On Main, Two am, Wisdom

He’s all wobble.  An intoxicated grin wallows on his face, and smudges of pink lipstick kiss the base of his white shirt over the groin.  He stumbles like he just bare-knuckle boxed a bear.  Victory and swagger in his arms.  Moxie and manly in his puffed out chest.  He’s experience without memory.  Disgrace without shame.

Downtown is emptying.  Folks move as a fog.

A car door slams.  An engine gargles and spits.  A lion with a laryngectomy, it limps off somewhere behind us.

He tells me he’s going to get those girls up ahead to come back with us.  He wants to afterparty.  He asks if my roommate will be in his bed.  Then if we have a spare room.  Then if the couch is comfortable enough.

The sidewalk sticks, stinks of cologne and vomit.  Above us, the club we just left thumps its last song of the night.  Headlights slip around the corner.

He calls himself Cowboy.  Wears a Stetson and skin-tight jeans.  Once he told me how he and his friend drew check-marks on their bedroom walls each time they got laid.

I pictured spearheads and dying tigers.  Flint and pelts.  Cave fires.

He pulls out his cell phone.  Shows me a picture of a smiling blonde standing in a wood-paneled kitchen.  She’s got a hand in her hair, hips jut to one side.  He slides a finger over the phone and like a magic trick, her shirt is gone.  Same smile.  Same pose, topless.

The headlights pass by.  He laughs.  Pats my shoulder and stumbles ahead.

Like he knows something I don’t.