Okay, into Foucault and Chomsky and willing to engage in a little bit of irreverent banter about them? I have two young (gay) quasi-revolutionaries, and one of them's upset because he's about to see his ex for the first time since their breakup. He's trying to distract himself, and his friend tries to help. I've got (rough draft only, so please don't bother critiquing): So he stood in the little kitchen and poured pretzels into bowls, mixed up some of the ranch dip that everyone loved so much, and tried to think calming thoughts. This wasn’t about Jake; it was about the neighborhood. About Austin. About every person in the world who was just fighting to find a place to stand, and who kept getting kicked back down by the powers that needed to keep them off balance. It was Steinbeck, Springsteen, Bernie Sanders, Malcolm X and Noam Chomsky, all the theory Micah had absorbed over the years, and it was playing out right there in Tristan’s living room. Well, that didn’t really count as calming thoughts, but at least it was channeling his nerves in a more productive direction. He took a trip to the living room, dropped off the pretzel bowls, and went back to the kitchen for the dip. He was working on carrying four dishes when the buzzer sounded and he almost dropped the whole bundle to the floor. “Noam would not be impressed,” he muttered to himself. “And Tom Joad never got butterfingers because he was worried about seeing some guy he fucked one time.” “I don’t think Tom Joad fucked guys at all,” Tristan offered from far closer than he should have been. “I guess he was in prison for quite a while, so—maybe. But I think you’d be going beyond the text to make that argument.” “I bet Noam has,” Micah retorted, trying to get into the spirit of their banter. “Intellectual curiosity, right? Him and Foucault, after the debate? Burning off a little tension?” “Oh, yeah,” Tristan agreed. “They banged, no doubt.” “Foucault topped. All about the power dynamics, right?” “All about the power, for sure. But... But what? If Chomsky and Foucault banged after their debate, what would they have gotten up to? Or, I guess, more to the point, what would two American young men be willing to think they'd gotten up to? Any ideas, or am I reaching too far?
