The Swan of Tuonela - 1. "Jose Cuervo, you are a friend of mine..."

Something woke Phillip up. He lay in bed, eyes half closed, listening, but couldn’t figure out quite what it was. Without moving his head, he cut his eyes over and saw that the sheets on the other side of the bed were crumpled and pushed away. Again. Frowning, he reached up and squeezed his forehead. It took a moment before he realized that Siegfried was not beside him. Lying in the gloom and rubbing his head, he became conscious of the metallic, flowing sound of someone pissing in a toilet. When he was a little boy, his grandmother had called it “tinkling,” as in “Do you need to go tinkle before lunch?” She had always asked him that. Sunday lunch at his grandmother’s had always been pot roast and hot rolls and mashed potatoes and buttered peas with paprika. His stomach growled. Phillip remembered the yeasty smell of his grandmother’s kitchen and the sweet smell of his grandmother’s perfume overlaying the harsh stink of his grandfather’s cigar that had otherwise permeated the house. He listened again, noticing this time that the sound was not high and intermittent like a child’s but low and continuous like an adult’s. There’s someone pissing in my bathroom, he thought. Why is there someone pissing in my bathroom?

He picked up his glasses from the bedside table, placed them on his nose and slowly and quietly rolled up on one elbow. He peered through the bedroom door into the bathroom across the hallway. By the light of the gas stove in the wall, he saw someone standing over the toilet. The glow from the flames illuminated only the lower portion of the room, so the head and chest of the man appeared as a dark silhouette against the light coming in through the window, but his butt and legs gleamed golden. He was standing sideways, angled, almost hunched really, so Phillip could not see his face or crotch. With one eye, he squinted at the figure for a minute and then lay back on the bed, trying to not make any noise. He placed his glasses back on the table and slid his eyes closed and waited. His eyeballs stung.

Eventually, he heard the soft rush of the toilet flushing and quiet footfalls coming back into the room, creaking on the hardwood floor. The mattress tipped as a body sat on the edge of the bed, and then the sheets rustled and pulled as the other man rolled up onto the bed and stretched out. Phillip lay on his back with his hands at his sides, staring up at the ceiling and waiting and thinking.

I wonder if I should say something?

I wonder if I should do something?

I wonder if we did anything?

Once he decided these questions could wait until morning, he relaxed and listened to the rhythmic breathing next to him until he fell asleep as well.

                                                *  *  *  *  *

And blessedly woke up first. He glanced over at the form sleeping beside him and tried to remember anything from the previous night. But with the covers pulled up and an arm flung over his face to block out the sun, not much of his bedmate could be seen, so Phillip rolled over gently and slipped from under the covers and out onto the hardwood floor. He walked into the bathroom, trying to not make any sound. He pushed the door to, turned the heater down, and sat on the toilet so he could piss against the side of the bowl without making any noise. When he finished, he went and stood in the doorway and looked at the figure in the bed; there were some faint stirrings. He tip toed in and pulled on his underwear and grimaced as he stooped and grabbed the smoky black tank top and jeans he had worn out the night before and threw them on the black papasan chair in the corner of the room. After one more look, he left his guest sleeping and walked out. Siegfried jumped down from the chest at the foot of the bed and followed.

Walking through the living room, Phillip looked around and performed his regular morning-after sanity check – lying face up on the table was his favorite John Deere gimme cap, the one he had bought at the porno video store. And yes, his wallet and keys were inside. Relieved, he walked on into the kitchen and stood at the door, looking out the window at the oak trees in the parking lot. His car was in its space, granted not totally straight, but there at least. As he looked out the window, he once again tried to recall the identity of his guest and he once again failed. He turned to put the coffee on. As he opened the tin, he heard the floor creak somewhere in the apartment and then soon heard another toilet flush.

“Do you want any coffee?” he called out. God I know I do, he thought as he plopped first three, and then after a thought a fourth, scoops of coffee into the filter.

“No, thanks, I’d better get going. I have a lot to do.” The voice came from the living room – a nice voice, a baritone voice, not too high, not too low, a hint of east Texas, but that wasn’t unusual in Dallas. There were lots of east Texas transplants these days. Actually, there were lots of transplants from everywhere these days, what with the economy booming. Phillip figured his guest was in the living room, putting his shoes on.

“Really, what?” he fished, hoping he could retrieve some information that would trigger a memory.

“Oh, you know, just stuff around the house. I took the day off. That’s why I was out last night.”

Crap. Nothing there, Phillip frowned as he filled the pot with water and poured it into the machine. He placed his elbows on the counter and hung over the coffee maker, waiting for enough brew to be produced so that he could fill a cup. As the machine snorted and sighed and filled the room with an earthy smell, he heard his guest from the previous night walk into the kitchen. Phillip turned and completed a quick appraisal – a little over six feet; longish auburn hair, parted in the middle, with endearing (if somewhat old-fashioned) bangs; angular face; sky blue eyes. Full lips that Phillip knew there was some pretentious literary word to describe (but which he couldn’t at the moment remember). A chin that was still beardless even at this hour of the morning. Broad chest clothed in a long-sleeved, burnt-orange T-shirt (UT grad? Phillip wondered). Solid waist. Ample crotch enclosed in the tightest white Wrangler jeans Phillip had seen for many years (All right! Way to go, Phillip!), and then, arriving at the floor, nice boots too.

“So do you take anything in your coffee?” Phillip asked after reaching up in the cabinet, grabbing a mug and filling it.

“Actually, I don’t drink coffee.”

“Oh that’s right, you said you didn’t want any. Sorry. I forgot.” Phillip turned away from the coffee pot and blinked at the light that streamed through the window and reflected way too brightly off the white walls in the kitchen.

“That’s OK. I expect you’re head hurts a bit this morning.” His guest had seen his reaction to the light and grinned. Phillip’s eyes widened. Now that grin I do remember, he thought. Even if it is a bit lopsided, you don’t forget an awshucks smile like that.

“Look,” his guest continued, “I just want to say that I’m glad we met, and I had a really good time last night, talking with you and everything …” (Everything? I wonder what that includes, Phillip thought, discretely swishing coffee around his mouth and over his tongue, trying to kill the morning-after taste of cheap rum.) “…and I hope we can get together again sometime.”

Phillip didn’t answer but stood looking at his guest, hoping he’d smile again. “Me too,” he responded finally. “Uh… look, here’s my number,” he said as he passed a slip of paper that he’d torn off a legal pad and written his gay biography (that would be his name and phone number) on while waiting for the coffee pot to fill.

“Thanks,” his guest said, folding it up and slipping it into his shirt pocket (without looking at it, Phillip noticed). “So listen, guy,” his guest continued, “I’d better scoot or I’m gonna be late. I’ve got a long list of errands.”

They stood looking at each other, Phillip hoping for another smile. His guest reached over and gave him a hug and a quick kiss on the neck. “Bye,” he said and turned and walked out of the kitchen.

“Sure…bye,” Phillip mumbled. “Hope you get all your stuff done today. Give me a call sometime.” Formulaic ending to the conversation, he knew, but at the moment it was the best he could do. He listened as he heard the front door open and close and then muffled steps going down the stairwell. He smiled as he thought about his guest, but he couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty that there was so little he remembered. Except for that grin. Phillip frowned as he considered the fact that no reciprocal trick card had been offered. Too bad, he thought. At least I would’ve had a name to remember. He looked down at Siegfried, who was looking up at him with his head cocked. Phillip swore he was looking at him skeptically. “OK, so I would have had a name to add to my collection,” he said and grinned and reached down and ran a hand over the small gray dog’s head. He walked through the living room to the window, pried the blinds open and watched through the tree branches as the door of a blue pickup shut. After a moment it drove off.

I wonder if we really did have a good time.

Phillip walked back into the kitchen and picked up his coffee. “Well, he was a nice guy, anyway,” he said to Siegfried, who barked in answer. Phillip looked down at the dog, sitting on the floor, pawing him on the shin. Siegfried barked again. Twice this time. “You could be a little more sympathetic of your father’s hangover, you know?” Phillip said as he opened the cabinet and, muttering to himself about how self-absorbed schnauzers can be, used a coffee cup to scoop out some dog food and pour it into a blue enamel bowl. He leaned back against the counter to drink his coffee as he watched Siegfried eat, nudging the bowl across the linoleum floor in the process. Phillip took another sip of coffee and then, as if afraid someone might see him, he glanced over to the table where the legal pad lay, its top page incomplete, divided by a rough horizontal tear halfway down the page. “Well, they never call, anyway….” He refilled his coffee cup and went to get ready for work.

Later in the bathroom, Phillip blinked as he stabbed his contacts into his eyes. He stepped under the hot shower and ran his hands through his hair and grimaced as the smell of stale cigarette smoke exploded in the stall. He circled the gritty facial scrub around, trying to clear the cobwebs from his mind along with the dead skin from his face and mentally cycled through his current work projects, trying to remember if he had any deadlines or meetings that day. When nothing rolled to the surface, he comforted himself with the thought that, for today at least, he wasn’t under the gun. And God I hope Melissa doesn’t get on my ass, he thought. I’m really tired. And my head hurts.

Phillip hated Monday mornings. And he particularly hated Monday mornings after Sunday nights out.