Wild Ride -- Chapter 4

 I've never had such fun in a bush next to a church in the pouring rain with two strangers than I had that day.



Aidan snored, I snored, we both snored -- that's how we ended up together. At the shelter they group snorers together, like the brass section in the Miami Sound Machine.

For an entire week, we got to sleeping next to each other. I was in bed seven, he was in bed eight -- every time the staff announced our beds, I rejoiced. This unbelievable man was to my left -- unimaginable joy.

I had arrived to the shelter with my favorite book, and I leaned over him, in front of eighty men, and read it to him -- it was Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat. I read it to him and he let me read it to him with a hand grabbing his upper arm, hidden from everyone in sight.

For that week I would be standing in line -- a leather bag would be thrust next to mine. Aidan would ask me to watch it, to guard his spot in line, a spot that no one at the shelter would be fool enough to say didn't belong to him. When we showered together, in separate stalls of course, it was mentioned that we were 'saving water.' Slowly everyone came to know what was happening and they became determined, as determined as I was to make us together, they worked to keep us apart.

It was also during this time that Aidan disclosed that we needed more money and that Canyon had a way that could provide it, so long as we became a team. We all had something to bring to the table, Canyon had his brain and intuition, Aidan was the muscle to provide protection if we were caught, and I was the guy who would push the cart -- affectionately know as the Ox.



The following week came with Aidan, Canyon, and I standing in line, having gotten there intoxicated. When we did our intake, Aidan went in front of me and I heard loud voices in the hallway. Aidan stormed past me saying he had been thrown out. During the search, the staff member had crabbed too close to his crotch and Aidan's arms went up in defense, enough to scare the staff member out of his mind. Staff members have the final say and Aidan was barred for life from the shelter.

I watched him from a window and worried for me and for him. Where would he sleep? Was I protected in a shelter where everyone had been threatened by our alliance? I had known the arrangement was too good to last but was dismayed that it could end so soon. Canyon came to my side, we rolled our cigarettes for the next day, and he swore that he would find a solution. We would all be together soon and it wouldn't be in the shelter.

Aiden was a popular guy -- there was a white Cadillac parked by the street in front of the shelter and that's where he'd stay for now.

One night soon I would remove my bootlace and try to strangle him in his sleep because he asked me to and when I failed it would be the beginning of the end of us.

________________________________________________________

Brian is a bohemian writer with a fab-ola warped sense of humor and sarcasm, (provided at no additional charge). He married a great guy and moved out of the States to New South Wales, Australia.