The Poet Chapters 11 & 12

 

ELEVEN

 

The reading Larissa Haven-St. Claire had rooked me into was at some place in Williamsburg called Roxy’s Live Music and Restaurant. The joint was at the end of a row of neon-smeared buildings on Grant Street. Roxy’s had a rustic Italian restaurant in the basement that Larissa wouldn’t stop trying to sell me on in her emails. All of the poets were eating a communal vegan dinner down there together, so I made sure not to go. I figured I’d simply have a few over-priced beers at the bar to mix with the pint of vodka and street vendor falafel I’d already swallowed in route. But then there they were all at a booth near the back and I knew I was stuck. Poets.

“Larissa texted me like ten minutes ago, wanting to know where you were,” Gigi said, as I slid into the booth.

            I shrugged. “Where does a light go when it goes out?”

“If the light is you, probably to the liquor store.”

I looked at the brown liquid in Jackson Urban’s beer mug. “What’s that sludge?”

            “Pumpkin ale,” he said. Then he took a sullen sip on his pint. Gigi caressed his small dreads. “Spiced Pumpkin Ale.”

            “All we need is a trip to Whole Foods after this and we’ll be set, Reggie,” I said.

            “You need to stop with that Whole Foods and Reggie Jackson business, Wyndham. Twitter. Facebook. That’s all you been posting about again. Reggie Jackson, Whole Foods.”

            “They use prisoners to farm their Tilapia.”

            “What can I do about it?” Jackson said.

            “Prison is the new Jim Crow,” I said. “Think about it.”

            Jackson sat upright. “You think I don’t thi…” But Gigi put a soothing hand on his shoulder. He picked up his phone and started messing around with it. “I just deleted your ass on Facebook.”

            “I’m sorry. I just hate this hipster shit and we’re in the hotbed of hipster.” I took a look around. “And it’s spreading. They’re down in Bay Ridge now. In bulk. It used to be you’d see one or two of those bearded schmucks. But now I walk past some formally un-trendy bar, and there’s a shit ton of them, all standing around, watching soccer of all things, making plans to go out and find the most authentic tacos. It’s almost like Cabaret. Like in the beginning there was one of them. But by the end the cabaret was swarming with them.”

            Gigi looked up from her phone. “Um, did you just compare hipsters to Nazis?”

            “Anyway,” Killian said. “Where’ve you been, bud? You haven’t come by the store. I emailed you a couple of days ago about the new SaFranko book and I haven’t heard back.”

            “Work,” I said. I poured a mug of pumpkin ale, had a sip, and decided I’d rather go temperate than touch that shit. IPAs, pumpkin ale; some booze wasn’t worth it. “I have a whole gestapo of employees who are trying to take me down. There are Neo-fascist minions of the orange-faced billionaire printing my poems for whatever diabolical reason. I have a boss in the late stages of building up an ant army to rise up against me. I’ve got a geriatric pot-head who thinks it’s fun to torture me by playing hooky on the union’s dime. There’s Oleg. I’ve got shit…and I don’t think Godfrey Whitt is going to do the reading.” No point in beating around the bush.

“Oh,” Killian said. He sounded more defeated than hurt.

“Carolina said something about what Whitt gets paid to read, and how he’s number two on the best seller list. I basically told her to fuck off with that nonsense. She called me a rummy then gave me the finger and stormed off. She might’ve stormed off and then given me the finger. It was hard to tell on five drinks. And that was over a week ago.”

“Whitt’s still at number three,” Jackson said, checking his phone. “For your information, Mr. Rummy.”

“Maybe his fees have gone down then,” I said.

“How could you mess this up?” Gigi said. “I thought maybe you’d do the right thing, or at least nurse your drinks while you were with Carolina.” She folded her arms and pouted.

“You millennials and your optimism,” I said. “Carolina DeWitt is the last person I’d nurse a drink around. I’d be calmer around Jeffrey Dahmer in a bib in a dark park at night.”

“I’m sure we can work something out,” Killian said.

“Did you really need the guy?” I asked.  “One man can’t save a bookstore. Certainly not some wanker whose nickname is God.”

Gigi’s phone went off. “It’s Larissa. They’re like almost ready to start.”

“Tell her I’m facing the Spanish Inquisition,” I said. “And spiced pumpkin ale.”

            “You should be nicer to her. For some reason beyond my capacity for sane thought, I think she finds you tolerable.” Gigi started typing into her little device. “Getting drunk as usual,” she said out loud.

I turned to Killian. “How bad is it at the store?”

            “Right now, I’m at the cutting down on inventory and…”

            “My hours,” Gigi said, still typing away.

            “Which hurts me to do,” Killian said. He put his head down and rubbed the old beard. Then he just kind of stared. I really felt for him. “You know, you try to go a different route. Not work the nine to five. Not deal with bosses. Carve your own path in this godforsaken country. Then some fucking corporate arena gets built and guts your neighborhood, and you spend the next three years watching everything you built go to shit.”

I felt horrible. Important shit should never rest in my hands. My hands were better served for things like drinking vodka and wine. “I really tried,” I said. Which was mostly a lie. “Carolina just has this thing against me that she won’t let go.”

            “You abandoned her,” Jackson said. “For Buffalo.”

            “Why don’t you go write a poem about it,” I said. Jackson brooded into his pumpkin ale.  I turned to Killian. “Look, Carolina did say she’d try. But with this dude being who he is I just didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

Gigi put down her phone. “Larissa said she needs you in the other room like now,” she said.

            “Like now or actually now,” I said. Gigi glared. I held my nose and killed my pumpkin ale. “Fine. It’s your world and I just live in it.”

Roxy’s looked worse on a mug of pumpkin ale. How could you fit that many people in one place? And for a poetry reading? The world was sick, I thought. It was full of nothing but purposeful, divisive ignorance, proud philistines, bad poets and orange-faced billionaires. But then Gigi led us into a little red-bricked room off the bar that had about ten tables with scant, assorted hipsters sitting quietly and playing on their phones. Ah, now this was the right room for the reading. I had faith in humanity yet.

Larissa was at a long table with the other poets. They had two bottles of wine and all of their books between them. I felt penis envy at the absence of The Asshole at the End of the Bar. The poets were a cornucopia of the world’s races. Aside from Larissa there was the neo-punk with the requisite cue ball job, and piercings on her lip and eyelid. There was an African dude, not a black dude like Jackson and the poor souls in this country that the cops were trying to kill, but an actual dark, heavy-lidded dude from the mother country who talked with an accent. A pudgy Latino guy rounded out the quartet. I was this evening’s white dude.

“You need a cell phone,” Larissa said when she saw me. She got up and came over. She looked less goth or emo, or whatever she was playing at. The jet-black hair was parted off-center and now had a scarlet tail of hair curving through it. She was wearing a black baby-doll dress. Larissa’s tan Jedi boots almost hit her knees. With an ensemble like that may the weather never turn cold and may I never see another snowflake again. Seeing her made me feel bad for that treacherous deuce I’d left, and maybe for not returning a few of her emails.

I pointed at Gigi. “I don’t need a phone when I’ve got such a lovely secretary.”

“Fuck you, Rand,” she said. Then she and Jackson trailed off toward the table of phone playing hipsters.

“That Gigi is a touch on the scurrilous side, isn’t she?” I said.

“You seem to bring it out in her,” Larissa said. She looked between Killian and I. “Anyway, I might’ve jumped the gun on needing you now, so let’s small talk. You get any headway with the big shot novelist?” We both just shook our heads. “I thought you and this Carolina were like fuck buddies or something.”

“More like Iran and Iraq,” I said. “With a dash of Saudi influence.” It was changing the subject time. I looked at the cavernous brick-walled room and all the empty seats. “Hell of a turnout.”

“Yeah.” Larissa put tattooed hands on her hips. She had one right on the upper side of her palm. A dozen roses or some shit. “Remind me never to have a reading before a national holiday.”

“Thanksgiving’s not a holiday anymore,” I said. “All the stores are open.”

            “So now what?” Larissa said to Killian.

He shrugged. “Hope people buy a shit ton of books from indie sellers this Christmas? Offer to blow people on Cyber Monday?”

“I’m going to try Carolina again,” I said.

“Maybe you should call her from Buffalo,” Jackson shouted from his table.

“What does that mean?” Larissa asked.

“It means I need a stiff drink,” I said. “I’m practically sober and I’m at a poetry reading. If there’s a hell I’m in it. And most likely all they’ll serve is pumpkin ale.”

I went out into the madness of Roxy’s. By some miracle I found a seat at the corner of the bar, and had an aging MFA graduate get me an over-priced vodka and soda, which came back a vodka and tonic. Fuck it. I drank it anyway. There was a group of laughing hyenas at the other end of the bar. In the center of it, running things like a modern-day P.T. Barnum was Tricia Thread. As in Miley Cyrus-poetry-book–I-wrote-a memoir-about-my-dull-life-have-an-agent-a-two-book-deal-mediocre-Times-review-Tricia-Thread. I hated her upon site: long, blonde hair that had that television commercial shine; sensible beige slacks; blazer; pressed, black blouse; white scarf; stupid butterfly tattoo on her wrist from her younger, wilder days. I didn’t like Tricia because she was a pompous windbag…with an agent…who was an old prep school friend of hers. Don’t tell me it’s not all in who you know.

Tricia caught me glaring and mistook it for a sign of friendship, as she always did. She did one of those oh-my-God claps on her face and came over toward me. I shot down the vodka fast and had some adjunct creative writing instructor pour me another. It too would be vodka and tonic.

“Rand!” Tricia nearly shrieked. “Rand Wyndham!”

“One person in the world actually says my name correctly and it has to be you,” I said. I took a pull on the new vodka and tonic, as Tricia took it upon herself to sit next to me. Her perfume could wake the dead; a perfect mixture of vanilla and thrown up cranberry juice.

“How long has it been?” she said. She sounded exasperated, perennially perky. Her teeth had not a trace of yellow staining.

“If I say not long enough, would it make you think me clichéd?” There wasn’t enough vodka in the world for this. There was but there wasn’t enough money in my wallet.

Tricia hit my shoulder. “You’re always soooooo sarcastic,” she said. “I can see why Larissa wanted you for this reading.”

“I think she wants me to put a tongue up her ass, and this is the trade-off.”

“You never know,” Tricia said, not skipping a beat. She pointed toward her crowd of sycophants. The one standing stage left and holding his e-cigarette contraption like a crack pipe was her boyfriend, Stedman Howard. Rumor had it he was a playwright. No one had ever seen his work or heard him talk. But he had a nom de plume: Kirby Svevo. And that was half the battle right there. “I got him to commit after ten long years.”

“Long for the Kirbmeister or long for you or have we all suffered for it in some way?” Tricia showed me her left hand. There was a huge blood diamond resting there. “Congrats,” I said. Down went the vodka. “When’s the hanging?”

Tricia took a sip on her wine. White, of course. Probably pinot grigio. Something crisp and light, like her writing. “We haven’t set a date yet, Rand. I mean puh-leeze. With the memoir having just come out. I can’t even get Stedman to pick up his clothing off the floor, or change the toilet paper rolls. Once I break him of that habit then we’ll set a date.”

“At least he’s house broken, huh?” I said. I ordered another vodka. This time from the failed artist who was secretly the next coming of Vincent van Gogh, but only she knew it.

“If you count urine dribbles on the bathroom floor as housebroken.”

“Pissing with a penis is like playing horseshoes. If it’s near the toilet I consider it a hit.”

Tricia laughed and took another sip on her wine. “I’m so glad you’re reading tonight, Rand. It’s so hard to find amusing people up here. Everyone is so serious. Creative, I mean. Very creative. And…inspiring. But serious. You’re more like a droll curmudgeon or the class clown.” She killed her wine. I had that effect on women. “Someone should write a novel about you.”

“There’s enough shitty writing in the world.”

“Speaking of that, what is going on with that book of yours?”

“It’s getting, uh, touched up,” I said. Down went half of the next drink.

Tricia frowned. She had little frown lines, most likely caused by finding Kirby-Stedman’s shit-streaked drawers on her freshly swept bedroom floor, or a piece of lint on her coat. “This is why I’m glad I found Branford. My Agent.” She touched my shoulder. Tricia Thread was one of those close-talker, touchy-feely types whose sour-mint breath was always covering over a disappointing afternoon salad. I usually mistook touching and close-talking for a sexual come-on. I’d been wrong over the years on several accounts. “Don’t get me wrong I like Fidel. He’s…well, he’s a character. I just couldn’t take all of his promises. How many man-anas can one person take! And then when Miley Smiles came out it was sort of anticlimactic, which is what the memoir was about. Writing it got me through the trauma of such a disappointment...plus my childhood. Writing and tons of therapy and antidepressants.”

“We write through the pain,” I said. Tricia nodded then went for the dregs of her vino. What an asshole. The spawn of two high profile lawyers and first cousin to some jock asshole who was currently playing right field in Philadelphia. I had the rest of my drink.

“I’m sure your book will come out one day,” she said. “I think you’re a…good poet.”

“Why not give me Branford’s number then,” I said. “Let’s make a deal.”

“Oh, Rand!” Tricia laughed and laughed and laughed.

“I’m failing to see the humor in this one, Trish.”

“Agents don’t do poetry.” She snapped for another wine. The MFA, the adjunct and van Gogh all came running for the bigshot memoirist. “Branford is into YA lit now. Gay stuff. He couldn’t get anywhere with the space epics and all that black people stuff authors were writing…I think that trend is over anyway.”

I got up off the stool. “Fuck art, let’s dance, right?”

Tricia laughed again. “Tell Larissa I’ll be there in a jif.”

A few more people had shuffled into the poetry room during the brief mental waterboarding I’d received. Assorted hipster types. One or two looked like they were there for the reading. One guy looked lost. Maybe he thought he was going to a YA book author signing. Maybe he was looking for his agent friend from prep school too. Fuck the world. I was too old to play kiss ass games.

The poets were still at that table together. When Larissa saw me, she got up and came right over. “Hey,” she said, in that way that made me think that if I played my cards right, I could end up back at her place, my head between her tattooed thighs. That seemed a fine trade-off to me. The girl was growing on me.

“Tricia told you to get fucked,” I said. “And unless you can pay her Godfrey Whitt money she’s not reading tonight.”

Larissa smiled. “She did not.”

“Still, if you ever want to knock her on the head and bury her out back, I’m your man.”

“I’m trying not to be as jealous about her as everyone else,” Larissa said.

“How noble,” I said. “She was the last thing I wanted to talk to considering how terrible I feel because I dropped the ball for Killian.”

“Sports metaphor aside, we’ll come up with something else.”

“Carolina said she’d try,” I said. “But I sort of pissed her off.”

“I’ve heard you have that kind of charm.” I looked her up and down. Larissa really was an attractive woman even with the black nail polish, and the sculpted, arched eyebrows. I liked the way she put her hands behind her back and stood with her legs crossed. Truth be told her poetry was all right too. I could do without the eco/iPad trip, but everyone had their thing. I’d spied some great books on her bookshelf. “To be honest wouldn’t it be easier on you if you didn’t talk to Carolina, and we could find some other big shot to do this reading?”

“Sure, let’s gather around all of the poets with a Ouija board and conjure up the ghost of Rod Mckuen,” I said.

“I also heard you think you’re pretty funny.”

“My act gets old very fast.”

“I’ve heard that too,” Larissa said. “But I think Gigi has a bias.”

“She’s a little…”

“All right, I’ll do it!” Tricia shouted from across the room. When Larissa and I turned she was leaving a confused Killian, and barreling toward us like the blonde and beige monster she’d become. Killian was standing in the shadows with his hands up. “Killian told me all about his plight and I’ll do it.”

“Do what?” Larissa and I both said.

“Why read to save the store of course.” Tricia put her hands on her hips and looked at us as if the decision were one of the most important ones made in the world on that date. “I’ll call Branford. I’ll just have him drop my nominal fee like I did tonight.”

“You have a reading fee?” Larissa said.

Tricia’s eyes brightened. “Of course, dear. And what’s more? I sort of know Godfrey Whitt! Branford is like besties with his agent! I’ve literally been to parties with the man, and he and I have this little film thing cooking up. We’re practically peers! I can totally try and set something up if his little gal pal doesn’t come through.”

“Gosh,” I said. “We might even be able to save the community center too.”

“You betcha,” Tricia said. She looked at her watch which also had a beige watch band. “Now it’s poetry time.”

                                                        TWELVE

 

“I think I finally hate Tricia Thread as much as everyone else,” Larissa said, hours later. We were wrapped up under her sheets, save her one leg that kept getting hot. Larissa had a fleet of bats tattooed on her upper thigh. I couldn’t help but rub them. We’d gone and done it after all.

“Tricia is the fine wine of revulsion,” I said. “I tend to savor my rancor for the woman whenever she’s around.”

“Like she’s going to save Killian’s store on her own.” Larissa frowned.

“About as much as Godfrey Whitt would have.”

“Also, I didn’t like the way Gigi cozied up to her.”

“Birds of a feather.”

Larissa craned her neck to face me. “You know that memoirist hack told Gee she was going to have her agent look at one of her manuscripts?”

“She laughed at me when I asked.”

“Well…yeah…but getting up someone’s hopes up like that.”

“One should never get kids hopes up,” I said. “That’s why I use fear and intimidation at the library whenever I do my arts and crafts program.” I had some wine. “Kids need to learn early on at what they suck at.”

“Um, Rand, Gigi is twenty-three.” Larissa laughed. “Also, I couldn’t imagine you doing an arts and crafts program for kids.”

“I’m everyone’s favorite drunk uncle…also I’m thinking of starting an arts program for the little shits that hang out on your street.”

“The Flaming Red Dragons?”

“Is that what they call themselves?”

“It’s what me and Millicent call them,” she said. “They’re innocent, I guess. Except for when they comment about my ass.”

“I have two creeds that I live by: One, there are no innocent men in America. Two, never put cilantro or onion on anything.”

“You’re a strange bird, Rand. Anyway,” she continued, “that excerpt from Tricia’s obnoxious memoir…who knew how hard someone had it living in lily white shi-shi Westchester.”

“Being rich in America is a burden,” I said. “That’s why so few of us are.”

“Poor girl.”

“Well, her dad didn’t buy her the car she wanted.”

“He got the color wrong, Rand.” Larissa took a drink and shook her head. “Who writes stuff like that? Who publishes stuff like that?”

“Vanilla people for a vanilla world,” I said. “People readily embrace mediocrity. It makes them feel less threatened and more in the know. America hates the true artist.”

“Are you that true artist?” Larissa asked.

“I just get laughed at by mediocre memoirist hacks.”

She sat up and gave me her version of a seductive look. “By the way, you did better than I thought you would tonight, after what you put back.”

I killed my wine and grabbed the bottle from the floor. “Can I get that in writing?”

“Not too many guys are willing to go the strap-on route, especially the first time with someone.”

“My asshole misheard what you were saying.”

“I never heard you complain,” she said. “At least not after you stopped going on about what would the warehouse guys think…I thought you were a librarian.”

“I was having a PTSD moment,” I said. “You’ll have to forgive me, as I had a big black dildo in my rectum.”

“Mauve…it was mauve colored.”

“All the same my asshole feels like a slip and slide.”

“Good ass play is healthy.”

“Socrates said that, correct?”

We were quiet for a few moments. The shitty shoe gazing music coming from Millicent’s room and the noise from those asshole kids in red satin jackets was killing the buzz. I’d just gotten laid. I’d gotten…whatever. I wondered how long it has been. Two years. I needed R&B in the moment, not shoegazing bullshit. White people and their mopey music. Where were Johnny Gill and Maxwell when you needed them? I’d spent too much time with white women. And there I was with one again. But the bottle was still pretty full…and who leaves the bed of a naked poetess with a tattoo of butterfly on her right breast?

“I think your roommate has terrible taste in music,” I said. “This is same stuff they play at Gitmo and at parties hosted by librarians. And if we’re going to keep this up, we might want to get her a paramour of her own, or a late-night painting class somewhere. She could use the lessons.”

“We could go to your place,” Larissa said. “If we’re going to keep this up.”

“It would be much less decorative.” That was true. Larissa’s room, while windowless and claustrophobic, had images everywhere on the wall. Weird shit like demons and serpents. There were photos of different cemeteries. Skulls. Glitzy macabre stuff. To each their own. I had nothing hanging on my walls except a subway map and a calendar for the wrong year.

Larissa lifted her head and tapped on the wall. Millicent kicked back from her own little cell. “Concrete walls.” She flipped back on her back and went for her wine. I noticed she had tattoos of skeletons and other images along her spine.

“I remember seeing a pentagram tattooed somewhere on you.” I poured us both another good glass.

“I used to be a Satanist,” she said. “When I was eighteen or nineteen.”

“What was that like?”

She shrugged. “Dull. Satanists pretty much subscribe to a life of indulgence and pleasuring the self. I was a teenager, so I was already doing that without the structure.”

“No rituals? Sacrifices?” Like a great mercy Millicent turned her music down. You could still hear her moaning or chanting, or whatever it was that she did, from the other side.

“There were like nine laws,” Larissa said. “But I don’t remember them.” She had some wine and stared at the images on her walls. “I think they were about having a good time too.”

“Being a Satanist seems pretty fun,” I said. “In Catholic school I got berated for being obese or for so much as an independent thought, or telling the priest during confession that I jacked off to morning show co-hosts in short skirts.”

“Satanism was all right sometimes.” Then there was that silence again. I was a loner by nature but silence with a woman always made me uneasy. Silence meant their wheels were churning. I loved intelligent, thoughtful women. But they quickly tired of me. “Did you at least like the reading tonight?”

“I never like readings. Every time I do them, I always think that I could be somewhere else doing something different.” I looked at Larissa’s arm. More tattoos. More inked birds. Crows, I thought. You could feed a village of Syrian refugees with the amount of money she’d spent inking herself up.

“Like what?” she asked. I had my answer for the silence.

“Like staring at a wall.”

“Oh…well, never mind, I guess.” Larissa turned and made one of those apologetic smiles. I can’t describe them. It’s like the face you’d make when your friend got the slice of pizza that fell on the floor, and the one left on the tray was yours. Something like that.

“Now I’m intrigued,” I said. I had more wine, and poured another. The full bottle was suddenly kicked. An empty bottle always surprised me yet made perfect sense in my world. “Do tell, do tell.”

Larissa smiled. “I met this guy online.”

“Aw shit, I knew this was a one-night stand.”

Larissa rolled her eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “Have you ever done a festival?”

“Like with elephants and shit?”

“That’s more like a circus, Rand. I meant like a poetry festival. Like all day with poets reading, or even just an evening.”

            “Why in the shit would anyone do that to themselves?” I asked. “Or are these festivals like mini Jonestown gatherings?”

            Larissa gave me a sideways look. “For a guy who doesn’t like poets or poetry readings you sure show up at a lot of them.”

            “As soon as Fidel has my book I’m riding off into the sunset.”

            “Yeah…because it would be dumb to actually promote the thing.” She had me there. And when I was stumped for a good comeback, I drank. I took a long pull on my wine. “Anyway, I met this guy online. He does readings around the city. Like big stuff, he says. At his last reading he had two hundred people there.”

            “Good lord this city is dumber than I thought.”

            “He says that he can actually pay writers with what he makes from the cover charge,” Larisa said. “I’m thinking of doing one. He asked me if I wanted to do one.”

            “He must’ve checked out your Facebook page,” I said.

            “Keep saying misogynistic crap like that and this will be a one-night stand.”

            “I jest.”

“Anyway, he asked me if I knew of any other poets who might want to come along and get the experience and chance to promote themselves…and I thought of you.”

“Before Jackson?” I had some wine. “I’m impressed.”

“He was actually busy that night,” Larissa said. “I’m also doing a festival in April. Out in L.A. It’s supposed to be this big deal in Long Beach. Like all of these poets are coming.”

            “Sounds like a miserable time,” I said.

            “Want me to see if I can get you on the list of readers?”

            “I think I’ll be getting my nails done.”

            “You have to promote yourself, Rand,” Larissa said. “No one else is gonna do it for you.”

            “To what end?” I said. “I write poetry. I’ve made exactly seventy-five cents off of my writing. I have a better chance of my security guard finding me dead on the staff room shitter than anything ever happening in writing.”

            “Then why are you so worried about Fidel and your book?”

            “I…” In lieu of anything good to say I killed my wine. “Do you want some more?”

Larissa put a hand over her glass. “I’m done drinking tonight.” She put down her glass and lay back on the bed.  “That last bottle of wine is yours if you want.”

“Let’s try the whole sleeping thing first.”

She kissed me and killed the light. Larissa turned over and I sat there for a while in the dark thinking that somewhere out there was a horror show known as a poetry festival. Talk about your nightmares. But I could’ve promoted myself at one of those things. And it would be nice to be paid too. I just needed Fidel to meet me half-way with a goddamned book. Manana. Fuck manana and the horse the day rode in on. There was no way I was going to sleep with that on my mind, and with Larissa’s snoring. I had to get out of the box-like room. I began climbing over the bed. Larissa grunted and groaned; she was already way out. I smacked into the wall when I got out of bed, and knocked over Larissa’s wine glass. I scanned her soft, puffy decidedly un-emo/punk/goth sheets for my boxers. No luck.

I could see moody red lights in the crack of Millicent’s closed door, and figured I was safe. I crept down the hall. At least the moaning had stopped. Who knew why she moaned? Larissa said it was just what Millicent did. She made shitty art and she moaned. The floor was sticky and damp and my feet felt stuck to the wood. The apartment was swampy in this unusual November weather and I regretted not looking for my drawers because my thighs were sticking together too. My poor singular nut was stuck between them. I’d get red, swollen inner thighs. Just like back when I was a little fat kid. Ah, at least there was wine.

“Naked much.” I turned from the kitchen counter. Millicent was sitting on a chair in the dark. No cigarette. No gadget. Just being creepy. “I’m still trying to figure out why she likes you.”

“Some are blessed with good looks and the gift of gab,” I said. “Others have boundless courage.”

“And a flabby ass. Still, you’re more the standard variety craven fool.”

“Don’t expect a Christmas card this year, kid.”

“The only thing I can think,” Millicent said. “Is that Larissa has been hurt and she’s lonely, and you seem like a relatively clueless distraction...for now.”

“How recent?” I took it upon me to put the wine bottle in front of my shrinking manhood.

“Like a couple of months ago,” she said. “Seriously, Rudolph? You don’t remember the whole scandal? Like how her boyfriend of five years ran off with some D.J.”

“Was he a Satanist too?” I asked. Visions of that long-haired poet Larissa once ran with danced in my head. “And it’s Rand.”

“Whatever with your name. He was a poet though, which is just as bad.”

“Yeah, I know a lot of assholes too.” I pointed down to the wine bottle covering me. “Now if you don’t mind; I’m not really in a good place for conversation right now.”

“She’ll get over someone like you in a heartbeat,” Millicent said. “Especially with your bathroom habits and your obvious sense of entitlement.”

“That makes her a better person than most.”

“Oh, and you owe me a slice of pizza…two, if you count the one that was on my floor.”

“Wanna play kissy face for old time’s sake?”

“Not with you, you wrinkled, old, patriarchal douche.”

I got back in the room and managed to climb over Larissa with a new, big bottle of wine. Maybe I could join a circus or a poetry festival with how agile I was.

“Rand,” Larissa whispered, waking. “What are you doing later today for Thanksgiving?”

“Same thing I always do,” I whispered. “Staying home and getting drunk.”

“Gee said you rejected her invite.”

“It was half-hearted. Killian put her up to it.” I poured and had a good drink on the red. “I don’t go to anything called a Friendsgiving. What in the fuck is a Friendsgiving?”

“It’s Thanksgiving with friends instead of relatives,” Larissa said.

“Sounds almost as appalling as regular Thanksgiving or a poetry festival,” I said. “I’ll probably just get something from Whole Foods. I hear their Tilapia is good.”

“Oh Rand,” she mumbled. “I hope you go.”

Larissa Haven-St. Claire fell back asleep. I drank. I watched her back rise and fall, wishing that we were a couple who’d been together for years, and that we knew each other so well that we need not speak to figure things out. Because this being new shit could always come tumbling down. Most of the time it did. And considering that Larissa had just lost someone…let’s just say that I knew the reality. I wouldn’t let myself get too comfortable here.