otra noche

I stepped off the bus in Providence around 5:30 P.M. and lit a cigarette. I moved through the crowds waiting for rides and hailing taxis and called Leydon on my phone.

'What's up?' He answered.
'Yo, what's up man? I'm here.' I said.
'I know, I see you. Red Explorer.'

He flicked his high beams and I walked towards his truck. I used the passenger side window as a mirror before I opened the door. I always hated people who used windows as mirrors, but I was too excited to remember my mantras.

He snared me with meteor-brown eyes, each clutching dark bags, as if begging me to ask, 'What keeps you up at night, old man?'

As our eyes met, the smile that stole my face instantly became the standard by which all other smiles and feelings of elation and joy would be measured from that day on. I threw my bag into the back seat and climbed into the truck.

Have you been living well for the past three months, Leydon? I have not.

We drove through Providence, stopping at a liquor store for a weekend's worth of alcohol and cigarettes: thirty Budweiser's, a bottle of Jim Beam, a pint of Absolut, four packs of Camel Lights.

Inside Leydon's dorm room I met his roommate Dreya and her boyfriend Leo. The walls were covered with posters of Tiananmen Square, Che Guevara and 'Family Guy' stills. An empty pack of Dunhill Lights was tacked to the wall above his bed. I asked him about them.

'One night in Alaska,' he began, his eyes dulling as if receding back into visions of memories, 'me and the kids I was hiking with sat around a campfire smoking those and we had the most amazing conversation of my life. You know, full of yelling and conviction.'

He used his hands when he spoke and his voice was laced with passion and reverence.

'Actually,' he chuckled, 'I don't know what the reason is. I guess I just wanted something solid to remember that night by, you know what I mean?' He asked.

Yes, for the same reason I keep the half-empty bottle of Bud Light on top of my TV from the last time you were at my apartment.

'Yea, I hear you.' I said.

We sat around drinking beers, smoking cigarettes and telling stories and laughing with Dreya and Leo. The two allowed me to read an appropriate amount about them, just as I was allowing them to do the same to me. I felt confident. I could tell they approved of me. I patiently listened to them talk and held their eyes with my own, having learned years ago that people worth respecting are those who do not yearn for their turns to speak, but rather desire to hear and to learn.

Seeing Leydon comfortable and in his element was like finding a hidden chapter in one's favorite book. Dreya and Leo left for his place for the night. Leydon and I lay facing each other on his bed, an ashtray between us and smoke veiling our faces.

A smile crashed over his lips and reverberated in my chest. I smiled back. We moved closer and knocked over the ashtray, spilling still-lit butts and ash all over the bed.

'I think your cigarette is burning a hole in my bed,' he said.

You burn me. And what's worse, you know it.

We brushed off the ashes and extinguished the butts. His hands passed under my arm and over my shoulder, meeting on my spine. I pulled him in until our limbs churned together and our foreheads touched. Our lips rested on top of one another and I inhaled his spent breaths as he did mine.

That morning, the sun broke through the shades and dilated our pupils. We shut our eyes and went to sleep, hoping to keep the new day out and to nourish the memory of that night in the non-descript darkness of our minds.

We awoke around noon and loitered sleepily around his room. We listened to music, our tastes drastically different. In this we found an alluring quality, like two volatile chemicals canceling each other out. My bus home was at 6:30 that night. We dressed and I said my goodbyes to his friends I met the night before. We walked down to his truck and then pulled out of the campus toward the bus station.

Leydon was playing a Brazilian hip-hop CD, Don Omar. The bass drowned out my voice when I asked him, 'So?'

So, we kept looking at the road ahead.

We pulled up to the station and said our goodbyes. I knew damn well that any farewell other than a handshake and a 'have a good one' was out of the question, but I still lingered in the door way a few seconds longer than I should have.

I turned and walked away. The last thing I heard before Leydon drove off were the lyrics 'Otra, otra noche, otra noche.'

Another night. Another night.

--by FooLinTheRain2315, boston, 03/01/2005