#I like to think that the cannon and plug occasionally hang out

[whatsorryiwasntlistening]

I did some little drawings of Plug and the Cannon from Rolling with Difficulty (a dnd podcast you should definitely check out). I just love these little guys. I’m gonna do more.

@incorrectrwdquotes @comicaurora

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “What Happened.”

Sorry for any issues this one might have, but I am trying to write it between flights and and scrambling to find a plug that will work, so I hope you like it anyway, and I hope it answers some questions you have 

Three months leave

IT was going to take an extra three months  before the ship would be ready for launch. Even as they spoke, it was docked at the Europa station as they put on the final finishing touches. Until then, it had been Commander Vir’s job to go through files on the personnel he wanted aboard his new crew.

He had suggested some alien additions to make the crew more diverse, which the GA had loved considering that the ship was an amalgamation of both human and alien technology. It had Rundi communications systems, Celzex weaponry, Vrul shields, and  a Tesraki warp core. The design otherwise was completely human. But for those reasons, the project was obviously very time consuming, and they were lucky that it was going to be finished in as little a time as it was.

Sunny hadn’t seen Adam very much in the last month or so considering that he had been working hard to find an extra five hundred members for his crew, and speak with the brass about what he had seen on the other side of the wormhole.

Sunny knew that it was important that Adam do his job, but a part of her was annoyed they hadn’t been able to speak properly since getting back.

Instead, she was stuck in base housing on the cost, alone and with nothing to do aside from long walks on the beach. She had never been the the beach beforehand as anin didn’t have any substantial bodies of water like that, at least near her, and there was something about the endless water that unsettled her. Even Krill and Conn were off doing important things. Krill was giving his services to a level one trauma center in New York, and Conn was helping the base MPs conduct polygraph tests, though he had sort of replaced the polygraph.

That left Sunny alone most days to think.

She hadn’t gotten over Adam’s disappearance, and not how he had tricked her, pushing her from the bridge before turning around and preparing himself for death. She felt a bit cheated, and like a decision had been made for her. She wasn’t stupid, logically she knew that is what she would have done if she were in his place, so she couldnt fault him for that, though she still coudln’t help feeling hurt over it.

And these thoughts she was left to stew on, tossing and turning in the quiet of the night while everyone else was out and busy.

Needless to say she didn’t expect the little bell on her front door to ring late one evening, and when she opened the door she certainly didn’t expect to see Adam waiting on her front porch.

HE was smiling, though the skin around his face and neck were already flushed a light pink with embarrassment.

In his arms, he held a large collection of flowers.

“May I come in?”

“Adam!” Her surprise was a bit delayed 

He shuffled his feet, “I uh, I got the go ahead to take the day off so I…. thought I would see you.”

He shifted again.

He looked better now than he had on returning from his ordeal, face clean-shaven and in clean clothes that actually fit, though she had to admit his cave-man look hadn’t been so bad.

She stepped aside, and he tentatively followed.

She closed the door and he turned to face her, “I uh…. um … well I…. flower…. Or I mean, I got you, flowers I…… Bought some, but also picked…. some ….. I not that that really matters I just.”He sighed took a deep breath and cleared his throat, “I got you flowers.” he held them out, and she took them in half amusement, picking one from the top and popping it into her mouth before setting them down on the little side table.

“Look, I’m sorry we haven't been able to talk since I got back… and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a little bit of me avoiding having a tough conversation.”

“I like that you are at least being honest with me.” She said quietly., “Do you want to sit down?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, “Actually, I was going to ask you if you wanted to go on a walk…. I.. I think better when I walk.”

She shrugged and agreed, following him outside to where a thin layer of clouds had veiled the sun which was slowly inching towards the horizon. The clouds muted the colors and the sea was grey in the distance.

Together they walked a little ways along the sand, him shifting nervously, and her walking to the side, relaxed though she didn’t feel like it 

The silence stretched on for nearly a mile before Sunny -- growing frustrated -- was forced to break it.

“You tricked me.”

He looked down at his feet, “I did.”

“You tricked me, and because of that I have had some of the worst few months of my life.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I understand you did what you thought you had to, and I get it that if I was in your place, I would have done the same without hesitation, but…. I I feel cheated, and I feel used, and for some reason I can’t stop it.”

He looked away, “I’m not sure what to say.”

“At least say SOMETHING.”

HE turned to face her single green eye wide. Looking down she could sense that his hands were shaking. A part of her felt bad about that, but they needed to have this conversation, and she wasn’t going to let him out of it.

“I… would do it again to save your life, and I won’t apologize for that, but I’m sorry that that’s how you feel.”

“I thought we were a team.”

“And we are.”

She paused, her feet digging hard into the sand, and he drew to a halt beside her, “I need you to understand Adam, when Drev say a team, they mean a battle pair and that means….”

“I know, I know……. I know what it means, and I am agreeing with you.”

“Will, you try, for me.”

“Yes, but sunny, I I don’t know how well it will work out, I…. well I’m broken when it comes to this sort of thing I don’t even know if I can.”

They went silent again and she could see the veins pulsing in the side of his neck. Beads of sweat collected on his brown and face. He looked almost nauseous, like he was scared or something, that too made her feel bad, but she didn’t really know how to help.

On instinct, she reached out a hand, inches from his before pausing, “I…. Can I?”

He paused look down at her hand.

His clenched into a fist.

He was pale whit like snow now.

“I…. I don’t think I can right now but…. Thanks for asking.”

She watched the expression on his face closely, and on his face she saw him proceed through a rapid series of emotions starting with fear, working over to shame, sadness and finally ending on guilt.

He turned away.

She walked up next to him, head tilted, “You don’t have to, Adam, but maybe if you told me why I could better understand. Of course you don’t have to.”

He took a deep shaky breath, “You deserve to know. But just don’t… I don’t know laugh or something. I know logically it wasn’t a big deal but….”

“Adam, I promise I won't laugh, you have my word.”

He nodded his head slowly and sighed, “I can trace it all back to one event I think. It was MY freshman year of high school…. Maybe and I was the awkward, nerdy sci-fi weirdo who believed in UFOs and Aliens.

***

Adam Sat Under a tree outside the school arms wrapped around his knees back tucked against the bowl of a tree which cast the shadow of its leaves down over the ground to wave and rustle in a light breeze.

It was lunch break, and he was watching the other teens standing around in their cliches. The football jocks were playing a game to one side, the cheerleaders were clustered around a bench, and all the rednecks were sitting in the back of their trucks in the parking lot laughing loudly and occasionally turning on their trucks just to rev the engines as loud as possible.

His hair was long-ish, kind of scruffy and hanging down around his ears. The clothes he wore were baggy hand me downs from his older brother Jeremy (a senior) and shoes with holes in them from his older brother Thomas.

He didn’t mention the holes to his mom, dad was in between jobs right now, not that it was a big deal, he would find work, it was just paperwork in the way, but he didn’t want to worry her with something extra that didn’t matter right now.

He looked down at the ground where he had a stack of books waiting in the grass for him, The Martian, War of the Worlds, and an old tatty compendium of start wars stuff with pictures and diagrams.

The T-shirt he was wearing was one he had purchased online, and had a diagram of the star-trek enterprise on it.

He shuffled his feet in the grass waiting for his brothers to show up and feeling sort of lonely as he waited.

Since he was a little younger, he got out a half an hour before they did, and only got to spend thirty minutes of his half hour lunch break with them, otherwise he tried to avoid people as much as possible. It wasn’t that he was bullied per-se, because he wasn’t really, neglected by his peers was probably a better term for it.

They were nice to him in the way you are nice to small children or crazy people, keeping up polite conversation just long enough to leave as soon as possible. He was used to the treatment, and didn’t bother subjecting people to his presence more than he had to. He knew he was weird.

He was sure he would have a harder time if it were not for his older brothers. Jeremy, who was a popular football player, David because he was student body president, and arguably the best looking guy in school, though he never seemed to be dating anyone, and Thomas, who was a bit of a loose cannon and didn’t mind getting in fights to protect his family members when he wasn’t hanging out with the other weird and unpredictable kids.

He was sitting there thinking about his brothers and staring down at the grass, when he saw a pair of shoes appear in his vision. They were white vans, or something similar with bright green laces, and when he looked up he saw a girl standing over him. The school was small enough that he recognized her immediately. Her name was Amanda and she jumped between the Drill team and the Basketball Girls click.

She was smiling, and he watched her as she turned her head back to her group of friends who were giggling and trying not to look like they were looking over in their direction.

Adam sat up a little straighter, “Can I help you.”

She smiled at him, her cheeks slightly pink, “HI…. Adam.”

He frowned, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

She shuffled her feet, and off in the distance, her friends giggled and looked away.

“Can I help you with something?’ He wondered, waiting for the punchline somewhere. Something about the weird UFO kid, or maybe they were going to ask him to help them do something against school rules, so when they got caught they could all blame it on him. Or maybe they were going to ask him to be the designated Sherpa for their bags or something.

He had been tricked into most of those things before, though by now the teachers and the principal knew that he was just socially stupid and not a troublemaker.

“Relax ok, I’ve just come to say sorry?”

“Sorry for what?”

“Sorry for treating you like you were weird.” When she smiled it seemed genuine, “You see its…. One of my friends.” More giggling I the background, “She thinks you’re cute, but she didn’t know how to act before.”

He glanced past her to where  the group of girls had burst in to excessive giggling.

He frowned again, “I’m not stupid, you know.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

She crossed her arms, “Serious, Adam.”

“Who is this friend of your.” His eyes narrowed, but past that he was looking towards one of the girls in the group. She was pretty  with honey blonde hair and an infectious smile.  She played the violin, and he knew for a fact that she was a comic book nerd. He had seen her carrying them around, and she was a petty good artist too. He felt his face flush a bit but tried to fight it back.”

“She smiled, “Avery.”

His eyes shot wide, and he felt his face turn scarlet. The part of his brain that had been skeptical immediately shut off as the human brain is prone to do when they think something good might be about to happen.

“I… really.”

She grinned, “Really.” She reached into her pocket and passed him a note, “She wants you to meet her by the stadium.”

His hands were shaking a bit as he took the note, but he felt his heart hammering in excitement.

Was this his way out of exile?

He had always been extroverted, starved for all the friends he wanted and all the people he wanted to talk to. Avery had the life that he wished he did, a large circle of friends, and fun things to do every weekend.

Maybe with her around, he would finally have that.

All the better if they were dating, but he was getting ahead of himself.

He watched as the group of girls dispersed and Avery moved towards the back of the building over towards the stadium, her beautiful, honey-blond hair blowing in the wind.

He stood awkwardly gathering up his things and shoving them in his bag without zipping the zipper all the way before turning and cutting around the other side of the school. His heart hammered in his chest and his hands were cold and sweaty as he made his way around the other side of the building and towards the stadium.

His heart only began to race faster when he saw her standing alone under the stadium between the cross-bars and in the shade of the metal benches above.

He approached nervously, his hands shaking in excitement.

She turned her head, bright blue eyes catching his.

He stopped in place at the edge of the shadow. But she smiled and waved him in, “Adam over here.”

He followed nervously his feet trailing in the dirt. As she approached she nervously rocked back and fourth on her heels hands in her pockets. He paused a few feet away. She looked up at him through her lashes, and he noted she was wearing little Iron Man earrings.

“Hi.” She said nervously

“Hi.” He replied back

She shuffled her feet, “Look I…. I’m sorry about laughing at you earlier today In class I…. well I think your funny, not, like in a bad way or anything.”

HE knew he was bright red at this moment, probably brighter red than any tomato, “Really?”

“Yeah, so I wanted to say sorry, and…. And maybe make it up to you.”

His heart was in his throat, “Oh, you, you don’t have to.”

“But I want to.”

It went quiet as she stepped forward, and he was frozen in place. She was right in front of him now. She leaned forward a little, and he was frozen in place. Her eyes closed, and then so did his, he waited for the moment, and waited, and waited, but nothing came.

Someone snickered, and he cracked an eye to see Avery’s once pretty face twisted up into a sneer of contempt and malicious amusement.

“April fools.” She jumped at him, and in surprise he tripped backwards over one of the metal bars landing hard. The zipper of his backpack, not all the way done up, erupted outward spilling all his books out onto the dirt.

Laughter.

He turned his head looking around to the cracks in the stadium seats where dozens of eyes stared at him laughing.

Avery stood over him as others began flooding down from their spots laughing.

He crawled back, his head down, “But it’s not even April.” He whispered

“Its not even April.” Someone mimicked from behind, and he ran into soemthing hard looking up to see one of Avery’s friends standing over him. She was state shotput champion last years, and her arms were as big as his head, “What is this.” She reached down and picked his book off the ground.

“Please, give it back.” He said crawling to his knees and reaching up for it.

“The Martian.”

“please.”

She flipped open a few of the pages. He stood up trying to reach for his book but he was blocked by another two of her friends.

The laughter continued, the mocking voices over and over and over again.

He tried to push forward reaching for his books which had been picked up off the ground.

“Gross, Its all sticky!” the friend yelled.

“No it isn’t.” He protested, it was true, he took very good care of his books. But of course no one listened. A chorus of disgust rose up around him. His books were dropped, one clattering to the rocks its pages bending, the other one landing halfway in a puddle of stagnant water.

He cried out and dove forward pulling it out of the water even as mud dripped form the hardback.

He cradled it in his arms, feeling hot tears of anger and humiliation begin to prickle at the corners of his eyes.

Laughter continued.

“Look.”

Fingers pointed.

HE stood fists clenched ready to hurt someone, but when he turned the same girl from before hand his book in either hand and when he moved she pulled.

There was a sharp ripping noise as the spine of the book tore a quarter, and as he cried out she laughed and dropped it into the puddle.

As a paperback, the book didn’t stand a chance.

Mud and water caked his hands as he reached in to pull it out on his hands and knees. Something hit him hard in the back and he pitched forward into the puddle getting the book wet a second time as the kids laughed.

He scrambled sitting up coughing and spluttering feeling the slimy grittiness of the water on his lips.

Someone knelt down next to him. A voice in his ear, “If you tell anyone. I’ll tell the teacher you tried to touch me.”

Tears dripped down his cheeks as he tried wiping mud from his face. The laughter receded and he was left along kneeling on the gravel.

His face grew hot and read as he stared down at the ruined cover of his book. Hot tears dripped onto the mud coating his hands.

His breathing started up in great gasps his heart hammered so fast he thought it was going to burst out of his chest. His head was going to explode either from anger or frustration he didn’t know. Choked sobs broke from his mouth as he knelt over the books ruined in his hands. He couldn’t breathe. He stood vision clouded face hot wet and muggy from the heat.

And then he ran.

He had no idea where he was going or what he was doing.

His paperback held muddy and dripping in one hand he pelted into the woods and didn’t stop running until his foot caught on a branch and he went rolling into the leaves.

He lay there on his stomach heart still hammering breath still coming in ragged gasps. He just couldn’t calm his breathing down.

He didn’t know where he was.

He felt like he was having a heart attack, or dying, or something. He lay there gasping on the forest floor for hours.

It grew dark. The mud dried on the back of his book and against his chest and hands.

It was only when he heard the voices did he finally sit up, mud caked and bleary eyed.

“Adam!”

“Adam!”

There were no other sounds for a long moment before the call started up again.

He stumbled over, it was dark so his feet kept coughing on branches and twigs.

“Adam, ADAM! I swear ADAM.”

“Thomas?” He said his voice so raw it was barely above a whisper.

“ADAM!” Footsteps rushed towards him through the trees, and Thomas burst from the foliage his scruffy blind hair run wild, his jeans covered in dirt, “Adam there you are where have you-“

He didn’t have time to say much else as he was hugged tight around the middle.

“Adam I…. what’s wrong. What happened! Who did this to you!”

Thomas looked ready to rip someone apart, but Adam didn’t say anything. He wouldn’t say anything about the event for the next two years.

***

Sunny stared wide eyed as Adam turned away again.

“Look, I know its stupid, it happens to plenty of kids and they don’t take it the way I did, but. I mean, with the panic attack on top of it, and then a few years later the same thing happened on my first date, so now I just… I can’t…”

Sunny was quiet for a moment while he looked away.

“Who the FUCK do they think they are.” She snarled.

He looked up in surprise, “I what.”

She marched around in a circle, “What the hell kind of person does that to someone. That’s just sick and wrong. That is just… horrible.”  She pulled out her spear, “I swear If i ever meet someone like that if i ever meet THEM, I am going to-”

He caught her arm, “Sunny stop, it was a long time ago.”

“It doesnt matter!”

A small smile cut across his face, “IT doesn't matter sunny, you want to know why.”

“Why.”

“Because I saw their pictures.” he grinned, “Avery got really fat and her friend got hit by a car, not fatally but I consider it Karma doing me a solid.” He paused, “It’ll be ok…. I just need some time. Think you can do that for me?”

She paused and nodded her head, “Yes, I think I can.”

[thecollegefootballguy]

My Trip to the 2019 College Football Championship Game!

The 2018 season had its ups and downs but after all of that excitement it became clear that two teams were the obvious choices to play for the National Championship. Alabama and Clemson went a perfect 12-0 in the regular season and won their respective conference championships. They then plowed through their semifinal opponents with ease, setting up a title game that would be completely undisputed, featuring the only two choices to be called the best team in the nation for the 2018 season.

Maybe the matchup was boring, after all there are 130 teams in the highest division of football and for the fourth straight year the winner of national title was going to be either the Alabama Crimson Tide or the Clemson Tigers. Boring yes, but they’re in the game because they’re the most deserving. Plain and simple.

It did seem like people were getting a bit fatigued for this fourth go-around. After all, ticket prices started to fall once Notre Dame and Oklahoma got knocked out of the running. Though I’m sure a lot of it also had to do with fans of these Southeast universities checking the cost of travelling to the Bay Area on short notice after the match was set and thinking twice. Their loss was my gain.

I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. I moved to San Diego to attend SDSU and spent a good 5 years in sunny SD before moving back up to the Bay around this time last year. It was quite a fun coincidence then that the College Football National Championship Game would come to Levi’s Stadium the year that I made my return. My dad--who introduced me to college football and sports in general--and I had been planning on going until the cold reality of paying $1500 per ticket hit us in the face. It was a nice thought, but ultimately too hard to swallow. Then, in late December, the prices started to fall. I wish I could say we waited until they bottomed out around $150, but we were too excited to have that kind of patience.

Just to be cautious, we took public transit to the game. We knew that it would be a hassle to drive to the stadium, it turns into a zoo when we went to 49er games. Plus you never know what kind of state you’re in after being around football for most of a day. We took the Caltrain, the SF to SJ commute, down from our station and my dad began chatting up a nice couple from Huntsville, Alabama in the seats across from us. Their son was in the band and they were nervous about the game. My dad told them not to worry, he was fully confident in a Tide victory. They asked me and I said I wasn’t that certain.

We changed over to the VTA, the local light rail, along with the Bama couple. My dad gave a guided tour of the Silicon Valley offices that we passed to the couple, who snapped pictures at the nondescript, box shaped buildings where Google, Amazon, Yahoo, and Youtube make their magic happen. At the Great America stop we bade them goodbye and good luck, and sauntered over to the pregame tailgate. It was around noon and the game wasn’t going to start until the evening.

We slipped through the still rather small-ish crowds, past the ESPN booth and its caravan of buses, and made our first trip to the beer and merch stands. I had to pause and admire one of the food areas: there was brisket and pulled pork for the Southerners who made the trek but also crab fries for the locals. We wandered around as the crimson and orange fans kept filtering in. Every once in a while we’d encounter the odd unaffiliated passerby, most of them wearing PAC-12 shirts and occasionally the out of place Silicon Valley techie taking in the scene. I got a few compliments on my SDSU sweatshirt. One kind old Alabama fan stopped me and asked if I went to South Dakota State, he had kids and grandkids who went to the USD. I had to let him down gently.

We got our pulled pork and crab fries, whose preparation likely pleased few of the fans in attendance, and went down to a tented area with tables to eat. I spotted perhaps the only open table in the tent the same time as a Clemson fan and we agreed to share. He was a nice guy and was at the game with his parents and uncle. We chatted for a while about various sports history moments that a Clemson man could share with a Bay Area family. Dwight Clark was mentioned more than once (later that night we passed by his statue on the way out). His group came over after a while, having spent time in the now considerable lines forming around the food and drink. After a nice half hour or so of conversation we went our separate ways, but not before my dad and I were gifted the famed $2 bills, with a perfect orange paw print stamped in each one.

We spent the next few hours hanging out, waiting for the game to start. We bought merch, bought drinks, and watched the predominantly orange crowd start to buzz with a nervous energy. Alabama fans were concentrated on the other side of the stadium. I checked twitter and felt tried not to feel angry that my favorite accounts were making fun of the projected low attendance. It seemed like every Greenville, Mobile, and San Rafael resident who made the trip was having a good time. Then again, the game hadn’t started yet.

I’ve written nine paragraphs and the game hasn’t begun so let’s fast forward a bit. My dad and I were comfortable in our fancy indoor digs but we just had to be outside for kickoff. We walked the long way around the stadium and up and up and up to out seats. We were one row below the highest in the house, and smack dab in Tuscaloosa West. The anthem and flyover went off without a hitch, and suddenly we had a football game on our hands. Oh yeah, and the stands were full after all of that fuss made by the press.

Clemson’s first drive isn’t worth mentioning but Alabama’s certainly was. On the Crimson Tide’s third offensive play of the game Tua Tagovailoa, undefeated in his college career, gave up a shocking pick six to put the Tigers up 7-0. No matter, on the third offensive play of the second drive, Tagovailoa threw a bomb to Jerry Jeudy to even things up. Then on four plays the Tigers scored. And Bama marched right back down the field.

We watched the first four drives of the game, which was turning into a very unexpected score-fest, high up in our seats before we began to make our way to warmth of the United Club.

[Redacted because we snuck in to a better part of the stadium and I can’t say how]

It’s a good thing the first quarter turned out to be so long, we didn’t actually miss a whole lot. The game was developing in a strange manner. By the time we got indoors and got some food Clemson had grown their lead to 28-16 midway through the second quarter. My dad noted that the Tigers hadn’t actually stopped Alabama on any drive. The Tide had scored two touchdowns, kicked a field goal, and Tua had thrown two very ill-advised passes that were intercepted. It definitely felt like a near-even game, with Bama slightly outplaying the Tigers but nothing to show for it.

In the last minutes of the first half Clemson finally got a stop and not for the last time either.

Halftime was spent indoors away from the marching bands. The only college football tradition I’ve never enjoyed went totally ignored on my end. A million dollar band can’t buy my attention, my apologies to that nice couple from Huntsville.

The third quarter was surreal. Suddenly Alabama couldn’t score to save their lives. The Tide spent minutes and minutes grinding out drives that went nowhere against a defense that had solved them. The fake field goal was just the beginning. Bama couldn’t convert on 4th down in three straight attempts. Meanwhile Clemson made every possible (and perhaps impossible) play conceivable to score. The scoreboard crept up from 31-16 to 38-16 to 44-16 before the third quarter was even up.

Back in the United Club, we were again sitting in a predominantly orange part of the stadium and the atmosphere was charged. When the Tigers began to pull away the feeling was a nervous excitement, then giddiness. By the fourth quarter it was absolute delirium. It wasn’t just obvious that Clemson was going to win, it was obvious that they were about to absolutely embarrass the alleged best team in football. The Alabama machine, the dynasty of the 2010′s, was being completely humiliated on the biggest stage in the sport. 

This wasn’t some flukey upset like the A&M, Ole Miss, and, yes, the earlier Clemson title in years past. This was a mauling. Nick Saban’s Alabama hadn’t lost like this EVER. This was Saban’s best offense on what looked like his best team and they were getting lapped by the understudy. Dabo Swinney, a former backup wide receiver for the Tide, had built--essentially from scratch--a program that could BTFO of Alabama on a good day. And it was a pretty good day for those Tigers.

And we still had the fourth quarter. It passed pretty quickly. Alabama was still futilely grinding out long drives that went nowhere, but now Clemson joined in bleeding the clock dry. They could've hung 50 on Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide if they’d wanted to, but against the wishes of the more vindictive (and scorned) fanbases, the Tigers pulled the plug. The last few minutes were a bit of an anticlimax, the game had been won, some time just had to be spent to make it official.

The confetti cannons sprayed out the orange and the Clemson band played, though I never got a handle on what the cheer was. If it was fun for an outside observer it must have been exultant for the tens of thousands of Tiger fans who made the trip, and the thousands more who were watching on tv.

I’ll cut my travelogue short here. I stayed for another hour enjoying myself before my dad and I slowly made our way home. The denouement felt good but is hard to verbalize.

What I would like to say is a great, big thank you to all of the Alabama and Clemson fans who traveled so far to see their teams play. I had a great time and both fan bases were perfectly charming the whole way through. I’ll forgive the one bit of bad behavior I saw when a despondent Tide fan in a sea of orange had words with a guy in an OU sweatshirt who was hollering his way. I doubt I could’ve composed myself any better. If looks could kill.

I couldn’t fit this in anywhere else but before I go I must comment on the weather. It rained buckets the days before the game and hasn’t let up since. I’m sure it dampened the plans of most of the tourists who came out in droves, many of whom had never seen the Golden State before. But, just like the Rose Bowl, whenever there’s a special game to be played, clear skies of sunny California suddenly appear. There’s some kind of magic attached to it, I’m certain.

It was a strange feeling watching that game. For once in my life I was watching sports without a vested emotional interest. It was a very liberating feeling going in without a nauseous nervousness or the thought of “what if?” permeating the game.

Thank you all for reading if you made it this far. This was a pretty singular moment in my life as a college football fan so I wanted to cover it properly and give all of my thoughts. I hope you don’t mind the extra details, I’m sure you were watching it yourselves so you didn’t need the straight retelling anyway.

I should also probably thank my dad for getting me into football, paying for my college, and buying the tickets.

-thecfbguy

[flauntpage]

NBA Summer Vacation: Emotion of the Oceans

There is motion in the SVW ocean and by that I mean an awful lot of dudes are way out in the wild blue yonder this week. A few did it really well—I mean really well, like an impending humanitarian award is on the way well—and a couple should stick to spending the rest of their summers on the dry side, lest they wanna become completely washed in the annals of these hallowed, a-little-sticky-from-aloe-vera-sun-balm halls.

Marc Gasol

Marc Gasol, who just a week ago was keeping tabs on the organic garden he planted in his yard last summer vacation, was out in a dingy rescuing migrants stranded in the Mediterranean. There is no joke here. Marc Gasol spent the last week volunteering with the NGO Proactiva Open Arms and much of that was spent out in the open water recovering the bodies of migrants and helping to bring survivors safely to land. The NBA is a progressive league, it gets talked about a lot, but it is occasionally without due credit given to the players who make it that way.

Rating: Just Marc Gasol, absolutely doing the most.

JaVale McGee

A nice transition into our regularly scheduled tittering and trash talk on the way player’s choose to spend their offseason is JaVale McGee pretending to pick up his daughter’s play phone and totally tear a new one to the would-be caller on the other end.

Rating: 9021UH OH!

James Harden

What’s UP James Harden in a trashy, regular ass tank top, flipping the hang loose hand while laser strobe lights illuminate your face?! Turns out all it takes to set James Harden free is setting him loose on the shores of Ibiza with Real Madrid Captain Sergio Ramos and frankly it’s dumb of all of us that it took this long to figure out!

You’ll be happy my sleuthing skills have peeled back another layer in this euro-rave onion, specifically why is Harden wearing that top, because from Ramos’s own documenting of this night we can see they are not just at some regular party, they are at a FOAM PARTY.

Rating: The big buildup that lasts for close to three minutes before the beat drops and every whistle is blasting and the foam cannon is pilin’ up the suds around you like so many cloud castles in heaven.

Steph Curry

We cut live to Steph Curry now, jumping fully clothed off the top of a boat. While we are not here to judge all selfless actions this summer vacation we are certainly going to judge this one. He doesn’t have trunks? He’s got to do this in what appears to be like, athletic technology warm up pants that probably shrink wrap to your legs once you hit the water?

Rating: Oh (splash) brother.

Dwyane Wade

Wade is in China, and we can only hope it’s because he’s hot on the heels of the Mr. Hyde of SVW, China Klay. In any case, he’s paused on his hunt for a quick round of golf and I am not a fan nor knowledgeable of that sport but could they not get him a taller club?

Rating: Fore out of five.

Manu Ginóbili

Aside from being in Vancouver, this looks like a nice trip for Main Manu and the entire Ginóbili family. I like to think that he’s getting familiar with the places DeMar DeRozan once set foot in before coming to Toronto for the main event, so he will have some skin in the conversation when Deebo brings up all the things he misses about Canada.

Rating: I’ll let my famous saying about Vancouver speak for itself—“Once you’ve sea-n one wall, you’ve seen ‘em all.”

Giannis Antetokounmpo

Oh my goooosh, look at our little gladiator ROMEin’ around, checking off all the sights and staying, considerately to his GF and the general public, low to the ground. My only hope is that we get a shot of Giannis high-fiving Christ in The Last Judgement, on the ceiling of the ol’ Sistine. He’d only really have to stretch on tip toes to do it.

Rating: Watch out, Eternal City, there’s a new cooler, younger, taller, Pope in town.

Lou Williams

Paris continues to be big and so does standing or sitting on some type of plinth. The supposed 6th man of the year (Fred VanVleet was robbed) has chosen either onyx or ebony, could also be a big Bose speaker just flipped around, to stand on and do the funny gag. Look how happy he is.

Rating: 6th man to attempt this gag on this particular day, maybe.

Boban Marjanović

Here’s Boban in a quarry of some kind, stalking toward the camera with his socks pulled high. Wouldn’t it be incredible if he gets really into BMX culture this year and is constantly almost caught wheelie-ing the white hot sides of the L.A. River? The LAPD are stumped, who is this giant shadow racing away every time on a tiny bike, leaving wet tire tracks all the way back to the Staple Center?

Rating: They’ll find some fancy pegs in Lonzo Ball’s locker, L.A. Boban rides again.

Jaylen Brown

Jaylen Brown is in Bali doing tarps off and fanny pack on, doing the kind of nervous smile one does on vacation when someone has pushed you into something you aren’t quite comfortable with. Out of frame I am imagining a pack of monkeys glaring at him with their beady eyes, rubbing their little paws together over what kind of gear they are going to nab off this guy.

Rating: An up-to-date rabies vaccine and one long look at the warnings, I hope.

Mirza Teletović

Ah yes, exactly the scene the Turkish folk poet Yunus Emre was attempting to set in his 13th century banger "Mirza at the Grand Bazaar."

Rating: Gives a whole new meaning to telenovela am I right?

Willy Hernangómez

Here we got a great, extremely contoured shot of Willy’s back as he soaks up the sun in the ancient port city of Cádiz, Spain.

Rating: How sweaty are you getting just looking at this? The answer is extremely.

Tim Hardaway Jr.

Double feature for THJ! What I wouldn’t give to get this in a slow-mo video but you gotta take your summer refreshers where you can get ‘em, folks. This is the exact yin to Willy’s yang (get your god damn minds out of the gutters) up there.

Rating: How quenched are you getting just looking at this? The answer is extremely.

Taj Gibson

Somebody wants to be this summer’s solo banana boat boy! Taj is floatin’ in the ocean off the coast of Pesaro, which is way up on the back side of the top of Italy’s boot, on what looks to be a rescue device but is maybe just some kind of Euro pool floatie more streamlined than the traditional mattress. In case there was any doubt that he’s fully in the Eat portion of his Eat, Pray, Love offseason, here he is giggling and having some spaghetti,

Rating: He’ll be sad when it’s time to say goodbye to this trip.

Malcolm Delaney

The Hawks guard has scooted a little farther south for a break in Miami where he’s getting some assistance getting on, or else a chauffeured ride on, this jet-ski. No reason to be out here having fun but not being safe.

Rating: As the SVW rhyme goes—“A ski on land, hold a friend’s hand. A ski on the water, let’s not repeat Sean Kingston’s mistakes.”

Sam Dekker

Double Dekker’s just the latest to be captivated this offseason by the Greek Islands, but this dude’s on ‘em for his honeymoon. One thing’s for sure, I’ve never felt less cool than when I realized Sam Dekker and I have the same style of jumping off things into pristine waters, that is, somehow bunched way the hell up in our bodies and plugging our noses like little loser babies. Congratulations, Sam!

Rating: Enjoy all that water up your nose while Sam and I breathe easily from ours!

Matthew Dellavedova

Here we have my and summer’s natural enemy, Matthew Dellavedova, holding onto a hammerhead shark with his eyes squeezed shut, praying for the photo to get taken so he can put it down. You know what, Delly? Why even pick it up in the first place? How would you like it if someone was hanging onto you by the butt and the back and lofting you high above your home? Come to think of it that must be what dunking feels like, but without the debilitating terror because the ball is not a misunderstood creature. Not that you would know what it feels like to do that.

Rating: I won’t.

Cameron Payne

Wherever Payne is—and he looks as confused about it as I am—he should stay there as long as possible, in that exact same shirt, wearing those exact same steampunk shades, squinting off into the exact same middle distance, because lord knows what’s happening to and for the Bulls this season.

Rating: If thou gaze long into an infinity pool, the infinity pool will also gaze into thee.

Marco Belinelli

I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, but I can’t help picturing Bellinelli fluttering out this big, Turkish beach towel for two in a place called “Fliper & Chiller” on the Balearic Islands as the same welcoming gesture he will make to my eternal guy DeMar DeRozan this season back in San Antonio. Belli I’ve never needed you more.

Rating: Sobbing. But this beach looks nice.

John Wall

Like catching someone mid-sneeze, blowing out birthday candles, or the second they start to hurl going down the last huge hill on a roller coaster, the moment this photo was taken it became Summer Vacation For John Wall.

Rating: Extremely end of July.

NBA Summer Vacation: Emotion of the Oceans published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[oscillate-wilde-ly]

Enough

Listen – listen! It’s not like Henry doesn’t know he has a problem, it’s just that it’s part of the whole gig, the whole folk-rock-singer-slash-drifter thing. You just don’t do that kind of thing without developing a drinking problem; it’s practically a pre-requisite to be at least halfway to drunk before attempting any Bob Dylan song in earnest. Even your basic college-aged indie youth with an acoustic knows that.

Waking up hung over with his head pounding on an unfamiliar couch, mouth as dry as the overflowing ash tray on the floor beside him – it’s just part of the look. Part of the lifestyle that justifies the early graying at his temples and the beaten shadows under his eyes, the way he shakes with sobs in his sleep a couple times a month, and the way he can’t remember what happened last night.

Last night. What happened last night.

           The question echoes through him unanswered but full of pregnant possibility, and Henry knows better than to chase it any longer. Not here, anyway. Here with the Ikea couch and found-artisan rug and the who-rescued-who shelter cat sleeping square on his chest, all of which belong to the very nice couple who – this much Henry remembers – have just been beside themselves with sedated, bohemian excitement to put up local legend Henry “Hank” Darling for the night.

           With a quiet groan he sits upright – or, as upright as the feline weight on his chest will allow. Soft gray light filtering in through the blinds on windows just above the couch tells him it’s just barely morning. It’s the kind of wake-up after the initial pass-out where he’s still a little tipsy, but sober enough to know he wants to be gone when his hosts wake up wanting to hear tales of the gig from the night before.

           The night before.

           It drops heavy like a cannon ball in a kiddie pool and in a second Henry’s up. The cat’s on the floor and so are his feet.

The best thing about being a folk-rock-singer-slash-drifter is that it’s real easy to pack up your stuff and go when everything you own fits in a guitar case and the pockets of your jacket. The best thing about staying with millennial-hipster-youth is they always put a glass of water out for you before going to bed when you pass out on their couch. He drinks it too fast but keeps it down – a trick of the trade that gets him out, out, out the door so that the little black rescue cat barely has time to sprint for the opening before it’s closed again.

Hangover sunglasses? On.

Guitar case? Secured.

Leering next door neighbor? Ignored.

Whenever the walk from the front door to the sidewalk takes longer than five seconds on account of the landscaping, you know you’re in a nice neighborhood. Whenever there’s someone outside before seven AM in matching jogging clothes or anything that buttons, you know you’re in a nice neighborhood. The aesthetic configuration of succulents and perennials dotting porches and hanging from verandas is utterly lost on Henry.

What matters now is the motion. Moving one foot after another, so that the little townhouse filled with rare vinyls and unchallenged monogamy and Swedish furniture is only getting smaller and smaller behind him all the time. It’s enough to get his blood going again so that the pain in his head is joined now by an ache in his back and one on his side, bruises fresh and festering. Little lines of red flecked across the fingers on his right hand, glowing pink cuts only a few hours old.

New.

Gained most likely in the past twelve hours judging by the blooming blue color on the ones he can see. The past twelve hours.

Out here in the newborn daylight, with the sounds of mechanical fits being had by lawn sprinklers and the occasional errant Labrador barking at his footsteps, Henry tries to remember.

…

It was like this: the open mic night part of the gig was open to anyone, but only he­ – Hank Darling­ – would be headlining, listed, and therefore, getting paid. At the best of times it was a “kitschy” hipster bar that had discreetly set up a stage in the back corner for local talent. In reality it was a dive of a place with a lone stool and a microphone older than the yellowing health-inspection paper forgotten on a wall (a wall plastered decoratively with cigarette-scented coasters and questionable stains).

It paid mostly in drink tickets and “exposure”, but that had never stopped Henry before.

And – listen! Henry would never judge anyone for the way they chose to live, or who they chose to fuck, or not fuck, okay? He wasn’t – isn’t – “-phobic” of any kind. That kind of shit could never stick to a kid too sad and scared to give a fuck, and it wasn’t apt to change just because the kid managed to survive long enough to make a career out of his drinking problem.

It was just that he didn’t – he didn’t expect to see him there, in the audience, bobbed black hair just perfectly curled under his ears, with eyelashes just too long to be natural and lips just too red to be naked and – what was he wearing? Henry had only just been a few beers back when he’d spotted the gender-bending boy who’d been babbling in his ear these past couple nights suddenly conjured before him in the audience like a spirit, all glitter and fish-nets and post-grunge-pop-crop-tops that flashed wildly when he talked (as if he ever stopped doing that).

The boy was like a siren who refused to even pretend that he wasn’t luring you to your doom in a shirt that said “SLUT” in big holographic letters and a mouth that said, “Come crash on my rocks, baby.”

His name was Alexander and only Alexander the way Henry’s name was Henry and only Henry. Hank was strictly the name he sang hopeful love songs under, or slow and sad covers of love songs someone else wrote, or long ballads of admiration and awe to nature that he shut up inside him when he shut up the guitar case every night.

Alexander had told him he didn’t go by Alex anymore, not since people assumed too fast it was a girl’s name, not since someone else’s assumptions meant someone else’s fist in his made-up face when they didn’t find the parts that they assumed matched the name under his skinny jeans or mini skirt or hot pants. (He told Henry this with a smile and a wink and a hand on Henry’s shoulder just barely touching).

From backstage (otherwise known as the corner behind the stage equipment) Alexander locked eyes with him long enough to curl that Cheshire cat smirk on his face before going back to making eyes at a stranger, like he was interested in whatever conversation he was having with whoever was buying his drink currently.

Fuck, maybe Alexander was interested in it. Not up to Henry to notice, to look, to care. One leg swung wantonly from the barstool Alexander was propped up on, too short to reach the ground even with platforms on.

He should have stuck out like a glittering thumb, looking like that in a shitty bar like this, even with the collection of riot grrls and nu-goths milling about. Alexander stuck out in the way that you were either looking At Alexander or Not At Alexander and never anything or anyone else. But the confidence Alexander exuded like a neon glow on some offensive sign dared you to want to fight him or fuck him; either option you chose said something about you, not him.

Either way it was your problem.

Either way he’d still be there.

It was only ever a question of how long it’d take Henry before he had to resign himself to approaching the bar to turn in a drink ticket for something to hold in both hands, just like it was only a question of how long after doing that before a newly familiar voice was in his ear, buzzing like a radio or maybe purring like a cat.

“This place is a shit hole.”

The best thing about being a folk-rock-singer-slash-drifter was most fans felt it was uncool to approach you before a gig. But Alexander was not a fan, and even if he was (was he?) nothing he did was uncool, anyway.

Henry leaned his front too hard against the bar for a second so that the sharp corner of the top bit sweetly into his stomach before he turned a lazy expression on Alexander. He replied first with a sip of his beer, then, “So you should feel right at home, then.”

The slightest tug at the corner of Henry’s lips when he spoke betrayed a whole lot more than his teasing intentions – not that he was noticing. Henry rubbed at the tip of his nose, sniffled, and settled on watching some kid with a laptop and a keyboard struggle to find enough plugs for her set-up behind the mic.

“Ha. Ha,” Alexander said the words in favor of actually laughing, but there was a grin on his face and in his too blue eyes that Henry refused to linger on. “Maybe I should have said something like: ‘Come here often?’ Would that have been better for you, Henry?” Alexander said it like the set up for a joke but the punch line never came.

Henry answered with a shrug and drink.

“Mm,” Alexander hummed undeterred by Henry’s silence, his back to the bar and his elbows on top so that his hands dangled off it with red-rubbed knuckles and bitten-down fingernails. “That’s my sister.” He nodded towards the woman on stage, then, after a beat he added: “You didn’t think I was here to see you, did you?”

Henry ignored the question (again).

She was a waifish thing with hair some impossible color of pink and she was wearing enough layers to suggest she had tried to walk out with the whole thrift shop on (if it was a thrift shop for very small drag queens). There was glitter under her eyes (they must share glitter, Henry figured) and when she opened her mouth to sing it sounded like what Henry imagined an especially innocent kitten might sound like if it knew how to work a Mac laptop and a synthesizer.

“I can see the resemblance,” Henry noted, and he plugged his mouth with a beer to keep from saying anything else.

Instantly Alexander’s face was in his as much as their height difference would allow, smug and sparkling, his lips saying: “Oh yeah? Is that because she’s so cute and I’m so cute? You can just say it, Henry. It’s okay. You can. Just. Say it.”

A groan. A grumble. Another beer to stop up his voice. It burned inside him alongside the alcohol, made his free hand ball into a fist now and then, choked him up into communicating with grunts and nods as Alexander carried on the conversation for him – both their parts and then some.

One or two dark-eyed boys stumbled on stage with their poetry journals in tow and left in the wake of scattered applause for bravery; now and then Alexander would put a hand on Henry’s shoulder when he talked, or on his arm. Chipped black nail polish winding around some loose threads of Henry’s jacket, winding and winding and Henry ignoring the way his muscles tense with every touch.  

By the time Henry was meant to soundcheck, he had already moved on to hard liquor. Alexander’s voice was in his ears telling him, “Go get ‘em, Hank,” with that knowing self-satisfied smile that he seemed to always wear as if he always, always, always had something to be smug about.

Like just his existing in front of you was a triumph of rebellion.

It was an expression that had been searing itself into the back of Henry’s mind, which was arguably where he kept the majority of things that stuck with him for too long. A therapist had told him once in a stuffy counseling office in elementary school that trauma makes us compartmentalize differently, makes us wall things off and scale things back so that the focus is just on surviving today – right now – and everything else just gets pushed out of sight as a means to an end. Henry liked to think he was acutely aware of what was on the other side of his own mental walls, and that’s precisely why he kept them up.

His walls were translucent; hazy glass so he could squint and look at the monsters on the other side whenever he needed to, whenever he wanted to, and like a beta fish squaring up at his own reflection it made his colors brighter. By forcing himself to stare down his own monstrous self-destructive origins on a regular basis, Henry could justify his total inability to be anything to people other than an inevitable let-down. It made his music ache deeper.  And it made every true emotion that managed to break through his haze of cigarette smoke and cheap whiskey drinks sear through him like a hot iron out of control.

It wasn’t something he would recommend, but it was one way to live.

With whiskey in one hand and his guitar in the other, Henry sat down at the rickety stool amongst casual whistles of approval and still out, over the little crowd that had gathered, was Alexander’s come-up-and-see-me-sometime smirk leering at him from the bar. Every passing sip made every coming strum of his guitar sound more and more and more like the mewling voice of indiscretion singing:

“Go get ‘em, Hank.”

…

After that, things get a little hazy.

A lot hazy.

The kind of hazy that makes his headache worse when he tries to push through it, and the way the sun keeps getting higher and brighter as Henry puts pavement behind him isn’t helping. There are some things that even hangover sunglasses can’t block out.

By now there are signs of life all around him as he walks; the front lawns have become invariably shorter and the picket fences have begun to morph into chain-link. Garages turn into rusted-out beaters haphazardly driven onto driveways and forgotten for eternity. The faces he passes aren’t glancing away at the last second when he comes close like they do in the nice neighborhoods – they never look at him in the first place.

The cuts on his knuckles sting in his pockets and shifting too much makes his bruises sing hymns of regret but walking with his head down is safe, it’s always safe.

Hands in his pockets, it’s only now that he’s dipped back into reality that he realizes what he’s been fiddling with in there. The little paper he’s been fondling idly, Henry discovers as he pulls it from his the pocket of his jacket, is a small napkin, partially shredded and particularly worn from his idle fingering.

In curling handwriting and black ink that seems too black and thick to be pen but otherwise unidentifiable to Henry, are the words:

5350 S Mryland ave #142

Beneath it, there’s the half-smudge of a too-red lipstick stain: a kiss mark done in haste.

Beneath that, Henry’s hands feel heavy and sluggish. There’s an itch in the back of his brain like something waiting to be overturned, some face about to come into focus – only if he starts looking for it, it might look back. So he crumples the thing, forgets he knows exactly where that address is, forgets that he’s trying to remember anything at all except how to put one foot in front of the other.

It’s the telltale crunching of glass under his feet that sends him back to the night before for the second time, this time against his will; broken glass from broken bottles that stick in his memory with edges jagged enough to cut through the blackout.

…

It was like being caught in an undertow: wave after wave crashing over him in slow, agonizing succession. Or it was like a prizefight with Henry Darling in both corners. The memory of his actual show was gone almost completely aside from picking up on those blue blues occasionally glancing at him from the back of the bar – occasionally! – with lazy disinterest and maybe one finger drawing circles on the bar top.

That image was clear as blue skies, but then – nothing.

Henry’s typical post-gig ritual was like this: find a table near the back and make his drink tickets and pocket change take his liver as far as they could. He kept his sunglasses on, mostly to discourage the average bar patron from making the mistake of thinking he was looking for company – if they happened to do anything to hide his own expression, or where his eyes were, that was purely coincidental.

The level of excitement that this tradition involved tended to vary from town to town, depending widely on the company he was keeping at the time, or lack thereof as the case may be. If anyone visited for very long that night, Henry’s blackout consolidator had efficiently wiped them from the scene.

The only thing that had stuck was, predictably, Alexander.

Alexander not coming over to sit with him the way he had the night before, or the one before that. Alexander not wheedling whatever words he could out of Henry with teasing back-handed compliments and fleeting touches.

(“So are you always this grumpy or is it just because you like me so much?” / “I bet all the girls think the gray in your hair makes you look like a sexy professor or something.” / “Henry. Henry! Say something nice to me and I’ll share my cigarette.”)

Instead it was Alexander and his sister trading cigarettes and mixed drinks. Alexander always just in his line of sight giving lingering looks and touches to some pair of fair-trade sneakers with a trendy haircut and always, always, always with that smile on his had-to-be-painted lips.

It figured, Henry argued to himself from the other side of the bottom of his glass on the other side of the room. It figured that Alexander would eventually lose interest, would eventually move on to someone who didn’t shut up tight like a vice any time things got too comfortable or close. He couldn’t tell you why Alexander had followed him around for a while up until now in the first place, but it didn’t come as any surprise that he’d figured out it wasn’t the best use of his time. The best thing about being a folk-rock-singer-slash-drifter was nothing surprised you about people, anymore.

Didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to be pissed about it, though.

Pissed! Not jealous. Pissed.

Pissed that some wet-eared college drop-out with a sob story of student loans had replaced him as the object of Alexander’s chosen attentions as if the Henry was interchangeable with that kind of mediocrity.

From his table in the back of the bar, Henry considered just how forgettable the kid was, how utterly unimpressive. It took him a good full ten minutes of whiskey-fueled brooding to even recall that the face that Alexander was mooning at had also come up on “stage” at some point during the open mic before Henry’s gig, reciting some hack-job poetry that tried to force you to feel something in the name of art or ego or circumstance.

Comedy acts were better live, because you went with a purpose – with the intent to laugh. Same thing with shitty poetry: it just sounded better with a brick wall behind you and the lights down low. Going with the intent to feel. What a fucking joke.

So: a bottle, a broken bottle, the sound that pulled from the abyss the remains of images that he was moving towards closer and closer in his mind – it was louder than anything, louder even than the sound of performative laughter at unfunny jokes and the longer that Henry sat in the memory of watching and drinking and watching and drinking the louder it got.

There was the distinct feeling of burning anger in his stomach, brewing and bubbling like poison threatening to unleash itself from his lips. It was the sort of drunken anger that settled on him like increased gravity: made it hard to get up or do anything else except watch and drink (and watch and drink).

It was the napkin that finally made Henry snap.

The worst thing about being a folk-rock-singer-slash drifter was how you didn’t get to pick and choose what stuck and what the alcohol washed away. Some things you always lost to the liquor, like when he’d got a beer bottle in his hand or what he’d said when he crossed the room in a tempest two seconds later. All that had stuck was the feeling of fire in his chest, the way the bottle felt smooth and tense in his hand like it was about to pop.

Through the drunken lens of memory Henry saw himself snatching the napkin from Alexander’s fingers as he’d finished writing on it, just as Alexander was sliding it across the top of the bar over to whatever no-name emotional plagiarist he’d been oozing all over.

Henry couldn’t remember reading it at the time, or even trying to; the content didn’t matter to that version of Henry who had been marinating in a potent combination of alcohol, self-loathing, and a new kind of repression he hadn’t before thought possible for himself. Slow-cooked at a cool seventy-eight degrees on a mid-summer night, shaken, stirred, and ready to blow.

“Alexander!“ Henry heard his voice say it like it was someone else talking, but he felt the words rumble up from inside him as he wheeled on Alexander so he knew it was himself talking. He watched as he wedged himself between Alexander and this boy, this Not-Henry, like he was watching a movie.

A biopic.

Starring: Alexander’s blue-blue eyes sparkling like the glitter on his cheeks and six shades too dark from behind the lenses of his sunglasses, staring up at Henry with a fixation to suggest he was watching a car crash, a train wreck, a forest fire. The bar buzzed around them, the dim lights swimming and glowing like fireflies.

There was no one else.

Then that sound – that sound of glass shattering, and it was only neck-deep in his own inebriated flashback that Henry could now place the origin of the little bright cuts on his hand. The beer bottle was broken before he could think twice about it; smashing it on the bar was a knee-jerk reaction to the sounds of protest coming from the boy he’d cut out when he’d inserted himself in the situation like an expletive.

There was no one else because Henry had made sure of it.

Shattering the bottle on the top of the bar took less than a second. “Enough,” Henry uttered the word more like a prayer than a command and then as if in answer the bar went quiet. He couldn’t be sure for how long because now with bits of glass on his knuckles and his mouth dry from all that he’d shut up inside of it, the seconds stretched on with impossible slowness.

It could have been an eternity that he stood there and Henry wouldn’t have noticed, for all Alexander’s expression had caught in that moment rooted somewhere between animal fear and sheer incredulous excitement.

And there it was: that little smirk tugging at the corners of his ruby lips, pulling just up through his cheeks and then finally flooding into his eyes so that he was practically beaming at Henry from where he sat on the barstool, legs still swinging, glitter still flashing and blinking on his cheeks like pinball lights.

Like a slot-machine jackpot – and Henry was going to get his cherry.

There was no denying that Henry was the one who kissed Alexander first, desperate and more than a little frustrated against Alexander’s still-smirking mouth. Henry would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought of kissing that smirk off his face once or twice before, but lying was half of surviving most days. This was more than surviving.

Alexander tasted like sugar-flavored vodka and clove cigarettes. He was warm and pouring all over Henry like water, flowing into him and flooding his senses with soft skin and a softer tongue. At some point Henry must have put his hands in Alexander’s face hair because it was between his fingers in an instant, threaded through them like the glittering siren might slip away through them.

The last thing that was clear to Henry was the feeling of hands in his pockets, and the upcoming rush of sound of a bar responding to some drunken asshole breaking a beer bottle coming to crash over him.

…

Then it goes blank: just the couch, the daylight, the cat.

By now he’s walked enough blocks to feel as at home as a homeless drifter can; the shouts of children and the errant smell of burning cigarettes feel more like home than manicured lawns or minimalist-modern-brownstones.

There’s a moment where Henry has to decide on a street corner: right or left. He can look up, catch the street signs and consider one or the other as though it might make a difference but he knows better. His feet know better.

A simple turn around the corner and he’s there: “5350 S Mryland ave”. He folds and unfolds the napkin in his hand, not looking at it – just holding it.

Number one hundred forty-two is visible from the sidewalk. It’s always been visible, each of the countless times he’s walked past it during each of the countless times he’s drifted through this city. Now, through the haze of a summer mid-morning, it looks different somehow. Henry has never before noticed the little Dollar Store paper lanterns dangling from the overhang, partially shredded from weather and age, but they seem appropriate now. The string of fairy lights wrapped around support beams peeling with paint look even more so.

Whether or not he meant to end up here, and why his feet took him here, are two questions that Henry kills with his fist against the door – knock knock – one for each. Seconds pass where Henry is just some guy with a hangover, waiting on a doorstep of an apartment he’s never really seen before, and then it opens to the petite pink-haired pixie whom Alexander has identified as his sister. She’s either half-dressed or whole-dressed in half-clothes, and her face goes from casual annoyance to screwed-up distaste in record time when their eyes meet.

“What the fuck do you want?” She demands, her voice going up and down on “fuck” and “you” and she’s looking him up and down like he’s made of garbage and oozing something worse.

It’s not the least hospitable greeting Henry’s had – not even the worst he’s had in this city – maybe the worst on this block.

She’s got her hands and arms crossed over her chest and they’re covered in various bracelets and rings and tattoos that are small and black and simple. Henry can see over her shoulder and into the tiny apartment (which is particularly easy, given that she’s even shorter than her brother by Henry’s judgment) to where Alexander has flung himself on a couch that’s ragged and may have once been a nice shade of green. He’s laying there like a ragdoll of Daisy Buchanan or Dorian Gray, cheeks rosy from the oncoming summer heat or something else entirely.

“Just thought I’d drop by,” are the words out of Henry’s mouth, though his eyes are still over the sister’s shoulder.

She observes: “How fucking considerate,” and from inside in a perpetual whine Alexander calls out without lifting his head and with mock fascination,

“Is that Hank Darling? Artemis! Don’t be rude.”

The pastel-pink princess who is apparently Artemis offers him a very un-nymph-like scowl to make it clear she isn’t moving out of his way with anything short of reluctance. Henry understands, as his reflection prompts a similar scowl on his own face most days, and he moves inside careful not to brush past her too close.

The apartment is what nice people would describe as cozy, more accurately an explosion of books, clothes, posters, ash trays, lighters, and throw pillows strewn across so many second-hand surfaces, all of which contributed through color and the apparent possession of a Bedazzler to an overall aesthetic kicking somewhere between Lisa Frank and heroin-chic. If one looked closely, it might be noted that none of the wall adornments have been hung in such a way as to leave any structural marks on the apartment itself. For how littered the place is, it’s small enough that the two of them could pack it into so many boxes and disappear without leaving so much as a fleck of pink hair dye to mark their history there.

Alexander pulls his legs up from where he’s lying on the couch, tucks them under him presumably to make room for Henry who doesn’t need to look to see the pleased smile on Alexander’s face. He sits. Alexander stretches his legs out across Henry’s lap and makes a kissy face at him and the loud sounds of smooching to match.

For her part, Artemis affords them both a healthy scowl before disappearing behind one of two closed doors in the place (the one with strands of star-shaped lights carefully balanced on the top of the doorframe and handing down on either side as opposed to the other one which is similarly decorated only by some repurposed bar signage now used, Henry assumes, to mark the bathroom, as it reads “The Boom-Boom Room”).

The morning-turned-afternoon light makes the place feel warm and for a little while it causes the yellowing pink bong on the coffee table to throw rosy colors across the room as sunshine filters through it. Alexander’s toenails are painted some old shade of lavender and he’s on his back watching Henry, his arms thrown casually over his head to dangle off the side of the couch like someone tossed him here and then just walked away.

“How’s your hand?” Alexander asks with a knowing look, and he has to press his lips together to keep from grinning about it. Henry opens the fist he doesn’t realize he’s been making, and for a moment he examines the tiny cuts on his knuckles born from beer bottle glass.

“Fine.” Henry answers with the faintest hint of a laugh. He takes his sunglasses off, and the little bit of stomach peeking out from under Alexander’s shirt and the sun-bleached green of the couch all get six shades lighter. Six shades brighter.

Suddenly Alexander is moving, upright and shifting closer to him. “I wasn’t sure you’d get my note,” Alexander declares like he’s singing a victory song. He’s on his knees crawling towards Henry, and he reaches across into Henry’s jacket pocket and pulls out the napkin like a prize.

Alexander asks: “How much did you drink last night?”

“Enough.”

Alexander puts his head on Henry’s shoulder, looking away from him, into the sunlight coming in through the blinds and, again, asks: “How much do you remember?”

With a smile just audible in his voice, Henry answers:

“Enough.”