New York Narrative

Captain Morgan must have come to town. Tom was walking down the street, a trail of water dripping from his overcoat. We were out on his 21st birthday and he couldn’t get enough rum. I never even knew he drank rum and we’d been sleeping together for two months now. He was so plastered he couldn’t walk straight and he had an umbrella cupped in his hand like a tall forty or something. It’d been raining earlier, which is why he’s soaked and I’m walking behind him carrying my own umbrella. We’re alone on Lafayette Street. We just came from a Stomp like production, where Tom was banging his head, shot glasses, and me all night long. Yes, we did it in the bathroom. It was his birthday. It doesn’t make me a slut.
So in the rain, he starts singing Nirvana. This is a little out of sorts, but not too uncharacteristic of him. He’s not an alternative mainstream music kind of guy, but who doesn’t love the unplugged version of Come as You Are. He once came to my house warm and fuzzy from a box of wine he drank and sang me a song he had written that night. It was something about how hot he was in the sun and how hot he thought I was under it. I don’t know. It was ridiculous. Tom thought I loved it so much he started bellowing it throughout the streets, for everyone to hear. It’s not that he’s tone deaf, but it was definitely a 21st birthday song to hear. I will never forget that stumbling trip home, although I don’t think Tom will ever remember it.