I asked him if he would care to exchange photos. His letter
to me was generic, but I could feel the holiday weekend fast approaching. I had
solid plans with my best friend solitude; so I found myself exchanging
concise, uninspired emails with Robert. We swapped photos and I found his to
fall squarely into my demographic: bald, with a red beard. Excited, I shot a
photo of myself back to him which he responded with brief prose, “you look good”. It was strange in that he didn't know me, perhaps me meant in relation to the age I had posted on my profile, or perhaps he meant simply,
“good enough”. Solitude persisted so I hit the reply button again. I asked, where do you reside? He said, “I reside in Manhattan”. I told him I lived in
Brooklyn, he responded, “never been”. Did his cellular plan charge by the word?
Perhaps he wasn’t a morning person, or had never learned to type. I noticed
myself making excuses for him, before I’d even met him. Still, the red beard
intrigued me, with such great facial hair there had to be substance. I needed
to know more. So I turned to the web with promising results, I’d matched his
picture to his name. Now we were getting somewhere. Beers and burgers on the water, an
evening walk down a secluded path. I clicked on a link and there was my Robert, a
US Army veteran. He had almost no friends on Facedbook, he had started a GoFundMe
in his own name that had later been removed. Robert said he suffered PTSD, he
had reached out for others to help get his life back on track. He qualified as
100% disabled, no wonder he had been reticent to share the details of his life.
Perhaps he was wheelchair bound. I’d had a dream the night before; an epic love
scene with a man in a wheelchair.
Had that dream been a prophecy? I reached out to Robert
again, telling him my passions, asking him about his, the memory of my dream-state
wheelchair make-out session filling me with anticipation about
what his answers might be.
His response was expedient. “Do you like oral, “
he queried - my prince hadn't bothered to answer any of my questions, or even bothered with adding a question mark. My wheelchair dream had, in fact been a prophecy, a sure-bet indicator that I would once again seek out damage, sit in his lap, and attempt to save him just in time for the next holiday weekend.
