An update, just talked to the roommate, it’s no longer any secret that he’s questioning his sexuality, and the old, drunken friend asked if he could he sleep in his bed. The roommate played a game of football on his Xbox, and decided to retire. He saw someone sprawled out on the floor, facedown, could not identify who it was, and as he descended into sleep he heard rummaging in the refrigerator, ponderous bumbling stumbling, so he arose, turned off the fan, and opened his door to investigate. The old friend stood pantless, leaning against the wall, heaving heavily, and with red eyes he said,” hey dude, how are you?”
They went into the living room where the old friend fell to the floor, and started laughing. My roommate, perplexed and fatigued from a busy night at the restaurant and the thought of having to awaken early for the soccer game in the morning, sat on the couch, unsure whether he should turn the television on to drown out the odd noises emanating from the supine man on the scuffed, dirty floor. I’m going to sweep today. Abruptly, the old friend bounded up, and collapsed into the blue chair, and the questions began…
(I’m withholding my real name for I do not want to censor myself, and am planning to write about the people and events in my life without any restraint. No one I know knows I have this blog anyways, and I plan to tell no one about it. This blog is for my online friends, who will never see me in three dimensions. From now on I will call my Weline, and if there’s anyone reading this, and you’d like to know my real name, then I’d happily tell you, but I’m doubting this writing is something that people would flock to. When one writes of alienation what can one expect?)
“How is it living with Weline? It seems pretty clean around here,” the old friend said.
“It has its ups and downs.”
“Are you anal?”
“I think to the individual when considering their own habits and standard, they would never call oneself anal, you know. I think I have higher standards than Weline when it comes to things like cleanliness and order.”
“So are you anal?” I think he just wanted to use the word anal, for the conversation veered into the realm of gay sex, with the location of said conversation in my roommate’s bedroom. Where were they sitting?
“Would you want to take or receive?” The old friend said.
“I’d probably do both, why not?”
“Fucking sick man. I’d only want to give,” the old friend said. I imagine the awkward aura, a cloying creep of the old friend’s closeness, and my roommate, paranoid, fearful man he is, probably scanned the room for something to put between him and the drunkard wobbling, salivating, palpating his body, bemusement growing, like the temperature dropping in the night.
The old friend, still wearing his t-shirt with the Camel cigarettes logo, thin layer of cloth separating his ass and loins from the ether and the eyes of my roommate, laid down on the bed.
“What if you turned off the light and got underneath the covers with me?”
“Come on man, this isn’t cool.” Do I have to go wake up Weline?”
I don’t know if my roommate would have told me if something happened between them, but I would I like to know? Yes, I can’t help loving the gossip. I love hearing about what people are doing, those I went to high school with, those I went to college with, are they domesticated, settled down, planning a family with the bounty of money building in their bank accounts? Are they wallowing in the prerogatives of the small town I grew up in, filling the same sports bar night after night, still obsessing of sport success, and fucking adorable, but opinion-less broads? Are they disillusioned and consternated, seeing futility in everything, a lifelong peregrination, the ever-present question of wanting or abrogating security, safety, when will you come home to boredom and monotony, when will the attraction to the other become overpoweringly enticing? I want the secrets as fuel for writing, and a pathetic template in which I can compare my own life to, because I don’t know what I’m doing or what I’m really pursuing. There’s no purse at the end of striving, no glory in the dingy dives and the noisome dirges, diving into causticity only to emerge to see if I can still breathe, solace and serenity torment at their current degree.
The roommate indignant about how people talk. Why are people so concerned with what others do? I told him that’s what we do, talk, reflect, what you wearing ‘round your neck, there’s a finger with a ring, a scar from plastic surgery, an odd glint in a tooth, a musty stench from clothes, how can I know what my life is without knowing something of another’s? Am I so weak that all I see is the comparing and contrasting?
I apologized profusely, said he shouldn’t have to put up with that shit in his own home, and we laughed about it, while he readied with a drag from his oney for a match with an online opponent. We talked about the Viking victory, and I said I really liked his band’s record, though I think the vocals are too loud, but that’s just my preference. His nightly button-mashing began, and I thought about ex-girlfriends through my new love lens, thought about who I can call when I’m cold, who’s having fun in Chicago, who’s smiling in Minneapolis, who’s spooning in St. Paul. Bleary eyed I perused some words, the meaning escaped me, so I brushed my teeth and went to sleep.
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