A PLACE TO STAY
WE SAT THERE IN THE BOOTH and chowed down on our food, too busy to talk. After we took the edge off our hunger, he took a sip from his coffee and said, "Where are you staying? At a hotel?"
"Yeah. It's already paid for, might as well use it. It'll give me a chance to figure out what I'm gonna do when I get back to Memphis."
We were silent again, eating our food.
Then I said, "You think they were planning to rip me off?"
"Yeah, it looks that way," he said. "But with those two, who knows? They might have thought they could fuck you over in more ways than one."
"Jeez! I guess it's a good thing you were there."
"You're damn right it was! God, I hate it when people take advantage of somebody like you. The bastards."
"Somebody like me? What do you mean?"
"Aw, man, you know."
"No, really, what do you mean, someone like me?"
"You know," he said.
"No, tell me."
"Innocent."
"Innocent? Me?"
"Yeah, you. And naive. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Hell, dude, all you need is someone to look out for you. Teach you something once in a while. Look, you don't know it, I can tell you don't know it, but you're special, okay? You are. Guys like you don't know how special you are."
"Uhh . . . I'm special 'cause I'm stupid?"
"You're not stupid. You're smart. You just haven't learned all there is to know about how things work, that's all. There's no shame in that. And you're humble, too. You're handsome as hell, dude, and I'll bet you don't even know it, do you?"
"Oh, jeez. I'm not handsome."
"Yeah you are. Good-looking, and kindhearted, too. Hell, you must have figured out by now that I like you. Haven't you? Fuck, no way was I gonna let those guys take advantage of you."
"How'd you know they even wanted to?"
"Oh, uh, well, you know. It was kind of obvious."
"Not to me, it wasn't. How'd you know?"
"Dude, I don't want to hurt your feelings."
"Just tell me, okay? How am I gonna learn anything, if nobody tells me the truth?"
<FIRST PAGE JOSH'S PHOTO ALBUM>
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