by tom miller

�

2:36 p.m.
june 22, 1999

�

�

the next night, jaime returns. curse of the x-boyfriend.

and he has great news.

"i'm sorry i was so mean to you," he says.

"it's okay," i reply. "i'm used to it."

"well, my boyfriend's not a crack head after all."

"no?" i ask.

"nope. he was just doing crack that night. everything's fine now."

"ahh," i said. "i see."

he paid admission and bounded into the club with something like
a dance in his step. everything's fine now. everything's fine.

�

____________________

�

after work, and it's about 3:30 a.m., i decided to catch the remaining
minutes at the common grounds coffee house. i walk in and sitting
at the counter is this cute young thing all by himself. i've seen him
before. hell, i've HAD him before. i ordered a coffee.

"what's up," i said to him.

"nothing much," he replied.

"wanna' come over? watch a movie?" (metalanguage for, let's fuck.)

"sure."

we took a cab to my place, and i put on akira, the japanese anime
masterpiece. unfortunately, this was dubbed with bad american
actors who all do their lines like they're taking a shit. i much prefer
the subtitled version, but what can you do. it went on forever.
explosions, motorcycles, people morphing into animals, blood,
army men in tanks blowing stuff up, and those awful american
voice actors; "ugggh AKIRA! uggh aaahh mmmph, it's argh AKIRA!"

when the movie was over, i turned to the young man and said,
"well? what do you want to do now?"

"i don't know," he said. "we could exchange blow jobs."

"sounds like a plan. let's go to my room."

what happened next, without going into all the details, is that he
pretty much handled me for a couple of hours. at times, rough,
other times, tender. fucking and sucking and rubbing and kissing,
we did the karma sutra backwards and forwards. he got on top
of me and shot directly into my eye. i came like a teenager. and then
we slept. and then he left. i felt like a city after a tornado.

when i woke up the next morning, something inside said, "tom,
your life is pathetic. you are depraved. you are the child of satan.
is this all there is? is this all you are?"

and that's when i decided to quit drinking and smoking and doing
drugs. i also decided to stop having meaningless sex and get back
to my writing and music and the general creativity i'm so well known
for. i had been wasting my talents. 33, tom. you're 33; the age of
christ when he was nailed to the cross. look what christ did by 33
and now look at you, here on the bed with your eye dried shut.

i decided i would find the church i hate the most, the one with suited
businessmen and their wives, and a preacher who preaches that it's
wrong to be gay, wrong to think in certain ways, wrong to smoke
pot. i wanted to go back to church and sit with these people. i want
to sit there and listen. maybe get baptized again; washed clean of
my sins.

two days later, i'd not had a drink, a pill, or even a cigarette. my
allergies were coming back. i felt sick as a dog, but i knew my body
was just purging itself of the many toxins i had been subsisting on.

and there he was again. jaime, and his boyfriend.

my monday shift at the university club.

i didn't bother to card him, though i should have. but it was monday,
a really slow night, and he was drinking water. he'd be gone in an hour
and why cause trouble.

"want to come over tonight and hang out with us?" jaime asked.

"what does that mean?" i said. if i know jaime, he probably had some
idea about all of us rolling around naked in a drug drenched three-way.

"i don't think so," i said, looking at the boyfriend. as exciting as the
thought was, and as good looking as they both are, it wasn't much of
an effort to decline the offer.

and they sat talking, playing together, playing pool, and generally
expressing to the patrons and to me, yes, we're in love. look at us.
we're in love and we look good.

as for me, other than my allergies rebelling against my new clean
lifestyle, i felt pretty good. i even felt good about the two of them.
they both seemed happy.

it's nice not to be angry once in awhile.

�

____________________

�

a quote from bukowski's poem, tonalities, comes to mind:

�

"I am a burning curtain

I am steaming water

I am a snake I am an edge of glass that cuts
I am blood

I am this fiery snail
crawling home."

�