She told him all about Harvey Milk; told him how homosexual teens have the highest suicide rates in America; told him how her cousin had been stuffed inside a gymnasium locker and whipped with towels until he bled when he had ‘came out’. These were topics he thought it was a bit weird to broach during intercourse, but the whole thing just went on for so-so-so-so-long that they had to talk about something, he guessed. Mostly he wouldn’t listen. He’d just go on, turning her over, this way or that. She’d never break a sentence for anything other than a coldly placed, “Wait. Ok. Right there. Good.” What did he care anyways? It was actually kind of refreshing to talk to someone, well… listen to someone, at least. He hadn’t talked to a soul since he’d been fired from the pants factory. Not a one unless you count that guy who asked him for directions to the L-train to whom he hadn’t responded. ‘Loneliness’ was not a ‘thing’ to him; he couldn’t understand it. Why did all these people, all crammed together, all busy and angry and hungry and constipated, why did they all have this desperate need for human contact? Hunan interaction? Couldn’t they just exist in their own little atmosphere? They were never really alone anyways. Who knew, he guessed.
Tag Archive: smith s. smith
On a Toupee
Phil remembered the specifics of the day he went shopping for a toupee. It was a crisp day, one of the first of autumn. A faded baseball cap covered his burning shame. Phil considered the generous patch of flesh on his skull an ode to his many failures.
The toupee store smelled like an OTB. A blend of cigar smoke and squandered paychecks. The clerk that came to help looked shockingly akin to the forty-five year old Denny’s manager who had just sat Phil in his usual booth-for-one, to eat his usual Sunday morning Moons-Over-My-Hammy…