He expected his fiancé to be waiting for him. He hoped to find her in bed awake but he knew it was more likely she’d be asleep. His plan was to kiss her hello if she were awake, go in to take a shower then meet with in her in bed. If she were asleep, he planned to go straight into the shower and then snuggle up against her in the bed.
Of course we make plans and God laughs.
When he turned the key in the lock and opened the door, he found the two cats down in the hall waiting for him. They were down there waiting for him because his fiancé was not home.
Surprise!
He found a note in the kitchen. It was hastily written and not at all explicit. It told him, quite simply, that Tim was in crisis and she had gone over to take care of him.
Bill fed the cats. They had hard cat food down on the floor in the one bowl that they shared. He opened a can of soft food, split it onto two plates the way they customarily did. Both cats ate the food eagerly even though he knew they weren’t hungry.
Then he took a shower. On some level he knew he could go over to Tim’s and be with them. Someone else might have done that, perhaps another dancer, perhaps someone who was more friendly with Tim. Bill was friendly with him, but not like that.
He drank a beer while he was in the shower and took his time lounging under the spray of hot water. Every night he smelled from kitchen funk. Every night, in order to make it disappear, he had to not only wash but wash his hair as well. This he did.
Then he went to sleep.
At 5:15 he was back on the road and heading off into Whitehall. This early in the morning the roads were empty and he could make it there in optimal time. He did not speed because he did not want to get stopped. In his short life thus far, he felt he’d already seen enough cops for a lifetime.
So he blasted the radio, which for those days in that car was a pretty decent radio, and he felt happy because he could still vividly remember when he had no car, had no money, couldn’t find a job and had no prospects because of his police record. He could still remember when he wasn’t sure he would even be able to graduate from the University since he was facing expulsion. Delaying the court case was part of the plea-deal offer, just another one of those things, in the long run, that caused him to plead guilty to something he positively did not do.
He would have smoked a joint as he drove, but again, he did not want to be vulnerable to being stopped. So he drove, listened to the music and planned when, if the business were really slow, he would pop the acid tab he had in his pocket.
Then he realized he felt really horny. He had planned to get it on with his fiancé. He realized the sensual feelings lingered with him now.
He thought as he drove. He knew he could have called his fiancé at Tim’s house when he’d gotten home last night. He had chosen not to thinking maybe, hoping really, they were asleep over there. He could have called her this morning too, but when he was up and about and getting ready to get out of the house it was too early to make a call since he didn’t want to wake them up.
The thought that she might be cheating on him never crossed his mind. It probably should have given his actions.
