Point being, make a long story short and whatnot, all that other shit I just mentioned—the Denny’s Grand Slam shit—is how I find myself back here at the apartment complex, standing in some cramped back bedroom at nine o’clock in the P.M. and missing the game while this lady slobbers away on my dick. Both hands clamped around my ass. Nails digging in. I can hear the TV in the other room, already the sixth inning or something like that—Cubbies are down 4–0 now because somebody hit one out—but I am totally missing it. The game. I look around the place, this “guest room” that she’s done up in animal posters and throw pillows and stuff of that nature, and try to trace back just how the fuck I got here, to this very moment. It’s almost like I’m there, you know, there in her place but removed from it, too, some kind of out-of-body thing that you might hear about in the Reader’s Digest. I see her down there in front of me, sitting forward on the edge of the floral comforter and going at it—she didn’t lie, she’s not half bad at this—and I’m staring at all those dark roots growing out of her scalp and I find that I’m thinking these thoughts and, I swear to Christ, catch myself tearing up. Seriously, starting to tear up a little bit in the, like, half-light of this chick’s apartment. I mean, what the fuck? I notice this, this very surprising shit that’s happening to me, and I suddenly wanna push her away, toss her back on the bed, and pull up my Wranglers and run the hell outta there, up the stairs to my living room, and sit on my sofa and watch the game, maybe just be alone for a second. But I don’t. I do not do that. What I do is I keep standing there, legs spread a bit and checking out some torn picture of a bison that she’s push-pinned up over her bamboo headboard. I notice it, this big shaggy fucker glaring over at me, and I can’t take my eyes off it. I can’t. And I guess, basically, that’s all there is. The sound of her going at it down there, the television in the distance. And this buffalo. Looking out at me and me looking at him. Not blinking, just staring straight ahead. Both of us. Quiet.

Whitecap