper notepad. He looked over at her, and tried to see what she was writing, but she covered up her pad and his efforts were wasted. Still, Walker kept trying, and eventually the woman got annoyed and mentioned it.
“Sir, I don’t mind if you are curious, but it is terribly, terribly rude to read over another person’s shoulder as they write.” The woman’s voice was rough and beautiful, changed by time, but bettered, like fine wine.
“I’m sorry ma’am, it’s just that I’ve been on the road for a while now, and I reckon I haven’t really read anything in, ****, probably longer than that. See I’m lookin’ to find my girlfriend up north, on account of she took my car and ran away from home and all.”
“Well that is certainly a shame, but I don’t see why that should rid you of your manners.” The woman scolded Walker.
“Yes ma’am, I’m sorry. What I meant to convey was that, I mean, I kind of just forgot I guess. I haven’t had too much time to exercise my manners and all, but I know my mother would have educated me better, so I apologize but I just wanted to read something, because I think that’s something important, you know? I’ll stop though, because I don’t want to annoy you, so sorry.”
The woman seemed amused by Walker, much as a parent finds amusement in the cuteness of another’s children. His childish, simple smile bore through her like a sword, and suddenly, her own smile softened, and she opened up to him.
“Oh, don’t be silly. All you had to do was ask, and not be so unnervingly discreet about it.” She replied, as she handed her pad over to Walker, so that he could read it. “I’m a poet, see, or rather, I like to write poetry, on my own time. It relaxes me, and makes me feel good about myself. Take a look.”
Walker took the pad from the woman’s hands. They were pale and wrinkly, but were held steady as a rock, almost as if the age displayed had not affected them at all. He opened the pad to a random page, and started reading one of the woman’s poems. I asked Walker to recite it for me, but he said he couldn’t remember it. He did, however, say that it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever read, a lyrical, flowing, ode to t

I didn’t toss the ball
With Pop at six
I didn’t hunt or fish
At green sixteen
I didn’t learn
To fix my car
At twenty
I didn’t grow up
Knowing how to fight
I taught my father
How to shoot a basketball
I taught him
What a balk is
From a walk
I showed him
Greenwich Village
And to fight without fighting
And the chili that makes
The loudest ****
And he taught me whiskey
And the best tobacco
How to shave
My face
And not appear so young
He showed me Spain,
Bullfighting,
And Picasso,
And the cheapest food
In Mexico
We shared our pride
Our books
And being always stubborn
About the things
We cared
The most about
We shared a car
Sometimes
And all our music
And the way we hoard things
That we buy
We fought
And fiercely
Over his prejudice;
His hurting mom;
My attitude;
The way he always worshipped
Reagan
And whether Olga
Was an ugly name.
Sometimes I’d write things
And he wouldn’t get them
Sometimes I’d write things
That he didn’t like
And then he’d tell me
They were ok, but
On his face was anguish
At what I had done
My father taught me
How to be a real man
He showed me laughter,
How to be a friend;
He made me realize
How to mold my values
From the things I learned
And not the things
He said
My father told me
When I was a baby
To call him Aita
Because he was Basque
And to this day
That’s still his name
To me
My sisters
And my dad
Now, Aita’s sick
Sometimes
Sometimes he’s wrong
Sometimes he’s flawed
A child—
One more of Mom’s
But every day
We spend
Together
I am more proud
To be
His son.

It's been a year, two weeks, and four days now since she left me, thought the man, adding up his calculations on a cocktail napkin he wasn't using anymore.

He downed his fourth whiskey, but it didn't help, so he ordered a double for his next drink.

You ok? asked the bartender. Yeah, he said with little conviction, and then he chewed the ice from his drink, and turned to look at the bar door.

He half expected her to walk in then, but he got nothing, so he gave up. Then he ordered another drink and tore his napkin into pieces.

Meanwhile, the cute brunette from the booth behind him gave up trying to get the man's attention, and she walked out of the bar in a hurry, convinced that there was something wrong with her.

I wrote you a letter,
      To wish you a happy birthday.
And I addressed it to you,
      But I never sent it.

It's somewhere in my car I think,
     It has your name on it, with postage.
I wrote it to wish you
     A happy birthday.

If tomorrow you found out that I was hit by someone's car,
                         Or I was eaten by a bear,
                         Or I was shot,
                         Or I got cancer...

If from today into tomorrow I was no more,
                         And you found out,

Do you think you'd cry for me?

The Boy woke up at around a quarter to noon, and to his deep surprise, he found that he had not awoken where he had planned to the night before. Instead, he found himself in a strange bed, in a strange room, on a strange street, with a strange girl next to him. Of course, the girl was not so strange, as he had met her twice before, and the room, at least, he knew had to be somewhere in Ann Arbor, but that was certainly the extent of what he knew of his situation, basically, pretty much, that’d be what he told people later on, and would believe himself. He looked around, and he was shocked, and he remembered in a flash that this might not be very good boyfriending on his part, and in a fit of guilt, or maybe exhaustion or in forfeit, he leaned his head back once again and fell asleep for a while longer.
When the Boy woke up again, it had turned to one in the afternoon. He woke up this time with a mop sweat, and his hair stuck to his forehead and his eyes burning from the salt water. The Girl was now awake also, and she was brushing her hair quietly, on her roommate’s bed right next to where the Boy was now sitting upright.
“I should go now.” The Boy tried to say, but before he spoke the Girl smiled at him, and crawled over and kissed him softly.
“Good morning.” She said, and rested her head on his lap, looking up.
“Good morning.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“Very. Thanks you. I hope you did too.”
“I did.”
The Boy touched the girl’s cheek and she touched his, and he knew he wanted to leave, but he was afraid, so instead, he and the Girl lay down together, and watched TV for a while.

I guess I made a mistake, thought the Boy. I guess this isn’t going to look too good. I should probably get back to the house, see Joe, smoke our cigar, think of a story that I can tell Melissa; but I shouldn’t tell a story, should I? It would certainly be safer. I should probably, for my safety. I should probably not for my conscience. Anyway, I’m not sure how to get back to the house. I’m not sure how I got here. I think I took a cab. I think I was at a party. I think it was last night. It may have been yesterday morning; for the football game. I think I got here without protest. I think the game was a good one. I don’t think I got in though. I don’t think we won either. My head should hurt right now. Why do I feel so good, and healthy, and spry, and energetic? This isn’t exactly just punishment for my actions. Her skin is so soft; I’d like to kiss it again. I think I will. Still, I do feel guilty. Melissa’s good to me. That was a good game, from what I can remember. I don’t think we won though. I think we lost. Ohio State won, but I got very drunk, and that was good, and then I danced, and I had fun. Then I ended up here. How did I end up here?

The Boy stroked The Girl’s hair and he kissed her again. In the light from the window she looked happy, and her smile was much whiter than his, and he liked that. She wore an oversized gray sweater, and without any makeup or any of the typical fixings she looked more beautiful than ever. Not surprisingly, this was a dilemma for the Boy, who wanted to leave so he could be done with this episode. Instead he stayed a while longer, didn’t pick up his phone when it rang, kissed the girl some more, talked about what they were going to do that day, forgot about Melissa. He felt guilty only for a moment, but more than anything, he felt proud, and that pride dug into his side and hurt him. Nevertheless, he didn’t want it to go away. It was his pride after all.
The Girl, on the other hand, seemed to feel guiltier than the Boy, but at the same time, she was tender, and welcoming, and she embraced what she had done in a sort of graceful manner that only girls with experience and class can do without seeming too self-confident. She too, had a boy back home, but she had liked the Boy, and that was that, and in the light on the day, to her, he also still seemed good to her.
Of course, what the Girl knew, and the Boy did not, was that as soon as he walked out of her room that day, that was the end of the episode in reality. There would be no more kisses, no more conversations, and when they both went home to see their others, she would stay with her boy because he loved her, and that would be that, and life would go on for the two of them as it had before; business as usual. Still, for the moment, things were as they were, and so she looked at the boy, and let him kiss her, and lay down on his lap, looking up at him and smiling.
“What are you going to tell your girlfriend?”
“I don’t know. Either the truth or a lie, I guess.”
“Don’t lie to her.”
“Won’t she be angry at me?”
“Yeah. But don’t lie to her. Trust me.”
“What are you going to say?”
“I’m going to tell the truth. But I’m going to leave some things out.”
“Isn’t that lying?”
“Not if you can justify it to yourself.”
“I feel like you’re confusing me right now.”
“You should tell your girlfriend the truth. She deserves to know everything, and if you ever want her to forgive you and stop being angry, then that’s what you need to do.”
“I know, but I’m scared.”
“I know. But you’re still here; and that says something.”
The Boy looked at the Girl, and he wanted to respond, but he had nothing. Instead he lay down next to her, and held her.
“I guess you’re right.” He said, and then rolled over with a sigh.

I got in on Saturday, right? No. Friday. Yeah, it was Friday afternoon because I didn’t have class then. I remember now. I got on the wrong bus, and I missed the stop for Ann Arbor, and I ended up near East Lansing, and I had to take a cab back. Why did I forget that? I got so drunk that night, I got lost. I remember that. I got lost and my phone went dead, and I had to have a security guard from the school help me back to Joe’s house so I could sleep again. But that wasn’t last night. That was the night before last night. That was different. That was just prep for that.
Yesterday was when it started, really. I woke up early and had a beer. Joe handed me the beer, and I drank it because, why not, it looked like it tasted good. Then I had nine more. Then I had Jell-o shots and whiskey, and some more beer. It wasn’t even nine yet, in the morning; my camera barely had enough light to expose my pictures, what was I doing? It was a lot of fun. I got really happy. I remember now.

The Boy reached for his shirt, and he pulled it on, over his head. He had to go, and he knew it, and he was taking the initiative to make it known that he intended to. He reached for his pants and he put those on too, but he put them on slowly, in the hopes that the Girl might have stopped him before he did, but she did not. Then he sat back down on the bed and he looked at her.
“Are you going to leave now?” She asked.
“Most likely.”
“Ok. Do you know where you have to go?”
“Not really.”
“I’ll show you.”
“Ok.”
The Girl grabbed a map off of her wall, and she took a marker from her desk and drew a line from one dark block to another. These were her building and Joe’s house. She explained to the Boy how to get back where he wanted to go, and she handed him the map.
“I don’t need to take this, what if you need it?”
“I already drew on it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Take it.”
The Boy felt almost embarrassed. This girl had been nothing but nice to him, and now he didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay and hang out with her some more, and he wanted to forget about Melissa, and Joe, and his home, and his school. He wanted to stay, but he knew, finally, that he couldn’t. So he put on his jacket and he stood in front of the Girl, only inches away, neither of them touching the other, despite the very minimal distance separating their bodies.
“Thanks for the map then.” The Boy said, and the Girl giggled.
“Don’t worry about it, get out of here!”
“Ok then. Should we let each other know what we do?”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
They exchanged numbers.
“This *****.” The girl said.
“What?”
“Now I’m going to miss you.” The Boy’s heart broke a little bit. He smiled, but he didn’t dare say the same thing back to her. Instead, he moved his hand up to her face and stroked her cheek a little bit, then gave her a soft kiss on the forehead and opened the door behind him.
“I’ll see you.”
“Ok.”
“Let me know what you tell him.”
“I will. You let me know too.”
“Sure.”
The boy stood staring at the Girl a bit, and then he left and closed the door behind him. As he waited for the elevator to open up for him, the boy took out his phone and looked through his recent text messages. There was one from Melissa, asking him how he was doing, and if he’d been having fun in Michigan, but he deleted it reluctantly, so that it looked as if his last message had been from Joe. It read: Are you coming back to the house tonight? He answered now, a few hours later: I’m sorry. I’m coming back now.


The morning was pretty crazy. Game day, Ohio State, how could it not have been? But I was good during the morning, and I intended to be good. Didn’t I? Yes I did. I did look around, and I spoke to a few other girls, but I never intended to do anything with them. Only this one. I didn’t even get into the game. I tried to sneak in with a student ticket, and they didn’t let me in because I wasn’t a student. Instead I went back with Joe and we got ****** and watched TV and then I took a nap after we smoked a cigar together. At the parties, people stood on the roofs, and they danced around massive kegs, and I spoke to some people I had just met and flirted and danced, but I was good, and at Joe’s house, after the parties were over, we just got ****** and smoked cigars and watched the game and waited for phase two of Saturday to begin so we could rest.
Phase one was getting wasted. Phase two was rest. We built up our energy so we could go back out at night, for Phase three, and that’s when I met her, at some party Phil got us into. I had seen her before, back home, and we had spoken only a few times. Why had I been so angry at Melissa when I left New York again? Respect issues or something, wasn’t it? She had said something cruel to me while we ate dinner at that jazz club, and the lights made her soft skin glow so that she looked almost translucent. I reacted. I think it started because she had been flirting with a friend of mine. Anyway, I thought she had been. She claims she wasn’t. Then she got angry and she said something cruel to me so I got angry, and then she apologized a lot. She apologized so much, Her lips pouted. I wanted to kiss them. We had great *** that night. And I loved her. But I was still angry when I left for Michigan the next morning, and I was still angry last night, apparently. I guess that’s why I immediately gravitated towards that girl. She looked really beautiful that night also. And I always did have a crush on her. And I was still angry.

The Boy made it to Joe’s house at about a quarter to three in the afternoon that Sunday. He only had a little time left before he had to leave for his plane, but he spent it well. They smoked, and they got ******, and they smoked cigars and they talked about the night. Joe helped the Boy remember some of what had happened, like when the Girl’s friend got sick on the wall, and then the Girl had to leave to go help her, and when the Boy had broken a table by jumping on it too hard after Joe and some friends had challenged him. Joe barely remembered those things, but he remembered them better than the Boy, and the Boy was grateful for Joe then, who also reminded him of another thing:
“You cheated on Melissa, didn’t you?”
“I guess I did. I don’t feel great about it.”
“I thought you two had separated. I would have stopped you.”
“We were. We got back together about a week ago.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
The Boy thought about it. He hadn’t quite made up his mind yet.
“I suppose that would be the honorable thing to do.”
“Honor kills.”
“Not if I’d been honorable at the beginning.”
“True.”
The two sat thinking for a while, and they both could tell the other had plenty more to say, but they both waited for the other, and so neither of the two spoke a word for a little bit. Finally, the Boy took a pull from his cigar, set it down, and opened his mouth. No words came out the first few tries, but after a while, he got better, and then he spoke.
“I feel like my father.”

I couldn’t help myself I guess. It’s in my genes, this endless tail-chasing. Even though I had always thought I was the noble one, the one with honor, I’m still an animal, like my dad and his dad and his family before him. She looked so good, I don’t know how I held back for so long—she in her tight pants and that green shirt that made her eyes pop, and her long, beautiful, silky brown hair, and the way she moved her hips against me. I could almost hear her name in the music, like it was egging me on, like it was encouraging me to kiss her. I kept getting beers, just kept going to the bar, two more, one more, three more, until I was drunk enough to do it, because I wanted to because it’s in my blood. Then I kissed her, or she kissed me. I can’t remember how, but it happened, and not for a second did I feel remorseful. Not until this morning. I was too busy having fun. In a way, I kept telling myself a kiss was nothing, at least nothing to worry about.
Then I went home with her. That’s probably the part I’ll leave out in my story. Her bed was really comfortable, much better than the couch or the floor, which is where I spent the night before, and where my sides had picked up bruises from the beer cans all around me. She smiled at me funny then. She hadn’t smiled at me that way before. Her teeth were really white, and her lips were really soft.
I had seen her before, and we had always flirted before, so she made a joke about it being almost like fate that we ran into each other. I remember thinking that that was probably true, or at least that it would be my excuse for not stopping myself. Her skin was too soft, and her body was blessed with perfect curves and I couldn’t resist myself. In many ways, she felt like Melissa. I almost felt at home, like there was a comfort to it.
I, on the other hand; well I’m not sure how I got so lucky. I just had to be myself—even as goofy and as hairy and as drunk as I was, she still liked me for the night. And she didn’t make me feel like I had to earn her respect either.
But I’m being cruel. Neither does Melissa. Not often anyway; and I’m sure if I spent enough time with the Girl, she may have made me feel that way also. It may even be a girl thing, but at the moment, it felt like it was a Melissa thing, and this girl liked me very much, and I wasn’t even trying.

Now it was time for the Boy to go home. Even if he wanted to stay, even if he wanted to go back to the Girl, and spend the rest of the day with her, between her legs and in her arms, and smoke cigars with Joe whenever he wanted and get drunk Saturday mornings, and just forget about telling Melissa anything, it was time for him to go back to New York where he belonged. So he packed his bags and walked to the bus stop, and he put his hat on, and he got ****** with Joe one more time, and they both walked together, without saying a word, because they didn’t even have to.
At the bus stop, Joe turned to the Boy and said:
“Did you make a decision yet?”
“About what?”
“You know, you stooge!”
“Not yet.”
“Well let me know then.”
The Boy nodded. The two had a hug by the bus as it arrived, and then the Boy got on the bus and fell asleep on the way to DTW. The flight was short, and it was easy. Still, the Boy kept thinking about what he would do when he got to New York. Once back at Newark, he took the train, and on the way back to Penn station he sat next to a large man with hairy arms, a mustache and a trucker hat. The man wore very thick-rimmed glasses, and spoke to anyone that listened, with a heavy drawl from some unidentifiable location.
“What’s your name?” He asked the Boy.
“Johnson.” He replied, having decided not to give his real name.
“Well Johnson, let me tell you. Don’t ever travel without alcohol.”
The man reached into his jacket, and he pulled a 24-ounce can of beer out in a plastic bag. He opened it up and took a swig from it, and then proceeded to lecture the Boy about the struggles and pains of traveling and marriage. He had lost his wife only a year ago, after he’d