Willie & Terry

Willie is tall and gaunt and likes to be alone. He is one of those guys who looks effortlessly good in thin ties and slim black pants. He wears pointed shoes and has a generally antiseptic look. Terry is tall and double chinned and bearded with that perpetual smile of satisfaction escaping from the corners of his mouth. He smokes pot, dines and wines all the time. Women don't fancy him and don't tell him their secrets, but they get high, dine and wine with him all the time. The Women secretly desire Willie, but don't trust him enough to talk to him. They speak to him, but they don't talk to him.

Willie and Terry are roommates - the yin and yang (or is it yang and yin?) of a supposedly creative space - empty at times ~ devoid of human touch, and whistling in the howling desert wind at the best of times. Maybe it is a movie studio. I am not sure. They don't pay rent. Willie stands outside in his cheap but expensive looking jacket - cold in the winter sun, working Main street. The owner sends him out sans breakfast (breakfast is a luxury, believes Terry, but that is the stuff of a different para) to lure in the Women from the cold. Terry sleep. I don't really know what else he does. Sometimes, after three or four joints, he speaks of the Great Post Modern Novel that he has written in his head - so "post modern in its antiquity that it would shame Homer", he claims as he exhales into the face of a petite young member of the Women.

Breakfast is a luxury. Two meals can sustain most humans, especially ones that lie in "bed" all day and write post modern novels in their heads. Beds are a luxury too. Terry once tried to explain to me the necessity for the absence of a bed in a space without vaulted ceilings if one had to write post modern novels in one's head all day. Willie doesn't understand this lazy line of reasoning. He just goes out there and drags Them in. He is a Magician of sorts - his hands never leave the pockets of the cheap expensive looking jacket. His lips are sealed shut. His beady eyes and arched eyebrows do all the talking and the Women stroll voluntarily in and then our Novelist rises from his ash colored covers. The Women get hungry listening to Terry and they order food. Terry would thank God for deliverable food if he wasn't an atheist. And when the Women get tired (listening to the post modern story), they go and sit next to the Owner. And they talk to him. Tell them their life stories - of abusive men and inflation.