Neil San Francisco — 1981 The Stealthy Drunk

Neil has never been able to follow Aidan before. Whenever Aidan left, Neil had been in the booth. Now he ambles after him. Neil knows enough not to try to be stealthy. He has seen Aidan dance. Instead, Neil staggers. Occasionally he yells a curse into the un-listening night. He knows that Aidan can outrun him. He imagines that Aidan is listening for footsteps in the night, no matter how soft, no matter how still. But he hopes that Aidan will ignore a drunken man tottering homeward after a binge. It works. Aidan pays no attention to the teetering steps behind. He glides through the night like a memory, elegant and unsubstantial as vapor, fleeting as fragrance, ephemeral as love.

Aidan winds his way home, back to the basement where teeth and chains wait to be fashioned into beacons. He only looks up once, when the silhouette of a crow, dark as an unlit sky, flies overhead cawing.