Joshua 3

Once home, I was getting ready to go to sleep when I heard a car pull into my driveway. Before it had parked I knew ... who had come and what it meant.

I don't recall what words were said, if any, but he ended up under the covers with me and it was funny to be naked with a guy you knew from entirely different circumstances.

I think he was half drunk (I had totally snapped into sobriety when I saw him coming up the back stairs) and as he lay on top of me it seemed like he was dreaming as he rocked back and forth. Nobody said anything, but rather than seeming tawdry it seemed like keeping quiet in church. My arms had been at my side but after a few minutes I put them around him and sheltered us both from winter and what lay ahead.

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Joshua 2

So,where were we? Oh yes, down in the wine cellar making out. Though my hands were doing one thing, my mind was somewhere else.

What does all this mean, I pondered, grappling at his ... belt buckle.

Are we going to do this again, I thought, sliding my hand inside his boxers. Or is there going to be that awkward silence tomorrow?" Shut up, I thought. Can't you just enjoy this moment before it ---

"Joshua? a voice called out.

Shit, I thought, I missed the moment.

"Are you down there?"

It was what's-her-name.

"Fuck," Joshua said, scrambling to pull up his pants as he shuffled toward the stairs. He looked at me over his shoulder and nodded at the case of Korbel. "Can you get that up by yourself?"

I didn't reply; it was too easy.

Both of us continued to drink heavily, sneaking glances the rest of the night. His shirt tail was peeking out under the back of the cherry jacket.

As things wound down he mumbled his goodbyes and, arm around his gal, he got into his Ford Pinto to drive her home.

I walked out into the dark, empty parking lot as they pulled away. I raised a glass. I opened my mouth to say something very witty, but nothing came out except the cold December steam rising into the sky.

Maybe it was going to be, "After all -- tomorrow is another day," or "Don't let's ask for the moon - we have the stars."

But what ultimately came out was, "Fuck it," and I started the walk home.

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Ah, the relief

* Now that "American Idol" is over
* Now that I don't have to see Taylor Hicks
* Now that the Christ child of Brad and Angelina (you know her name means Messiah, right)?

yay

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Geraldine

A Christmas Memory

by Truman Capote

Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than ...
twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country
town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round
table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today
the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar.A woman with shorn white hair is
standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray
sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small and sprightly, like a bantam
hen; but, due to a long youthful illness, her shoulders are pitifully hunched.
Her face is remarkable—not unlike Lincoln's, craggy like that, and tinted by sun
and wind; but it is delicate too, finely boned, and her eyes are sherry-colored
and timid. "Oh my," she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, "it's
fruitcake weather!"This is our last Christmas together.
Life separates us.
Those who Know Best decide that I belong in a military school. And so follows a
miserable succession of bugle-blowing prisons, grim reveille-ridden summer
camps. I have a new home too. But it doesn't count. Home is where my friend is,
and there I never go.And there she remains, puttering around the kitchen. Alone
with Queenie. Then alone. ("Buddy dear," she writes in her wild hard-to-read
script, "yesterday Jim Macy's horse kicked Queenie bad. Be thankful she didn't
feel much. I wrapped her in a Fine Linen sheet and rode her in the buggy down to
Simpson's pasture where she can be with all her Bones....").
For a few
Novembers she continues to bake her fruitcakes single-handed; not as many, but
some: and, of course, she always sends me "the best of the batch." Also, in
every letter she encloses a dime wadded in toilet paper: "See a picture show and
write me the story." But gradually in her letters she tends to confuse me with
her other friend, the Buddy who died in the 1880's; more and more, thirteenths
are not the only days she stays in bed: a morning arrives in November, a
leafless birdless coming of winter morning, when she cannot rouse herself to
exclaim: "Oh my, it's fruitcake weather!"

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Joshua

I think it was winter. It had to be - there was a party at the restaurant and it must have been for Christmas. They never gave us parties except for big occasions. And he was wearing a cherry-red jacket. What other holiday could it have been?

His name was ... Joshua. "Not Josh," he always told us. I was waiting tables in one of those "casual" family restaurants, the ones with things hanging on the walls. Things that looked like they'd been tossed out of an attic. Oars, antique frames with stern-looking strangers inside, cracked mirrors.

But way before that night, Joshua showed up looking for work. I looked at this kid (I was all of twenty-six and much more worldly-wise, of course) who appeared at the host's station. I still remember it -the sun was shining behind him and ... silhouetted his figure in the doorway. So bright I had to turn away. Since the staff was replete with college kids always dropping out (of college and the restaurant) the managers would usually take anyone who came calling.

Joshua was about 5'8", maybe shorter because his shoulders were so tight and hunched they brought him down a bit. He had a strong upper body which I subsequently learned was from wrestling. I didn't really care which sport it was. Dirty blond hair, quiet, very shy. So shy that he could barely look up at you. I guess that's why even today I can't remember the color of his eyes. They hired him and I was told to train him. Sounded good to me.

Behind our salad bar, bets were immediately placed about his sexuality. What else was there to talk about? Scampi?

I felt a definite Boy Vibe but I'd been wrong before. And usually at the worst moments. After a couple weeks Joshua started dating this mousy, fragile slip of a thing whose name was Emily. Well, that was that, people said. That was that, was it? Emily was another one who could barely make eye contact, but I could, and did. I scrutinized my little trainee and his girlfriend. Something smelled fishy, and it wasn't the catch of the day. That was Joshua's title, at least in my mind.

Weeks passed and my protegee and I grew close. Walking too near each other, our hips would touch. Leaning over me to grab some knives, the backs of our hands slid across each other's. Always standing by my side at our pre-shift meeting, I could smell a faint aroma coming off his skin. Cinnamon? And soap?

Well, back to the Christmas party. After two or three drinks we found ourselves down in the wine cellar looking for champagne. I turned quickly and as usual he was right behind me, but this time too close to avoid. He was drunker than I and he stumbled into me. But this time we didn't break away.

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