Lindsay and Blake

I met Blake in a falling down whorehouse that’s now a bar. It’s called Ernestine & Hazel’s. It’s on the corner of Main Street in Memphis. They serve soul burgers all day and night. It was a week before Thanksgiving. We talked for a while. The only thing I remember from our conversation was that he said: “I work in cotton.” And I said, “What like a cotton gin?” And he smiled at me. That was the first time I really noticed him even though we’d been talking for a while.
He left a little after midnight and my friend and I left shortly after. As we walked to her car, we saw him about a block ahead of us up the street. “BLAKE,” I shouted. He turned around. He waited for us to catch up.
He suddenly said, “Hey, would you guys want to come to my place for a drink? I just live right up here in the lofts.”
“How do we know you’re not some psycho that’s going to kill us,” I asked.
“I guess you don’t,” he said, “but I’ll tell you now my weak spot is my neck. If you jabbed me in the throat, I would go down in a second.”
We laughed and said alright and followed him to his loft. He concocted several drinks from pear schnapps and brandy and vodka. I settled for a Scotch, same as him. We had a cork fight. He collects corks from wine bottles in two big bowls that sit on the shelf in his kitchen. We found a cork just the other day under the couch from that cork fight. The three of us fell asleep on his bed, Blake in the middle. When I woke up in the morning, he had his arms wrapped tightly around me. Since that night, I have only slept in my bed in Memphis, alone, for one night, while he has been in town.
I can’t say it has been the most typical of loves. I can say I have never felt anything like it. I can’t say it’s been easy. But I can say it is the best thing that has ever happened to me.