a place to go

fiction by matt kent

The young man glanced at Greg and started to enter the bus station, then stopped and reached for a pack of cigarettes. "Say, you got a match?" he asked. Greg knew; it happened like this in a novel he had read. "I'm sorry," he drawled. "I don't smoke."

"Say! You must be from out of town. Is that a Southern accent?"

Greg admitted that it was.

"I used to know a guy from Tennessee. Are you from Tennessee?" "No. Alabama."

"Oh... this fellow was named Stevens. Do you know any people named Stevens in Alabama?"

"No," Greg answered, wishing that he could think of something more to say, but the questions were too ridiculous to lend themselves to intelligent comment. "This guy this fellow named Stevens-he was a real good friend of mine. We were roommates." He looked at Greg, slightly pursing his lips.

"Were you in college?" Greg asked, and he knew the question was a good one; the young man laughed delightedly and said that he had never been near a college, that the two had shared an apartment.

"When you get in town?"

"Just got off the bus."

"No! Are you looking for a place to go?"

In a moment Greg was walking down the street with the young man, who lived just a few blocks away. Once the invitation was accepted the young man had said little.

Greg thought the neighborhood looked shabby and he was glad that it was yet day; but once in the apartment, he was pleased with it. "You have a nice place," he said.

"Don't see how you can say that," the young man said. He was in the kitchenette, removing ice from the refrigerator. "What do you want to drink?" "Nothing, thank you. I don't drink."

"You don't drink?"

"That's right," Greg said, embarrassed. "A hangover from my puritanical upbringing, I guess."

Greg entered the living room. In a moment the young man came in with two glasses. He sipped from one and set the other on the coffee table. Greg considered asking what it contained, but didn't.

The young man connected a tape recorder to a stereophonic sound speaker and blasted the room with symphonic music.

"What do your neighbors say about this?" Greg shouted.

"Hah!" he laughed loudly and maliciously. "You should read a letter I got from the landlord!"

They sat down on the bed.

Greg looked around the room, trying to find an object for conversation. There was an empty picture frame on the wall. He asked about this. The answer didn't elicit any further questions. He gave up and dropped his head between his hands and listened to the music.

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