Hopeless Haze - Volume X (Prologue)

I: I'm Only Looking for a Revolution

SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2001

You're in a car with a beautiful boy,

and you're trying not to tell him that you love him, and you're trying to

choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and

he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your

heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you

don't even have a name for.

It's ninety-seven degrees and his AC is out. The passenger side window is rolled down, but he hesitates to do the same to his own because of the crack in the glass. It'll probably be okay, but he swears it's getting bigger.

He was directed to head to the Desert Inn and then turn right on Sands Avenue, head past the golf course, and find the red apartment building. It's convenient because it's only ten minutes from the Gold Coast, but the traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard is hell at this time of day. He wishes that his car was moving so that he could get some air circulating, idly wondering if the gold lapel pin hanging from the rear-view mirror will melt. He would have avoided the Strip but missed his turn earlier.

To his left is the Mirage and on his right is a couple arguing about something outside of the Venetian—they don't look like locals and they're probably fighting about money. He eyes the traffic light. There might be time to take his bellman jacket off. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he only has time to unbutton half of it before the light turns green. He groans, accelerates, and steers with one hand. It's not like the line of cars he's in is going very fast.

Treasure Island. Palazzo. Jacket off. Desert Inn. Sands Avenue. Golf course.

As he's able to speed up on the less busy road, an upset rises in his stomach. There's something so nerve-wracking about going to a stranger's house. He sounded nice enough on the phone, but still. Once paranoid, always paranoid.

Once he's to the backside of the golf course, an array of apartment buildings come into view. They're all in the motel style that is common in the city, the same as the type he lives in where the rent is cheaper. Luckily, the red one isn't hard to spot and there's plenty of parking available.

Sands Avenue, golf course, red building, door one hundred and three.

He rolls up the window and drapes the jacket over the steering wheel in a feeble attempt to keep the sun from heating it up. Before he gets out, he looks at the pin hanging from the mirror again. It's a little piece of Sam's Town that he carries with him everywhere he goes. A redundancy he keeps around should he ever be seperated from home again. He lifts the hopeful token from where it hangs on the mirror and places it in his pocket. Just in case.

He steps outside and locks the car, forgetting that he has yet to take his keyboard out of the backseat. New plan of action: unlock the car, take out the keyboard, carefully prop it up against the car, shut the door and lock it again, locate door one hundred and three. Once he's sure he's ready, he picks up the keyboard (it's awkward to carry) and heads to the door that's furthest on the right. He's glad it's on the ground level, otherwise he would have to lug the keyboard up the stairs, something he wants to avoid since he'll have to do it when he gets back home anyway.

He knocks on the door.

There's a commotion inside before the door opens. On the other side stands a man who looks mostly normal other than his clearly bleached hair. It's cut shorter than his, but that's not saying a lot.