Booty Tang

7:59.

Zach stared at the clock on the wall above his desk. His small apartment was half-lit. Said was was a large one, too big for his small apartment. He had bought it at a flea market for fifteen bucks. It was pushed up against the wall of his living room, almost blocking the short hallway which led into the bedroom and bathroom.

8:01.

Sitting in his well-worn office-surplus chair, he stared at the pile of marking, 12th grade remedial physics labs that he had to be done for the next day. He had done nineteen; only six more to go. He was about to reach for another one, when he looked up at the clock again. His knee bounced up and down in nervous anticipation.

8:03.

Colin. Always late.

He sighed and dropped his red-pen into the mug on the corner of the desk which held an assortment of things, mostly useless odds and ends.

Getting up, he padded barefoot across the cool floor, into his small, somewhat messy kitchen. He opened the fridge. In typical bachelor fashion, it held next to nothing. He crouched, pawing through the shelves of old take-out containers and condiments, looking for something to drink. Nothing.

He stood and thought, letting the fridge door close on it’s own accord.

He finally opened a cupboard, and nabbed a can of coffee and a filter.

His coffeemaker was an old, decrepit beast. It worked sometimes, but often would just spew boiling water in all directions, searing anyone who came within a three foot radius of it. He looked at it with apprehension, and set the coffee and the fr onr on the counter.

As he removed the old filter (from God knows how long before), the phone rang, and he jumped. He caught his elbow on the edge of a cupboard, and the old filter, full of damp grinds, smeared down the front of his white t-shirt, before falling to the ground with a comical ‘plop’.

He shut his eyes and took a deep breath as obscenities avalanched in his head.

“Fuck” he said matter-of-factly. The phone rang again, gratingly, right beside him.

He reached blindly for the receiver with one hand, staring down at the stain on his shirt.

He pressed his hand to his temple as he pulled the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mr. Zach Fisher?. This is Amy calling. I represent ‘Calls To Go’, a new phone service. Can I take a minute of your time?”

“Uhhh…”, the passive-aggressive wuss in him could not say no.

The doorbell rang. Hallelujah.

He smiled and slammed the receiver back into his cradle, feeling a rush of exhilaration from having done something completely rude but completely right at the same time.

He grabbed the coffee filter off the floor, scooping up as much of the grounds as he could. He dumped the whole mess into the garbage under the sink, and contemplated his shirt. He shrugged, and tugged it up over his head, dumping it into the garbage as well.

He headed for the door. He turned the lock and opened it, revealing Colin with a goofy grin plastered across his face.

Colin looked at him for a second, and wiggled his eyebrows at Zach’s (curious lack of) attire. He was holding something behind his back in his left hand.

Zach blushed. They stood in the doorway.

Suddenly, with the speed of a cougar, Colin caught him in an awkward, one-armed hug around his bare waist, and leaned in to kiss him on his stubbly, flushed face. Zach pulled in a surprised rush of air.

As Colin pulled away, Zach saw his neighbor, Mrs. Connelly, walking up the hall towards . In. In her late sixties, and very proper, she was staring at the pair wide-eyed. He was acutely aware that Colin still had his arm resting on bare waist. He bent his arm backward painfully to pinch his friend’s hand. It didn’t work.

“Hello, Mrs. Connelly.” He raised his hand in an awkward wave, face turning ever more crimson.

“Hello, boys.” She stared discreetly at the floor as she skittered past. They watched her until she was out of sight.

“Nice lady.” Colin smiled at him.

An inarticulate growl came from Zach as he stuffed Colin into the apartment with a shove, shutting the door behind them.

Colin bent to take off his shoes, still hiding something behind his back. Zach glared down at him.

“Don’t get all huffy.” Colin straightened up. “Look, I brought a present for you.”

He pulled a blue and white package from behind his back.

“Oreos?”. Zach looked at him with a quizzical expression as he took the box.

“Oreos.” Colin agreed. No explanation. Just like Colin.

“Um, thanks, man”. He shrugged. What the hell, free cookies. “I was going to make us some coffee, but the phone rang. I’m going to get a shirt, and I’ll make it.”

“I can make it.” Colin moved towards the kitchen.

“Uh, the coffee maker’s kinda tricky, maybe I should…”

“Zach, I’ve been here a million times, I know how to work that beast. I’ll put these in the kitchen.” He took the Oreos.

“Yeah.” He stared after Colin for a moment, and then padded towards his room to get his shirt.

When he returned, shirt on, Colin was standing in the middle of the living room, surveying it’s contents.

“So, what are we doing tonight?” Colin looked at him somberly, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Well, I have some marking to do.” Zach gestured towards his desk.

“Let’s get the party started”. Colin jiggled his hips in a strange, graceless, finger-pointing type dance. Sarcasm exuded from his every pore.

“Man, no. We talked about the dancing before. Stop, or I’ll have to call the police.”

“Yeah”. Colin hung his head in mshamshame.

“Grab a chair from the kitchen”. Zach said as he slumped into his own seat, grabbing one of the remaining labs and a pen.

He crouched over it, and began circling spelling mistakes. They started at the top of the page, with the name of the course. Apparently this kid was attending a mysterious class called ‘phisics’. Zach shut his eyes, sighed and shook his head. He sensed Colin sitting down beside him. He refused to look up, but could feel Colin’s gaze on him. It distracted him.

Finally, he glanced up, finding Colin staring at him with a half-grin.

“What?”

“Nothing”. Colin still watched him, steadily.

Finally, Zach broke the silence.

“You wanna help? It’ll go faster.”

“I’m not sure I’m qualified for marking science stuff.”

“Sure you are! Take this” Zach grabbed another pen and stuffed it into Colin’s hand “The number answers are here” he grabbed his marking sheet and set it in front of his friend. “For the written sections, read what they wrote, and if it makes any sense at all, give it a checkmark.”

“OK.” Colin did not sound convinced, but he took a lab anyway, For a few minutes, the only sound was the scratch of pens.

“Uh, Zach? What’s this ‘sources of error’ section supposed to have in it?”

“For the experiment, there’s always things that can make the data be off. Human error and stuff. That’s all.”

“Um, is this right?” Colin slid the paper in front of Zach, pointing out the questionable section.

“My lab partner is a dildo.” Zach read it off out loud. He stared at it for a moment in disbelief and snorted through his nose. He looked up at Colin.

Their faces were a reflection of one another, both sets of eyebrows raised, both sets of lips pressed together in a vain attempt to suppress peals of laughter.

They erupted at the same moment, and guffawed uncontrollably for an eternity. Slowly it petered off into occasional chuckles.

“Oh, woot,” Zach sighed out, rubbing tears from his eyes. This set Colin off again.

“Woot? What the hell is ‘woot’?” He choked out, between peals, tears streaming down his face.

“I don’t know, I picked it up from my kids, I guess.” Za nos nostrils flared as he tried to keep a hold on his composure. It didn’t work, and he pressed his hands to his cheeks and began to laugh again.

Taking deep, shaky breaths, they managed to calm down somewhat after a few more minutes.

“So, about the paper?” Colin said finally, wiping tears off his reddened cheeks.

“Just make up some crap. They can’t knoat wat we thought it was funny. That’d kill us, it would be anarchy. Put something like ‘choose more appropriate language’ ”.

Colin obediently scrawled it down.

The rest of the marking went without disturbance, the only sound being the scratching of hateful red pens. The pile dwindled and Zach finished the last one in a hurry.

Colin stretched exaggeratedly, standing up as he did.

“Well, what now?” he asked, “not that anything could top that.”

“Ummm, how about some” Za” Zach grabbed the pile of marked labs and shoved them into his worn, soft-leather briefcase, “I’ll grab the coffee and you can find us something to watch”.

Colin shuffled over to the couch and plunked himself down with the grace of a drunken elephant. He stuck his feet on the coffee table and leaned down to grab the remote from between them.

Zach heard the TV come on as he stepped into the kitchen. With a glance he saw that the coffeemaker had been docile enough to make a p a pot without imploding. He reached up into the cupboard for two mugs and poured the coffee into them, adding sugar to Colin’s and nothing to his.

He grabbed the Oreos from the countertop where Colin had deposited them, crammed them into a precarious grip between his chin and chest, and carried the two mugs into the living room.

He set the mugs on the table close to Colin’s feet and dropped the cookies into his friends lap as he plunked down beside him. WillWill you do the honours?” Zach gestured towards the box.

“Most certainly, my lord.”

“Haha, very funny.” Zach glanced at the TV. A commercial for Pepsi with some trashy looking singer, he couldn’t remember her name, but she looked all of nineteen despite her skanky clothes and drag-queen-esque makeup. “What are we watching?”

“Basketball, Heat and Mavericks.” He offered Zach a cookie, and grabbed three for himself.

“Cool”.

They sat in relative quiet, which was broken only by cookie-munching, coffee-sipping, and various testosterone-oozing grunts and growls about the game. Half and hour passed with no intelligible language between the two as they became engrossed in the play.

“Dude,” Colin broke the silence, “there’s only one left.”

Zach looked down at the mostly-empty package of cookies.

“Shit, I can’t believe we ate the whole box! You can have the last one, I guess.”

“No man, we should have a twistoff!” Colin looked at him with the feigned enthusiasm of a puppy.

Zach scrunched his face up.

“A what?”

“A twistoff. Don’t you remember anything from grade-school?”

“Apparently not.”

“You know, each person grabs one side of the Oreo and twists it, and whoever gets more icing gets a wish.” Colin offered the last cookie to Zach, sideways.

“Whatever.” Zach shrugged and grabbed his side of the cookie. They twisted, and Colin emerged, with all the icing, victorious.

“Damn. So what do you win?” Zach asked him.

“I haven’t decided yet.” Colin said e poe popped the cookie into his mouth.

Zach shrugged and turned back to the TV, where the post-game chatter was just beginning. He stuffed his icingless half into his mouth.

He was engrossed in a mind-numbingly boring interview with a random player when he felt Colin’s arm slip around his shoulder.

Zach tensed and looked over at his friend, who had managed to inch closer to him while he had been preoccupied with other things.

Colin stared back at him with an even gaze.

“I’ve decided.” He smiled and leaned in to kiss Zach. It was an icing-sweet kiss, assertive but not overbearing.
After his initial reaction, Zach loosened up and let Colin kiss him. After a moment, he tentatively joined in. A minute passed, and Colin pulled away. He stared at Zach with a half smile, his eyebrows drawn up into a quizzical arch.

“What?” Zach said, looking back at him.

“So….?”

“So…” Zach blushed and broke the gaze, as a smile broke out across his face.

“Mm-hm, that’s what I thought.” Colin’s arm stayed around Zach’s shoulders as he settled back into the couch, watching the screen.

Zach sat awkwardly and stiff for a moment, but minute by minute he relaxed until he was nestled comfortably against Colin, watching mindless drivel on the screen. Despite the coffee, he began to get sleepy, long nights past finally catching up with him.

Around ten o clock he nodded off, head lolled against Colin’s chest.

*****************************************
He awoke to Colin poking him in the ribs.

“Man, I have to split.”

“What time is it?” Zach said groggily, blinking to clear his bleary eyes.

“Around midnight. I have marking of my own to do.” Colin was standing over him.

“”Oh. ” Zach got up and rocked unsteadily on his feet. He took one step and hit his knee on the corner of the coffee table, almost falling on his face. Colin grabbed his arm.

They walked to the door, Colin’s hand on Zach’s arm to prevent him from tripping in his half-awake state.

Colin opened the door and then turned back to Zach with a smile on his face.

“You OK to make it to bed without keeling over?”

“Yeah. Thanks for the concern.”

“’K. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” eacheached up to ruffle Zach’s hair. “We should do this again sometime”.

Zach smiled as he shut the door and turned the lock.

THE END