Jed Wolf

Imagine a young, hairless Patrick Swayze with calves the size of footballs smoking a cigarette while leaning bewitchingly on the rail of our Airbnb deck.

“What if he has alopecia,” I wondered rising from my lounge chair to make nosey small talk. “Everything okay?” I asked sauntering over. “Perfect,” he said. “She’s in there washing up.” I’d not overheard them having sex and pretended otherwise?

“Don’t flinch or bring up the mysterious package, or the size of his legs or stare at his tattoos,” I thought nonchalantly as I pulled up a patio chair below him not looking up.

“So what’s your story?” I asked playing Perry Mason. I mean I tried catch a glimpse of your girlfriend this morning but by the time I got out to the front porch with my coffee, she’d already left,” I said fiegning a wry glint in my eye.

“We’re early risers, I guess,” he said. “I mean, well, I don’t really know her that well yet. We recently met on line.”

“How’s it going?” I asked looking up, wondering what I meant again, too late to fix. He took a Clint Eastwood style drag of his cigarette and lengthily exhaled towards the wildflowers saying, “Gooooood, awesome place you have here man.”

It’s comforting when men call me man. Like a not-too-firm yet substantial handshake, or a bemused cock of the head, combined with a nonthreatening neanderthal squint, the word “man” between men means respect.

“Whew,” I thought, but before I launched into more questions, I let silent vulnerability frame my next one. “Where the fuck’d you get that car,” I said pointing to his Cadillac.

“Avis,” he laughed. “For an extra two hundred for the week, why not?” he said. “I’m divorcing my wife.”

It turns out, that’s who he’d been talking to when I’d first met him the day before, shy and puffy from tears.

Stay tuned.