Rainy Streets and Comforting Embrace

The attack was over in seconds.

Tim peered through his ratty dread, fallen over his eyes like a rat tail. He looked blurry-eyed at the wet LA boulevard. Rain streaked his face as he took in the long, dark road ahead. The blacktop glistened in the traffic signals’ light. The only yellow light shimmered from the rare passing headlights. Few and far between, puke puddles lined the sidewalks. His tears were indecipherable amidst rain drops.

“There you are.” Sebastian’s sneakers screeched as he turned to sit on the bus bench next to him. “Are you okay?” A look of concern overtook his face, eyebrows furrowed.

“Yeah,” Tim said, slouching, wiping his nose while he was taken in gently for a hug. Sebastian’s arms were firm and strong around him—comforting.

Yet, he couldn’t get out of the mindset of asking and needing and wanting. He felt a little guilty for it, but mostly he just felt addicted.

Then, just as he was getting over the overwhelming urge to either ask for a swig or snatch their bottle up from them, a crazy erratic-looking man boarded the bus at the next stop. He was mumbling incoherently to himself and sat diagonally behind Tim. He couldn’t make out much of what he was saying besides that it was psychobabble and seemed to be an argument in the man’s own head. He felt a little intimidated because he’d seen schizophrenic people having delusions and also threaten others in public, and threats in crowded public places are equally if not moreso threatening than empty places where he’s one-on-one with the culprit. Some couple of drunk people behind Tim started to instigate a fight with the man out of pure idiocy.

This young cholo-dressed guy who looked superficial with snake bites in his lip and his hair pomade up like he idolized 50’s greasers and the Latin Hip Hop channel was saying to him, “Get some fucking meds, you psycho.”

Tim felt almost like it was a personal attack on him, under the circumstances. Sebastian knew his discomfort—he knew him so well—so he squeezed his hand to say, ‘I

She said, “Oh my god…” with her hands covering her mouth, smiling.

“Eww!” A loud booming voice came from the back of the bus, as several people laughed loudly and applauded, saying “Oh, fuck!” amusedly. One drunk guy was sick and had created a new waterfall of puke for someone else to clean up and was trying to cover it up with a liquor store shopping bag, partially playing with the toe of his shoe in his own puke. He leaned over and spit into it.

“Oh, that’s gross…” the dumb kid’s girlfriend said.

Tim endured all of this and felt a little sick to his stomach. Soon enough, their stop arrived, and they exited the bus relieved. The crisp, cold, rainy air greeted them with wholesome arms.

They climbed the flight of stairs to their apartment and shut the door behind them with a boom, keys jingling. Tim plopped onto the couch, exhausted, the back of his hand on his forehead, damsel-in-distress style.

“Do you want some orange soda?” Sebastian asked.

“Yes please,” he replied. His throat was dry.

With bubbles popping on his nose, he sipped his glass of soda, propped up on one elbow. Sebastian sat under his legs and relaxed, turning on the TV with the remote. They picked a comedy movie on cable and watched until they fell