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Back At Dawn Save as PDF
Chapters (39)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
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  39. Copyright

We stopped at a grocery store and Carolyn insisted on buying the items for dinner. I was happy to let her. When we made it back to the apartment I uncorked the bottle and poured the wine into plastic cups while cursing myself for not having wine glasses. I sniffed at the body of the wine, inhaling it deeply, and then I tapped Carolyn’s cup with mine and we each drank. The flavor was full-bodied and bold, just as I remembered, carrying hints of fig on its backside.

“Like falling in love,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “It tastes like wine.”

“You bet it does. Real wine.”

I made dinner and we sat cross-legged on the hardwood floor with our wine and plates. By the time we finished eating, the bottle was empty and we were both slaphappy, the night before us stretched out with illimitable possibilities. We kept smiling coyly at one another, both knowing what was to come yet relishing the patience of it all. Eventually we began making out on the floor. I lifted Carolyn into bed and it was then that we made love for the first time, slowly, gently, the small studio folding around us. Shy with one another in our tenderness. There was never an interruption with the always awkward question of protection. She had simply taken hold of me and kindly showed me the way. I didn’t last long and I didn’t pull out, and once finished, we fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms. I woke near midnight to her soft kisses on the nape of my neck and we made love again. Afterward I lay on my back for the longest time with my eyes closed, and in the dark room a faint smile somehow found its way to my lips.

ten

1

MUCH OF MY CHILDHOOD was set in the smoky, dimly lit interior of the White Elephant Saloon, a low-slung place usually half filled with tired men content to be in the company of others. There was a jukebox in the back, a pool table up front, a dust-covered television in the corner that nobody ever watched except when the Browns played on Sundays. Behind the bar a long mirror was wallpapered with dollar bills that had been signed by the patrons, sometimes just their names and dates, but the more creative drew lewd pictures of women’s tits or wrote witty jokes. The bus dropped me there every day after school, and until my father arrived at five I busied myself with schoolwork or coloring books or pestered the men until they bribed me with quarters to play pinball.