Marie Sexton - Coda 02 - A to Z Read Online Free PDF

That’s where lots of sayings come from. ‘Here’s lookin’ at you kid’ and ‘Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world’. And ‘Play it again, Sam’, except nobody in the movie ever says that exactly.”
    I was going through an inventory list which Angelo was making for me. To my surprise he was turning out to be the best employee I had ever hired. Hell, he was a better employee than I was. He was still working on reorganizing all of the movies, making the inventory list—his own idea—as he worked. He certainly was enthusiastic about it. He kept finding movies that made him as excited as a kid on Christmas. Most of the time, I hadn’t heard of them. Even more surprising than his work ethic was the fact that he was great company. We got along really well. It didn’t seem like we had much in common, but somehow it worked. I hadn’t told him yet that I was gay. That was the one thing I was a little worried about.
    “How ’bout Oliver! ?”
“You mean that Disney cartoon with the dogs?”
He laughed. “No, man, but they’re based on the same book I guess. It’s a musical. It won the best picture Oscar in ’64.”
    “I don’t do musicals.”
“So I guess you never seen The Sound of Music , then?” “Hell, no.”
    “Yeah, okay, lotsa people don’t dig musicals. What about westerns? Like Clint Eastwood? You watch his old shit, right? I mean I know you seen at least part of Two Mules for Sister Sara .”
    “That’s the one with the trestle bridge?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s about all I remember about it.”
“What ’bout The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly ?”
    “Is that where he asks, ‘You feel lucky?’”
“No, that’s Dirty Harry .”
“I don’t think I’ve seen either one, actually.”
    He whistled. “You’re missin’ out man. Clint was fuckin’ hot back then, you know? Not Dirty Harry so much. But Blondie, for sure. I think it was mostly the attitude.”
I stopped and looked over at him. He was standing practically knee deep in piles of DVD cases with his back to me.
     
“What did you just say?”
    “I said, Blondie was hot. Smokin ’ hot. Seriously fuckin’ throwdownable. ’Course, he’d have to top. No way would Blondie bottom for anybody.” I sat there, stunned, and he finally turned and looked at me. I must have been looking at him like he had just sprouted another head, because he dropped the DVD he was holding. “What?”
“You’re gay?”
     
“Yeah,” he said with obvious amusement. “You didn’t know that?”
     
“How would I?”
    He shook his head at me. “Un-fuckin’-believable, Zach.” He laughed, like I had just said something really funny, as he turned back to what he was doing. “You crack me up.” I didn’t have the nerve to ask him what I had done that was so funny. It didn’t matter, though. He was already talking about movies again. “How ’bout A Streetcar Named Desire ? Brando was kinda hot, too, back then. ’Course, he’s a fuckin’ rapist. I mean his character. Not him. And Blanche was a total bitch. I bet all you remember is him yellin’ ‘Stella!’”
    It was almost time to close and I was surprised at my disappointment. I was enjoying talking to him. Going home to my empty apartment definitely didn’t sound appealing. “What are you doing tonight?” I asked him before I had a chance to second guess myself.
    He looked up at me, surprised. “I gotta work tonight, but ’til then, I got no plans.” He had a night job at the gas station down the street—eleven at night until five in the morning, on weeknights. Then he would work with me from eleven until we closed, six on weeknights, and eight on Saturdays. I would have been a basket case if I worked that much, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“Want to hang out for a bit?”
     
“You tryin’ to get in my pants now you know I’m queer?” he asked in an impudent tone.
    “No!”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, what?”
“Yeah, I wanna hang out.” He smiled over at me.