Buy The Silent Hustler
by Sean Meriwether
[Lethe Press, 10.2009]

Originally published in Wild Strawberries [06.2005]

Convergence

“Do you think,” Ryan hastily repeats, lighting a fresh cigarette, wanting suddenly to eradicate the snotty taste of the other boy’s ejaculate, “that tomorrow she’ll get in her car and she’ll know we were in it? Smell smoke, smell us, what we did in here. Do you think any of them realize anything after we put their cars back?”

David shrugs and closes his eyes, feigning sleep. Ryan interprets this as an attempt to shut him up, so he speaks quicker, louder. “I mean, do you think she’ll get in here and think it’s gross? Two guys. Doing it. In her car?” The last word trills up, whiney and girlish, and Ryan instantly regrets his line of questioning. He huffs into abrupt silence and takes a heavy drag off his cigarette; tosses it out the window. He opens the door, flushing the car with shapeless light from overhead; an electronic plinking warning that the keys are still in the ignition. Ryan steps out and closes the door with a muted slam. He walks to the cliff overlooking Kingdom, its sleeping windows staring blankly at the empty streets.

Ryan watches the sky; lightning telegraphing some message he fails to understand. He fantasizes a romantic moment with David, embracing as they stare down at the town they couldn’t escape, but a chill crawls over him when he hears the door open and the plinking warning loop through the charged silence. “Please don’t, please don’t,” he prays to the air.

Finish reading "Convergence" in The Silent Hustler