Read Online Flesh and Bone by William Alton - Free Book Online Page A

hope they’ll stay with me. I hope I’m more than just meat, more than a fuck buddy. Maybe someday, I’ll fall in love. Maybe not, but it’s a nice dream.

A Literary Tangent
    â€œT HE B EATS ARE insufferable,” Bekah says.
    I don’t know what she’s talking about.
    â€œThey run on and on about sex and jazz and drugs,” she says. “They add nothing to conversation.”
    She’s off on a literary tangent. I listen to her because I love the sound of her voice. But it drives me nuts that she talks literature after sex. There has to be a thousand other things to say, but she always goes back to whatever writer she’s reading right now. They seem more real than me, and they’re not even here.
    â€œTheir work is juvenile,” she says. “And ill-conceived.”
    I don’t know who she’s talking about. I’ve never read the Beats. I don’t know who they are. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m comfortable enough to let her do my reading for me.
    â€œThey led interesting lives,” she says. “But Kerouac and Cassidy let themselves die. Burroughs became a recluse and Ginsberg sold out. What about principles? What about integrity?”
    I close my eyes and rub one finger over her naked thigh. Soon, maybe, she’ll forget about poets and novelists. Soon, maybe, all she’ll think about is me. If I can get her to say my name over and over again I win.

In the Morning
    R ISING SLOWLY OUT of sleep, I open my eyes and I find that these are not my walls. The windows open onto a yard too small to be the yard outside my bedroom window at home. I turn and there’s Ed. Naked. Sleeping on her side, one breast hanging out on the edge of the blanket.
    I feel like shit. My head is packed with steel wool and glass. My eyes burn and I cannot blink. My mouth is a pit of soured cotton.
    Rising slowly, I dress in the dim light. I have to get home. I have to let Mom know what happened. No details, but enough facts to hopefully get her off my back.
    Out in the hallway leading to the living room, I run into Ed’s father. We stop and stare at each other. There’s no telling what’s going to happen next. He just stands there and stares at me. I finally duck my head.
    â€œI’ll tell her you had to go,” he says and presses past.
    This is strange. I don’t know what to do. I call my mother.
    â€œI’m fine,” I say. “There was a girl.”
    â€œI was worried.”
    â€œI’m fine.”
    â€œAm I going to meet this girl?” she asks.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWe’ll talk about it later.”
    â€œCan you come get me?”
    â€œWhat about your girlfriend?”
    â€œShe’s sleeping.”
    â€œThat’s no way to end a date,” she says.
    â€œI’ll call her later.”
    â€œDamn right.”
    Mom has strong feelings about these things. She has definite ideas about etiquette.
    I go to the yard to wait for my ride. I stand behind a tree so Ed thinks I’m gone already, so her father won’t see me abandoning his daughter. Some precautions are always necessary. Some days start with the knowledge that one bad decision can ruin everything.

Hiding from Authority
    H ORSES SHUFFLE THEIR feet in their stalls. The barn smells of shit and dust and hay. Leather saddles and bridles hang from large, steel hooks. Bekah lies naked in the loft. She and I are hiding from her dad who’s been looking for her for a while now. Bekah doesn’t want him to catch me here. Her dad doesn’t like me, not since he found out that Bekah and I have been fucking. He has a tendency toward violence. I don’t know if I could take him or not. Probably not. He’s a big man with big hands and big arms. He’s had years of practice fighting. I’ve never been in a real fight. I’ve always been able to talk my way out of them. He’s not the kind of guy who’d