Gay Norfolk

Vereor Valentine Once upon a time, there was no snake, there was no scorpion, There was no hyena, there was no lion, There was no wild dog, no wolf, There was no fear, no terror, Man had no rival He turned the heater off.

He turned the engine off; leaving the keys in the ignition, and let them just tap the top of his knee in their swaying.

He gripped the tip of a cigarette, and remembered that wasn’t healthy.

He placed the cigarette in his mouth anyway, his dry and sticky lips gluing the paper in an unbreakable hello.

He closed his eyes and inhaled.

Near and dark, the air swelling in his mouth, tainted from a drug, but not of the drug.

Deep breathing a nicotine ghost, he continued the smoking pantomime until he grew light-headed.

The cell phone began the Flight of the Bumble Bee, with its antenna lighting up in strobe-light neon blue—the ringing was visual in breaking up the dusky and heavy-lidded interior of the truck.

He let it ring.

In pulling the dampened cigarette out of his mouth, a little skin from the inside of his lips went too, and a small dot of slobber crowned at one corner of his mouth.

He sucked it in, swiping at it with the tip of his tongue.

The phone stopped ringing.

Adjustments occurred, and a shift of his ass forward to a more comfortable position, earned a peeling squeak from his warm jeans on the truck’s softened leather.

Warm and a little damp, from sitting so long on the cowhide, the jeans sighed in relaxing—and became one more unnoticeable thing.

The Flight of the Bumble Bee started up again with it’s accompanying blue light show, and he grabbed the chirping bird, stroked it’s head, and tossed it to the floorboard—a quiet, little piece of plastic.

If he had hair to run his hand through, he might have seemed more dignified, bowed over the wheel, his hand to his head—paused at the solution to 59 down and 12 across… It was a thought knocking on the womb, saying—“Hello, I’m here now.

Everything should be clear…” kind of pose.

However since his head was as shiny as a Deep South elementary school wooden paddle--because thwacking rubs the edge of off things—his head was shaved.

A sweaty hand gripping a baldhead is not as good in conversation as the hand running through thick hair—then paused at an important point mid-strand—only to continue its journey in a flourish and a shake.

Much like missed teeth the nape of a neck, or the bony nub on the back of his skull, the cold air outside was infecting the truck window besides him.

He leaned into the square pane, and in knuckles touching glass—he was suddenly touching autumn, and he could taste the golden red leaves in the air.

He was jumping and running with steam and smoke coming out of his nose—a small boy’s smile in that kind of cold chilled your teeth—and made the closing of lips all the more meaningful to the smile.

He was wondering how long it would take, since he had turned the cell phone off.

He didn’t look at the green-segmented clock in the truck’s dash; his body would tell him when it was time.

There’s a certain memory of the muscle that never goes away, when you are near your perfect fear.

Perfect fear simply means the absolute right fear, at the absolute Continue reading →