Little Doves & Bonafide Heroes ~ Archie Cruz

Call it What You Want

"Alright, so we have to go through this thing," my dad announced with a sigh, rolling open the door of the storage unit.

"Dear god, are you a hoarder?" I asked, shocked to see the little room so packed full of stuff.

"Hey, in all fairness, a lot of this stuff is older than you, and some of it got put in here when you were getting ready to move in."

"You have women in here, too?" I joked, noticing the crumbling pile of playboy magazines that sat on the top of a dresser.

"Ha-ha, you're so funny," he said sarcastically. "Those are worth money these days."

"Are they? Because they're falling apart, and they're probably moldy from being in here."

"No, some of them are still okay. It's just the one on top that's covered in dirt."

"Gross, Taime."

"What? These are vintage."

"Just like you," I said with a laugh.

"Uncalled for. Gloves," he said, tossing me a pair.

"What's first?"

"Uh... let's try this front row of boxes. Trash over there," he said, pointing to an open space. "Should we go left to right?"

"Yeah. Let's do that."

"Okay," he said, carefully pulling out a chest of drawers.

"Isn't that heavy?" I asked, walking over to help him.

"Nope; wheels on the bottom."

"Ah, smart."

"Indeed... So, who's Archie?"

"Oh my god, already?" I asked with a heavy sigh, putting my hair in a ponytail.

"Uh, yeah! I was trying to ask you earlier, but you didn't want to talk."

"He's a friend. There you go," I said, chuckling as I put my gloves on.

"More."

"Fine... Basically," I began, pulling down a box, "I went with Pepe and Olli to the Viper Room, which," I said as I cut the box open, "you already know. You really should label these things," I said, shifting through the mixed up junk.

"I know," he replied, rolling his eyes as he handed me a sharpie.

"Anyway, the three of us sat at the bar for a while and talked. Probably for about an hour or so, just catching up, y'know? Then the two of them decided to go mingle," I said with air quotes.

"Let's just toss this whole thing," Taime interrupted, rifling through the random things.

"Taime, you didn't even look."

"Let me see, weird old board games, gross, yellow stained, empty notebook, whatever the fuck this thing was," he said, holding up a mangled piece of plastic. "I think it's safe to get rid of it."

"Okay... Anyway, as I was saying, they went to go do their thing and I stayed at the bar so that I could just watch. You know me, people watcher. Archie started talking to me and he sat down next to me. He lets off a really good first impression," I said, opening another box, which happened to be full of books. "You read?"

"No, never learned how," he joked, taping the box shut again after I scribbled 'books' on the side. "Story?"

"Right, well, we ended up doing some shots and just talking. I mean, for hours that's all that we did. Eventually we noticed that the club was pretty much empty, so we figured it was time to go home-"