Poet and Writer

Ernest Hemingway – "there's nothing to writing, you just set in front of a typewriter and bleed."

The sound of a drinking glass breaking and the sharp sound of uninhibited laughter caused the bovine to rise his eyes up from their previous doings. From across the dark living area he could see a group of jubilant partiers making marry by a large pained glass window half covered by old dusty blue curtains. At the moment the poet was staying at an old acquaintances house in East Valley Nevada while him and his writer friend gypsiy there way around America. The place was in a rundown suburban neighborhood where rent was cheap get togethers were loud and the most determined living thing around was the weeds growing up through the cracks in the pavement.

It was well past midnight and not a single person had left the home instead more people added themselves to the mass that was already there, bottles of liquor and ashtrays sat where ever there was an even leveled place for them. People laughed, talked, and danced to the only truly nice thing in the house and expensive new record player that was busy piping out Bill Haley and His Comets. Next to the vinyl everything else looked like it was worth chicken scratch and was better off as tender for a bonfire.

Bringing his empty whiskey glass from his lips to rest on the dirty cigarette burned arm chair he was seated on the buffalo went back to eyeing his traveling companion. Sitting opposite the bison on the far end of a rotting looking couch was a young fully asleep lion that want by the name Chad Lowell. . A writer by trade the difference between the two was that the buffalo was a poet and the jungle cat was a novelist. The beat writer were on his feet a pair of dirty brown boots and a pair of workman's jeans on his lags, the lion had on his favorite shirt that he'd washed and rewashed a white long sleeved tunic like garment that had an opening in the front that bared his collarbone and a little bit of his chest.

He was handsome and young but at the moment he looked as haggard as hell lying on the decaying furnishing with a throw cushion that was stained and had holes in the fabric under his cheek. The poet supposed that a belly full of booze and a head full of clouds can make even the most appalling spot look comfortable. Abraham on the other hand dressed in his opinion manlier. A pair of brown leather cowboy boots covered his feet with a pair of much better kept blue jeans that helped show his tram hips and a red and white flannel shirt covered his broad shoulders and much thicker arms with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and open at the caller with the tales tucked in to his pants.

Grabbing the nearest bottle of liquor he poured himself some more liquid fun till it nearly reached the brim of the glass before setting the bottle by his chair and taking a sip. The lion's whiskers twitched in his sleep and the buffalo let a scowl come across his face at the sight. Abraham looked down into his drink. The novelist and the poet had met less than a year ago and had been traveling together ever since. They were both from the same generation with only a few years apart in age but to Abraham they were as different as water and oil.

While Chad was sensitive with a sometime bright outlook on things, Abraham Greenberg had a cynical philosophy to the world and an almost smug demeanor. The bison had had a difficult start in the world. While his father had been a poet and a teacher and had taught him the art his mother on the other hand had mental illness and paranoia. His harden wisdom and razor sharp edge were the rewards of long journeys of the mind and soul. Chad on the other hand had lived a softer life and although the lion's sheltered background wasn't what bothered the buffalo. It was the fact that he narrated his stories from the imagination not from actual experiences of enlightenment.

The cat lacked passion for the art and only saw it as a way to make a living while Abraham took it as a way to inspire the world and ringed out truths. Abraham had always been of the opinion that writing was an act of the soul. Words written from the reflection of personal experiences were meant to be honored, so to hear Chad talk so casually about his writing had the bison thinking that the cat was a little whorish. He huffed deeply letting a little steam come out of his nostrils. He didn't hate Chad, no quite the contrary. The bovine admired the young author. He had talent for a writer and discipline to get his work done as well as an easy person to be around.

He looked back at the lion. While Chad lacked passion Abraham had plenty and over the past few months he had developed some for the lion. Only a few people mainly close friends and ex-lovers knew that the poet was bisexual.

The two had a bizarre friendship. One minute they were cruising down the highway having a good time and the next Abraham was putting Chad down and shaking his already low self confidence. The buffalo was a jerk and he knew it but he didn't fill a need to change his persona, not even for Chad. He enjoyed taking potshots at the lion, he loved seeing how rattled he could get the young man to the point that his shoulders would shake and he be on the verge of tears. But there were moments where he truly felt tenderness for the cat and he thought to show him a little affection.

Mutual necessity is what brought the two literary stars together. Simply Abraham had a formally new navy blue 1957 beetle and Chad had one thing that all true writers need a typewriter. While staying at a motel in Sacramento, California, the poet had just checked in and was sightseeing the place when he turned a corner and came in view of the pool. Holding onto the railing of the second story floor he caught sight of the only occupant in the area. A young lion somewhere in his twenties with a blond mane in a prince charming kind of haircut and wearing only a pair of red flower print boxers. The cat's body was skinny with the shadows of spots still fading on his arms and back. He sat at a white washed iron outdoor table with a large green and white striped umbrella shading him from overhead. A bottle of cheap red wine and a half empty hourglass shaped wine glass sat beside each other as the writer worked a way on a pretty polished black royal typewriter.

From where Abraham was standing the cub looked like a young Ernest Hemingway. But instead of calling down a hello he walked up and asked the cat if he was trying to follow in the talentless footsteps of the screenwriter Leon Kronski. Instead of snarling back an insult the lion looked up and smiled brightly. Gesturing to the wine bottle beside him the buffalo waited for his OK to drink from its neck and after his vampire thirst had been satisfied he drew up a nearby chair and took a set. They talked for a while as Abraham fumbled through the novelist's manuscript. The black words on the scroll told a story of modern rebellion, coming to terms with the desperation that this generation faced, and finally finding love through it all. The buffalo learned that the typewriter that Chad had had been a gift from both his parents and a friend of the family that had also been a literary agent. It had been given to him as a birthday present when he spoke of a book he wanted to write, Abraham on the other hand had to work for two years as a typist to get his hands on a typewriter. He'd stay after work and even work on his off days just so he could sit down and type out his poetry.

Life wasn't fair or even and the poet had no interest in changing that. He wouldn't call what he felt jealousy but perhaps a bit resentful, he was a little bitter but also a little horny.

But mainly he wanted to have his way with the beat writer. He had seen the lion in nothing but his underwear and only white bath towel wrapped around his hips. Seeing the curve of his ass behind the snug fabric only made him want to see the lion naked even more.

Abraham could imagine it them both stark naked in a bad with Chad on all fours and himself fucking him from behind. Watching as the lion moan with pleasure and throw back his damp mane in ecstasy as the poet gripped his hips and kneaded his ass with his large stronger hands. Perhaps his tunic shirt would still be on, the cat's only article of clothing left with the sleeves caressing his clenched knuckles and the hem pulled half way up his back as the bison pounded his pelvic and thick cock into the supple insides of the body in front of him. Reaching with one hand he would push the bottom of the shirt up past Chad's neck and place tender kisses across his shoulders and nape.

Licking his lips as he brought down his half empty whiskey class to rest on the arm of the chair, Abraham thought about leaning forward and sliding a finger underneath the lion's chin, tilting his head back and placing a soft kiss on the cat's thin lips. But the buffalo had been wise enough not to. Although discretion was not his strong point common sense was and even though most of the partygoers were hanging on by a thread there was still a possibility that one was sober enough and the poet would hate a scandal getting out about his sex life.

Besides it wasn't hard for the poet to figure out that the only thing to have touched the beat author's thin lips was the butt of a cigarette and the hard rim of a long neck beer bottle. Gulping down the last of the contents of his glass he sat it on a nearby coffee table and rose to stand. Moving to the couch where Chad slept he looked down on the lion. He thought for a moment of leaning down and shouting into the cat's ear, waking him with a startle and for a moment a mean smile spread across his face. But instead Abraham grabbed his beat up brown leather jacket that was hanging on the far end of the couch and laid it across Chad's sleeping for. Walking away the bison went to the staircase ready to climb it and head for his bed for some much needed rest.

Giving his friend one final look he thought too himself that maybe in the future he wouldn't be such a bully to the lion, maybe he'd be a little sensitive to the cat. But for the buffalo that future was in his hands to decide.

The End.

Ernest Hemingway – "write drunk, edited sober."