07-28-03 - 8:00 a.m.
the 'boy cooks, filling my house with aroma he learned from a life i can only try to imagine. an early riser, he brings coffee to me as i ready for work, then waits for my grin of approval, because real cowboys know the secret behind real coffee. he sits beside me on the couch at night, enduring back to back episodes of queer eye for the straight guy and the osbournes and the insistent affections of my cat. he's a big guy, so when he holds me in bed at night, i really feel held. i lay there thinking to myself; this is scary, honest, and real. this is what i ached for, and now i have it, and i marvel at my fortune, i know enough to savor it. i was happy to leave for work this morning, because tonight he'll be waiting for me on the porch with a hand-rolled cigarette and those irrestible deer eyes. he doesn't know it, but this tender, tentative man is completing me. mending me.
reality check: i'm walking the hotel grounds, unlocking the pool, emptying trashcans, trying, as i always do each morning, to skirt the small patches of sidewalk that mark my time with patrick. our initials in cement, a tradition he began with each completed phase of the hotel. catfish, i think to myself. my 'boy is making catfish for dinner. and i look up, and blocking my way to the trash dumpster is patrick's white truck. he's just sitting there, watching me, and my knees nearly give out and my heart pounds and i can't breathe. he rolls down his window.
there's a void in my life, he says, that only you can fill.
catfish. my 'boy is making catfish for dinner.