William’s presence was comforting, warm, and reassuring. His words made me feel like somebody was listening to me. Not only listening, but caring. Before I knew it I had drifted into a state of unconscious rest.

In what seemed like only seconds later, the van stopped. Thank God, I was home. I couldn’t wait to get inside my warm cozy bed. Slowly opening my eyes, I realized I wasn’t at home. I was around the corner from my home in front of the twenty-four-hour video store.

“Where are we?” I looked at my watch, acting as if I had just awakened from a crust-in-your-eyes, slobber-on-the-corners-of-your-mouth, pouring-

down-rain-the-day-after-Sears-installed-anew-water-

heater kind of sleep. Surely if William believed I was that sleepy he would have mercy on me and not make me follow through with what he knew were insincere movie-watching intentions.

“We’re in front of the twenty-four-hour video store,” he answered. “We’re renting a movie. Remember?”

Using my groggy voice, and with squinted eyes, I responded, “This late?”

“Montana…”

“Yeah. William, is that you still talking?”

“Yeah, it’s still me, you’re not hallucinating. And don’t even try the ‘I’m sleepy’ voice. And stop squinting. You can see me. You forget, I know you. You got me out of my bed at almost midnight. Either you’re going to be watching the movie or the movie is going to be watching you. Either way, something is getting watched tonight.” We stared each other down. Waiting to see who would blink first. Unfortunately it was me.

“Ha! You blinked!”

We hopped out of the van, ventured into the video store, and argued over which movie to watch, finally deciding on Like Water for Chocolate . “But it’s got subtitles…”

“And? Do you have something against subtitles?”

“No. I would just prefer to hear what the actors are saying instead of having to read it.”

“You’ll be able to hear it. You just won’t understand it.” I had forgotten William was a smart mouth. I hated it, because I was the same way.

We hopped back in the van and off we went, passing my apartment—bye-bye apartment. Bye-bye nice warm apartment with my nice warm bed and piping hot water destined to flow into my oval-shaped porcelain tub. Bye-bye Muggly.

Soon we arrived at his house. I loved William’s house. It was the house he grew up in and where I’d spent most of my time growing up as well. It was a cozy, detached, two-story red brick house built in the early forties, with the biggest fireplace I had ever seen. As kids we would always watch movies in the family room in front of the fireplace, waiting for his parents to go to sleep so we could play Doctor, which later turned into Hide and Go Get It, which later turned into just plain ole It’s Right Here, Now Take It. We entered the house.