and now for something completely different

He lives in San Francisco.  He doesn’t have a car, but he has a bike and a backpack with a worn-out zipper.  He works at a café that sells tea - not coffee - and hosts spoken-word performances and bad acoustic bands.  He writes every night until his fingers hurt, working on poetry and a humorous novel about unconventional lust.  He makes enough money at the café and freelancing to eat and sleep and play.  He reads the Times online every morning, two books a week, one fiction, one nonfiction, and doesn’t subscribe to cable or religion.

He stays in the top level of a three-story house that is shared with a middle-aged lesbian couple on the second floor and a disabled Vietnam veteran on the ground.  The lesbians cook him vegan dinners while the vet gives him cheap beer and tells him the same stories about friends blown apart and exotic prostitutes. The vet is as proud that he served and survived as he is that he only had the clap once. 

Occasionally he goes to the movies alone. He sings in the shower. He pisses in the shower. He dances in crowds.  He gets laid when he wants, because he wants to, how he wants to.  He pulls out most of the time.  He knows he’s stupid. He knows he’s arrogant.  He knows he’s God when he looks in his cracked mirror or his computer screen.

He likes you. He doesn’t love you.

He sits through classes at the community center where he learns sign language and how to grow his own herb garden.   He masturbates.  He goes to a gym but the bike riding and the vegan meals are enough to keep him healthy.  His eyes lock on a blonde woman who crosses paths with him each morning and he wonders if bisexuality exists.  He auditions for public theatre.  He doesn’t get a role, but he’s thanked for his time. He screws the casting director.  He gets a bit part.  He doesn’t show up for the first rehersal because he no longer cares.

He clings to his youth.

He meets a celebrity at a party, smokes weed with him, takes a pill from him, makes out with him, but the next day doesn’t remember who it was.  He teaches his cat how to walk on a leash.  He sleeps naked with his windows open.  He forgets to lock his door. His lesbian neighbors take him to the opera and political rallies, though he’s too apathetic to vote.  He writes lyrics that almost rhyme for a musician, and they go out for drinks when one of the songs gets noticed by a label.  The musician pays. He screws the musician.

Three months later the musician writes a song about the writer who never called him back.

The song becomes a hit. The musician becomes a star.

He tries to learn the guitar himself but fails.  His hands are too sensitive. He has one credit card but owes five thousand dollars on it.  He rearranges his furniture often to make everything seem new.  He smells good.  He tastes good. He doesn’t listen to the radio anymore.

He is happy, but he never admits it, because he knows pain is more interesting.

© Bryan Borland