Work Text:
May 2, 1992
In retrospect, we should have skipped the bourbon.
By the time we got back to the Marriott, it was pouring. Typical New Orleans weather, a late-spring monsoon.
After I bailed him out, we had spent the early afternoon at the lakefront, talking and drinking beer in the car, until it started raining. I put the top up. It was a rental, a shiny red 1991 Celica convertible. Maybe not the most exciting car, not exactly the pinnacle of automotive engineering, but a thing of beauty as rental cars go. A shame, really -- it had been a beautiful day, and pleasant to bask in the Southern sun, trading life stories, shoes on the dash.
From there, it was on to bar-hopping. First a few touristy places, then a bite to eat, then uptown to a grungy neighborhood bar owned by a friend of his. The place was a pit -- kind of picturesque in a shabby way, but ancient and filthy. In business dress, we stuck out like a couple of sore thumbs. Funny, it's not the kind of place I would have imagined him hanging out, or even knowing anyone. One more surprising fact to throw into the hopper.
The owner wasn't around, but there was a guy onstage playing blues on an old piano. So we hung around, had a drink, and listened. Very skilled pianist, and an interesting character -- middle-aged, black, dressed like a pimp, with a goatee and an eyepatch. And crazy as a bedbug. Hebephrenic schizophrenia, maybe -- just guessing off the top of my head, based on the word salad and delusional rambling between songs. We stuck around for a little while, bought a bottle of bourbon off the bartender, and headed back downtown to the hotel.
We sat together in the hotel parking lot for another hour or so, watching it rain, passing the bottle back and forth and talking. I honestly can't remember the last time I had spent so much time in a confined space with someone and actually enjoyed it. My social batteries run down fast; under normal circumstances I'd have been clawing my way out of the car within twenty minutes.
Of course, these were hardly normal circumstances.
It wasn't until I got out of the car that I realized how drunk he was. He couldn't work out how to open the door. I watched him fumble with the handle for a solid thirty seconds -- not without a little bit of amusement. Then I finally took pity, and went around to open it for him. He tripped getting out, and nearly fell flat on his face -- then burst into the most ridiculous, high-pitched giggle I've ever heard come out of someone with testicles and a y-chromosome. It was impossible not to smile.
"Okay there, James?" I asked, eyeing him critically. He was still a little rumpled and smudged from a night in central lockup, and had a decent-sized bruise on one cheekbone, but seemed otherwise intact.
" 's Jimmy," he slurred, leaning bonelessly against the passenger side of the Celica. "James is so....fooooormal," he drawled, giggling again, then sighed contentedly. The dark brown eyes were a little unfocused, and the slightly crooked tooth he had been trying to conceal all day was visible when he grinned. It was oddly charming.
He was stunning, of course. It was the first thing I had noticed about him, really -- a young William Butler Yeats in wingtips and a Brooks Brothers suit. And witty, and articulate, and interesting -- a rarity. People that young and beautiful are almost never witty or interesting. They don't have to be.
He was also completely tanked. The thick, dark eyebrows lowered -- first one, then the other, out of sync -- and he cleared his throat, trying to drum up a display of sober composure. It didn't work.
"Come on," I ordered. "You're drunk. Inside." I clamped a hand onto his shoulder and steered him towards the hotel lobby.
"Whoa," he said, muzzily. "Why does the floor keep doing that? Jesus Christ," he groused, off-balance.
"Thought you didn't believe in you-know-who," I replied, amused. "Don't your people consider him a fictional character?"
"Piglet," he slurred, blinking effortfully and squinting, "is also a fictional character -- but we just spent half an hour arguing about whether he's 'sposed to represent anxiety disorder, or just a weird lil' cartoon pig. So...." he shrugged elaborately.
Still interesting. Even sloppy drunk.
By the time we were halfway through the lobby he had developed a distinct list to the left, and was fading fast. There was no way he was going to make it upstairs to his room on his own. I grabbed his wrist and looped his arm over my shoulders, and half-walked, half-dragged him into the elevator. He smiled at me blissfully without opening his eyes. "Oh yeah, you're gone," I thought aloud.
I rifled through his pockets, looking for a room key. Room 577 -- a lucky prime number, if you believe in that sort of esoteric drivel. By the time the elevator reached the fifth floor he was out, a human sack of potatoes.
Great. I didn't have the heart to leave him there. I took a long look, sizing him up, estimating. Broad shoulders, but on the thin side -- and the hallway wasn't very long. It wasn't going to be pretty, but I thought I could manage it. "Okay. Buckle up, hot stuff, you're going for a little ride," I said, getting only a slurred mumble in return. I crouched and got a shoulder under him, and hoisted. "Upsy-daisy. Oof -- fuck." I straightened up, only partway and not easily -- he was heavier than he looked.
Halfway down the hall he roused a little -- with a muzzy, "Hey -- uh -- "
"Quit wiggling or I'll drop you," I grunted. "And if you puke on me, I'll make your life a living hell."
"Too late -- " he slurred. "Looks like Sam beat you to it. Woo!" He giggled again. Fucking idiot. Gorgeous, shitfaced idiot. My back was killing me, but I couldn't help grinning.
Getting into the room was pure slapstick -- fiddling with the sticky hotel-room lock while trying to keep him pinned to the wall, so he didn't slither down to the floor. Finally inside, I dumped him on the bed. He sprawled there, chuckling, limbs tangled and coattails rucked up.
When I sat down beside him to catch my breath, he rolled over suddenly, propped up on an elbow. "Heeeey -- " he said again, in a waft of bourbon-scented breath. He looked up at me, a loopy smolder. "You," he slurred, trailing a finger in a wobbly line down the front of my shirt, "should stay. Here. With me."
"Sorry," I said, trying to ignore the nagging erection that had been making its presence known, on and off, all afternoon. The smolder and the finger weren't helping. "No offense, but I don't sleep with married men."
"Not gon' be married for long...." He wagged a hand vaguely across the room, towards the manila envelope on the dresser -- the envelope that he'd been carrying around unopened most of the day before. The same envelope that had made me curious enough to follow him around for awhile, then start up a conversation. It was open now, with a sheaf of papers and a pen next to it. "Divorce papers. Signed 'em yesterday. 'Bout to be a free man again." He smiled up at me, and the finger resumed its course southward.
I swallowed, and looked down at him for a long moment -- a really long one -- the sparkling brown eyes, the dimples. Those fucking cheekbones. Christ. I can't say I wasn't tempted, but he was blitzed. If anything was going to happen between us -- and I sincerely hoped it would, more than I can possibly explain -- I wanted the full experience. I wanted him sober, eyes focused, remarkable brain fully engaged. And I wanted him to remember it afterwards.
Being a decent person really, really sucks balls sometimes. Seriously. I disengaged his hand -- with a mild pang, thinking about all the entertaining things that hand could have been doing -- and gave it a squeeze. I pulled his shoes off, and rolled him onto his side, in case he got sick later. Hard to tell who's a barfer and who isn't. "You're tanked," I said, kicking myself a little bit. "Some other time, Jimster."
I was talking to myself. He was already out again. I sighed, wishing we hadn't cracked that last bottle of bourbon. Hindsight, as always, is 20/20. I brushed the swoop of dark hair back off his forehead, bent and kissed his cheek. (Yes, yes, I know. Absurdly sappy, but I couldn't help it. I just -- had a moment. Or something.)
I started to let myself out of his room, but then stepped back inside for a minute, and pulled out one of my business cards. I found a pen and scrawled a message on it -- 'Jimmy -- This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Or more. Call me. XX Greg' -- then tucked it into his shirt pocket.
I let myself out and pulled the door shut, then headed back downstairs. Whittier nailed it. 'For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest of all: it might have been.' Who knows? Maybe it still will be. Life is funny.